3 Wazobia FM Journalists Arrested For Claiming Polio Immunisation Is Anti-Islam & Inciting Killing Of 9 Healthcare Workers

Feb 11, 2013 – 3 Wazobia FM Journalists Arrested At Gangariya Station In Kano For Claiming Polio Immunisation Is Anti-Islam & Inciting Killing Of 9 Healthcare Workers

On Friday Feb 8, 2013, three journalists working at Wazobia FM 95.1 were arrested in Kano for inciting the murder of nine healthcare workers who were killed during a polio immunisations session at two communities in Kano.

According to healthmap.org, at least nine young women working on a polio vaccination campaign were targeted and killed by gunmen in two separate incidents in Kano, the regional capital of Northern Nigeria. The two neighborhoods where the attacks took place, Unguwa Uku and Hotoro Hayi, have seen previous actions by a Muslim extremist group known as Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning “Western education is forbidden”.

These attacks are not the first attacks against health workers in Nigeria. Two security officers guarding immunizers were killed by gunmen in October. Unfortunately, Nigeria is the second place where polio vaccination workers have been targeted and killed.

The 3 arrested journalists have been detained after they allegedly claimed Polio immunisation is an anti-Islam , western conspiracy to make women infertile prior to the murder of the volunteer polio immunizers.

We learnt the arrested Wazobia FM journalists identified as Mohammed Gama, Yakubu Fagge and an intern, made the statement 48 hours before the shooting death of the polio immunisation workers.

According to eye witnesses, some masked gunmen killed the female healthcare workers in two separate attacks in the aforementioned communities in Kano state.