Although they live approximately 400km apart, Aliyu Usman and Moshood Babalola share many things in common—they are automobile repairers who both believe covid-19 is a “western creation” and strongly believe that the vaccine that is currently administered in Nigeria houses “micro-chips” that will prematurely send people to their graves.
The duo believe that it was only a matter of time for those who “took risk” of taking the vaccine to begin to reap its grave result. “We have many health challenges as a people in Nigeria, but the white-man never found it worthy to help us with vaccine, why are they interested on covid-19 when it has little or no effect on us,” said Moshood in reference to the speedy development of the coronavirus vaccine.
As for Aliyu, he expressed scepticism on account of the past experience “because here in Kano, Pfizer crippled many children with polio vaccine and their families are yet to be compensated despite overwhelming evidence that the company was complicit in administering fake vaccines.”
Aliyu’s claims that families of victims who died of the controversial drug trial were not compensated isn’t true, the pharmaceutical company paid compensation after a fifteen-year legal battle.
Aliyu argued that “western vaccines cannot be trusted when one looks at history”, he insists, adding; “where is a vaccine for HIV, Malaria and other serious illnesses that have crippled the continent for decades”, he interrogated.
Moshood, Aliyu many other Nigerians emboldened by dangerous tweets from politicians
Nigeria’s Covid-19 case was first reported on February 27th, when the Federal Ministry of Health in a statement said it had discovered an index case in the Nigerian commercial capital Lagos.
Not a few Nigerians share in the scepticism of Moshood and Aliyu regarding the coronavirus vaccine. These kinds of opinions derive from unverified public suggestions and assertions by public figures about the pandemic. These positions are consistently reinforced by influential and politically exposed individuals.
Described as Covid sceptics, specifically Femi Fani Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation and Dino Melaye, a former Senator, two influential politicians and social media active handles are among the voices that spread public misinformation about the pandemic as well as the vaccine. They have contributed strongly in feeding into the growing community of Covid-19 sceptics who believe the pandemic is artificially created to “depopulate the world.”
The extreme positions they took on covid-19 jabs have contributed to feeding into the colony of misinformation making the rounds in the country—at least surfing from the responses of their followers on Twitter.
Femi Fani Kayode
Fani Kayode, a former aviation minister in Nigeria is known for spreading misleading information not only about Covid-19 but also on a wide range of national and international issues. He’s a fan of Donald Trump, America’s former President who was suspended by Twitter for inciting violence.
Mr Kayode, with over 1.3m followers has been consistent in spreading misleading information about the Covid-19, an omen that keeps eliciting different reactions from his followers, most of whom endorsing and retweeting his posts.
For instance, on April, 19, 2020, he warned his followers to resist Covid-19 vaccines, “Say “no” to Covid 19 vaccine tests in Africa”, where he added a video that was purportedly shot from DR Congo.
In the video, which was viewed by over 18,000 people captures voices from the DRC warning Africans against taking the vaccines.
In another tweet, Fani Kayode likened Nigeria’s House of Representatives’ Infectious Disease Bill to Bill and Melinda Gates whom he had accused, without evidence of using vaccines to “depopulate” Africans.
Using Twitter advanced search, we have found that Fani Kayode has posted four different tweets that were retweeted by hundreds of his over 1.3 million followers. We had written lengthy articles warning Nigerians not to take the vaccine. Although Mr Kayode later rescinded and personally took the jabs, he had not apologized and withdrew his tweets for misleading many unsuspecting members of the public.
Dino Melaye
Melaye, a former Nigerian Senator in the 8th Assembly posted a video on December 16, 2020, of himself, warning Africans, particularly Nigerians not to accept covid-19 vaccines.
Mr Melaye argued that diseases such as the Human Immune Deficiency Syndrome, (HIV), Cancer and Malaria existed for decades, but their vaccines remain a challenge for the world.
“For 100 years now, we could not find a vaccine for cancer. For over 40 years, we are yet to find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, for over another 100 years research is still going on to find a vaccine for diabetes. How is it possible on earth is it possible that in one year, you find a vaccine for COVID-19?”
“I am calling on African leaders not to allow Africans to be used as guinea pigs by developed nations for their satanic reasons,” he said in the video.
“We say no to the application of any vaccine in Africa. We call on the minister of health of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately discontinue the interaction with those who want to give us vaccine”, Melaye argued.
Melaye had tweeted eight times about the vaccines; his tweets were retweeted several times and had found their way into mainstream news channels.
Politicians echoing populists’ views about covid, ignoring science
What is clear with politicians’ tweets about covid-19 in Nigeria such as Femi Fani Kayode and Dino Melaye is the glaring disavowal of scientific methods.
Aligning their thoughts with their political mentor, Donald Trump, Femi Fani Kayode and Dino Melaye “cherry-pick thoughts and aligned them with crisis of the moment in a very technical and mediated way such that they prickles into people’s emotion to attract relevance”, said Mr Nkem Ogbonna, Executive Director, Better Life Restoration Initiative, a local NGO.
Mr Ogbonna argued that, “populist such as FFK and Dino Melaye have the tendencies to make political capital out of the pandemic by aligning and pitting the masses against perceived enemies.”
He said populists look for a dislocation in a system to amplify, “and in our own context, the federal government has not help matters by not been consistent in helping to identify and debunk misleading information regarding the covid-19 pandemic.”
The politically exposed individuals in Nigeria queuing from their populist counterparts ignore all scientific evidence that the virus do exist and covid-19 vaccines would help inoculate the people, an omen Dr Mahmud Dan Asabe, a psychologist at the Federal University Gashua, Yobe State says is “characterized by poor judgment.”
This publication was produced as part of IWPR’s Africa Resilience Network (ARN) programme, administered in partnership with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), and Africa Uncensored. For more information on ARN, please visit the ARN site.
