Nine women shot to death in Kano for attempting to prevent children from getting polio. Nine.
In the first attack in Kano the polio vaccinators were shot dead by gunmen who drove up on a motor tricycle.
Thirty minutes later gunmen targeted a clinic outside Kano city as the vaccinators prepared to start work.
Some Nigerian Muslim leaders have previously opposed polio vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility.
On Thursday, a controversial Islamic cleric spoke out against the polio vaccination campaign, telling people that new cases of polio were caused by contaminated medicine.
Such opposition is a major reason why Nigeria is one of just three countries where polio is still endemic.
Nine women murdered, and who knows how many children doomed to get polio in the future.
According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, there were 121 cases of polio in Nigeria last year, compared to 58 in Pakistan and 37 in Afghanistan.
And compared to zero in the rest of the world.
It’s all very frightening indeed. I’ve witnessed child polio victims in my institution in the past, and the damaging effects of polio is no joke at all. The antediluvian mindsets of those involved in not wanting to safeguard the future health of their people is staggeringly mind-blowing.
New cases of polio are caused by lead poisioning.
Sickening. And would you believe I actually have an old fatwa from Rashid Ridda (sorta godfather of the muslim brotherhood) calling anyone who prevents vaccination on religious grounds a kafir. If you make Ridda look like a flaming liberal, you’re doing Islam wrong. And seeing as kafir is the worst insult one can give in arabic, I’m going with that one for these bastards.