Former president Olusegun Obasanjo is furious at Liberian officials for allowing late Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, export the deadly Ebola virus into Nigeria.
Obasanjo said this while answering questions from guests at ‘An afternoon with Obasanjo’, an event organised by the publisher of Inside Watch Africa magazine, Mr. Oluwaseyi Adegoke-Adeyemo, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
Obasanjo said: “It is devilish enough that Patrick Sawyer had to spread this, and indeed spread it to Nigeria in connivance with some authorities from his country. Because they knew he had it before he came to Nigeria.
“The EVD has started to take its toll on the country and the West African sub region. The toll is not only on the number of those that are ill or dead but on the economic of communities, country, region and sub-region.”
“Pharmaceutical companies in the country should be encourage to carry out research on the EVD and come up with vaccines to treat the deadly disease.
“Also, we have to be aggressive in taking precautionary measures. When you see your neighbour or someone who has unique symptoms not just of ordinary cold or fever, take him to the doctor, whether it is symptomatic of Ebola or ordinary malaria.
“We should not wait till some one has got incubated in it, just like Patrick Sawyer, who knew he had it and he deliberately spread it.”
Obasanjo, one of Africa’s elder statesmen, said he had spoken with the presidents of Liberia and Sierra Leone to “give them words of encouragement and support” on the scourge of Ebola in their countries.