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Polio crisis: Atiku�s
maneuvers
By Hamza
Mailafiya
No issue in
recent memory has been attended by scary passions and potentially
dangerous consequences for our innocent children like the maelstrom of
polio controversy, which had almost grounded the national immunisation
programme to a halt. Steadily, however, reason seems to be returning to
our heads, after being lost in the cacophony of prejudice, ignorance, and
sometimes, sheer mischief that surrounded the safety of polio vaccines.
This is so, because when emotion is on the throne, reason takes a retreat
through the window! Such was the intensity of passion that attended the
polio controversy.
Northern Nigeria, where there is a
pronounced prevalence of poliomyelitis, appears to be the storm centre of
the controversy that attended the safety of polio vaccines. As the
controversy was raging, and as the disputing parties hardened their
positions, one man that found himself in a political dilemma is
Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. As a key figure in the Obasanjo
Administration, which has been ardently pursuing immunisation programmes
across the country, including the north where polio is ravaging the future
of our innocent children, the Vice-President could not have found himself
in a more embarrassed situation as a result of the knotty issue of polio
vaccines safety.
Since northern Nigeria has a
pronounced prevalence of polio, the controversy was a litmus test for the
political skill, diplomatic finesse and crisis management aptitude of
Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. Working silently, yet sagaciously, the
Vice-President mobilised all the northern stakeholders to confront an
issue, which if left unchecked, could blow away not only the quality of
life, but also the future of our children, who are mainly the target of
polio viral offensive! The viral infection does not spare the children
because of their age or innocence. The reality of the disease and its
consequences is chillingly beyond dispute.
It is pleasing, however, to note
that the behind-the-scenes efforts by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and
other northern opinion leaders have borne fruits. The rapidly changing
attitude towards the safety of polio vaccines, in spite of negligible
pockets of resistance to immunisation in certain areas of the north,
arising from deep-seated prejudice, is a tribute to the Vice-President�s
political sagacity in defusing a medical time bomb, ticking slowly but
dangerously, threatening to blow up our children! The mobilisation of
elders, Islamic scholars, traditional rulers and other northern opinion
leaders to stem a viral maelstrom of poliomyelitis, threatening to swallow
up our kids, was one of the unseen efforts of Abubakar so save a key
public health issue from mortal threat.
Despite isolated pockets of
resistance to the periodic national immunisation programme, the exercise
is now becoming largely successful in the north. With resistance to polio
immunisation coming from his constituency, the issue is undoubtedly one of
the most challenging moments for Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, because of
his unique position in the Obasanjo administration, especially when the
polio controversy erupted like a violent volcano in his northern political
base.
Rather than watching the unfolding
drama with detachment or a posture of self-pity, the Vice-President
aggressively threw his weight behind the President, the Federal Ministry
of Health and the NPI to deliver his people from a potentially dangerous
controversy. Behaving like a compassionate leader, who does not only limit
his affection to his own offspring, but also to millions of other ordinary
Nigerian children potentially at risk, Atiku Abubakar quietly drew himself
aggressively into the efforts to find a sensible outcome from this
deleterious polio controversy.
Thank God, attitudes are today
changing positively in favour of polio immunisation by northern parents.
Because poliomyelitis strikes its victims, regardless of the ethnicity and
religion of their parents, or even their geographical area of the country,
concerned political leaders from the north, like the Vice-President, have
found it a moral duty to work on all cylinders to ensure that the
healthcare programme of the Obasanjo administration
succeeds.
With the World Health
Organization (WHO) threatening at one stage to withdraw from supporting
polio immunisation with its hard-earned dollars, Atiku Abubakar and
northern stakeholders had to move fast to roll back a potential health
crisis for northern Nigeria, one of the areas of West Africa where
poliomyelitis is inflicting a relatively large-scale damage on the future
health of our dear children.
The decision by the Kano State
government to participate once again, in such a critical social programme
it previously boycotted, is a significant development since the polio
controversy hit the nation like a devastating earthquake, whose Richter
Scale could have been impossible to gauge. The personal zeal with which
Vice-President Atiku Abubakar threw himself into the task of reversing the
damage the rejection of polio immunisation was causing northern Nigeria
has wowed many of those who misread him either as a novice or someone more
concerned about an egotistic welfare. In fact, those close to Aso Rock
testify that, if there was any issue that ever gave Atiku Abubakar real
migraine, it was the polio controversy. His political ambition paled into
insignificance as he pondered over the fate that awaited northern children
if the polio controversy was let go to take its devastating toll on the
north, his primary constituency.
According to sources, Atiku
Abubakar felt that the polio vaccination crisis was not an issue for which
anyone could seek to make political capital out of. Instead, he approached
the issue with a dispassionate, temperate and non-partisan fashion,
informing northern stakeholders that what is at stake is the future of
northern children, and playing politics with the issue is unwise.
Humbled and sobered by the fact
that polio is real and capable enough to inflict devastation on the
physical health of our children, northern stakeholders buried their
differences and joined the silent initiative by the Vice-President to
reverse the damage already done by anti-polio vaccination controversy.
Having carefully followed the polio controversy and assessed the role of
Atiku Abubakar in this political challenge of his life, one is convinced
that the man deserves some accolades for helping his people to see reason,
thereby saving millions of children from avoidable deformity or even
death.
Mailafiya wrote in from
Katsina State
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