Punish Covid vaccine profiteers

Recently, I woke up to two tweets gone viral. Both were from wealthy and powerful lawyers – the pugilistic Ahmednasir Abdullahi and the flamboyant Donald Kipkorir. Full disclosure – both “learned friends” are my BFFs, colloquialism for Best Friends Forever. I have no animus towards them. The pictures in both of their tweets were taken from a lofty corner office with a seductive view of the Nairobi skyline.

I suspect power, mulla and luxury reside in that office. There’s more. The backdrop to their pictures was a large advertising billboard of the Russian Sputnik V Covid vaccine. The two gentlemen proudly announced – in your face – that they were the first and second Kenyans to be vaccinated with the notorious Russian vaccine.

Mr Abdullahi’s tweet went a little further. One of the pictures in his tweet was of DP William Ruto being jabbed with Sputnik V by a fellow in a medical gown.

In one picture, Mr Ruto is sitting in front of Kenyan flags. In another, the DP can be seen beside a huge screaming flag of the Russian Federation. I was flummoxed. Not because I can’t “read” pictures. One thing was clear – DP Ruto was vaccinated in an official residence, or his office. Mr Abdullahi was vaccinated in a private office elsewhere, most likely on his own. Mr Kipkorir appeared to have been vaccinated there too. Were the famous lawyers shooting a commercial, an advertisement, for Sputnik V?

Sputnik V vaccine

What message was DP Ruto trying to send by allowing a picture of himself – the second in command in the republic – beside a domineering Russian flag? Was he implying that the Russian state had imported the vaccine into Kenya as an official act? Or was he endorsing the vaccine on behalf of the Republic of Kenya?

There’s no doubt Mr Ruto should’ve been one of the first Kenyans to be vaccinated. But as we now know, the Sputnik V vaccine was brought into Kenya irregularly, and possibly, illegally without going through the appropriate approval processes by the state. If so, why would the country’s DP publicly take an “illegal” vaccine? Isn’t that a manifest threat to national security?

A few days earlier, Mr Ruto’s boss – Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta – had been publicly vaccinated with his family with the AstraZeneca vaccine in State House.

Mr Kenyatta did so, he said, to combat vaccine hesitancy because the AstraZeneca vaccine has been dogged by safety concerns. He wanted to boost public confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only one officially and legally available in Kenya. Since then Health CS Mutahi Kagwe has disowned any state’s role in the importation of Sputnik V.

 In fact, he’s banned the importation of any vaccines by private entities. Which begs the question – who authorised Sputnik V in Kenya? Who imported it? Which cartels are behind its importation? Who cleared it? We need answers now.

Financial interest

Ominously, why was DP Ruto promoting an “illegal” vaccine, a product not approved for use in Kenya? Why was the DP countermanding his boss? Everyone knows that DP Ruto isn’t a fool. The man isn’t one to walk into a trap eyes wide open, or ingest a product he doesn’t understand, or in which he has no interest. So, what’s going on here? Was the DP a dupe of dark forces?

Or was he a willing collaborator? Did he, and the two aforementioned lawyers, have any pecuniary, or financial interest in Sputnik V? They all need to clear the air. The state needs to investigate the matter and let the law take its course without fear or favour.

We are living in the worst pandemic since 1918. Millions have died around the globe. Kenyans are dropping dead like flies. The primary purpose of the republican state – of which Kenya is a variant – is to safeguard the security of its people and their property.

There’s no more serious existential threat to Kenya now than Covid. That’s why the state must do everything in its power to defeat the virus. Masks, social distancing and proper hygiene can help. But the Covid vaccines are the only ones that will eradicate the virus from our midst. It’s why only the state should approve, purchase and administer, or oversee the administration of, the vaccines. Private profiteers must be banned.

Covid vaccines must not be commercialised and sold to the highest bidder. It’s unacceptable to see wealthy and powerful people – who aren’t on any priority list – being the first to be vaccinated.

In every civilised country, medical personnel, frontline workers, essential staff, first responders, those with comorbidities, and the highest state officials have been the first to get the vaccine – for free.

No one should directly pay for the vaccine. It’s immoral and illegal for Sputnik V to be sold for as high as $150 in Kenya. The culprits must be sanctioned without pity. The state must have the monopoly to import vaccines and give them freely to Kenyans.

@makaumutua