President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, have been named among the first set of Nigerians to receive the COVID-19 vaccines to gain public trust in the vaccine.
The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 press briefing in Abuja, said their vaccination would be telecast in order to prove the safety of the vaccine and gain public confidence in government.
Shuaib disclosed that “In terms of the prioritisation of vaccines and strategic country leadership, what it means that I had mentioned that we will like to see a situation where Mr. President, the vice president, the SGF and critical leaders come and take the vaccine in full glare of the public to demonstrate that this vaccine is safe.
“But even in developed countries, what we have seen is that apart from the prioritisation of health workers, you have to also identify critical leaders that you don’t want them to be wiped off by the virus. For example, in warfare, if you want to destroy your enemies, you look for specific leaders, captains, the generals, once you decapitate them, the soldiers will become weak.”
He also said, “As much as possible you do not want to also leave your leaders vulnerable to COVID-19, it doesn’t mean we want to prioritise politicians. That is not correct. I emphasised during the last briefing that we will prioritise our health workers because they are the ones in direct contact with cases in isolation units.”
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, addressed that “We are working round the clock to ensure that things are in place with the support of the governors who are the principal officers in their states to ensure that something drastic is done to arrest this increase in number of states. During the last briefing, our number was 1, 304 but just two days after, it is 1, 664. I don’t know what figure I will come back with tomorrow. The picture I see is that the figure will keep rising and it has a correlation with the activities of last weeks.
“We are at a very critical stage in our national response and we will need the support of everybody to be able to navigate the picture of what PTF sees. The effect of the Christmas and New Year will begin to manifest in the second and third week of January and the figures are going to be high,” he added.
The National Coordinator, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu, also revealed that it is pertinent Nigerians cooperate with the Federal Government by complying with the COVID-19 protocols to avoid another lock down in the country.
Aliyu stated that “It is extremely important we take compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions as a collective responsibility whether we are in government or outside government, because it is still a risk across the board to the public. Looking at the numbers we are currently having, even though there are situations where people say we are threatening to lock down, we are not threatening. We are saying if these numbers continue to go up and we start having sickness index, we have no option and if we don’t want to lockdown, now is the time to follow non-pharmaceutical interventions: wear face masks, keep your distance from people, if you have respiratory symptoms, keep away from the public and if you are vulnerable stay at home.
“The numbers we are seeing now are the sort of numbers we were afraid of seeing back in March/ April and unfortunately, that is now coming back to us. So we will continue to work closely with all agencies of government, knowing they will be responsible, especially the chief executives to our protocols and guidelines and we will continue to reach out to the governors to ensure that where there is a risk of crowd, control measures are put in place to stop transmission,” Aliyu added.
