Kwame Walker cautions government against COVID-19 Vaccine

The 2020 independent presidential candidate, Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker has cautioned the Government against the COVID-19 vaccine approved by the World Health Organization.

Mr. Walker said, he was not really against the vaccine but he would prefer that "we run our independent test into the veracity of the drug to be sure that the Country does not later experience something different in terms of side effects".

President Akufo-Addo recently announced that Ghana will soon be taking delivery of 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as part of measures to fight the pandemic. But Mr. Walker who is an advocate of home-grown solutions said, the president has failed the Country.

He argued that Ghana was blessed with many medicinal plants that could have been researched into for a possible cure for the virus. He said, such an initiative would not only ensure that we had something of our own that we could trust but also it could earn the Country foreign exchange since the vaccine could be exported to other Countries.

"We have been blessed with many plants that are healing. We have very good researchers in this country, who could have been tasked to research and produce a local solution to this pandemic", he added.

He urged the government to ensure that the AstraZeneca vaccine is verified before administered to the public.

Mr. Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker was speaking in an exclusive interview with this reporter.

Touching on the ongoing election petition, Mr. Walker expressed his disappointment in the Supreme Court for not granting the NDC's request to cross-examine the Electoral Commission Chairperson.

He said, "the EC has been accused and, therefore, the chairperson should have been allowed to respond to the allegations; which would have offered the EC an opportunity to clear it's image, if indeed it did a good job".

Mr Asiedu Walker said he thought the Supreme Court would, in the interest of transparency and accountability, lean towards common sense, rather than basing their decision only on the law.

He also blamed the NDC for not presenting their case in a convincing manner. He thought the NDC had a very solid case, because as a presidential candidate in the same election, he knew a lot of things that went wrong. However, according to him, they choose a bad strategy which is affecting their case.