Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Zhou Pingjian, has confirmed that there are 60 Nigerians in Wuhan, the Chinese town where coronavirus broke out.
This is contrary to the statement issued by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, who initially said that there were only 16 Nigerians in the town.
Pingjian said;
“According to our check with your embassy (in China), there are 60, not 16 Nigerians, that are in Wuhan now. Your embassy has maintained regular communication with them. At this moment, no one risks much movements,” he said.
Lai Muhammad had also said that the Nigerians in Wuhan had shown no indication of their interest in being evacuated which was also debunked by one of the Nigerian citizens in China.
Lai said;
“I know we have Nigerians in Wuhan; our Embassy in China has confirmed that we have about 16 Nigerians in Wuhan and they are in touch with them. They have, however, not indicated their interest to come home. They will, however, contact our embassy if they like to come home.”
Refuting the statement, a source who spoke to TheCable said that over 50 Nigerians are in Wuhan and all effort to reach out to the Nigerian Consulate in China for help and evacuation has proven abortive.
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He said;
“The other day we read in the news that we are just 16 Nigerians in Wuhan; this is a pure lie. We are over 50 Nigerians here as I speak to you. We have been abandoned by the government; we called the consulate in Shanghai, no response, we reached out to consulate in Guangzhou still no assurance,” he told TheCable.
“The situation is getting out of hand. There is a Nigerian here who just came on a visit; he was about returning home when this virus broke out here; now he is trapped. There is a student who was sick and was finding it difficult to get adequate treatment here; plans were being made to move him out of China before this issue of coronavirus outbreak, now he is also trapped. There are people with children here, how does the government expect them to cope when the city is virtually on lockdown? We are stranded here; the federal government should please rescue us… shops are closed, banks shut, we find it difficult to get the things we need. Although we are not out of cash or foodstuff, we don’t know how long this situation will continue.”