Prof. Oyewale Tomori, a renowned Professor of virology,
has blamed politics and policy inconsistency for destroying vaccine initiatives in Nigeria making the nation to be more dependent on the Western country.
Tomori stated this while responding to questions concerning Africa’s over dependency on Western countries on covid-19 vaccines production.
He said “let me say that Africa is responsible for its own state of affairs; it is not the fault of the Western Nations or any other group of people. The talents are there in Africa, it is just that the environment for the talents to function is not there and that is because of politics.
“It is the failure of scientists to get involved in the politics, am not saying, scientists should carry placards but to get involved in the discussion of how to make our society better, scientists must continuously get engaged in broader conversations on how to improve our society, the leaders themselves get the brunt of all the failures.
“Nigeria is involved in production of Vaccines, the animal Vaccines produced from the National Veterinary Institute, VOM, in Jos, Plateau since 1924 and they are still producing, also on the human side, Nigeria started production of Vaccines but politics destroyed all of these. So the human capacity is there but the lack of creating the enabling environment and policies is a problem that has to be addressed.
“I mean that there are certain things that need to be in place for Vaccines production to be scaled up, for instance the enabling environment, issue of consistent policies. There is no way you can talk about doing good research without regular electricity and water supplies. There are basic things other countries do to ensure that their scientists keep working.
“Again, the issues of importation of equipment for research, if we are serious about research, the politicians will remove duties on material coming in for scientific research. No single country can produce everything it needs. But we should produce something, we talk about producing the Vaccines in Africa, lets even talk about producing the containers for storing the Vaccines, that is petrochemical not Vaccines, so there are so many aspect s of production that we can engage in Africa.
“Even take the issues of Syringe, we are depending on the West, so as scientists we need to gather together to have a conversation with the government on how to organize ourselves to respond to some of these things.
“In some other African countries, there are issues of policy inconsistencies; there is no sustainability so Africa’s current position is the fault of the political leadership. But now, the COVID pandemic presents an opportunity to forge ahead and learn from our mistakes, make corrections and move forward”.
