COVID-19: Proliferation of misinformation videos responsible for rejections of vaccination –Prof.  Umara

AHMED MARI, Maiduguri

Professor Ibrahim Umar of the Department of Political Science, University of Maiduguri said “the proliferation of distorted video clips and test have resulted into misinformation has resulted into the misperception that made people not to accept the COVID 19 vaccines”.

  Professor Ibrahim Umara, who is also an Islamic scholar, stated this while presenting a paper on “Narrative against COVID  19,: Islamic perspectives”, held at the Malaysia Hall of the  Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri on Friday.

He said:  “Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said If it happens an outbreak of disease is reported in any community, do not go in and those who are there should not go out”

“Everywhere in the world, there are controversies surrounding COVID 19, both in developed and developing nations,. This is because we are from different social and cultural settings, perspectives, ideologies and values. The issue surrounding the COVID 19 was as a result of the proliferation of what I  called “Social Media Maniacs”, where people post video clips and text that deliberately misled and distort the reality of a particular virus, as well as the motive and intention of the vaccination process”, Prof. Umara said.

He added: “The misperception about the vaccine has resulted in misinformation that made people not to accept the vaccines. Government at all levels, traditional and religious leaders should try to correct the misinformation by providing proper information to ensure that this misinformation is countered”.

 Prof. Umara further stated that the developed world through the WHO had spent $800 billion to develop the vaccines, which Nigeria and other developing nations don’t have the capacity to develop neither do they have the capacity to test the variant.

 He, therefore,  called on the political, traditional and religious leaders to receive the vaccine doses before the camera so that their followers would believe that the vaccines are safe and that they are not only preaching or campaigning for alone “.

In his address, the Head of Project, CDD, Mr. Allison Timipre, said: “This project is part of our efforts to sensitize the public on the importance of being vaccinated. From our study, before we conceived this project, we realized that there are doubts and misinformation about the COVID-19 virus and most of this misinformation, unfortunately, were coming from religious leaders. We felt that we should gather you here to sit down with professionals so that you will express your views and ask questions so that you would go back well informed and help convince your followers to accept the vaccination”.

“Here we have religious leaders both Islamic and Christian clerics for the North East campaign. The national campaign is being carried out in. Abuja, This programme is aimed at correcting the misperception connected to the COVID-19, so that more people should accept the vaccination for the society to be safe”, he stressed.

He urged more people to come out to.be vaccinated, as, according to him, it is only when the nation recorded high number of vaccination that will be allowed to get more vaccines.

Also in his paper, the representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Abraham Akporve, called for equitable distribution of the vaccines among the society, especially those with terminal ailments and the disabled.

” Government should also make the vaccines available at all public places such as markets, schools, mosques and churches, to enable more people have access to the vaccines, a situation where vaccines are only available at health facilities and sometimes hard to access will hinder the rate of the vaccination”, he explained.

In his goodwill message, the representative of the traditional institutions, Alh. Abba Yerwama, identified what made people not to accept the vaccines as mistrust.

Yerwama said many people didn’t believe in the existence of the virus, adding that religious beliefs and insensitivity of religions, traditional and political leaders further led to misconception and misunderstanding of the pandemic, calling on the governments to carry out more sensitization campaigns.

For  a better society