Nigerian Army Denies Vaccination Controversy In Ondo And Rivers

A controversy over an alleged forceful vaccination attempt has led some parents to withdraw their children from schools in Ondo State and Rivers State ..
At a private school on East-West Road in Port Harcourt, the state capital, a group of men reportedly dressed in Nigerian Army uniforms demanded to gain entrance into the school forcefully, claiming they were troops attached to ‘Operation Crocodile Smile’.
They were, however, resisted by the school’s administrator who informed Media houses that one of the men was masked.
While parents came to take away their children, the school proprietress said she got a call informing her that the men meant no harm.
Reacting to the incident, the Deputy Director of Public Relations, 6 Division Nigerian Army, Colonel Aminu Illiyasu, denied the military’s involvement in the act.
Parents and guardians in Akure and some towns across Ondo State stormed various schools in panic on Tuesday to withdraw their children.
This was a result of the rumour that some soldiers were purportedly going to schools to force pupils to take immunisation.
In one of the schools the state capital, some parents were seen in agitation to take their children home but the school authorities shut the entrance gate, saying the report was false.
At another school, the headteacher, Mrs Bosede Orisamehin, said some parents besieged the school to withdraw their children, claiming they heard that some soldiers were forcefully administering immunisation on schoolchildren.
She said the security man quickly locked the gate but the angered parents damaged the gate and gained entrance into the school premises, prompting the school authorities to close for the day.
Public Relations Officer of the 32 Artillery Brigade of the Nigerian Army in Akure, Major Ojo Adenegan, however, described the immunisation report as false.
He said the Army does not and will not engage in immunisation of children as it was not part of its duties, blaming some bad elements in the society for spreading such rumour.
In a statement issued on Tuesday in Rivers State, Colonel Illiyasu described the reports that Army personnel were offering vaccines of any kind as “despicable, deplorable and highly condemnable” intended to cause pandemonium among Nigerians.