3rd November, 2014
Hundreds of HIV/AIDS positive patients besieged the Abuja office of the National Agency for Control of Aids, NACA, on Monday in protest over lack of access to anti-retroviral drugs in hospitals and other care centres across the country.
The protesters, under the aegis of Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS, also protested over diminishing funding for HIV/AIDS programmes by international development partners as well as non-implementation of the Comprehensive Response Plan, a scheme launched by President Goodluck Jonathan to address the problems of access to anti-retroviral drugs.
The protesters took the staff of NACA unawares as they had invaded the NACA office before the official resumption hours early this morning.
The protesters were armed with placards and some sleeping materials, indicating that they were determined to stay in the NACA office as long as necessary.
They took over the main entrance to the office of Professor John Doko, the Director-General of NACA, thereby stopping him and other workers from entering their offices as at the time of filing in this story.
Sumaila Garba who spoke to journalists on behalf of the protesters said they were determined lock up NACA office for 25 days.
Prof. Idoko later appealed to the protesters that their grievances were already being looked into as at the time of writing this report.