The Oyo State government has alleged that the Federal Government failed to support the state in combating the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) but financially supported Lagos and Ogun states.
Wasiu Olatunbosun, the state commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, made the claim while receiving an award of excellence on behalf of Seyi Makinde, the state governor, in Ibadan, on Monday.
The award was presented by the Abuja branch of the Music Advertisement Association of Nigeria (MAAN).
Lagos and Ogun states are under the control of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) while Oyo is under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to Olatunbosun, the state had to reach out to donor agencies to carry out tests and equip its laboratories and treatment centres.
He said: “It is very disturbing when you realise that the federal government has disbursed a lot of money and resources to Lagos, Ogun, Abuja and some other states while Oyo state is being neglected, party solidarity should not have come into an important issue like intervention to states on a pandemic like this, it is wrong,” he said.
“Oyo state has been doing it all alone, the only test kits given to the state was too small that it had no significance in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic in the state, thank God for the resourcefulness of the state governor for looking inward and finding other means of executing many funding in respect to battling the pandemic.
“Only community testing has gulped over 20,000 testing kits, but there is every reason to thank God for our governor and donor agencies, individuals, corporate organisations that have come to the aid of Oyo state.”
Olatunbosun, however, noted that the state would reap the gains of equipping its health facilities in the post-COVID-19 era.
“The post-COVID-19 health sector era will be blissful as the resources put into equipping all the state-owned health facilities all over the state will now make the sector responsive, the sector will never be the same again,” he said.
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