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COVID-19: ‘We will continue to support health workers’ – Makinde
Oyo State governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde, on Saturday, commissioned the upgraded Agbami Isolation Centre, Jericho, Ibadan, declaring that health workers will continue to receive strong support in the fight against coronavirus in the state.
The governor, who was accompanied on the trip to Agbami by his deputy, Engineer Rauf Olaniyan, and other top government functionaries, stated that the welfare of frontline workers in the battle against COVID-19 will remain top on his administration’s agenda.
He said: “I want to also thank health workers, because you are the frontline in this battle, and you have had to work with facilities that are not up to standard but we have been partners in progress as far as lifting our health care delivery system in the state. Please, do not relent. Let us keep doing this together to defeat COVID-19.”
The governor’s !media aide, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, quoted Makinde as saying that though the Agbami facility was commissioned at the twilight of the last administration in the state, it wasn’t equipped for proper use as an Isolation Centre.
According to him, the said facility was commissioned as a Tuberculosis Centre by the immediate past administration but his government has upgraded it as an isolation centre for COVID-19 patients.
He stated that the building would serve the high-end members of the society who test positive to the virus and are in need of privacy.
According to him,”there is nothing really much to say today apart from the fact that this facility was commissioned at the twilight of the last administration. Before we came in, it was a TB centre at that time. We didn’t know there would be COVID-19 pandemic but here we are dealing with the virus.
“We give the past administration the credit for putting this together, even though it was commissioned when it was not ready. I came here, went inside and there was absolutely nothing inside. Now that we have the pandemic on our hands, it will serve high-end individuals in Oyo State who are not comfortable going to Olodo because they want privacy and comfortability.
“We know some of you have aged parents at home and because we have to give concession for such individuals to self-isolate at home and we monitor them, now we don’t have to do much of that anymore because with the facility here, you can self-isolate.
“You will go inside and we give you the treatment. We will ensure that you don’t infect others and once you have been properly managed, you go back to your various homes.
“I battled COVID-19. It is not a death sentence and it is nothing to be ashamed of. The virus is here with us and will be here for some time to come. It will not disappear two or three weeks from now. So, we have to learn how to live with it. If anyone is feeling sick, there are facilities. We have taken the opportunity of the pandemic to strengthen our health care facilities. When it is no longer here, our facilities will remain and we will maintain them.
“So, it is not a big deal that anyone tests positive to COVID-19 and I am not ashamed of it. I fought the virus and I am up and about now. I pray that as many of us that will fight the virus will come out of it doing very well. Don’t self-isolate at home now. If you are a high-end individual, you can come here. You don’t also need to go and hide at private hospitals where they don’t have the facility, personnel and resources to ensure you have adequate care.”
The governor also stated that the rooms at the Agbami isolation centre have been well-equipped and fixed with oxygen concentrators.
“This facility has been upgraded now and it is now an isolation centre. We have an oxygen concentrator there and you will get the type of care you deserve,” he said.
The governor also appreciated a member of the state’s COVID-19 Task Force and former Chief Medical Director of the UCH, Professor Temitope ALonge and his team for the good job they have done and are still doing in putting up isolation centres.
He said: “I want to thank Professor Temitope Alonge for this work that you and the team have been doing and are still doing. We are quite blessed in Oyo State because we have the resources and people who can hold their own if you take them anywhere around the globe.
“I also thank the people of Oyo State for their support for this administration. If we look at where we are coming from, it has been a challenging environment. When we started the year, we had high hopes. But now, we have to shave off almost 35 per cent of our budget for the year simply because we are faced with a pandemic and economic meltdown. In spite of all of that, with the support of the good people of the state, we have been able to keep moving on.
“We do not take the support for granted. Keep criticising us constructively on what we are doing. Anything we are doing, which you think we can do better, bring it up to us and we will make the necessary adjustments.”
Other officials in attendance at the event include the Head of Service, Mrs. Amidst Ololade Agboola; Professor Alonge and the state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Bashir Bello, among others.
The United States has announced the termination of legal status for over 500,000 immigrants, ordering them to leave the country within weeks, as President Donald Trump pushes forward with what he calls the largest deportation campaign in American history.
The sweeping directive, issued on Friday, affects approximately 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who arrived under a programme launched by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, in October 2022 and later expanded in January 2023.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the affected immigrants will lose their legal protections 30 days after the order is published in the Federal Register on Tuesday. This means they must leave the United States by 24 April, unless they secure another immigration status permitting them to stay.
Welcome.US, an organisation that supports asylum seekers, has urged those impacted to “immediately” seek legal counsel regarding their options.
A Reversal of Biden’s Immigration Policy
The Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) programme, introduced in January 2023, allowed up to 30,000 migrants per month from these nations to enter the United States for two years. The initiative was designed to offer a “safe and humane” alternative to the dangerous crossings at the US-Mexico border, which had seen a surge in arrivals.
However, the DHS reiterated on Friday that the programme was never meant to provide permanent residency.
“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status, nor does it constitute an admission to the United States,” the agency stated.
Mass Deportations Under Trump
Trump, who has made immigration control a cornerstone of his presidency, has vowed to crack down on migrants—particularly those from Latin America.
Last week, he invoked rare wartime legislation to deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador, a country that has controversially offered to imprison both migrants and U.S. citizens at a discounted rate.
The latest order signals Trump’s intent to follow through on his hardline immigration policies, raising concerns among human rights advocates about the humanitarian impact of such mass deportations.
Tens of thousands of malnourished Nigerian children face a dire future as lifesaving food supplies are set to run dry, the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) warned on Friday, attributing the crisis to a funding shortfall exacerbated by U.S. foreign aid cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The agency said that within the next two months, 80,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Nigeria could lose access to vital treatment, while a total of 1.3 million children under five in Nigeria and Ethiopia remain at risk of starvation this year.
“Without new funding, we will run out of our supply chain of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food by May, and that means that 70,000 children in Ethiopia that depend on this type of treatment cannot be served,” UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director, Kitty Van der Heijden, said in a video press briefing from Abuja. “Interruption to continuous treatment is life-threatening.”
The situation in Nigeria is even more urgent, with UNICEF warning that food supplies for malnourished children could be exhausted as early as the end of this month. Van der Heijden recounted a harrowing experience at a hospital in Maiduguri, where she saw a child so severely malnourished that her skin was peeling off.
U.S. Aid Suspension Escalates Crisis
UNICEF’s funding crisis follows a significant drop in international donor contributions in recent years, compounded by the U.S. government’s decision to halt all foreign aid for 90 days upon Trump’s return to the White House in January.
According to Reuters, the U.S., a major donor to UNICEF, implemented sweeping suspensions on USAID programmes worldwide, disrupting the delivery of essential food and medical aid. The impact has been catastrophic, with global humanitarian efforts thrown into disarray.
“This funding crisis will become a child survival crisis,” Van der Heijden warned, adding that the abrupt nature of the cuts left UNICEF unable to cushion the impact.
Health Services Crippled in Ethiopia
Beyond food shortages, UNICEF highlighted the devastating effects of the funding crunch on health services in Ethiopia. Programmes providing nutrition and malaria care for pregnant women and children have suffered, with 23 mobile health clinics shut down in Afar, leaving only seven operational.
As the crisis unfolds, humanitarian organisations continue to urge global donors to step in and prevent a full-blown catastrophe. Without urgent intervention, tens of thousands of children in Nigeria and Ethiopia may not survive the coming months.
The Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has distributed a total revenue of N1.678 trillion among the federal, state, and local governments for February 2025.
The revenue distribution was announced in a statement issued on Saturday by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Bawa Mokwa. The allocation was finalised at the March 2025 FAAC meeting in Abuja, which was chaired by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, and attended by the Accountant General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi.
Breakdown of Distributable Revenue
The total distributable revenue of N1.678 trillion comprised:
Statutory revenue – N827.633 billion
Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue – N609.430 billion
Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) revenue – N35.171 billion
Solid Minerals revenue – N28.218 billion
Augmentation – N178 billion
According to the FAAC communiqué, the total gross revenue available for February 2025 was N2.344 trillion. Deductions for the cost of collection amounted to N89.092 billion, while transfers, interventions, refunds, and savings stood at N577.097 billion.
The communiqué also revealed that gross statutory revenue for February 2025 was N1.653 trillion, which was N194.664 billion lower than the N1.848 trillion recorded in January 2025. Similarly, gross VAT revenue fell from N771.886 billion in January to N654.456 billion in February, reflecting a decrease of N117.430 billion.
Revenue Allocation to Tiers of Government
From the total N1.678 trillion distributable revenue:
Federal Government received – N569.656 billion
State Governments received – N562.195 billion
Local Government Councils received – N410.559 billion
Derivation revenue (13% of mineral revenue) to benefiting states – N136.042 billion
Allocation from Statutory Revenue (N827.633 billion)
Federal Government – N366.262 billion
State Governments – N185.773 billion
Local Government Councils – N143.223 billion
Derivation revenue (13%) – N132.374 billion
Allocation from VAT Revenue (N609.430 billion)
Federal Government – N91.415 billion
State Governments – N304.715 billion
Local Government Councils – N213.301 billion
Allocation from EMTL Revenue (N35.171 billion)
Federal Government – N5.276 billion
State Governments – N17.585 billion
Local Government Councils – N12.310 billion
Allocation from Solid Minerals Revenue (N28.218 billion)
Federal Government – N12.933 billion
State Governments – N6.560 billion
Local Government Councils – N5.057 billion
Derivation revenue (13%) – N3.668 billion
Allocation from Augmentation (N178 billion)
Federal Government – N93.770 billion
State Governments – N47.562 billion
Local Government Councils – N36.668 billion
Revenue Trends and Economic Outlook
The FAAC report highlighted a significant increase in Oil and Gas Royalty and Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) revenues for February 2025. However, there were declines in Value Added Tax (VAT), Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Companies Income Tax (CIT), Excise Duty, Import Duty, and CET Levies compared to the previous month.
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