The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has arrested five persons for pretending that one of them was down with coronavirus in one of the hospitals under its supervision in Abuja.
The suspects, four males and a female, were arrested and paraded on Saturday by the spokesman of the Command, DSP Anjuguri Manzah.
The names of the suspects were given as Peggy Shandi, Abayomi Adedoyin, David Gold Enemigin, Jacob Orji and Priscilla Ajeshola.
They all work for Television Nigerian.
They were arrested for acting a script in the Emergency Ward of Wuse General Hospital, Abuja, claiming that one of them was critically ill, having contacted the deadly coronavirus.
Manzah told newsmen that the hospital became suspicious when efforts made by the medical personnel to administer medical care to the patient was being filmed by the same persons that brought him.
He said on the strength of the complaint by the management of the hospital, operatives from Wuse Police Division were deployed to arrest the suspects.
He added: “Though the suspects claimed that they were trying to stage an emergency medical scene, preliminary police investigations revealed that the suspects acted without the consent and approval of the hospital.”
Manzah said the command was still carrying out investigation on the issue, adding that the suspects will be arraigned in the court upon the conclusion of investigation.
Reacting, one of the suspects, Shandi said they acted the script to sensitise the public to the danger of the disease, which as at Saturday had left 269 persons dead.
Shandi, who gave the name of their medium as Television Nigeria, insisted they were not criminals.
He also admitted they erred in not seeking the permission from the hospital before dramatising the coronavirus script.
However, the Director, FCT Public Health Secretariat, Dr. Josephine Okechukwu, has condemned the motive of the suspects, saying it was capable of creating pandemonium in the country about the spread of coronavirus even when no single case was yet to be reported.
Okechikwu said: “I think the police should handle this case.
“If these guys were trying to play a script as they are claiming, it is a wrong one as it was being played in a hospital where it could scare patients and spread falsehood that FCT has a case of corona virus.”
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