The Concerned Professionals’ Congress (CPC) has expressed support to ongoing advanced plans by the Defence headquarters to recall retired military medical personnel to complement those in active service to aid civil authority in flattening the COVID-19 curve across the country.
The retired military personnel comprise doctors, nurses, virologists, pharmacists, epidemiologists, psychologists, laboratory scientists and other categories of heath care-givers.
The group, in a statement jointly issued in Abuja in Sunday by its Chief Media Strategist, Mr. Emeka Nwankpa and the northern regional rapporteur Kasim Baba Kasim, described the move as a great dimension to ongoing efforts at various levels to mitigate the effects of the virus as well as curb the spread of the global pandemic in the country.
The coordinator of the newly-created Directorate of Defence Media Operations (DDMO), Maj. Gen. John Enenche, had said military would recall its retired medical personnel to complement those in active service to assist in the fight against COVID-19.
The move, Maj Gen. Enenche emphasized, was to provide immediate aid to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) such as deploying military personnel and transporting emergency cases and medical supplies by land, maritime and air including supplies donated by Jack Ma Foundation and other medicaments by donors.
The group, while noting with delight that the armed forces have activated its Disaster Response Units for the security management of emergencies in conjunction with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said that the latest moves by the military leadership were in tandem with spirited efforts being made by other armed forces around the world to rise to the challenges posed by the pandemic.
The group expressed satisfaction with efforts taken so far by the Armed Forces to provide necessary support to civil authorities currently dispensing medical care to confirmed COVID-19 patients at the various isolation and treatment centres across the country.
The group contended that the efforts of the Armed Forces at providing aid to civil authorities in the on-going Federal Government’s aggressive fight to curb the spread of the disease as well as flatten the curve were in in line with Section 217 (2) c of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) which empowers the military to act in aid of civil authority.
