Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, has maintained his indifference to matters around COVID-19 pandemic, despite the efforts of the Federal Governnent to curtail the impact of the dreadful virus on Nigerians.
Bello on Friday said he would not take COVID-19 vaccine.
His position runs against the plan of the Federal Government to encourage Nigerians to embrace the vaccine, which is essential in the fight against the pandemic.
The governnent is said to be arranging for President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to take the vaccine in the national television as a way of encouraging acceptance of the vaccine by ordinary Nigerians.
“I am hale and hearty”, Bello declared.
The governor, in an interview on Channels TV’s ‘Today Politics’, said President Muhammadu Buhari could take the vaccine, but that would not change his disposition towards the vaccine.
“Mr President is the leader of this country. I respect him so high; all of us respect him so much. We love him and he is leading by example. If he needs to take the vaccines and he takes it, it is a welcome development.
“As far as I am concerned, I as a person, I don’t need to take vaccines. There is nothing wrong with me, I am hale and hearty. I am 100 per cent healthy. I won’t take any vaccine,” he said.
Bello stated that COVID-19 is not the business of people in Kogi State, saying that the state had more pertinent issues and more pertinent matters that it was attending to in Kogi State.
Recall that Bello resisted members of the the Nigeria Centre for Drug Control from their enumeration of COVID-19 cases in Kogi State during thd peak of the pandemic in 2020.
He maintained that the state did not have any cases of infected persons, even when the NCDC figures show otherwise.
Bello said that he was more comcered about insecurity in the stat which his is tackling, among several other challenges.
According to him, “Disunity, we met on ground and we have united Kogi State today not COVID-19. COVID-19 is just a minute aspect of what we are treating or handling in Kogi State; there have been outbreaks of Lassa Fever and Yellow Fever and those were handled without making noise about it.
“The last Yellow Fever (outbreak), we vaccinated out people against Yellow Fever, we encouraged them, we educated them and they felt the impact. ”
The governor however said if the Federal Government would be gracious enough and give Kogi COVID-19 vaccines, he would not hesitate to sensitise its people.
He said that those who wished to come and take the vaccine could come and take it.
As per Bello, “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. ”
