Delta Lawmaker, Oharisi Debunks Testing Positive To COVID-19, Says He’s Hale and Hearty

The Lawmaker representing Ughelli North 2 Constituency in the Delta State House of Assembly, Prince Eric Oharisi has denied testing positive to the deadly Coronavirus Disease, COVID-19.

Prince Oharisi was rumoured to be the Index Case of the virus in the state following an announcement of new cases in the country by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Tuesday.

The lawmaker who was surprised at the viral information on social media that he was indeed the patient, debunked the falsehood in an interview with journalists who visited him in his Asaba residence on Wednesday morning.

Oharisi said, “It’s not true. As you can see, I am in my house here in Asaba, hale and hearty. The rumour mongers especially the man that made the post on Facebook, one Martins Aruviere even called me yesterday apologising. I told him this is not an issue of apology, that the post you did has gone viral. He said he will drop the post and make another post to debunk the one he has posted. I said whether you do that or not, I must know the source of your information and he said he will get back to me. Up till now, he has not gotten back to me.

“I came back from Germany on the 29th of January, that was when I entered Nigeria and I got to Delta State on the 1st of February. So since then, I have not travelled again and even then, the coronavirus outbreak has not actually spread or gotten to this extent. People were still travelling, flights were still moving, it was just about three weeks ago, this whole thing started ravaging. So, I have not travelled for the past two months plus now.

“Because of the lockdown order, I have been indoors. Most nights, I watch night movies but yesterday, I decided to go to bed on time and I put my phone on silent. At night when I woke up to use the bathroom, I found out that my phone was ringing and I checked who was calling, it was Chief Amori and I called him back. He said, Honourable, where are you? I said I’m in my house. He said have you not checked Facebook? I said no, I slept on time. He said, he has been calling me since and I have not been picking. He said I should go to Facebook. Behold, I opened my Facebook and I saw my picture…, I am here, hale and hearty. I was surprised because, it is not something that anyone should hide. As you can see, you are in my house, I have a family in the house, my children have been running around. So, I very surprised.”

Prince Oharisi lauded the effort of Governor Okowa in checking the spread of the disease into the state, saying “I want to use this medium to thank His Excellency for the proactive measure he has put in place to make sure that we do not record any outbreak of COVID-19 in the State but never the less, they have said we have one now. I believe that it will be the first and it will also be the last.

He encouraged his constituents to maintain the health safety measures directive of the World Health Organization and other health related agencies and comply with the State Government’s lockdown order.

It will be recalled that on the 31st of March, Prince Eric Oharisi embarked on a sensitization campaign against coronavirus disease in the six wards of his constituency where freely distributed hand sanitizers, disinfectants, face masks, hand gloves, buckets and bowls.