Benue Alleged Index COVID-19 Case Cries Out, Says She’s Being Detained By FG

Mrs. Susan Okpe, who the Benue State government named as the first Coronavirus case in Benue State, has gone on social media to call for help while claiming she’s being detained by the Federal Government.

The London based woman, in a new video shared online, accused the Federal Government of keeping her for treatment against her will.

Recall that on March 28, Governor Samuel Ortom in line with the advice of members of the Benue Action Committee on COVID-19 made public the name and test result of the index case.

It was announced that she arrived the state from London for a burial ceremony and had sought medical attention at a private hospital in Makurdi, after falling ill. Her health condition was said to have attracted the attention of the Benue COVID-19 committee, which subjected her to test by National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, that allegedly confirmed she was COVID-19 positive.

However, Mrs Okpe insisted at the time that she was not sick. She was later moved to the isolation and treatment centre at Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, after much persuasion by the chairman of the committee and Benue State Deputy Governor, Mr. Benson Abounu.

On April 4, the Benue state Commissioner of Health, Dr. Sunday Ongbabo told newsmen that “the Federal Ministry of Health wrote to the Committee requesting that the patient be transferred to Abuja, and the Committee obliged. So she has been moved to Abuja.”

It was gathered that the request to move the patient to Abuja was prompted by her insistence that she was not sick and alleged refusal to cooperate with the medical team at the BSUTH treatment centre.

Two days ago, the patient took to the social media in a two and half minutes video recording asking the federal government to release her from “incarceration.”

She said in the video: “Hi, everybody, this is Susan Idoko Okpe, née Lawani. I am pleading with everybody to please tell Nigerian government to let me go. This is my 16th day of incarceration. What have I done, what have I done? Benue state lied on me that I have COVID-19. I just got the result yesterday after 15 days and the result is a stage play with different date birthdays, different recordings which they themselves know and trying to put right.”