Serving senators and members of the House of Representatives representing Kogi State in the National Assembly are yet to decide if they will take the COVID-19 vaccine or not.
Leader of the Kogi Lawmakers’ Forum in the National Assembly, Senator Smart Adeyemi stated this on Friday during an interview with The PUNCH.
According to Adeyemi, who is also the Vice Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, if ever the 12 National Assembly members from the state decide to be vaccinated at all, it would be because they reside in Abuja where there is COVID-19.
He said that the federal lawmakers from Kogi state are solidly behind the governor, Yahaya Bello, who has been insistent that there is no COVID-19 in the state.
“The Kogi State legislators in the National Assembly have not thought of taking the vaccines yet, but if ever we will take it at all, it is because we are in Abuja where there is COVID-19 but there is no COVID in our state.”
Adeyemi said he agrees with the governor that there is no COVID-19 in the state because the people are not dying neither are they falling ill.
“I don’t know the magic in Kogi State because the coronavirus is not killing our people. If it is leading to deaths in the state, I would be the first person to cry out and disagree with our governor but our people are not dying and they are not falling ill.
“I agree with our governor that there is no COVID-19 in Kogi State. If the disease is there, people would have been dying. It appears COVID-19 is afraid of the Kogi people. To a large extent, we are convinced that our governor knows what he is doing and saying.”
According to the senator, even Ministry of Health officials told him they don’t know what’s preventing people in Kogi from dying from COVID-19.
“We cannot be killing our people just to justify that the disease is real. We are not just saying yes to our governor but we are also saying yes to him because nobody has died of the disease.
“We cannot disagree with our governor. How do we disagree with a man who maintains a position and stands by it and you don’t have any contrary fact to fault him? Our people are not dying and we should not be hypocritical about it.
“Governor Bello is a highly courageous person. He takes a position the moment he knows what he is doing is in the best interest of the people. If our people are dying, we would have spoken against it,” Adeyemi said.
The Senator also added that “If the people are dying, we will shout but we are not talking because our people are not falling sick and we are not recording deaths as a result of COVID-19. Only the aged are dying of age-related ailments.”