Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister of Health, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, to ensure equitable access, human rights, transparency and accountability in the distribution of the vaccines.
SERAP stated this while reacting to the arrival of 3.92 million #COVID19 vaccine doses in the country on Tuesday.
The group also urged the Federal and State governments to publicly and widely make available all spending details on COVID-19.
SERAP further stated that it would use the Freedom of Information requests to Nigerian authorities to ensure transparency and accountability around COVID-19 spending and distribution.
“Nigerian authorities must disclose and widely publish including online details on the delivery and distribution of #COVID19 vaccine doses.
“Nigerians need to know the details including on the costs and logistics of distribution so that they can hold governments and public officials to account for the country’s constitutional and international human rights and anti-corruption obligations.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is a major public health and human rights crisis in the country today. Vaccines should not be distributed on the basis of people’s political and economic power or influence.
“Nigerian authorities at both the Federal and State levels must ensure that everyone enjoys equal access to the vaccines within the shortest possible time, consistent with the principles of human rights, transparency and accountability, including access to essential medicines,” SERAP said.
The group promised to challenge any blanket mandatory imposition of vaccine policies on the people.
The group called on the authorities to ensure that vaccination was voluntary wherever and whenever possible, adding that any policy on COVID-19 vaccines must be entirely consistent with human rights standards.
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