Villagers say no to anti-polio effort

Residents of Zabawa, a rural settlement in Giwa local government area of Kaduna state, are keenly  challengng a campaign to administer polio vaccines in the area. Vaccination workers administering anti-polio drops on children were driven away from the town on two separate occasions, thereby preventing the routine free immunization exercise being conducted, basically with a […]

Residents of Zabawa, a rural settlement in Giwa local government area of Kaduna state, are keenly  challengng a campaign to administer polio vaccines in the area. Vaccination workers administering anti-polio drops on children were driven away from the town on two separate occasions, thereby preventing the routine free immunization exercise being conducted, basically with a view to eradicating polio cases which were said to have resurfaced in a  few parts of the country, to hold.
Polio is endemic in Nigeria and few other countries in the world, and government has, in conjunction with international organizations, been conducting routine immunization exercises to prevent the spread of poliovirus to other communities and across borders.
Felix Aninze of Rotary International said his organization has commenced an active role on vaccination aimed at  eradicating  polio in Nigeria since 1988, and it has spent  at least a total of N2 billion. There were remarkable achievements in most places,  marked with high prevalence of the disease following routine immunizations with 801 cases left in 2008, 57 cases in 2013 and 2 in 2014.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the highly infectious virus causing polio, leads to irreversible paralysis in one out of every 200 patients, and up to 10 percent of these patients die when their breathing muscles are frozen. WHO still considers one case as an epidemic.
According to Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Nigeria is the only “country with ongoing transmission of all three serotypes: wild poliovirus type 1, wild poliovirus type 3, and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2.
In Zabawa parents are resisting the mass immunization against polio not on religious or cultural grounds, but due to the lack of government’s commitment to provide them with basic services and poor service delivery. There is a feeling of widespread neglect in the village, which started long ago when people assumed that policy makers tended to forget about their needs ,especially at a time when they require public infrastructure to attain certain levels of development.
The trouble with the anti-polio drug started in Zabawa in April this year, when residents perceived that government was not willing to rectify the problem of electricity supply after a minor fault in the transmission system. They resolved to disallow polio vaccinators into the village as a mark of protest.
Balarabe Saleh, is one of the polio vaccinators who were refused entry into Zabawa by the residents. “We came to administer the drugs on children, and the villagers refused to allow us to do our work. They asked us to leave and not to come back again, and we had to turn back.”
He said the villagers halted the exercise as a mark of protest against the  non-chalant attitude by government in terms of rectifying the problem of lack of electricity in the in the area, associated with the  power transformer breakdown. “The villagers said a device in the power transformer got burnt, leading to power outage in few places including two villages, the Local Government Secretariat and a General Hospital. They were worried that in spite of a pledge by local government authorities to replace the broken down device, nothing was done. Instead the Secretariat power supply resorted to using standby-generators to their disadvantage.”
Saleh said the polio workers came back a day later in company of one top local government official, who promised to restore electric power to the area within 24 hours; yet the residents disagreed. He said any  refusal or delay in administering  polio doses, exposes children to health hazards and spread of polio cases. He said already a number of parents  in the rural areas still refuse vaccines for their wards on the grounds that they contain substances capable of sterilizing children, adding that the present stand of the villagers ,may lead to the resurgence of the disease.

But the local village overseer Hamza Wakilin, Mai Unguwa, said Zabawa residents are law abiding and have allowed all previous polio immunization exercises, and are willing to work together with the government and aid agencies in future polio campaigns, as long as there is a fundamental shift in the way government supports  rural communities.
“We boycotted the vaccination program because of the power outage which was not solved by the local government. We allowed the immunization to hold after the intervention of Zazzau Emirate Council through the district head. The Council assured us that the transformer will be repaired before we allowed polio workers to their work.  You can see that in spite of the promise they made, the problem hasn’t been addressed and this could affect forthcoming immunization exercises. My appeal here is for the local government to fulfill its pledge, otherwise it will be easier said than done, to carry out vaccination again.”
Aminu Ibrahim who lives with his wife and children in the village, said people in the rural areas should ideally be given basic services to avoid social exclusion.But Zabawa residents are of the view that government has little regard for  their wellbeing. He said there was no functional primary school in the area, until about fifteen years ago when the residents built a block of two classrooms with mud blocks through a  community based self-help initiative. “We built the classrooms but we could not afford to provide furniture ,and pupils have to sit on the floor to take lessons. About five years ago the local government,  built a classroom without providing furniture and even the teachers have no chairs and tables to write their lesson plans and notes. There is poor condition of teaching and learning in the primary school, and parents are worried that despite billions earmarked for the upgrade of education in the state, there isn’t visible improvement. We feel sad and abandoned and we shall show our apathy towards government policies.”

He said the government leaves rural people to wallow in neglect, adding that improving basic services and service delivery is key to winning hearts and minds and critical for bringing economic and political stability. He said frustration and neglect actually impel the residents to reject the vaccination exercise and indeed future vaccinations. He said villagers were persuaded by some traditional leaders to allow their children to take the polio vaccines after they were told that all their requests on power failure will be solved. “We have been in support of anti-polio campaigns since its inception many years ago and as at now our kids haven’t skipped any of the routine exercises  though the previous one was delayed due to the power cut issue. But, I assure you, we shall refuse to go along with the government and reject further vaccinations if government remains indifferent to our plight.”
The Kaduna state confirmed that the villages actually turned down polio workers twice but later allowed the exercise to hold after negotiation. The state Director of Media and Publicity Ahmed Maiyaki said the vaccination exercise “took place following negotiations with the people,” adding that all the grievances raised by the residents were part of the responsibility of the local government , and will be sorted out. “The state government is mapping out a plan in conjunction with the local government to attend to the demands of the villages.”
He however said government will not tolerate similar protests in the future ,adding that it was the priority of the government to provide basic services in state, and improve the lots of rural dwellers. He said government has rolled out programs that will enhance social welfare.