Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology and educational administrator said Monday that the federal government should be blamed for the travel restrictions imposed on Nigerians by the governments of United Kingdom and Canada over cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Speaking at a National COVID-19 Summit with a theme “Pushing Through the Last Mile to End the Pandemic and Build Back Better,” Prof. Tomori said the Nigerian government should have viewed the travel restrictions as racism and inequity.
In a paper titled “Global Health Security Threat: Repositioning To end the Pandemic and Build Back Better,” the former vice-chancellor of Redeemer’s University, said it is regrettable that Nigeria was paying for condoning errors of commission and overlooking errors of omission.
Prof Tomori also blamed Nigerians for enabling poor performance by telling those in government that they are doing well when they are not.
He said stakeholders often tend to forget that disasters and pandemics seriously affect environment and most especially culture.
He said no matter the plans formulated to respond to pandemics and disaster, it will surely fail, if the issue of culture and environment are not seriously addressed.
“As I said earlier, global health security just as the individuals make the nation, and the nations make the world, so also Global Health Security must be built on the foundation of National Health Security and the National Health Security must be laid on the foundation of individual or personal health security.
He said: “COVID is not the enemy. Lassa fever is of minor league. Yellow fever is yellow livered.
Monkeypox is child’s play. Cholera is a dehydrator.
“Our underdevelopment and backwardness rest on four pillars. They are the real enemies of our nation, and they are: Lack of patriotism, the main destroyer of our nation; Self-interest, the burial ground of our national interest; Corruption, the executor of our orderly development and shamelessness, the destruction of our national pride.”
