The Kogi state governor, Gov.Yahaya Bello has alleged that Nigerian politicians are playing with the lives of Nigerians, in the name of COVID-19 pandemic.

The governor revealed this on Thursday while playing host to the  Board of Trustees of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation who paid him a courtesy call in his Lugard House office in Lokoja.

Bello said, “Let us stop this game, Nigerians are suffering, instead of the lockdown with its attendant negative effects on the people, why can’t we turn it to employment opportunities, providing clothes for face masks to be imported to those countries who have the disease.

“COVID-19 is not a new disease in our climate, we have our own way of treating it, that is what we should be exploiting rather than subjecting our people to hardship, hunger, and starvation through the lockdown.”

He said that it was wrong for anyone to attribute the death of the late Chief Judge of Kogi State, Justice Nasir Ajana, to COVID-19 when he had been managing his health since 2016 adding that the complications that eventually led to his death were as a result of the inability to be attended to medically due to the lockdown.

“We know his medical history, he was my brother, we know we have been managing him since 2016 but this time, he was completely isolated, no one was allowed to even speak to him until he passed away, we cannot afford to be playing games with lives of Nigerians, this must stop,” Bello said.