By CHIOMA OBINNA

As Nigeria battles rejection of polio vaccination in the North, renowned Virologist, Professor Oyewale Tomori has alleged that Nigerian leaders are yet to show enough commitment needed to attain the global eradication deadline by 2018.

Oyewole, who is President, Nigerian Academy of Science, NAS, has subsequently called on President Goodluck Jonathan to accord polio eradication the kind of priority given the 2012 flood disaster in some parts of the country.

Speaking last week in Lagos at a media roundtable on vaccines organised by the African Health Journalists Association, AHJA, Oyewole expressed worry that the fight against polio in Nigeria was yet to have the desired impact towards ensuring that the country will be polio free by 2014.

“Has our President ever said anything on polio without stimulation from outside? The only time we’ve heard him make pronouncements are when he was invited by the Commonwealth, the United Nations or when Bill Gates came. We are not putting enough into polio,” he remarked.

The Professor who is advocating ownership of the eradication programme at  national, state and local government levels warned that unless the right things are done, Nigeria may not be polio free by 2014.

“We are not spending enough money on polio education in this country. I think we should do more. We have put money into it, but  if we can properly monitor what we have now and spend it in a proper way, we will be able to get polio out of Nigeria.

“The hope is that by  2014, the world will have the last country with the last case of polio and by 2018, the world will be declared free of polio. We are taking a gamble because the year 2014 is only subject to the fact that Nigeria, Afghanistan or Pakistan will not have any case of polio in 2014.

“If one of these countries has just one polio case by 2014, it means we have to shift the year of eradication by an extra year. It is thus very important that we, as a country, must play our role otherwise we will be holding the world back. India is 10 times more than Nigeria, they made up their minds and put their acts together and they are working harder to ensure that polio does not come back. Population is not a problem but the problem is doing the right thing.”

He decried the poor routine immunisation coverage in the country, calling for intensified effort to take the country back to the days of 80 per cent coverage or more.