‘Over 50 Legislators Critically Sick’ As Coronavirus Outbreak Is Reported At National Assembly

There was panic at the National Assembly complex on Tuesday after news filtered in that over 50 members of the House of Representatives have tested positive to the deadly coronavirus disease.

The development had forced the House of Representatives to hurriedly adjourned plenary until next week.

Report says a source at the complex was quoted to have said that a lawmaker told newsmen that about 50 of his colleagues had been infected by the virus with some of them seriously ill.

According to the source, indications show that many of the lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly may have contracted the virus but were hiding it from the press.

As of the time of this report, no official statement have been released from the national assembly but sources said that the House has gone into its usual recess which may last for two months due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

It would be recalled that the National Assembly complex located within the Three Arms Zone of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) had once been shut down for two weeks so as to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 in the Assembly.

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The National Assembly had been under attack over its controversial bill seeking to replace the Quarantine Act with a Control of Infectious Disease Act. The bill, ‘Control of Infectious Disease, 2020’, sponsored by the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, seeks a penalty of between N200,000 and N5m as well as jail terms for violators, rather than the N500 fine from the previous Quarantine Act.