The Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman, Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, Monday alerted Nigerians to the existence of a black market for vaccination certificate procurement in the country. He spoke in Abuja at the briefing of the committee:
“We’ve received intelligence and even detected that some unscrupulous citizens are procuring vaccination cards through the black market. Let me assure everyone that the vaccination records/certificates will be verified and this should serve as a warning to those criminally-minded persons to desist because they will be prosecuted accordingly,” Mustapha said.
He, however, assured that no vaccination certificate illegally procured would scale scrutiny whenever the need arises as all vaccination records had to be verified as authentic at every relevant points.
He also said that arrangements were in place to vaccinate 50 percent of Nigerians by the end of January 2022.
Speaking on recent developments around the COVID-19 pandemic locally and internationally, Mustapha noted the need for greater caution as the virus’ spread is not slowing down, but getting rather more virulent in some places.
He, however, assured Nigerians that the vaccination process was being accelerated as arrangements were being perfected for a mass roll-out of vaccines from Friday, November 20, 2021, with a target of achieving the vaccination of about 50 percent of the population by the end of January next year.
He said to mark the end of its nine months mandate, the PSC was planning a national summit to end COVID-19 in 2022 thereby strengthening global health security. The SGF said the summit would hold between December 6 and 8, 2021.