Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello continued his ill-informed campaign to discount government and international community’s efforts to curb the COVID-19 by generating a conspiracy theory to discourage Nigerians from taking Covid-19 vaccines. In his recent criticism of Covid-19 vaccines, which have been rolled out in over 50 countries as one of the effective strategies to curtail the deadly pandemic, Governor Bello claimed the vaccines were meant to kill Nigerians.
In a widely circulated video, the governor was heard saying, “These vaccines are being produced in less than one year of Covid-19. There is no vaccine yet for HIV, malaria, cancer and for several diseases that are killing us. We should draw our minds back to what happened in Kano during the polio vaccines that crippled and killed our children. We have learned our lessons. If they say they are taking the vaccines in public, allow them to take their vaccines. Don’t say I said you should not take it, but if you want to take it, open your eyes before you take the vaccines.”
Governor Bello’s argument smacks of ignorance as much as hypocrisy. It is a deliberate attempt to extend his denial that Kogi State, which shares borders with eight states, is insulated from Covid-19. Based on this game of the ostrich, the governor has failed to encourage mass testing and other preventive measures, yet deaths have occurred to point to the regrettable fact that Covid-19 is actually claiming lives in Kogi State. It is very unfortunate that a governor, who is surrounded by an army of special advisers and special assistants, and who should speak from an informed perspective, has descended to propagating a conspiracy theory without concrete evidence.
For the governor to allude to the Pfizer vaccines that did damage to some persons in the 1990s in Kano is a deliberate mischief. Though the incident is regrettable, Nigerians would agree with the fact that since the administration of polio vaccines during routine immunizations, millions of children have been saved from death and permanent disability. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally certified Nigeria as one of the countries that are polio-free. Such feat would not have been recorded without the administration of polio vaccines. As a matter of fact, polio vaccines have saved more lives than they have killed.
Also, the fact that Covid-19 vaccines have been realized in about a year, instead of an average of a decade that it takes to produce other vaccines, has been explained. The difference is the use of genetic material mRNA, which is easy to make in a laboratory, to produce the Pfizer-BionTech and the Moderna Covid-19 vaccines. Governor Bello should note that Covid-19 pandemic has hit developed countries, which have a lot of financial resources and technology to tackle any existential challenge. These countries have put their resources in a pool accessed by several pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to produce vaccines. With such strong will and resources, the vaccines have been produced at a speed faster than the conventional time-frame for producing vaccines.
We commend the Nigerian Governors Forum for denouncing the conspiracy theory being promoted by Governor Bello. For a governor to peddle such is an indication that the federal government must do a lot of public enlightenment about the vaccines and other measures being put in place to tackle the spread of Covid-19. Without a lot of campaign in support of the vaccines, many Nigerians who did not access the counter-argument by the governors forum could take Governor Bello’s statement as gospel truth and reject the vaccines. It will be disastrous for Nigerians to reject the life-saving vaccines when they eventually arrive.
Furthermore, we call on Governor Bello to be circumspect in his pronouncements about public health matters, especially because he is not an expert in that field. The governor should subscribe to the position of experts and scientists with international reputation.
