FG to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for civil servants

The Federal Government has stated that COVID-19 vaccination would soon be made compulsory for civil servants.

This was disclosed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, during a meeting with the state’s commissioners for health in Abuja.

Mustapha however added that the FG would not make COVID-19 vaccination compulsory until there was enough to go around.

According to the Secretary, “The vaccine mandate will obviously come. Before now, simple yellow fever vaccine, you couldn’t travel without the card until Nigeria exited from the list of endangering countries.

“The world is gravitating towards that direction. By the time the western world vaccinates its people, you won’t be able to get to any of the western countries without the vaccine certificate. It is happening.”

“We realised that we don’t have sufficient vaccines; we will not be able to impose such a mandate on an automatic basis until we make sure that the vaccine is available and deployed in appropriate places and people have opportunities to get the vaccines. Then we will now impose the mandatory nature of whether you must have the vaccine or not before you can access government facilities.”

He further explained that in the EU dispensation, waivers have been created for people that have already been vaccinated and the same should be expected to happen in Nigeria for civil servants across the country.

He stated that one of the reasons the Federal Government is considering this move with federal civil servants is because some of them will be travelling to perform roles on behalf of the Federal Government.

He said that the United Nations General Assembly will be commencing soon and Federal representatives will be required to represent the country and attend the function. He supported the government’s stance by stating that these representatives might not be able to attend the assembly if the American government declares “No entrance” to foreigners who have not been vaccinated or who do not possess the waivers to show their vaccination statuses.