This is a trying time for every Nigerian as Covid-19 has made an impact that has deeply affected almost everything about the human race. The call for Covid-19 vaccine seems to be the only solution to curtail the deadly virus. Countries as UK, USA, China, Russia and many others have discovered the vaccine that would help them contain the virus. In Nigeria, the reverse is the case! The Nigerian government has been calling on international communities to help us with Covid-19 vaccines to help us fight the virus.
Over a period, vaccines have virtually eliminated the risk of many preventable diseases. There has been an increase in refusal and hesitancy to use vaccine over the past two decades. Typically, vaccine refusal is most prevalent in the wealthy, white areas, but polls that seek to understand the pending coronavirus vaccine indicate a high level of hesitancy and refusal among marginalized communities, too.
These groups appear to be the most sceptical, with only a quarter of black respondents and 37 percent of Hispanic respondents in the AP-NORC poll said they would commit to getting the vaccine whenever it is available. Considering that black, hispanic and indigenous communities are at the highest risk of infection and are overrepresented in COVID-19 deaths, this result may look like a curious discrepancy.
But it is not hard to understand these groups’ caution and, in some cases, their downright refusal to engage with public health recommendations when one considers the historical racism embedded in the fabric of the medical systems and the harm suffered at the hands of biased science.
In Nigeria recently, there have been some calls among many Nigerians about the vaccine. The call became louder when the world’s richest man, Bill Gate, queried and wondered why the cases of Covid-19 hasn’t gone out of hand in Africa. And we all know how it has been at the forefront to ensure that people are vaccinated through his initiative.
There have been rumours in some quarters how some people want to deliberately reduce the population of Africa, hence the cause of the virus.
A few days ago, Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, discouraged the use of COVID-19 vaccine, saying the jabs are meant to kill people.
Like several other countries, Nigeria has recorded a second wave of the virus with an average of 1,000 cases daily in the last two weeks.
The increase in cases has led to a demand for vaccines to curb the spread of the virus, with the Federal Government announcing that Nigerians would receive the vaccine this January.
Governor Bello speaking while addressing a crowd, doubted the healing value of the vaccine, saying there is no cure for HIV and many other diseases troubling mankind.
“Vaccines are being produced in less than one year of COVID-19 outbreak. There is no vaccine yet for HIV, malaria, cancer, headache and for several other diseases that are killing us. ‘They want to use the (COVID-19) vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill you and us. God forbid.
“We should draw our minds back to what happened in Kano during the Pfizer polio vaccines that crippled and killed our children. We have learned our lessons. “If they say they are taking the vaccines in the public, allow them 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,” the governor said.
In another video of a white woman that has gone viral, she claimed the vaccine was meant to reduce the population of the black people. The woman said that Bill Gate and his people were now in Nigeria to give the vaccine to people. She further said that the white supremacists who rule the world, want Africans dead because Bill Gate said he wanted every Nigerian to be vaccinated first and that’s genocide.
Let’s take you back to when Bill Gates said that he didn’t understand why the number of people killed by COVID-19 was not high in Africa.
Bill Gates: “We still don’t understand why COVID-19 victims aren’t as high in Africa.
Bill Gates, a co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), says the world still does not have enough data to understand why number COVID-19 victims have not been as high Africa as predicted by The American philanthropist, who invests heavily in healthcare in Africa said he was, however, happy to have been wrong about COVID-19’s killing rates in Africa.
“One thing, I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was wrong—is my fear that COVID-19 would run rampant in low-income countries,” he wrote in his end of the year note.
“So far, this hasn’t been true. In most sub-Saharan Africa, for example, case rates and death rates remain much lower than they are in the U.S. or Europe and on at par with New Zealand, which has received so much attention for its handling of the virus.
Many people including top pastors frown at this and even the likes of Redeem Christian Church of God’s General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, had to reply him.
Let’s also tell you that one of the vaccines to be used in Africa is Pfizer’s. What baffled many people is that, on the vaccine cover, it was written there that the vaccine is not to be used in Europe, US, UK and a lot of people read meanings to this inscription. A lot of people have said it’s a ploy to wipe out African race and that, the vaccine which would come to Africa, would be different from the vaccines in the developed world.
–ISAAC ABIMBADE
