BEVERLY HILLS, March 06, (THEWILL) – Kogi State’s Governor Yahaya Bello has said that COVID-19 was not a priority problem confronting his people and he would neither take the vaccine nor force his people into being its guinea pigs.
Speaking on Politics Today, Channels Television programme monitored by THEWILL, the Governor said the two weeks ultimatum given by President Muhammadu Buhari to the newly decorated service chiefs to clear the country of bandits and other criminals was “not a tall order,”
Asked if he would also publicly take the COVID-19 vaccine like the President, the Vice-President and other governors, Bello, who had always dismissed the coronavirus pandemic in Africa as a scam, said “Mr. President is the leader of this country; I respect him so highly. All of us respect him so much; we love him and he’s leading by example. If he needs to take the vaccine, and he takes it, it’s a welcome development.
“As far as I am concerned, I, as a person, don’t need to take a vaccine; nothing is wrong with me. I am hale, hearty, 100 percent healthy. I can give you my health report any time you desire it. I won’t take any vaccine.”
Bello stated that COVID-19 is not the business of people in Kogi State, saying that his constituents had more pertinent issues.
According to him, the current Kogi administration inherited insecurity and “we’ve tackled it and several others. Disunity, we met it on the ground, and we have united Kogi State today, not COVID-19. COVID-19 is just a minute aspect of what we are treating in Kogi State.
“There have been outbreaks of Lassa Fever, Yellow Fever, and those were handled without making noise about it. That of the last Yellow Fever, because we vaccinated our people against the Yellow Fever, we encouraged them, we educated them and they felt the impact because it ravaged some communities in Kogi State; they came up and we vaccinated them.”
Bello said if the Federal Government was gracious enough and gave Kogi COVID-19 vaccines, his government would equally sensitise the people so that those who wished could come forward for inoculation.
“But I am not going to subject the people of Kogi State to vaccines or vaccination and I will not make them the guinea pigs,” he said.
On the two weeks ultimatum to service chiefs to deal with insecurity in the country, he said, “I want to believe it’s not a tall order. It is not a task that is beyond the Nigerian Armed Forces and all other security agencies.”
Bello however argued that security was the business of everybody, not just for the security agencies, Mr. President or the governors.
While noting that the shoot-on-sight order against anyone wielding AK-47 rifles given by the President was not new, the Governor said: “Now, he has said it once again and it behoves on us at leadership levels in various states and communities to ensure that Mr. President’s orders are carried out and I trust our security agencies that they will not toy with Mr. President’s order.”
He urged the service chiefs and all law enforcement agencies not to listen to any political statement from any angle while discharging their duties and responsibilities.
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