No One Should Be Forced To Use Coronavirus Vaccines – Sultan of Sokoto

The Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alh. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III has come out to say that Nigerians cannot be forced to use coronavirus vaccines.

He recently revealed this while speaking at a sensitisation programme on COVID-19 for Muslim scholars and imams in Nigeria which held in Abuja.

According to him, Nigerians would not be stampeded into accepting the vaccine, but they can definitely be convinced into using it via adequate knowledge and information about it.

He added that leaders want to be in charge of healthy communities, so his domain cannot be excluded.

His words, “What we take away from this interactive session is so important,because it will help us convince the people of the need to take the COVID-19 vaccine or not. I believe we cannot force people to take vaccines.”

“When the Almighty Allah brought me to this position in 2006, we had very serious cases of polio in Nigeria.”

“The then Minister of Health, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, approached me that he wants to use traditional rulers to sensitise the people. I said, ‘It’s okay… we want to see healthy communities.”

“That was how we picked a senior traditional rulerfrom each of the 19 Northern states and the FCT, and set up the Northern Traditional Rulers Committee on Polio. It was the work of that committee that was able to give us the polio-free certification after 13 years.”

“Such is the importance of traditional leaders. But traditional rulers cannot do much without religious leaders. Any monarch who is not close to religious leaders is not a good leader. A collaboration between the traditional and religious institutions gave us the victory over polio not coercion.’’

“People talk of conspiracy theories such as that the COVID-19 vaccine is meant to kill us. But my take is that if a vaccine was meant to kill us, will anybody wait for the COVID-19 vaccine before killing us? We have been consuming soft drinks and other medicines that are imported into the country. If any foreigner wants to kill us, there are more than a million ways to do so.”

“The vaccines are free. You are not going to pay for it. But to take it is your choice. How? You have to find out the truth about the vaccine yourself. How do you find out the truth? By seeking knowledge. How? By communicating with the right people.”