Group Warns Kogi Governor Over COVID-19 Vaccine Utterances

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has been warned to be mindful of his utterances concerning the COVID-19 vaccines because his actions lately were “tantamount to incitement to commit war crime.”

Mr Bello has not hidden his opinion concerning the virus, which emanated from China and spread to the four corners of the globe.

The contagion was first recorded in Nigeria on February 27, 2020, and at the moment, it has infected more than 100,000 persons in the country and killed over 1,400 people.

Globally, it has infected and killed millions of people, with the United States, Brazil, India and others among the worst-hit in the world.

But the Kogi State Governor has always rushed to the rooftop to say COVID-19 was not real and recently, he was seen in a video saying the vaccine developed in an unprecedented time was aimed to implant something on people, urging his people not to receive the jabs.

Reacting to this, a group known as the APC Mandate Defenders argued that discouraging Nigerians not to be inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines in the face of the ongoing biological war was criminal.

The group, in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Ifeanyi Emeka, reminded the young Governor that no vaccine would be administered on any Nigerian without the authorisation of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

According to the APC Mandate Defender, there are different types of vaccines approved for emergency use by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as the various regulatory bodies across the globe.

Some of the approved vaccines are Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine, Moderna Vaccine, Sinovac Vaccine among others.

“Therefore, alleging that President Muhammadu Buhari led federal government wants to introduce vaccines to kill Nigerians in his unfortunate video is the height of desecration and disrespect for the Office of the President of the country.

“It also amounts to insubordination as well as usurping the powers of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the group.

“We can afford to allow Governor Bello to continue with his foolishness unrestrained, but accusing the president of introducing vaccines in order to kill Nigerians will not be tolerated by any means because that is the highest form of incitement against Mr President,” it warned.

The organisation appealed to Nigerians to ignore Mr Bello and rally round Mr Buhari as he “strives to fulfil his campaign promises to the people because, inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”

The APC Mandate Defender emphasised that it would “resist [the] covert and overt strategies [of the Governor] aimed at destroying the government of President Buhari who still have some years to make Nigeria better.”