Gates, CANAN decry murder of vaccinators

International condemnation is trailing Friday’s killing of nine vaccination workers in Kano, as US billionaire and polio campaign donour in Nigeria, Mr Bill Gates expressed concern, calling the apparent terrorist attack a tragedy, and “unacceptable.”

Empowered Newswire reports that the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, CANAN is also calling on traditional rulers and religious leaders to speak out more stridently against the recurrent terrorist killing in northern Nigeria.

In a statement released by CANAN secretariat over the weekend, the association said the fact that suspected Boko Haram terrorists were attacking health workers was only an outcome of the impunity they had enjoyed in their previous and consistent killings of Christians.

In a statement issued on Friday night on behalf of Mr Gates, the US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said of the Kano killing: “Our sympathy goes out to the victims and their families who were caught up in this morning’s terrible attack in Nigeria’s Kano State.”

According to the foundation, “any attack on health workers anywhere is unacceptable. This tragic incident is an attack on the delivery of basic health services to the most vulnerable  families.”

But the Gates Foundation said it would not be deterred in its campaign to help families in Northern Nigeria who needed vaccination.

“We will continue to support the people of Nigeria, their traditional and religious leaders, and the Government, in their tireless efforts to create an environment where mothers and children can be safely reached with essential interventions by frontline health workers, such as vaccines to prevent polio, measles, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough and hepatitis.”

The statement added that, “by working together, we will overcome this tragedy and ensure that all people, wherever they may live, have access to health services.”

It will be recalled that Mr Gate had recently expressed fear about Boko Haram and terrorist a tivities in northern Nigeria where his foundation has been supporting vaccination efforts. Gates Foundation spends about $1bn yearly on polio vaccination with a huge part of that spent on Nigeria.

Gates had declared that for him, health workers killed by terrorists are his personal heroes and one way to honor them is to get their jobs completely done.

In a similar vein, CANAN Secretariat released a statement calling on the US government, religious and traditional leaders to step up their condemnation of terrorist killings in Nigeria.

The statement read thus:
Once again, the Nigerian nation and the entire world are witnesses to the outcome of impunity that has been indirectly granted Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in Nigeria.

CANAN extends our deep felt and profound condolence with the families of those killed on Friday in Kano. We shall be extending our hands of fellowship and relief to victims of Boko Haram attacks very soon in material terms.

But we are deeply concerned that the terrorists are now going after healthcare workers whose only ‘fault’ is trying to get needed medical assistance to vulnerable children and their families.

The killing of 9 health workers in Kano on Friday was made possibly partly because the incessant killings of Nigerian Christians by the terrorists in the last three years has been allowed to go on for too long without the application of the strictest measures against the terrorists by the international community, especially the US State Department that has refused to designate Boko Haram a Foregn Terrorist Organization, FTO.

CANAN restates its call for the designation of Boko Haram as an FTO, and is also calling on all Nigerian traditional rulers and religious leaders to more stridently condemn the terrorists and their despicable activities.