Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, have protested against an alleged decision by the authorities to site a cemetery for COVID-19 victims and other infectious diseases close to their residences.
According to the residents, the site is between Galadimawa roundabout and Games Village estate in Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC.
Speaking with journalists yesterday, Gbenga Ambali, representative of SunCity Estate, said the decision to site an infectious disease cemetery close to residential areas could be harmful to them, since they depend on boreholes for water.
Ambali said the cemetery could create future problems for them since a lot is not known about COVID-19.
He said: “We want to make it very clear that this would not be good for us, for two reasons. The number one reason is that most of us in this neighbourhood, our source of water is through borehole, so if we have an infectious disease cemetery around us we are not safe.
“We want government to rethink and have a change of mind on this. Number two reason is on the issue of the COVID-19 that we are all facing right now, nobody knows the full details of this disease. Bringing it close to us would be creating additional problems in the future.”
The representative said some well-connected persons in the estate sounded the alarm, noting that that was how they got to know about the plan.
A retired Rear Admiral and representative of Golden Spring Estate, Ferguson Bobai, said infectious diseases cemetery should be sited far from residential areas as it was done for hospitals of that nature.
