Posted by By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Maiduguri on
For some time now, there has been a groundswell of opposition against the use of polio vaccines in certain parts of the North.
For some time now, there has been a groundswell of opposition against the use of polio vaccines in certain parts of the North. The antagonists claim that the vaccines contain some deadly substance and that it was a ploy by the West to depopulate Northern Nigeria.
The Kano State government fired the first salvo. Since then, the Federal Government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have been making effort to prove that the vaccines do not contain any 'deadly" substance.
As Nigeria prepared for the first round of the 2004 National Immunisation Days, some state governments made frantic moves to ensure that the exercise was a success.
But while this preparation was going on in those states, including Borno, Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State, in an interview with the BBC, Hausa Service broadcast the night preceding the flag-off of the exercise, was quoted as saying that in Kano State, mothers would not allow their children to be immunised.
This was what some people needed in Borno State to boycott the exercise which was flagged-off by Her Excellency, Hajia Fatima Ali Modu Sheriff.
As soon as she got wind of the information, she visited the areas where reports indicated that parents resisted the administration of the oral polio vaccines. She did not only counsel the parents, but personally administered the vaccine to them.
Hajia Fatima was accompanied on the visit by the Women Affairs, Social and Community Development Commissioner, Mrs. Ladi Mamman Watila, Watila's Special Assistant, Mrs. Inna Galadima and the Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) Care-Taker Committee Chairman, Alhaji Mohammed Imam.
In all the places they visited, the governor's wife spent time to interact with the mothers and the children where she would also emphasise the importance of the polio vaccine before administering it on the children.
According to her Press Secretary, Mrs. Nancy Brian Mbaya, the areas visited included Lawan Bukar, Lamisula Ward and Gwange II Ward which are located within the Maiduguri metropolis.
Addressing the people, the MMC boss said they should disregard the negative reports about the vaccines. He said, if truly the Western world was interested in wiping out or reducing the population of the North as claimed by the antagonists, they (Western world) would have used other means to do it quietly.
He appealed to the people to seize the opportunity provided by the exercise and get their children protected against the deadly polio virus, adding that prevention was better than cure.
Mrs. Watila described Hajia Fatima Sheriff's personal participation in the exercise as a way of encouraging the mothers to allow their children to be immunised.
While lending her voice to the safety of the vaccines, she noted that as a caring mother, the wife of the governor would never allow children in the state to be subjected to any harmful or inhuman treatment.