President of As­sociation of In­dustrial Security and Safety Op­erators of Nigeria (AIS­SON), Dr. Ona Ekhomu has called on the Federal Government to define the Ebola disease as a threat to national security and immediately appoint a top military commander to take charge of the na­tional response to the crisis in order to avoid an imminent disaster. “The Ebola pandemic is a germ warfare against Nigeria and Nigerians and it must be defined as the national security threat that it is, and combated vigorously in order to save Nigeri­ans’ lives,” he said.
Reacting to the death of the third person in Nigeria as a result of the Patrick Sawyer’s Ebola attack on Nigeria, Dr Ekhomu said that the response by gov­ernments on all levels to the biological weapon of mass destruction (WMD) was too little too late.
He said that as far back as June 2014, the Nige­rian authorities should have called in the military, declared a national emer­gency and closed the land borders in order to prevent entry of the deadly dis­ease into Nigeria. The air-borders should have been shut against countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea that were experi­encing the pandemic.
Ekhomu said that mili­tary personnel should be deployed to guard persons under quarantine, or they should be taken into a cen­tral location for quarantine and observation. Accord­ing to him, “it is irrespon­sible to expect persons said to be under quarantine to police themselves. They must be guarded by the military in the public’s in­terest.”
Dr. Ekhomu, who is also chairman of the School of Management and Secu­rity, said that the Health Ministry was embroiled in resident doctors’ strike and was not sufficiently equipped to assess the risk of Ebola pandemic entering Nigeria. He said there was an absence of emergency preparedness for Ebola despite the large number of reported deaths in Liberia and other West African countries. He said the response so far which has been knee jerk in na­ture could not deal with the severity of the threat posed by the pandemic. Accord­ing to him: “The woeful failure in preventing the entry, growth and spread of the disease has informed my call for more purpose­ful handling of the biologi­cal threat.”
Ekhomu said that Ebola risk represented an inhala­tion hazard, skin contact hazard, ingestion hazard and injection hazard. He said Ebola contaminants can be spread through the air. He said that the use of PPEs such as face masks, protective clothing, latex gloves was paramount as a mere sneeze by an infected person could put out air-borne contaminants which could infect healthy per­sons.
He praised the Lagos State government for its aggressive response to the outbreak, and urged Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan to dismiss Federal govern­ment officials who by their negligence and indolence allowed the disease to enter Nigeria “while they were sleeping at the switch.”

Ebola grave threat to national security –Ekhomu