Security expert, Dr. Ona Ekhomu has faulted the determination of the Presidential panel on mysterious deaths in Kano State that COVID-19 was responsible for the deaths. He said that the panel erred in its conclusion as the methods used in determining causes of deaths (CODs) did not conform with forensic pathology methodology.
Reacting to the preliminary report of the Dr. Nasiru Sani Gwarzo Presidential Panel, Ekhomu said that the panel should have conducted conventional autopsies on the bodies to determine CODs. He said that “the so-called verbal autopsies are unscientific, have no validity, have no reliability and certainly are not reproducible”.
Dr. Ekhomu who is president of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria (AISSON) said that relying on the age of victims was mere profiling (a class characteristic) and did not constitute an individualized explanation of the deaths. According to him, the report by the panel blaming COVID-19 was fatally flawed, did not reach the threshold of forensic pathology, and should not have made such a weighty conclusion.
He urged the panel to suspend its final report while a crack team of forensic pathologists be deployed to conduct normal forensic examination on the victims. Their internal organs should be examined, toxicology tests should also be conducted for toxins, along with other death investigation protocols. He said that the scientific method of forensic pathology should not change because it is occurring in Kano.
Ekhomu said that it behooves the Federal Government to determine what is killing Nigerians in Kano. “With my forensic science knowledge, I can guess that there is an epidemic (not COVID-19) ravaging communities in Kano. It is the responsibility of the FG to send medical detectives to Kano, accompanied by crack Police detectives to unravel the mystery”.
According to Dr. Ekhomu, possible causes of the mysterious deaths in Kano include lassa fever, tuberculosis, kidney malfunction epidemic, ebola fever, adulterated hard drugs, some unknown pathogen, etc, adding,“the deaths could have originated from a breach in the food supply chain, or even malevolent tampering with medicines. The proper thing is to conduct medical examination of the human remains to determine exact causes of deaths (CODs), while the police detectives figure out if the deaths were from natural causes or from foul play.
He argued that the velocious rate of deaths among other factors indicated that Covid-19 was not the culprit. He warned: “Nigerian scientists must not adopt the talking points of politicians. Scientists belong to an epistemic community that must be trusted, especially now that we are facing a global pandemic. When scientists start echoing the words and sentiments of politicians, then we will be in trouble in Nigeria.”
Ekhomu advised the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), medical detectives and the entire medical science community to be committed to their professional ethics and methods. He said the methods of science must be upheld and subscribed to with intellectual clean hands. “Scientists must resist the temptation to pander to politicians. Their only job right now is to serve the citizens of Nigeria and use their skills to save lives”.
He advised the FG against inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths with the mysterious deaths in Kano, saying that the COD was yet to be determined. He urged the Nigerian government to avoid the temptation of giving higher fatality figures for the Covid-19 disease “as it will not attract any sympathy for us.”
Ekhomu warned that the discipline of forensic pathology must be taken seriously at this delicate time in history.” Death investigation is a serious matter and should not be trivialized”. He advised that forensic pathologists and not virologists or epidemiologists should be given the responsibility to investigate mysterious Kano deaths. He said “NCDC personnel are currently over-burdened by Covid-19 pandemic and most of them are virologists and epidemiologists and have no credentials in morbid anatomy or medical examination.” He averred: “if the person doing the forensic pathology knows a lot about it, then it is worthy of belief”.
He advised Nigerian to observe social distancing, observe personal hygiene and wear face masks in public to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus.