Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has advised the Federal Government to act quickly to avert preventable casualties by banning fights from the United Kingdom as the country battles the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
The flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 presidential election urged FG to learn from European countries that banned flights from the United Kingdom.
This was contained in a statement he issued on Sunday in Abuja titled ‘An Ounce of Prevention Is Better Than a Pound of Cure’.
Atiku said, “We must face the reality that our health sector is not sufficiently prepared to handle a sudden and unpredictable surge of this pandemic. We have already lost lives needlessly. We need not lose more.
“Already, prudent nations are taking prompt action, and Nigeria must take necessary precautions, due to the volume of air traffic between Nigerian airports and London, where this new strain has erupted.
“The reason Nigeria took a harder than necessary hit during the first wave of the COVID-19 virus is that the Federal Government failed to heed the warnings of well-meaning Nigerians, like myself and others, to shut down our borders once the virus became a pandemic.
“Hindsight is 20/20. Nevertheless, we must learn from history, or we stand the risk of repeating it.
“The new strain of COVID19 that has erupted in the United Kingdom, and specifically, London, can add to Nigeria’s health emergency if we do not act with an abundance of caution and temporarily halt all flights to and from the UK until this new strain is brought under control. In the case of this virus, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”