Intelligent As The Giraffe

VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA

I have a cheering View From the Gallery for you this morning. It is this: don’t be dispirited too much by Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad’s mournful statement three days ago, that too many Nigerians are reluctant to present themselves for COVID vaccination due to “lack of trust.” The Sultan didn’t say so but Nigerians apparently distrust the Presidential COVID committee, World Health Organisation, all medical experts, giant pharmaceutical firms, patent medicine stores and billionaire do-good philanthropists.

The Sultan’s statement, at the 2021 4th quarter review meeting of Northern Traditional Leaders Committee [NTLC] on Primary Health Care Delivery in Abuja, expressed disappointment that despite repeated assurances by medical experts and government officials, too many Nigerians have not come forward to receive one Covid vaccine dose, not to mention two doses, before we even get to the matter of booster shots which began last week.

However, I have uncovered evidence that Nigeria is not doing too badly in COVID vaccination rate compared to some other countries in the world. The question you may hurry to ask is: which countries are those?

I scrambled to take a look at the New York Times’ Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations around the world, which it compiles from government figures and updates regularly. The figures are not too bad, worldwide, because as at yesterday, 4.46 billion people or 58.1% of the world’s population have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose. The devil however is in the breakdown.

Some countries have achieved very high vaccination rates. 92% of all UAE citizens, 89% of the people of Brunei and 83% of all Cubans have received the full dose, these being serious, uncynical and scientifically-minded peoples. There are no reports that any of these vaccine guinea pigs are falling to the ground like autumn leaves, as many Nigerians expect to hear. When the aviation spat between Nigeria and UAE ends, hopefully soon, thousands of Nigerians will resume their shopping and medical trips to Dubai and will enjoy the safety of a nearly fully vaccinated population, which they refuse to do at home.

Other countries are hot on the heels of those top three. Mainland China, for example, where the whole Covid trouble started, has an 83% full vaccination rate. This shows that the Communist Party of China is weak these days. In the days of Chairman Mao, one poetic admonition from the Great Helmsman, and the country will achieve 100% success rate within days.

83% of Singaporeans, 81% of South Koreans, 80% of Spaniards, 80% of Malaysians, 78% of Canadians and 79% of Qataris were fully vaccinated as at yesterday. Many Nigerians will roll their eyes in disbelief and say that these people do not love their lives or do not care for their reproductive ability, as if libido has taken us very far in this world.

As I said earlier, Nigeria has not done badly because a full 2% of Nigerians have received the full Covid vaccine dose. This very high success rate puts us in the same bracket as Niger Republic and Madagascar, both at 2% each. Remember that Madagascar invented the first all-African herbal drug for Covid, a sample of which Nigeria collected but we are yet to hear what Ministry of Health did with it. Nigeria’s vaccination success rate is only slightly behind Djibouti, with 2.7%. We are within shouting distance of Uganda, which has 2.9%. Nigeria is also ahead of many African countries including Tanzania, 1.9%; Burkina Faso, 1.6%; Mali, 1.7%; South Sudan, 1.6%; Ethiopia, 1.3%; Guinea Bissau, 1.1%;Chad, 0.1%; Congo, 0.1% and Burundi, less than 0.1%. Tanzania’s success rate must be credited to its late President Magafuli, who did not believe there is Covid.

Not only in Africa; we actually beat some non-African countries hands down in Covid vaccination rate. Among those we beat are Yemen with 1.3% and Haiti, 0.6%. Some of those countries will try to give excuses. Yemen will attribute its 1.3% vaccination rate to civil war and the world’s worst humanitarian situation, while Haiti will claim that its president was assassinated, shortly followed by a devastating earthquake.

The African nations that we beat in vaccination rate are also fond of creating excuses. South Sudan will claim that it is the world’s newest country and is ravaged by war. Nor should we accept Chad’s excuse that rebels killed its very dynamic president Idris Deby Itno, who would have led the vaccination war from the front. Even Ethiopia’s plea that Tigrean rebels are advancing on Addis Ababa is not a good reason.

Nigeria has really shown good leadership in this matter. We are like the giraffe among hoofed animals. Readers’ Digest once stated in an article about the giraffe that “it is the most intelligent among the animals with hooves.” It however added, “This is not high praise, because the animals with hooves are the stupidest of all animals.”

African countries that claim higher vaccination figures than us should be subjected to forensic audit. Imagine Sudan with 2.9%, Cameroon claiming 2.4%, Malawi 3.4%, Sierra Leone 4.9%, Ghana 5.1%, Zambia 5.1%, Senegal 5.8%, Ivory Coast 5.9%, Kenya 6.6%, Benin Republic 9%, Gambia 9.7%and Togo 10%. How can we accept these figures as genuine? A Judicial Commission of Inquiry should be set up, preferably by Lagos State Government, to forensically examine the evidence from these countries. Alhaji Lai Mohammed should be on standby to examine the report before a white paper is issued.

Imagine Somalia, which has no government to speak of since Mohammed Siad Barre fled to Lagos in 1991, is claiming 4.3%.Syria says it has a 4.5% vaccination rate, even though debris from barrel bombs is yet to clear in Aleppo. What even annoys Nigerians most is Afghanistan, which is claiming a 9.4% success rate. Are we saying the Taliban is less ardent at defending its country’s religious purity than roadside Nigerian mosques?

Some countries that we Nigerians look up to provide leadership in health matters proved to be only slightly ahead of us in Covid vaccination rates. Russia, which is busy assembling troops on the Ukraine border, has 43%. Saudi Arabia, where every inch of the soil is awash in oil, has 67%. Pakistan, which impressed all Third World nations by building nukes in record time, has 27%. Egypt, our prime medical destination, has 18%. South Africa, which Nigerian traders regard as the African Green Pasture, has 27%. India, where Nigerians run to when every medical trick has failed, is at 39%. I am sure determination and seriousness has more to do with this than resources because West Bank and Gaza recorded a 30% vaccination rate.

The reason why we should not despair in this matter is that we Africans can always plead poverty, high illiteracy, insecurity, hoarding of vaccines by rich countries, poor medical facilities, quick expiry of vaccines and frequent strikes by health workers for our low vaccination rates. Other countries that lack similar excuses still failed to record impressive vaccination rates. Israel, which was busy producing Pegasus software, is at 64%; United Kingdom recorded only 70%; Germany is at 70%; France has 72%; Netherlands 74%; Italy 74%; Belgium 76%; Ireland 77%; Japan, highly industrialised as it is, has 78%. Wonder of wonders, USA is at 61%.

All these rich developed countries, what is their excuse? In the US at least, we know that pro-Trump right-wing America Firsters, fiscal, social and religious conservatives believe that the Liberal Establishment invented the Covid scare in order to destroy Trump’s presidency, steal the 2020 election, stop building the wall on Mexico’s border and allow Muslim jihadists to flood the country.

Here in Nigeria, what is our excuse? It is that the Covid vaccine was produced in record time, that it could be harmful, that some billionaires are profiting from it, and that it could contain a hidden anti-fertility agent. Very good. By the time you come down with high fever, rib-cracking cough and choking breathing problems, your family members distance themselves from you, you phone the Covid centre and there is no answer, you call for an ambulance and it has no fuel, you manage to reach isolation centre and there is no bed, you are gasping for air and the oxygen tanks are empty, all your pet theories of White conspiracy and Bill Gates profiteering will fall apart.