On April 8, 2020, a Chinese medical team arrived the country with medical supplies to provide advice to the Nigerian Government on the fight against Coronavirus.

In a news report published online by Sahara reporters, the health minister of Nigeria was reported to have said that he was unaware of the location of 15 Chinese nationals, who recently came into the country to "help in the fight against COVID-19".

The first thing that came to my mind on reading the piece was, how come these Chinese came into the country without being verified by the immigration, the ministry of health and the department of foreign affairs. That aside, Foreign trained doctors in Nigeria are meant to take and pass an assessment examination organized by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), while this may not be feasible for the visiting Chines doctors, one would expect that the MDCN would at least verify their qualifications before alllwing them into the country to see patients.

I am also wondering, how these Chinese doctors came into the country and were allowed to move around unmonitored in the first place. And this was after their arrival has been widely announced by the news media and in fact, rejected by the Nigeria Medical Association. I am also wondering how these Chinese officials were contracted in the first place. Does this mean, there was no formal arrangement with the Chinese government? Does it also mean that any foreigner can just stand up and independly declare they want to help Nigeria, and our government will accept them without due deligence?

So many questions, but no answers. We are left to the submissions of conspiracy theorists who have given so many unofficial reasons to the presence of these Chinese doctors. One such theory was the alarm raised by the director of Radio Biafra and the IPOB leader, that their presence has something to do with the rise of cases especially in Kano. Another theory os they are here for vaccine trials. Whatever the case may be, several persons needs to answer serious questions.

According to the report of the Minister of Health, "I think not all of them were doctors and I heard that some of them are technicians, but they are staff of CCECC." The operative words in that statement is "if". Which means the minister is not even sure of the status of these men. He also revealed that the minister of health is not their host so as, a matter of fact, he cannot explain what happened to them. He admitted being aware that Nigerians have a lot of interest in these Chinese doctors but, in his words, "they are the staff of the company and I think that they are on a company visa." Most of his submissions are based on thoughts, and therefore are not factual.

For the number of health officials in Nigeria, I believe we all need better responses to questions from our beloved minister. I am also curious he doesn't know the whereabouts of these Chinese doctors, but he also explained during his press briefing that, "we have been able to learn some things from them by interacting with them from their experience in their country and they did tell us and we shared ideas on what they did in their country in managing COVID-19.”

For someone whose whereabouts you do not know, I wonder how and where these interactions took place. This whole mystery about the Chinese doctors is a hint something is wrong with our system, and Nigerians are probably being treated as minions in a way that makes us feel despicable. Much is left to be desired, presently.

We can only hope that the CCECC can also come up with an official statement to explain how a chattered airline was deceptively used to bring in workers into the country during a lockdown under the guise of bringing in supplies and COVID-19 experts. We have been taken for a ride for far too long.

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