Balarabe Maikaba

By Ngozi Onyeakusi– A professor of mass communication, Balarabe Maikaba at Bayero University in Kano, has died as a result of the incessant strange sickness ravaging Kano State.

A family source has disclosed this to newsmen, saying his burial was fixed for 4pm on Sunday.

One of the former students of the deceased said he was preparing to attend the funeral prayer at the family house of the deceased at Fagge in Kano before his demise.

Maikaba is said to be the sixth professor to have died in one week in the state which has recorded harvests of death during the coronavirus pandemic.

The increase in the death toll is happening at the time the state witnessed a spike in COVID-19 cases. As of Saturday, 77 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in Kano.

Health workers at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, told TheCable that he feared there were more cases than reported as the state lacks testing capacity.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had shut the laboratory in the state following the infection of some key health officials.

“Things are in disarray here, and there is no well structured response to COVID-19. The government is not communicating. They are not testing, and people are dying. We have had people coming here to hospital and when they died, they are immediately buried without taking samples for testing,” the health worker had said.

“This is not a rumour. People are dying. The suspended test centre was fumigated days ago, and normally it should take 48 hours but it has not been reopened since.”

Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, had said the federal government had set up a panel to probe the strange deaths in the state.