ICYMI: Pupils flee examination halls in Borno over fear of COVID-19 vaccination

Pupils of Mafoni Primary and Junior Secondary School, Maiduguri, on Friday, fled their classrooms and abandoned their exams over fear of getting vaccinated. 

Speaking to journalists, Amina Usman, a class teacher at the Primary section of the school, said pandemonium erupted when COVID-19 sensitisation team arrived at the school with a vehicle mounted with a speaker.

Usman said, the pupils, believing that it was government officials who had come to administer COVID-19 vaccines, ran out of their classes in different directions.

The teacher added that the students were writing their first term examination when the incident occurred.

“The school children were running out of the school shouting ‘ma’su allura, ma’su allura’ meaning ‘Vaccinators, Vaccinators’,” she said.

Corroborating the teacher’s account, Ibrahim Ali, a security personnel in the school, said effort made to call the students back to their classes to continue their examination was unsuccessful.

He said it appeared parents or guardians of the pupils had warned them not to accept the COVID-19 vaccines .

“We made every effort to stop the children from going away but they refused. Unfortunately, they are writing examination and we pray that such don’t occur again,” the guard said.

Also speaking, Abu Alhaji, a student of the junior secondary school, said when the sensitisation vehicle entered, they thought the government had come to vaccinate them in the, hence, they all ran away.

He said: We thought they have come to vaccinate us with the COVID-19 vaccination and being that our parents did not ask us to accept the COVID-19 vaccination, we had to run to avoid being forced to take the vaccine. ”

Borno received 75,510 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines last Tuesday and began vaccination with the frontline workers followed by top government officials and persons from 50 years and above.

The state government had called on religious leaders to educate and enlighten their followers on the need to protect themselves against the virus by taking the vaccine.

The government had also said it will not force anyone to take the vaccine.

There are misconceptions among some Nigerians that the COVID-19 vaccine contains microchips and changes the DNA.

But the state and federal governments, on several occasions, have tried to allay the fears of Nigerians by dispelling the belief through different ways including sensitisation programmes.

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