Chinwendu Obienyi

With the increasing figure of individuals affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nigeria, a private sector-led  Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID-19) has said it intends to assist the government in ensuring the pandemic is stamped out of the country.

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The body, which is led by Aliko Dangote, through the Aliko Dangote Foundation(ADF) and Herbert Wigwe of Access Bank, is also backed by  Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust (GT) Bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) among others.

Furthermore, the body, in a statement, said, its mission is to mobilise private sector leadership and resources to support health facilities to respond to the crisis  and also to use their reach to increase awareness through the country about the pandemic.
Speaking on the coalition and its activities at the weekend in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer, ADF, Zouera Youssoufou, said the coalition is the brainchild of Dangote and Wigwe who had started their separate initiatives to fight the virus but decided to involve more corporate bodies and individuals who are willing to ensure the pandemic is stamped out of the country.
Youssoufou said the coalition has been working on how to better support the government in many areas, adding that it already working with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the Presidential Task Force (PTF) of the federal government on building of isolation centres and ensuring support to fight the pandemic.
She said apart from helping to build isolation centres across the country, the coalition will also assist in the training of medical personnel for speedy testing and other actions, assuring that Nigerians would be getting regular update on coalition’s activities.
Also speaking, Group Head, Communications & External Affairs at Access Bank Plc, Amaechi Okobi, noted that Nigeria is very lucky not have seen what happened in China, Italy, United States and other places. According him,  the country has to work and ensure the necessary efforts are made to prevent the situation from worsening, hence the CACOVID-19 is supporting the federal government to achieve this.
“We should help ourselves as quickly as possible and be prepared and ready and let everybody to know that it is real. It involves everybody and it is a fight of our lives. So we must spread the news and tell people what to do and what not to do in the fight against this virus. The money is important and no other effort is too small to help fight this fight,” Okobi said.