The Federal Government, on Thursday, said no ventilator was moved from the national hospital in Abuja to the presidential villa, as being alleged in some quarters.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this in Abuja at a press briefing on Coronavirus, Igbere TV reports.
He also refuted the claims that only two ventilators are operational in the whole of the nation’s capital, Abuja.
On the report that a British Airways Flight was due to land in Nigeria on Thursday despite the closure of all international airports, the minister said it was not true.
He said President Muhammadu Buhari was well and had tested negative to coronavirus, and was not coughing or on ventilator as being alleged in the media.
“Fake. Fake. Fake. It’s all fake news,” he said. “The epidemic of fake news is now competing with the pandemic of coronavirus, and this is not helping the fight against the disease.
“A section of the traditional media has also been engaging in scaremongering and irresponsible reporting on the disease. It is wrong to speculate on those who are positive or negative for coronavirus without any empirical information. In any case, being positive to coronavirus is not a death sentence, as we can see around the world.
“There is no need for the kind of scaremongering we are seeing in a
section of the media. The danger is that this scaremongering can even discourage some who may want to come forward for testing. We therefore wish to appeal to the media to be more circumspect in their reporting,” Lai Mohammed added.
