By Aisar Fagge
The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has awarded another set of Covid-19 vaccine champions on identifying, tracking and countering Covid-19 related false narratives, rumours, misconceptions and disinformation on social media platforms.
The program tittled “Public Education on COVID-19 Vaccine Project” was aimed at educating, informing and sensitizing people on the importance of Covid-19 vaccine with a view to counter false narratives about it.
Supported by MacArthur Foundation, the centre has been working with 18 partner organizations and social media influencers in six selected states from Northern Nigeria to enlighten the public about the vaccine through various activities and programmes.
Recalled that, Covid-19 is a communicable respiratory disease that terrorises the entire world, leading to the death of number of people and set the economies of hundreds of nations in limbo.
The details on the event was in a statement signed Wednesday, 14th September 2022, by the coordinator of the campaign, Mal. Hamza Ibrahim.
The statement reads in part: “CITAD received 93 applications from young people who want to be champions and 18 of them were selected from six northern states – Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Borno, Plateau and Kogi State and trained for two days.”
“After their training, they embarked on daily campaigns on tracking, countering and persuading people to take the vaccine. They submitted reports of their campaigns at the end of every month and the reports were shared with panel of judges who review, assess and subsequently selected the best three who are then regarded as the Covid-19 champions.”
“In this fourth round of the competition, Sumayya Abdulaziz from Kaduna emerged in the 1st position with 97 points and got Hisense refrigerator. Mundi Ilyasu from Kogi State emerged 2nd with 75 points and was rewarded with Plasma TV. From Bauchi State, Abdullahi Barau emerged in 3rd position with 70 points and went home with a mini laptop.”