While the APC asked President Goodluck Jonathan to stop taking credit for stopping the spread of the virus, the PDP accused the opposition of wishing that the scourge continued .
Ironically, the bickering occurred just days after the social media were abuzz with reports by major United States newspapers, including the Washington Post, praising the pro-active measures adopted by Nigeria in curtailing the spread of the EVD and advising Texas where the Ebola case was recorded to learn from Nigerian example
APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was sheer dishonesty for Jonathan and the PDP to turn what was a collective effort to a PDP campaign issue.
According to the opposition party, the President and the PDP are wrong to have appropriated the credit for the containment of the EVD without giving due attention to the real heroes of the successful battle.
It mentioned the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh and her colleagues at the First Consultant Hospital in Lagos; officials of the ministries of Health in Lagos and Rivers States and the patriotic Nigerian volunteers, among others as the heroes.
The APC described as a cheap shot and a shameless venture, the President's decision to make the Ebola success story a campaign issue during a PDP rally in Benin, Edo State. It claimed that Jonathan created the impression that only the PDP deserved the credit for the successful containment of the disease.
APC said while indeed the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, exhibited the kind of professionalism and purposefulness that were not common with the Jonathan administration during the battle against Ebola, it would be uncharitable for the PDP-led Federal Government to pretend as if the governments of Lagos and Rivers states did nothing.
The statement partly read, "The cities of Lagos and Port Harcourt are perhaps the largest metropolis to have ever been hit by the EVD since the first outbreak was recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo almost 40 years ago, and any mishandling of the disease could have spelt disaster not just for the cities but for the country as a whole.
"But the ever-dogged and determined Governors Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers States employed the same winning strategies that have stood their states out of the pack and quickly rose to the occasion, putting in place measures that ensured a quick curtailing of the EVD spread.
"The measures inclu ded painstaking contact-tracing, unrelenting follow-up and creative treatment of infected patients even without access to the experimental drug Zmapp.
"There is no doubt that Nigeria is fortunate that the EVD outbreaks were recorded in those two states. It is a measure of the high premium that the chief executives of the states place on human life, a testimony to the strong health systems they are building and an indication of their purposeful approach to governance that they successfully contained the disease, thus earning Nigeria a rare accolade from the global community."
The party also advised President Jonathan not to use the Ebola containment effort as another tool to divide Nigerians along party lines.
The APC said it was sad that the President who inherited a united Nigeria was dividing its people along ethnic and religious lines on the altar of selfish personal ambition and short-term opportunism.
"It will amount to a monumental tragedy if the President will again use the Ebola success story, which has earned Nigeria a rare acclamation from the global community, as a tool to further divide Nigerians,'' it said.
But the PDP, through its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, described APC's statement as another failed attempt to discredit the PDP-led Federal Government and relegate its efforts in the containment of the EVD in Nigeria.
Metuh said in a statement that the APC was frustrated and unhappy because Nigerians were happy with the PDP-led Federal Government for "the speed and energy with which it tackled the scourge and brought it under control."
"We know that the APC prefers that the Ebola scourge continued unabated in Nigeria so as to have what to blame the PDP-led government for. Now that it has been contained, the APC is frustrated because the people are happy with President Jonathan and the PDP-led Federal Government for the proactive manner with which the disease was confronted and overcome," he added.
According to him, the success recorded on the EVD was because Jonathan did not politicise it.
The statement partly read, "The PDP makes bold to state that the multi-sectoral approach deployed by the Federal Government with the concerted collaboration of the federal ministries of Health, Aviation, Information, Education, Transport and other relevant agencies such as the Nigerian Immigration Service for intensive screening, quarantine and treatment efforts as well as the massive awareness ended the spread of the disease and resulted in its containment in our country.
"We are also amused by the contradictions in the APC's statement in which it also commended the roles played by the Minister of Health in the containment effort.
"We ask, is the minister not appointed and supervised by President Jonathan? Is he not of the PDP? Or is the APC now trying to appropriate him?"
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