Elder Statesman and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark and members of his family on Monday received the first dose of the AstraZeneca jab in their Asokoro, Abuja home.
Dr Iwot Akpan, Acting Executive Secretary, FCT Primary Healthcare Board, administered the vaccine to Clark and family
He told newsmen shortly after receiving the vaccine that he did it publicly “to demonstrate to people that the vaccine is safe.”
According to him: “I have taken it and I’m appealing to every Nigerian that this is the occasion to take it.
“When they said the vaccines were coming, there were a lot of arguments everywhere some said don’t take Johnson and Johnson; don’t take the one from America; the temperature will not be cold enough.
“I said which ever you bring to this country I will take it.
“If there is no good health, don’t neglect good health; it will affect the economy of the country.
“We are lucky. Countries are paying so much money. Some have gone down to the level for the next 40 years they may not recover from it.
“Luckily, we are not at that level. The Ebola, some of these things that happened before in this country, we have been very good in treating them.”
He took the opportunity of the occasion to plead with Nigerians to unite and fight the menace of insecurity.
Read him: “I pray that all Nigerians in similar ways, come together to solve the problem of security in this country.
“We can do it. Once we put our hands together, no one man can do it alone. All of us should put our heads together because we have no other country to go to.”
Dr Akpan said that the FCT Health Board was driving the process of vaccinating the populace in FCT to ensure that the target groups that needed the vaccine had access to it.
According to him: “The target for FCT in 2021 is one million that is 40 per cent of the population that is supposed to be vaccinated this year.
“Next year we have 30 per of the population. For 2021 and 2022, we expect to vaccinate 70 per cent of the target population.”
Akpan further said that the first dose wasn’t just enough if the second dose was not taken.
He stated: “So the essence of appropriate registration is to enable one complete the cycle and be fully immunised so that you can now live very free life that one won’t be scared of CoronaVirus.”
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