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From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Director, Centre for China Studies (CCS), Mr Charles Onunaiju, has said that the COVID-19 origin tracing by the United States should not be tainted in any way.
Onunaiju also said the origin tracing of the pandemic should be devoid of the political virus of big power rivalry and ideological hegemony.
Onunaiju stated this during a workshop on “COVID-19 Vaccines: Ensuring Fair and Equitable Distribution” organised by Diplomats Extra Magazine in Abuja.
He said the credibility of any outcome on the investigation of the origin of the virus can only be guaranteed if its process is led by scientific inquiry and the efforts are inclusive and globally collaborative with the World Health Organisation playing a vital and pivotal role.
‘My point is that the origin tracing of the COVID-19 pandemic should not be tainted with the political virus of big power rivalry and ideological hegemony.
‘No one country, no matter how much it is endowed, can alone provide a credible investigation and result,’ Onunaiju said.
Onunaiju further said the job of investigating the origin which the Government of the United States has entrusted to the United States intelligence community, its outcome will hardly be free of the contagion of the insidious political virus.
‘The imperative for broad collaboration and scientific-led inquiry cannot be over-emphasised if the outcome of any origin investigation is to be credible,’ Onunaiju also said.
In his remarks, the Publisher, Diplomats Extra Magazine, Raphael Oni, recalled that the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Wuhan in late 2019 and has become a global pandemic that has caused countless hospitalisations and deaths.
Oni noted that world economies have also suffered devastating blows from the pandemic and has made travelling around the world an uphill task.
He stated that while some individuals speculated the origin of the virus to be Wuhan, China, the workshop sought to also trace the origin of the pandemic using the scientific method of tracing.
‘This pandemic spread fast and within a short period, infections had skyrocketed. To curb the spread of this virus, administrations decided to put into place, such measures as restricting travel, enforcing personal distance in public, shutting down most public places and businesses, and ordering people to wear face masks in public,’ Oni said.
However, in his presentation, the Director, Institute for Legislative Studies and Contemporary China-Africa Research, University of Abuja, Professor Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim, said the Chinese initiative in the Belt and Road partnership on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation was an instrument to strengthen multilateralism and international cooperation in building a great wall against the virus.
Ibrahim noted that the Belt and Road Initiative has about 140 countries as signatories and Sub-Saharan Africa has about 40 countries whereby more than 100 countries have accepted the Chinese vaccine as it has been approved by the World Health Organisation.
He called on the Federal Government to join the comity of nations to begin the emergency use of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.
