Leader of the Northern Civil Society Coalition, Mallam Shehu Sani said in Kaduna that the opposition was largely responsible for the increase in the case of wide polio infection promising that the group will join the campaign to fight the menace.
Mallam Sani said that embarking on polio immunization was in the best health interest of North, pointing out that “the criticisms and attack against immunization programmes is unfounded, unwarranted, ill-informed and uncivilized.
“Those Islamic clerics that are opposed to the immunization exercise against polio are not doing so out of scientific reasons or religious reasons. They engaged in campaign against the eradication of the disease for political motives”.
While saying that the immunization programes was a positive step by government to checkmate and exterminate harmful diseases that have paralysed and ravaged the lives of young people in the northern Nigeria, he said “we cannot continue to live in the past at a very time when the world is moving ahead”.
“Almost all diseases that have been wiped out in other parts of the world like leprosy, polio and chickenpox are still prevalent in northern parts of Nigeria as a result of the silent campaign against immunization, of mis-education and mis-information by archaic clerics that are out of touch and out of tune with the realities and changes in the modern world.
“The resistance of the clerics to immunization, and other programmes of vaccination have contributed a lot in crowding our streets in the northern states with destitute and physically challenged people. Our religious clerics are standing against science; they are also standing
against logic and reasons with their misinformed gospel”.
Speaking on the killing of health workers in Kano, Mallam Sani said it “is a direct product of fanatical preaching and teachings by these clerics”, while calling on the people “to resist this campaign of mis-information and to avail themselves to projects and programmes aimed at improving their health and their children”.
The National Civil Society Coalition on Immunisable Disease Awareness (NCSCIDA) however said that killings of Polio workers in Kano by unknown gunmen, should not be allowed to stand as a barrier to the determination to eradicate the disease in the country.
Coordinator of NCSCIDA, Dr. Mohammed Mustapha,who said that all hands must be on deck to eradicate the disease said that “the civil society coalition on public awareness on national immunization have totally condemned the attack against polio vaccination workers in kano”, noting that “the attack is an attempt to undermine and subvert the current national immunization efforts against polio in northern Nigeria”.
Mustapha said in a statement made available to The Nation that “it is a set back against the effort to checkmate the spread of polio that has devastated the lives of millions of vulnerable children in northern Nigeria”, while adding that “Polio pandemic is a serious health hazard that has wrecked havoc and has destroyed the future of many children.
“The national immunization process is an effort to address the problem. The people of the north and the whole of the country should embrace it the exercise by supporting this programme. The polio immunization staffs that were killed were heroes in the nation’s effort to wipe out the disease.
“This organization supports the pursuance of this programme, and we call on all religious leaders, traditional rulers, youth groups and well meaning Nigerians in the north to support this programme and only oppose any attempt at undermining it.
“It is regrettable that the disease that has been wiped out in other parts of the world continues to thrive and flourish in northern parts of Nigeria. Those who are against the immunization programme are ill-informed, they are agents of retrogression. They are pushing our society back to the stone ages and are further sinking the north into an endless pit of stagnation.
“The interruption about the polio immunization programme is unfortunate and should be discountenanced with. The immunization programme is in the interest of the north, in the interest of Nigeria and our collective health progress and development.
“We are calling on all Nigerians, especially northerners to support this programme and protect all immunization staff against saboteurs and against agents of retrogression. And we also call on the Federal Government not to relent in its effort in combating polio in the north and Nigeria in general.
“We also call on all polio workers to remain vigil and courageous and continue to do their work. And we call on all those who are opposed to this polio immunization to, in the name of progress and collective health of our society now allow this menace to be checked once and for all,” he said.
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