“COVID-19 is not the enemy, ….. Our underdevelopment and backwardness rest on four pillars – they are the real enemies of our nation. They are…lack of patriotism, …self-interest … corruption, … and shamelessness ”
Nigeria’s Covid Czar, Prof Oyewale Tomori was right on target in his impassioned statement quoted above. “Shamelessness” indeed is the major epidemic in Nigeria, not COVID.
Even while the whole world is tactically retreating from the COVID pandemic narrative, rather than shamefacedly tow the same path, the Shuaib Faisal crew providing technical guidance to the FG on COVID response continues to dig in, insisting that the pandemic is just beginning here and is set to do what it had been unable to do in more than two years – decimate all of us in Nigeria. The one and only way out of the looming apocalypses, they insist, is that we all compulsorily take into our bodies the experimental vaccine being distributed under “Emergency Use Authorization”, and from which government and everyone involved have absolved themselves of all liabilities, come whatever may!
With straight bold face, one government official after another, ranging from State Governors to DGs of Parastatals, patronizingly insist that we must all receive “the vaccine” for our own good. Failing which they would be forced to de-citizen us, rather than allow us jeopardize our personal health. It has, of course, been long established that the “vaccine” prevents neither infection nor transmission of COVID. So, the touted benefits are for individuals and not for the general public, but government officials would sanctimoniously feign ignorance of this basic fact.
Indeed shamelessness is the no 1 enemy in Nigeria!
All along, the principal alibi the FG had latched on in insisting we lock down society, be masked-up everywhere, and continue to “social distance” had always been: “the developed nations are doing it, so why not we?” Even when the facts and figures clearly show that the presentation of the disease is starkly different here, the argument had been that whatever is good enough for the UK, Europe, and the US should be good also for Nigeria.
So why is it then, that at the very time that these nations (including even the Biden administration in the US) are declaring the pandemic over, the NYSC here should be insisting that healthy and vibrant Nigerian youths would not be mobilized for youth service unless they take the experimental vaccine?
Or the JAMB suggesting that Nigeria’s teens will not be allowed into exam centres to write the matriculation exam needed to pursue higher education, except they have first received the COVID shot?
Unknown to many, the social distance rules are still being strictly enforced, to ridiculous extents, on several University campuses in this country. Supposed Citadels of learning, of all places! Yes, students may gather in their thousands for social and religious activities, including those officially organized by the University, such as orientation or matriculation programmes for JAMBITES. But lectures for large classes (invariably affecting those same fresh incoming undergraduates – JAMBITES) are not allowed to hold physically, all because of COVID-19 protocols on “social distancing”! Consequently, these greenhorns (who are still trying to grasp the fact that they are now undergrads), are required to download pre-recorded lectures and somehow digest them in the quiet of their rooms. For the avoidance of doubts, the foundational courses we are talking about include chemistry, physics, and mathematics where in the pre-COVID years, regular students in live physical classes struggled to grasp new concepts critically needed later on at higher levels of their studies. It is as clear as daylight that some interests are deliberately intent on destroying Nigeria’s education system big time.
The University of Ibadan, in particular, has taken this shameless playing-to-the-gallery of foreign interests even a notch further by tying allocation of hostel space with presentation of COVID vaccine certificates! Could it be that our officials don’t check happenings in the world from other media houses except CNN and BBC?
It is not only governments that are retreating from COVID and declaring the pandemic closed all over the developed nations. The pharmaceutical companies are even in faster retreat! Only last week, on Monday 7th March, Pfizer filed a request to the US Securities and Exchange commission to de-person itself. The implication of such dissolution of legal personhood is that there would no longer be any criminal defendant available in the event that legal charges are raised with respect to people being maimed or killed by the company’s COVID-19 vaccine! This analysis is especially credible following the recent granting of several Freedom of Information requests by Courts, which now compel the pharmaceutical companies to release to the public, health data acquired by the companies during the clinical trials of their products. The few data so far released are showing clearly that the companies knew that their experimental vaccines could be very highly toxic. Yet they had withheld the information and continued with their mass experimentation on human beings!
In a similar vein, the stock of Moderna has maintained its sharp downward trajectory as top executives of the company are selling off their share! Toward the end of January, the losses had surpassed $130 billion US dollars! According to a report, Moderna’s stocks, one the top last year is currently the worst performer in the market having lost more than 60% of its value!
Shamefully, as far as the officials in charge of COVID response in Nigeria are concerned, none of these is happening!
In the meantime, it has now been revealed that the US government heavily paid major media outlets ($1 billion outreach campaign) to promote the COVID vaccine and suppress unfavourable reports. Likewise, it is coming out that government agencies in Uganda get commissions from the sales of COVID vaccine in that country. The report is credible and consistent with the fact on ground that the country negotiated to procure her Astra Zeneca vaccines for 133% the price paid by South Africa and 324% that paid by European countries earlier on in the plandemic! All these then abundantly explain why government in that country could be touting the idea of imposing a fine of over $1,000 or 6-month jail terms on people who refuse to take the experimental vaccine!
With the Contract Agreement between the Nigerian government and the pharmaceutical companies remaining shrouded in utter secrecy, who knows exactly what the driving force is behind our government’s ostrich-like belligerent posture on the COVID jab?
See you next week, by God’s grace.
Joshua Ojo