Just-In: 18 Top Generals Of The Nigerian Army Test Positive For COVID-19

Not less than 18 military generals of the Nigerian Army have tested positive for COVID-19 following the breakout of the virus during the aborted 2020 Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference.

The top military officers are all confirmed to have participated in the annual conference which held in Abuja before it was shut down after an officer attending the meeting tested positive to the virus.

The fresh development was confirmed to Channels TV on Sunday and are understood to have contracted the virus from late Major General Olu Irefin.

Naija News recalls Irefin, who until his death was the General Officer Commanding (GOC) six division, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, died of complications from coronavirus (COVID-19).

Maj.-Gen. Irefin was attending the Chief of Army Staff’s Annual Conference 2020 in Abuja before he took ill and died.

Before the General’s death, the Nigerian Army had been forced to abruptly end the Chief of Army Staff’s Annual Conference 2020 in Abuja following COVID-19 infection at the venue.

According to information made available to Naija News on Thursday by the acting Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Sagir Musa, all participants at the conference have been instructed to proceed on self-quarantine while all other remaining activities in the conference have been cancelled.

Besides General Irefin, who has now been confirmed as the index case for the infection which broke out during the conference, some other top military officers are now reported to have contracted the virus also.

Irefin reportedly visited some of his colleagues at home before he attended the conference.

All the officers their wives, and other members of their families, as well as others who came in close contact with them, have been directed to isolate themselves for a week.

In other news, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff General Tukur Buratai has arrived in Kankara where a number of high school students were abducted.

The Katsina government says 333 students of the missing students remain unaccounted for.

Records say General Buratai met with the military to launch an investigation to find the abducted students on Friday.