‘Fleeing’ woman threatens to sue Edo govt

• Obaseki, Ize-Iyamu quarrel

A woman, Amaka Okoro, who the Edo State government declared wanted for fleeing the state after allegedly testing positive for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), has threatened to sue the government.

Governor Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a frontline governorship aspirant on the party’s platform, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, are at loggerheads over the woman.

The governor declared the woman wanted on April 30.

In a viral video on Monday, Amaka Okoro, who stated that her photo was taken from her Facebook page by the Edo State government without her consent, said she was not married, did not have a child, never tested positive with COVID-19 and was based in Lagos, not Edo State.

The woman threatened to sue the Obaseki administration for the pain and embarrassment it caused her with the government’s “false publication” against her on the Internet as she claimed not to be the fleeing woman.

Obaseki, through his verified Twitter handle: @governorobaseki, wrote on April 30: “One Mrs. Amaka Okoro, who tested positive for #COVID-19, is wanted for treatment. She is a nursing mother, who has a baby that is already coughing.

“She (Mrs. Amaka Okoro) lives at No. 2, Atoe Idubor Street, Off 2nd Ugbor, Benin City. She has been unreachable since her results returned positive.”

The governor, on Monday, in an online statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, insisted that state government never released any photograph of the fleeing COVID-19 patient, a nursing mother, who is wanted for treatment in the state.