Officials manning Taraba/Cameroon borders lament neglect by government

Amid the Federal Government’s claim of putting in place necessary measures to check the spread of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the country, it has been observed that in some areas in Taraba State, especially along the boundary with Cameroon, there are still laxes.

The Federal Government has closed some of the international airports and placed travelling ban to some countries considered as high-risk.

While attention seems to be concentrated on land borders like Badagry in Lagos State, Idiroko in Ogun State among others, little or no attention is reportedly given to the border posts that spread across five out of the 16 councils of Taraba.

Government’s failure to make available test kits to officials manning the various border outposts to effectively screen persons coming into the country from Cameroon has become a source of worry to the officials.

They were sad, according to The Guardian checks, that attention is concentrated on Seme, Idiroko and other major land borders.

Despite the high influx of immigrants into this country daily from Cameroon, the Federal Government seems not to be disturbed, they told The Guardian.

The officials, who affirmed that the number of suspected COVID-19 cases in Cameroon was higher than that of Nigeria, said no single test tool had been made available to them, by either the state or federal government, to screen persons coming into the country through the land borders.

Citing the way Nigerian officials in other land borders were kitted against the virus, they lamented their own case, as they claimed to be the ones that acquired the hand gloves and nose masks they were using.

They also expressed sadness that since the outbreak of the virus, “no single official from either the state or federal ministry of health has come around to tell us how to go about it, let alone supplying us tools for screening.”

Wondering why the governments decided to relegate their border posts to the background despite the huge revenue they were generating.

The Guardian gathered that the various villages in the five councils that shared boundaries with Cameroon had testing equipment that would enable the officials at the various border posts to screen persons coming into the country.