THE CASE AGAINST MANDATORY COVID VACCINATION IN NIGERIA - I Pre-amble

 I. PREAMBLE

The Nigerian COVID Response Alliance is a wholly-indigenous movement formed to monitor the official response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria; and ensure that the response remains within the ambit of fundamental human rights. We have previously clarified that our grouse is not with vaccines themselves, but their being blindly mandated for everybody without due comprehensive and holistic risk-benefit considerations for both individuals and society as a whole.  In June 2020, we saw in the proposed amendment to the Control of Infectious Diseases Act, a dastardly attempt to foist mandatory vaccination on Nigerians with grim implications both for basic freedom and public health.  We also foresaw a more grievous scenario following, as nanobots, already developed but currently held in abeyance, are unceremoniously deployed once mandatory vaccination has been established and accepted.  All these portend a truly fearful future for both us and our children!  We consequently submitted a Memorandum to the House of Representatives to plug the potential pitfalls in the Bill.  We also followed up with Press Releases and advertorial in the national Press to alert the nation.

Although many considered our warnings as somewhat far-fetched, the scenarios we described are now fast turning into incredible reality right before us!  Circumventing the National Assembly, the Executives at State and Federal levels are now mandating the exact policies which the Legislature had stepped down for further considerations in response to vociferous public outcries.  To do this, the executive arm of government conveniently resorted to using emergency “interventionist outfits”, such as the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19, to dish out decrees not in any way backed by the Nigerian Constitution. The unjustifiable outrageous mandating of COVID vaccination which began surreptitiously at the National Sports Festival (Edo 2021)  has now reached all employees of the Federal Government, overflowed to members of the National Youth Service Corp scheme, and is currently indirectly threatening teenagers with announcements by JAMB that the mandates will be enforced at her facilities as fully as possible. The heat is also being put on employees at the Local Government levels; and at press time, indications have emerged of government attempting to conflate COVID and childhood vaccines which could potentially see day-olds (presumably, “accidentally”) receiving COVID vaccines!

While States such as Edo, Ondo, and Osun are warmly embracing the unconstitutional mandates, thankfully others (including Abia, Bauchi, Cross River, Enugu, Ogun, and Taraba), have reportedly clearly distanced themselves from such abject illegalities.  However, as at the time of compiling this Paper, the House of Representatives, on its last plenary day in 2021 reportedly passed the amendment to the Control of Infectious Diseases Act; but surprisingly, the contents of the new Bill which has been forwarded to the Senate for concurrence, is unavailable for the general public to view!

With this Position Paper, we wish to document for the attention of the Nigerian public, basic facts concerning these unprecedented momentous events unfolding around us; and urge that we all, as a matter of duty (at least to our children), pay closer attention to them than we might have done hitherto.  We insist, and show in this Paper, that mandatory COVID vaccination has absolutely no merit neither on the basis of Ethics and Law, nor that of sound Science and Logic.  Furthermore other social-economic realities demand that all Nigerians, irrespective of their vaccination status, should urgently rise to resist this looming evil.