Meningitis: Omokri Calls For Governor Yari’s Resignation
By Oladapo Okeowo
Reno Omokri, US-based pastor and former media aide to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has waded into the issue surrounding statements attributed to Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state.
The governor in a statement described the current meningitis outbreak as God’s way of punishing Nigerians for fornication.
The governor said: “People have turned away from God and he has promised that ‘if you do anyhow, you see anyhow’ that is just the cause of this outbreak as far as I am concerned. There is no way fornication will be so rampant and God will not send a disease that cannot be cured.”
Nigeria is currently battling a new strain of meningitis, Type C, which is spreading due to a slow response and also unavailability of vaccines at the start of the outbreak.
In an article, Omokri posted his reply and thoughts on the utterances of the Zamfara governor. He asked the governor to state what sin is responsible for President Buhari’s illness.
He described the words of the governor as not “only silly and nonsensical, it is also blatantly untrue” and “outlandish”.
“First of all, it is not true for that there is no vaccine against meningitis C. There is one and it has existed for almost two decades.”
Omokri pointed to the 1999 vaccination of children in the United Kingdom against meningitis C as proof of the availability of the cure to the disease.
“When the Ebola Virus struck in Nigeria in 2014, the Goodluck Jonathan administration wasted no time in mobilising against the disease alongside the affected state governments,” he said. Going on to lambast what he described as the APC government response to the epidemic which consists of praying and hoping it passes over.
“If Nigerian Governors have any shame left, they will ask Governor Abdulaziz Yari to step down as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum. What type of leadership can he provide for the NGF? Over 200 people died from meningitis in his state and he is blaming the sin of fornication?”
“This is a man who boasted of spending ₦1 billion in 2013 to host a Qur’anic Memorisation Competition, at that time equivalent to $7 million. If he had used that money to pay for meningitis C vaccines for the people of Zamfara, at least 200 of them would have still been alive to memorise the Qur’an today! That is the real sin that causes meningitis, not the sin of fornication.”
The meningitis outbreak, in his opinion, is a function of failed leadership and not any sins committed.
