A Nigerian cleric cum convener of the Apostolic Christianity Network, Moses Idowu has faulted the plan of the Federal Government to impose sanctions on those who refuse the Covid-19 vaccine when it is made available to all.
The cleric, at a recent press conference, in Lagos, said the government has no moral and legal rights to force citizens to get the vaccine.
Recall the Secretary to the Federal Government, Boss Mustapha in a media report that went viral on October 14, said “there will be compulsory Covid-19 vaccination for civil servants with effect from December 1, 2021”.
Reacting, Idowu said the government’s decision to make the vaccine compulsory for civil servants is, “wrong-headed, lawless and atrocious. It is a policy that is morally flawed, scientifically baseless, ethically unsound, and logically absurd”.
According to him, the damages and deaths caused by the virus as well as the collateral damages as a result of side effects owing to vaccination and medical practices are enough for the government to think through its policy.
“Austria is on lockdown presently to force the unvaccinated to get the jab. If the vaccine is a protection against the virus why do people who already got the vaccine be protected from the unvaccinated?
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“The State of Israel is fast closing in on a 100% vaccination rate yet it also has some of the highest rate of new infections. India, South Africa, Brazil, and the United Kingdom participated actively in the clinical trials toward the development of vaccines in 2019. Alas, it is in those countries that new and more virulent variants of the virus are now emerging.
“Germany is in the midst of the highest spread of covid-19 since December of last year. Yet Germany is the most challenging country in Europe for mitigation and mandates – the only country that has launched an offensive against those who are not vaccinated.”
He added; “80% of Germans adhere to the masking requirements at all times, higher than even US (60%). Germany also has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world (67%).
“In spite of all these, however, Germany’s new case rate has skyrocketed to levels never seen since the outbreak of pandemic; from 4,767,033/ day to 4,782,5468.”
He, however, urged the government to allow people to decide whether to have the vaccine or not adding that “the Nigerian Patient’s Bill of Rights launched by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo on July 31, 2018, provides for twelve basic rights for Nigerian Patients which include: “the right to decline care and the right to decline or participate or accept to participate in medical research”.
He argued that the government can’t stop people from their work on the basis of compulsory vaccination without “violating established laws and conventions. To deprive a man or woman of his livelihood or place him under threats for asserting his fundamental rights and bodily autonomy is not the way of medical science. It is medical tyranny. That is going the way of the Nazis, of naked outright fascistic state terrorism. But we know how and where the Nazis ended.”
In his closing remarks, the Apostle recommended divine healing as alternative medicine to cure COVID, citing the freedom of conscience and the right to practice religion and personal faith in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as another reason to object to compulsory vaccination