The storm that trailed the detection and announcement of the supposed Coronavirus index case in Benue, Mrs Susan Okpe may not settle anytime soon as the London based woman has again taken to her social media accounts to castigate the federal government for keeping her for treatment against her will.
Recall that on March 28, Governor Samuel Ortom in line with the advice of members of the Benue Action Committee on COVID-19 made public the name and test result of the index case.
She was said to have arrived the state from London for a burial ceremony and had sought medical attention at a private hospital in Makurdi, after falling ill.
Her health condition was said to have attracted the attention of the Benue COVID-19 committee who subjected her to test by National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, which allegedly confirmed she was Coronavirus positive.
Mrs. Okpe who insisted she was not sick was moved to the isolation and treatment centre at Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, after much persuasion by the chairman of the committee and Benue state Deputy Governor, Mr. Benson Abounu.
However on the April 4, the Benue state Commissioner of Health, Dr. Sunday Ongbabo told newsmen that “the Federal Ministry of Health wrote to the Committee requesting that the patient be transferred to Abuja, and the Committee obliged. So she has been moved to Abuja.”
It was gathered that the request to move the patient to Abuja was prompted by her insistence that she was not sick and alleged refusal to cooperate with the medical team at the BSUTH treatment centre.
The patient has again taken to social media in a two and half minutes video recording asking the federal government to release her from “incarceration.”
Below is the transcription of the video, “Hi everybody. This is Susan Idoko Okpe, née Lawani. I am pleading with everybody to please tell the Nigerian government to let me go. This is my 16th day of incarceration. What have I done? What have I done? Benue State lied on me that I have COVID-19. I just got the result yesterday after 15 days and the result is a stage play with different birthdays, different recordings which they know and (are) trying to put right. That’s left to them but please I want to beg Nigerians to also beg President Buhari, Osinbajo, Health Minister Osagie and whoever is in charge to please let me go out of this place. I am tired; I am fed up. I am exhausted and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know why they are keeping me. That they want to treat me? Treat me for what, what are they treating me for?
“I am not sick. They have seen the result that they lied and they are not letting me go. They want to trick me because I don’t even trust Nigerians; I don’t trust anybody. If you’ve been lied against if results have been falsified how do you trust anybody to treat you with anything? Do I just sit down and start taking medicine? Please Nigerians as you can see I am recording from where I’m incarcerated. This is my 16th day. Please beg the Minister, beg the President or whoever is concerned to get me out of this place.”
