As coronavirus continues to spread across Nigeria, the National Assembly complex has again been shut down over fears of suspected COVID-19 cases.
A circular signed and released by a deputy director in the National Assembly, Titus Jatau, said the complex will be shut for two days for fumigation.
We gathered that the fumigation exercise will be carried out on Thursday, June 18 and Friday, June 19.
All staff of the National Assembly were subsequently asked to stay away during the period and resume work on Monday, June 22.
The closure has raised suspicion over the spread of COVID-19 in the National Assembly.
Recall that the Senate recently lost one of its members representing Lagos East, Senator Sikiru Adebayo Osinowo.
Unconfirmed reports claim the deceased lawmaker died of coronavirus complications.
In a related development, the Edo state House of Assembly has been closed for 14 days amid the rising political tensions in the All Progressives Congress (APC).
However, the assembly’s acting director, administrator and supplies, Stephen Guobadia, said the shutdown was due to fumigation.
We gathered that Guobadia asked all members of the house to stay away until the fumigation exercise is completed. He, however, urged them to remain active with their mobile phones to aid communication.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has announced 587 new cases of COVID-19 as the country now has a total of 17,735 coronavirus infections.
The new cases were announced on Wednesday evening, June 18, via the official Twitter handle of the federal health agency.
According to the NCDC, Nigeria now has 469 deaths arising from Covid-19 complications and 5,967 recoveries.
Lagos which is Nigeria’s epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic still leads the new records with 155 cases while Edo state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) followed with 75 and 67 cases respectively.
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