Have you ever wanted something so
badly you are willing to do anything to get it? That was me a week ago as I
prepared to travel for an imaginary conference taking place in the United
States.
The conference, which I totally
made up, was supposed to be fully funded — covering all expenses except the
crucial COVID-19 test.
After two visits to Nnamdi
Azikiwe International Airport and the federal ministry of health headquarters
in Abuja, I secured two deals for fake COVID-19 test results — one received and
the second underway — without having to visit any lab.
HOW TO GET A FAKE COVID-19 TEST RESULT WITH EASE
On the morning I first visited
the airport, I walked briskly into the international travel terminal, but my
steps were cut short by an official of the Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria (FAAN) who asked where I was travelling to.
“My flight is not due yet, sir. I
am travelling next week,” I tell him as I wait for my gadgets to be cleared from
the scanner. “I came to make an enquiry regarding the COVID-19 testing I need
to do.”
He directs me to a co-worker,
whom I later learnt works with one of the airlines, asking him to take me to
the port health services (PHS) department. An airport worker whose name tag
read, ‘Fache’, however, told me I do not need a COVID-19 test result to travel.
 |
| Fache says the test is a means of exploiting travellers |
“Forget that COVID-19 test,
people just dey use that one dey threaten you make them collect money for your
hand,” he says in Pidgin English, handing me an assurance even Davido could not
afford.
We arrive at the PHS department
where a dark-complexioned woman in her 50s insisted that contrary to the man’s
claim, I have to carry out the test to be allowed to travel abroad.
“We no dey do test for airport;
go and look for labs and do it,” the woman adds, before taking her eyes back to
the computer screen in front of her.
As we leave her office, Fache,
now getting furious, said I was bent on “wasting” money, emphasising that
people have been travelling without being tested for COVID-19.
 |
| Cynthia Ogbonna, the lady who introduced the reporter to Dr Inyang |
“Na you dey expose yourself; I no
know why you just dey talk all those things …people dey travel without
am…. Na the yellow card na im be the
important thing,” he adds.
But the Nigeria Centre for
Disease Control (NCDC) will surely disagree with him. The centre’s travel
protocol mandates international travellers to carry out the test before they
travel. FAAN guidelines also stipulate the compulsory COVID-19 test.
There is one problem though. I do
not have the N39,500 which private labs charge international travellers for
COVID-19 tests.
I begin to seek help on how those
involved would allow me to travel without having to pay such an amount of
money.
“Na for immigration na im you go
settle; for the new terminal. Just find any immigration officer; when you see
any of them, lay your complaint to him. Once im don accept, you know what to do
to stamp your passport,” Fache says, suggesting I give them about N5,000 when I
asked.
“I can’t tell you; na you know
how your pocket big; either na N5,000 or anything. You just try to make him
happy make he clear you. That is period; you are free.”
‘HOW MUCH DO YOU HAVE? I WILL
FORWARD THE TEST TO YOUR WHATSAPP’
 |
| Emenike got me the fake result after I gave him N25,000 in cash |
At the new terminal, I approach a
middle-aged FAAN worker who points me to the port health authority officials
sitting by the entrance. At their corner, I rehearse my predicament: “I got an
invitation to attend a funded conference abroad. Government-run laboratories
mostly do not carry out the COVID-19 test for travellers while I can’t afford
the cost for one in approved private laboratories. Please, help my life.”
The officials tell me there is
nothing they can do in my case, and advise that I wait to go to government labs
and hope they can get me one in time if I cannot afford the expensive ones.
In the minutes following, as I am
speaking with the two male officials behind the desk to assist me, another asks
me to follow their senior colleague who has just appeared from outside and
leaves almost immediately.
Then the breakthrough. “How much
do you have?” the man named Obiora Emenike asks as I hurry after him.
 |
| Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, where it all happened |
In Nigeria, when you are asked,
“how much do you have” in an authoritative but caring tone, and the question is
not from a trader, I can bet an earlobe it is most likely concerning a suspicious
deal.
“Let me give you something like
N10,000,” I answer him but he shakes his head vigorously and offers to receive
N20,000 instead.
“Oga, please.”
“That’s the only thing I can do
for you. If you have N20,000 now, send it, I am forwarding your name to the lab
now. Look at it, I am just forwarding it. Look at, they just sent me a name
now. I am forwarding this person’s details,” he says, as he points me to a
recent chat showing someone’s passport page, adding he will forward the details
to “the doctor”.
“What will the lab now do?”
Emenike and Dr Inyang (from 7:24) speaking on how the fake COVID-19 test result can be procured.
“They will generate a result for
you; the normal result.”
“Oga please na, make I give you
10k.”
“No, don’t even negotiate it.
That is the last price. If you have it… I am not the one, I will forward it to
the doctor … na the office style na im we dey use.”
It was at this point he said they
run the COVID-19 tests at the airport, contrary to the due process as claimed
by the first PHS staff I met.
“If you want, I will go and do
the test. We have (the) kit for the test here. But you will pay more because
the kit is expensive. The kit …my boss came with one…. it is inside his car. If
you want to do it, it is N35,000. If you go to the office (the lab) there, it
is N40,000,” he says.
Before visiting the airport, I
was told a cartel provides fake COVID-19 test results for N10,000. So, why is
he insisting on N20,000?
I am asking him again to “help
me” and reconsider the amount, but he smirks instead, saying he is helping me
already “because normally, what we collect, the last price that man (the
doctor) collects from me is N25,000; I am not collecting anything for my own. I
will do it for you for N20,000”.
Okay, N20,000 it is.
 |
| The moment Emenike pocketed the N20,000 |
But I still have a major concern:
“I go need go the lab?” I ask, to which he responds, “you no go go lab again. I
will forward it (the test) to your WhatsApp if you send me your number. This is
12:20 (pm), before 4 pm or 3 pm sef, it will be ready. They will generate your
result for you (and) you will go (travel).”
He then returns to his WhatsApp,
scrolling through mostly unsaved numbers and pointing to various persons whom
he says also requested fake COVID-19 test results: “This one, I am still
processing his own; this one is that one I showed you; this one just forwarded
to me; look at it, one guy that went to Cyprus the other day, I just want to
show you his own so that you will see what he confirmed; this one now, I am
just processing his own this morning. I just forwarded it; this one, I
forwarded his own on Sunday; this one just travelled to Ghana.”
And so the list goes on and on.
I give him the N20,000 cash and, about five hours later, while watching CNN New Day at home, I receive a WhatsApp message from him — you guessed right: There goes my negative COVID-19 test result.
 |
| The fake COVID-19 test result which 54gene has denied issuing |
At that moment, I remember the complaints of Boss Mustapha, chairman of the presidential task force on
COVID-19, at a recent briefing: “The PTF has been evaluating the compliance of
Nigerians with the protocol for testing by in-bound and out-bound travellers.
It has been discovered that some of these travellers have indulged in
presenting fake documents.”
Interestingly, the fake test
result, which carries the name of 54gene Lab — one of the privately run laboratories
carrying out COVID-19 tests in Nigeria — and which bears a signature
purportedly by one Dr Ifeoluwa Awogbindin is like a genuine result issued by
the laboratory.
 |
| At 54gene Lab in Abuja |
But here is the 2020 wonder.
Although I sent my details to Emenike on December 2, the result was postdated
to show the sample was collected on December 3 and report received on December
4 — making it 48 hours before December 6 when I told him I am travelling.
The next day, at the 54gene Lab
in Abuja, I am told that the test costs N39,500 — about the same amount charged
by two other laboratories I checked out in the city — and that the result would
take 20 to 48 hours to be sent to me. Awogbindin was also not on duty when I
asked.
In an email to TheCable on
Saturday, 54gene Lab denied having a hand in the issuance of fake COVID-19
results, threatening to sue anyone it finds using its name for such a scam.
“54gene provides only authentic
COVID-19 test results provided the person getting tested has gone through the
correct process which involves getting tested in one of our assigned testing
centres after which the sample analysis will be carried out in one of our
accredited labs,” Moyosola Kara, its director of communications in Nigeria,
said.
“If a person purchases a fake
result with our branding on it, where they are found, we will take legal steps.
The issue of fake results affects all the labs offering COVID-19 tests, and we
are all working hand in hand with the Presidential Task force to create ways to
ensure that results cannot be duplicated.”
SO, WHERE DID THE FAKE RESULT
COME FROM?
 |
| The federal ministry of health headquarters in Abuja |
Back to Emenike at the airport.
While he scrolls through his WhatsApp chats, my eyes catch a glimpse of some
contacts also involved in the backhand dealing.
One of the contacts was ‘Dr.
Inyang’. Not long after our meeting, he is talking to someone, whom I suspect
is the medical doctor, on the phone, informing the ”doctor” he is sending the
details of another person to him for processing.
In my search for Dr. Inyang,
airport officials tell me he works with the port health services, but guessing
it will be risky to request to meeting him there, I find my way to the federal
ministry of health headquarters where I confirm that there is indeed a medical
doctor by the name Kayo Inyang.
“He is our oga; he will do it for
you,” a fair-complexioned lady tells me of the medical doctor when I told her I
was looking for a way to carry out the COVID-19 test.
But she is also kind to tell me I
should not offer to pay more than N25,000 when I contact the doctor, adding:
“Others do N39,500 but yours is through referral.”
“He is not so popular; he is
among the new ones. Just as everybody knows close-up, but there are other ones.
You can get it fast; unlike the ones they queue and there is a crowd, he is not
well known. Na we just dey refer am,” she adds.
As I leave the ministry with
Falz’ ‘This is Nigeria’ playing through my air pod, I run a quick check on the
doctor and discover he is currently a senior medical officer at the ministry.
 |
| The port health services department at the health ministry |
Later that day, over the phone
with him, as I introduce myself, he goes, “it is N40,000”; barely allowing me
to finish as if he has been waiting for my call.
Like his colleague at the
airport, he is not going to collect N10,000, saying it is “too small”, but not
without a note of apology. After much persuasion to reconsider the price, he
finally settles for N25,000.
“Just send your details, I will
get your name in our system and give you your result. Send me your passport
page, when you are travelling, then I will send you my account number so that
as you are paying the money, I will send the result to you,” he says, adding on
a final note: “N25,000 last”.
He also informs me I will get my
result latest by 9 pm, and “you can use (it) and travel”. But because I still
need to be certain the result will be a ‘genuine fake’, I ask him, “hope it
will be authentic (and) they won’t stop me at the airport.”
Laughter comes rolling from the
other end as if he is mocking my diffidence. “Do something so that you go and
use it and travel. Nothing will happen to you. Don’t worry.”
He would later forward his GTB
account via text message and, while I was signing off on the phone call with
him, he immediately chips in: “Hello, hello, I have done this thing for many
people and nobody has failed, so you will not fail. They have been travelling.”
And if they can, why can’t I?
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