News
Oyo govt kicks off COVID-19 vaccination
….Makinde, SSG, others vaccinated
Oyo State governor, ‘Seyi Makinde, the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs. Olubamiwo Adeosun, other government functionaries and frontline health workers, yesterday received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Governor Makinde, who was the first to receive the jab, said that he was convinced the vaccine was safe and without side effects for human beings.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, indicated that the vaccines were administered by the Executive Secretary, Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Muideen Olatunji, at the Executive Council Chamber of the Governor’s Office, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.
The process was witnessed by representatives of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Nigeria Dental and Medical Association.
Speaking after receiving the vaccine, Governor Makinde enjoined residents of the state to have confidence in the process and pledged that the state would continue to monitor the process for necessary actions.
The governor noted that the sterility tests carried out on the COVID-19 vaccine by two laboratories in Ibadan confirmed its safety.
He, therefore, appealed to residents of the state not to doubt the vaccines.
He said: “I did not want to take the vaccine because naturally, I have a very low tolerance for physical pains; but when duty calls, we have to do what we have to do.
Oyo SSG, Mrs. Adeosun receiving her COVID-19 jab
“I think we have to show leadership. We have to let the people know that they are protected. When I was reading the newspaper this morning, I saw where they said Oyo State has not given a single shot of the vaccine. So, they recorded zero for Oyo State. But now we have at least one.”
He further explained that the state embarked on sterility tests to enable it to confirm the safety of the vaccines for all.
“We did it because when I asked questions about the origin of the vaccine, they said the jabs that came to Nigeria were sent from India. Not that I don’t like India, or I don’t believe in their products, but the handling. They said this thing should be stored at a certain temperature, I wanted to validate that the vaccine we will give to the people of Oyo State has been correctly handled.
“We have our two labs here, the Virology Lab and the Bio-repository Lab, and they all came with the same results that the vaccine is good and proper for the consumption of the people of Oyo State; and it didn’t take me 24 hours after that to set and agree to come for this vaccination.
“So, on this note, I want to thank our international partners and also the health family in Oyo State. You have risen to the occasion, you have always been there, doing your work. The COVID-19 was better handled in Oyo State compared to most states in Nigeria.
“I also remember the first meeting even before this vaccination. We were discussing online registration. In Oyo State, we rightly pointed out that there are data that should be available on the online platform. And we said if the people at the national level have designed their own and we feel it wasn’t adequate, we decided to design our own local one and it didn’t take 24 hours before the national (Task Force) copied Oyo State and they upgraded their own.
“So, we will continue to set the pace here in Oyo State and I want to, on this note, let our people know that the process is open, simple. You don’t have to bribe anyone to get vaccinated and we will continue to monitor the process.
“127,000 is nothing when you compare it with the number of people we have to vaccinate in Oyo State. But we will continue getting whatever has been given and where we need to augment and go on our own to buy, we will do it when we get to that point.
“So, have confidence in the process, have confidence in your government, and have confidence in your health family in Oyo State.”
In his remarks, the state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Bashir Bello, stated that the vaccines were kept at the required temperature in a bid to ensure that they are safe for human consumption.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary, Primary Health Care Board, Dr. Muideen Olatunji, appreciated Governor Makinde for his tenacity in seeking quality health care service for the citizens of the state.
According to him, “we want to appreciate the governor for his tenacity in seeking quality health care service for the citizens of the state. We are all aware that since 2019, we faced the pandemic of COVID-19 and it ravaged everywhere in the world.
“Luckily, towards the end of last year, we started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine we can take to protect all of us. Let me state clearly, the vaccine is not a drug for curing the disease but meant to protect us against the disease, and the only instrument the vaccine will use is the body itself.
“This is a new vaccine and a new disease. Health workers need to be trained. Every person will get two doses. The first dose is to prime you and the second dose will act as a booster to confer immunity on us.
“We are encouraging every person to do online registration and we are going to do manual data capturing as both are going to be synergized. After the vaccination, we will issue a card that will have a barcode. The barcode will be scanned and we are going to load it to a central server for the entire country.
“So, whether you like it or not, the day you want to leave the country and travel, you will be compelled to vaccinate. We implore people to have trust in the process.”
Dangote Petroleum Refinery has made headlines by announcing a further reduction in the price of diesel, dropping it from ₦1200 to ₦1000 naira per litre.
The refinery’s decision comes on the heels of its recent supply at a significantly reduced price of ₦1200 per litre, which was introduced three weeks ago, signifying a remarkable 30 per cent decrease from the previous market price of approximately ₦1600 per litre.
This substantial reduction in diesel prices at Dangote Petroleum Refinery is expected to reiterate positively throughout various sectors of the economy, potentially serving as a catalyst in alleviating the persistently high inflation rate in the country.
In a statement last week, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest individual and the owner of the refinery, expressed his optimism regarding the potential impact of the price reduction on inflation in Nigeria.
“I believe that we are on the right track. I believe Nigerians have been patient, and I also believe that a lot of goodies will now come through. There’s quite a lot of improvement because if you look at it, one of the major issues that we’ve had was the naira devaluation that has gone very aggressively up to about ₦1900,” he remarked.
As anticipation builds around the implications of this move by Dangote Petroleum Refinery, stakeholders and consumers alike remain hopeful for the positive effects it could bring to the Nigerian economy in the coming months.
More than 50,000 Russian military personnel have died during the Ukraine conflict, the BBC reported Wednesday, citing its own reporters, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers.
They found that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died during the second year of the war, a 25-percent increase on the first year.
BBC Russian, Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022, using open-source information from official reports and the media, as well as using satellite images of Russian cemeteries to estimate the number of new graves.
The figure of more than 50,000 is eight times higher than the official toll acknowledged by Moscow in September 2022. It does not include deaths of militia in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said in February that it had lost 31,000 soldiers, but that figure is also likely to be significantly lower than the true toll.
Russian losses spiked in January 2023 as it launched a large-scale offensive in Donetsk and again months later last year during the battle for the city of Bakhmut.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” at dawn on February 24, 2022, which has since turned into a bloody and attritional war, isolating Russia from the Western world.
Responding to the report, the Kremlin said it did not disclose any information on military deaths and casualties, which falls under the remit of the defence ministry.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added official secrets laws and those covering what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine meant it was “absolutely understandable” that the ministry did not release the figures.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that 95 million Nigerians need to enroll for the National Identification Number (NIN) to meet its target of 200 million enrollments by 2025.
Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC, emphasised the importance of this enrollment during an interview on X over the weekend.
He stated, “For NIMC to meet the 200 million target by 2025, 95 million Nigerians need to register for the NIN.”
Adegoke revealed that over 105 million NINs have been issued to Nigerians and legal residents so far.
He assured Nigerians of the commission’s commitment, saying, “We want to assure Nigerians that within the next one or two years, we will reach our target of enrolling all Nigerians.”
“The NIN serves as a unique identifier for each citizen and has become increasingly important for various government initiatives aimed at improving security, governance, and service delivery.”
Adegoke highlighted the efforts to streamline the modification and enrollment processes under the leadership of Abisoye Coker, the director-general of NIMC. He announced the development of a self-service platform, allowing Nigerians to make necessary modifications such as changing names, dates of birth, email addresses, and phone numbers from anywhere, using different devices.
Emphasising the convenience of the self-service modification portal, Adegoke encouraged Nigerians to utilize this innovative solution.
He noted the evolution of the process, citing the past requirement for applicants to visit NIMC offices for data corrections.
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