The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM, Honorable Abike Dabiri-Erewa has come out to say that she is not hoarding COVID-19 palliatives in her G.R.A residence in Ikorodu, Lagos.

She recently revealed that the rumors saying otherwise are far from true and should be ignored.

According to her, the reports are very misleading and capable of inciting violence by political gladiators.

Abike added that she was shocked when she read it on social media, but it does not anger her because she knows how people can stoop so low because of their political ambition.

Her words, “I was surprised when I read it in the social media that there were palliatives in my house. It doesn’t anger me because I don’t think we should stoop so low because of political ambition.”

“If we look at the legal aspect of it, inciting people into violence or breaking into people’s property is a criminal offence and this should not be encouraged. With social media, there is instant judgment as the lies may be believed but measures should be taken to avoid this and the social media should be well regulated. This goes beyond the user and those who control the social media activities should bear this in mind.”

“There is no reason why Nigerian youths cannot be successful in elections but this should be pursued objectively rather than launching a campaign of calumny.”

What do you think?

Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.