No fewer than 20 people , including men, women, children coming from Sokoto were interdicted at the Dangote Cement depot, Oyemekun Rd, in Akure on Wednesday, having beat all security checkpoints at the border.
The travelers were reportedly shipped to the state in the company’s cement truck, though they claimed they came in a bus.
The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 and President Muhammadu Buhari had directed there should be no interstate travel, and the Nigeria Governors Forum agreed all state should shut their bordersThe state Covid-19 task force however uncovered the travelers at the company’s depot following tips-off from residents in the area.
The travelers have not explained why they defied the presidential directive.
Since confirmed cases of the virus ratcheted in Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa, and Kaduna, some of the citizens, including almanjiris, have been fanning out of the region into the southern part.
A truckload of such travelers were arrested also in Abia yesterday.
Sokoto Gov. Aminu Tambuwal has pleaded with Buhari and the NCDC to help the state out of the rising incidence of the pandemic.
Senior Special Assistant to Governor Akeredolu on Security Matters Jimoh Dojumo said Ondo Gov Rotimi Akeredolu ordered the travellers back to their state.
“We received information that some people numbering about 20 were dumped in this particular location by trucks at night and that they were stranded here without knowing their destination,” he told newsmen.
“We don’t even know if this is their final destination anyway, but the fact remains that we have been able to check them here and we are turning them back.”
Akeredolu is not the only governors that have been hauling vagrants like these back to their states.
Govs Nasir El-Rufai, Abdullahi Sule, and others have been blocking these unwanted citizens from spreading covid-19.