Barometer
If the recent comments by the chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, are anything to go by, then the federal government is once again prepared to give in to its dependency on the acquisition of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in the United Kingdom. While addressing the press on plans to acquire the vaccine, the PTF was manifestly silent on whether Nigeria was developing its own vaccine, giving the impression that they were not working on a vaccine but were instead more interested in paying to be spoonfed.
While there is no harm in purchasing the vaccine, especially seeing as it has recorded a 95% success rate, the worrisome thing about the affair is that Nigeria, despite its abundance of herbal and medicinal resources, cannot provide evidence that it concerned itself with the development of the vaccine. If the country did, select agents of the presidency would have blown their trumpets very loudly. Where the rest of the advanced world was in a race to develop the vaccine, Nigeria seems set to enter the race to acquire the vaccine. This is premium consumer behaviour. The same sort of behaviour was evident in the presidency’s scandalous announcement that the country would begin to procure its refined oil from neighbouring Niger Republic. That the presidency did not see anything wrong in claiming that the country was broke and in an economic recession, but was still open to importing what could be locally refined, underlines the irredeemable improvidence of the federal government.
Leave a Reply