Kogi doesn't even acknowledge that coronavirus exists - Presidential Task Force laments

Kogi State and its Governor Yahaya Bello have become a serious cause for worry for the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.
45-year-old Governor Bello maintains that the novel coronavirus is not novel after all and that the disease is a hoax.

He also refuses to wear a face mask in most public gatherings and recently warned folks against receiving COVID-19 vaccines because "the vaccines are meant to kill us."

His Deputy, Edward Onoja, shares Bello's views and skepticism on the pandemic.

This week, the PTF on COVID-19 classified Kogi as a “high risk” area for the virus because of the state's failure to acknowledge the existence of the disease, report tests or build isolation centres.

The PTF has also asked everyone to be wary of visiting the state.
Mukhtar Muhammad, who is the national incident manager of the PTF, said at a media briefing on February 1 that "we have states where data is not coming forth. If we don’t test, your data will not be analysed and if your data is not analysed, we won’t know the level of the pandemic in your state.

“Notable among the states that have not been reporting adequately include Yobe, Jigawa, Zamfara and Kebbi and, of course, Kogi that has not been reporting at all.

“States that are not testing are probably at much higher risk than the states that are currently known as high burdened states.”

Muhammad also said of Kogi: “A state that is not testing at all is an absolute high risk for Nigerians to go there because there is no testing facility and even if you fall sick, there is no isolation centre and they don’t even acknowledge that the disease exists. So for that reason, we put that state at the top of high-risk states."
He also said there are 22 high-burdened local government areas within 13 states in the country that have contributed to over 95 per cent of the COVID-19 cases recorded in the last six weeks.

The states and local governments are listed as:

Nkanu West (Enugu), Abuja Municipal (FCT), Gwagwalada (FCT), Gombe (Gombe) Chikun (Kaduna), Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Nassarawa (Kano), Katsina (Katsina), Ilorin South (Kwara), Ilorin West (Kwara), Eti-Osa (Lagos), Ikeja (Lagos), Kosofe (Lagos), Lagos Mainland (Lagos), Keffi (Nasarawa), Lafia (Nasarawa), Ibadan North (Oyo), Jos North (Plateau), Jos South (Plateau) Port Harcourt (Rivers), Wamako (Sokoto).
Nigeria has reported 131,918 COVID-19 infections, 106,275 recoveries and 1,607 COVID-19 deaths as of February 1, 2021, according to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC).