Nigerian Health Minister ‘Would Be Very Happy if You Do Not Ask’ About Chinese Medics

Nigerian Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told reporters on Thursday to stop asking where visiting Chinese medical experts are or what they are doing. Many Nigerians are suspicious of the 15-member Chinese team, which ostensibly came to help combat the Wuhan coronavirus.

The Premium Times of Nigeria described Ehanire as “exasperated” by questions about the Chinese medics during a press conference by the coronavirus task force. He stated the Chinese personnel “are not guests of the federal government, but CCECC, a construction company.”

CCECC is the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, which stated in April that it was bringing in a team from China to help establish coronavirus testing centers, in part because the company wished to protect its investments in Nigeria. 

Many Nigerians responded with skepticism to the announcement, doubting that any medical technicians sent by China could be truly independent of the Communist regime, and accusing CCECC of donating medical services to distract from corruption scandals involving Nigerian officials.

Ehanire said the Chinese medics would be “providing technical support to Nigeria in its fight against COVID-19” and sharing their experience with how China “curtailed the spread of the virus,” but grew visibly frustrated when reporters asked about the location and current activities of the Chinese team.

“I want to explain that first of all, I think not all of them are doctors and I heard that some of them are technicians but they are staff of CCECC,” he said.

“The ministry of health is not their host, so we cannot always explain what happened to them or where they are,” he continued.

Ehanire remarked that “there seems to be a lot of interest in these doctors,” but insisted they are the “staff of a company,” not official consultants for the Nigerian government.

“I would be very happy if you do not ask me where they are,” he told reporters. “They are not really our guests in that sense but we have been able to learn some things from them. We shared ideas of what they did in their country in managing COVID-19.”

The Chinese Communist Party has been quite eager to promote the activities of the team sent to Nigeria.

China Civil Engineering Construction Corp helped Nigeria convert a local opera house into the largest makeshift hospital in its capital city of Abuja. The makeshift hospital, put into operation on Tue, has 283 beds, including 4 #ICU beds, and can be expanded to 500 beds in future pic.twitter.com/Bko0wrCHo8

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) May 13, 2020

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) issued a press release in April saying it “vehemently rejected the invitation of Chinese doctors into the country in the guise of offering assistance,” arguing that the government undermined and embarrassed the NMA and its members by accepting CCECC’s assistance without consulting them, and expressing fears that Chinese visitors could spread more coronavirus infections through Nigeria. 

The NMA also found it offensive that the government would import doctors from China when Nigeria had such a “large pool of general medical and specialist practitioners who are either unemployed or underemployed that could be engaged.”

The Nigerian government’s coronavirus task force responded to these complaints by assuring the NMA that the visiting Chinese personnel were “public health experts,” not doctors, promising to quarantine them for 14 days on arrival, and promising they would have no contact with Nigerian coronavirus patients.