Lagos, FG Error: “Nigeria Ambassador Didn’t Have Contact With Lagos Ebola Victim”

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines Tuesday, July 29th, 2014

…As LASG Apologises For Error

Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu says the country’s Ambassador to Liberia, Chigozie Obi-Nnadozie did not have any contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian man who died of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Lagos.

This is coming as the Lagos State Government apologises for the mixed up and blamed it on the Federal Government representative who was in Lagos during the press briefing.

The Lagos State Government had said that Obi-Nnadozie was among the 59 people who had contact with the deceased Ebola Liberian man.

Speaking on Tuesday, Chukwu said there was a mix up about the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia and Nigerian ECOWAS Representative.

A statement issued by the Minister’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Dan Nwoweh made the clarification, noting that it “is the Representative of the ECOWAS President in Liberia, Mr. Babatunde Ajisomo who travelled to Nigeria on the same plane with the Ebola victim.”

The minister said that it was not the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia Mrs. Chigozie Obi-Nnadozie that had encounter with the victim, saying “that it was a mix-up.”

However, in a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Governor of Lagos on Media, Hakeem Bello, the state government apologised for the mix up, saying that “we wish to correct the error that Nigeria’s Ambassador to Liberia, Her Excellency, Mrs. Chigozie Obi-Nnadozie, was one of the persons that had contacts with the late Liberian with Ebola Virus who died in Lagos last Friday after flying into the country from Monrovia.

“We have since learnt that the official who travelled to Nigeria with the victim and who was mistaken for Her Excellency the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia was actually a representative of the ECOWAS President.”

“We hereby tender our unreserved apologies to Her Excellency for the inconveniencies this may have caused her both as an individual and a very high official and Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We however wish to state here that the error was made by the official of the Federal Government who was at the briefing on Monday and provided the information at the Lagos Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja,” Bello added.