The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International (TI) Nigeria has called for an accountable and transparent distribution and vaccination processes of the COVID-19 vaccines that arrived in the country on Tuesday.
The CISLAC Executive Director and Head TI Nigeria, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said on Wednesday in Abuja that it was pleasing that Nigeria has received about 3.9m doses of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the multinational
pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
He said the federal government through the COVID-19 Presidential Task Force (PTF) and its members as the Ministry of Health, its related departments and agencies must ensure that the distribution and vaccination process is transparent and accountable to the public.
According to him, the distribution of the COVID-19 palliatives has not been without challenges and must not be permitted in the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Nigerians saw diversion and hoarding of palliatives that showed abuse of power. We encourage law enforcement to investigate COVID-19 relief abuses and corruption allegations.
“We, along with other partners, have repeatedly pointed at credible allegations of corruption and abuse of power. For example, between July 2020 and January 2021, the #FollowCOVID19Money project wrote about 30 FOI requests to MDAs.
“Many agencies could not account for the relief funds. We expect investigations and convictions for these crimes,” Rafsanjani said.
He said that the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the custodian of banking sector, data showed that Nigerians trying to access several COVID-19 relief funds last year lost N2.75bn to internet fraudsters and criminals that profit from lax security in the access to COVID-19 relief funds. Nigeria 2021 federal budget has large appropriations for the pandemic relief activities.
He said that these funds must be judiciously used to avoid leakages and systemic corruption, witnessed in similar schemes in the past.
He also said that the category of “strategic leaders” to be vaccinated needs to be clearly explained to avoid ambiguity and suspicion amongst Nigerians and that verifiable data of vaccinated people must be proactively disclosed.
