Jonathan addressing State House journalists in Abuja yesterday said nobody has Ebola in the country at the moment.
He said all those who hitherto had the symptoms of the virus had recovered.
Jonathan, however, noted that the possibility of recording the Ebola in Nigeria again could not be ruled out as long as it continued to ravage Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
He said the likelihood that someone like Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer who imported the virus to Nigeria in July could also not be foreclosed, according to report from Daily Trust “Presently, there is no case of Ebola in Nigeria.
Nobody in Nigeria has Ebola now. All the people that had the symptoms of Ebola have recovered.
Out of 19, we lost seven and the others have recovered. Yes, there are few people we are observing.
“That’s not to say we may not record Ebola again as long as Ebola is still in the West Coast, it is there in Guinea Conakry, it is there in Liberia, it is there in Sierra Leone.
The likelihood that the character like the Late Sawyer can come in one way or the other is also open”, he said.
He said the government had so properly protected the nation’s airports that “if Sawyer were to arrive Nigeria now, no Nigerian would have contracted Ebola because of the level of preparation…We are sure that even if one mad Sawyer comes again, nobody will contract Ebola.
Thanking all Nigerians for managing the virus, Jonathan affirmed that the entire country had come together in fighting the epidemic.
“This is one thing that the whole country came together, worked together.
There was no issue of politics, there was no issue of religion, and there was no issue of ethnicity. In fact, that was why we were able to contain it.
If Nigerians did not agree, we wouldn’t have succeeded”, he said. Jonathan also thanked all the governors, especially those of Lagos and Rivers States, for working with the federal government and setting up machinery to manage Ebola.
On the September 22 schools’ resumption date, Jonathan pleaded with the Nigerian Union of Teachers to shelve plans to embark on strike, asking them to commend and work with his government.
He said the NUT had no reason to threaten strike over Ebola as the decision to reopen schools on September 22 was taken at a meeting with state governors.
According to him, if the government closes institutions because of Ebola, foreign envoys in Nigeria would send dispatches to their countries about it and that could aggravate the stigmatization against Nigerians going there.
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