Two persons are in police custody for issuing fake COVID-19 test results in the name of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), the institute has said.
Director-General of NIMR Prof. Babatunde Salako made the disclosure to newsmen in Lagos on Friday during a news conference to reveal NIMR’s findings on the alleged issuance of fake COVID-19 test results from the institute.
Lagos State Government had on December 29, 2020 raised alarm over sales of fake COVID-19 test results in the state.
The government said that processes were being put in place to clamp down on both buyers and sellers.
Salako said: “On December 29, 2020, TVC Communications aired a news entitled ‘How Officials Issue Fake COVID-19 Result without Test in Nigeria’ wherein it alleged sharp practices at our testing site.
“As an institute with an unblemished reputation whose vision is promotion of national health and development, it raises a serious concern that our efforts are being sabotaged.
“We immediately set up an investigative committee headed by Prof. Stella Smith to come up with facts on the truism or otherwise of the allegation.
“A thorough investigation by the committee revealed that two individuals who were neither staff nor agents of NIMR are behind the issuance of the fake results without testing.
“The suspects namely Enoch Basyan and Fazing Binrah were caught in the act while trying to do COVID-19 test for one of our staff who acted as a patient at the front of a bank at Isolo.
“The suspects are currently at Aswani Police Station and will face the law.”
Salako added that the suspects in their confessional statement revealed that they visited the institute sometime ago and took away its testing request form under the guise of coming for COVID-19 test.
According to him, the institute has put in mechanisms to check some loopholes in its procedure before testing.
“All COVID-19 results from NIMR will be sent electronically using our official email; therefore, any results emanating from any source other than our official website is not our result,” he said.
