In 2020, as the race to develop vaccines to roll back the spread of the coronavirus outbreak which has reached a pandemic proportion, news started spreading on social media and even on some traditional media that the vaccines that were being developed contain microchips which will be implanted in people upon being injected with the vaccine to monitor them.
On this episode, our anchor, Adebayo Aare, queried the claim that those who take the COVID-19 vaccines are implanted with microchips that have been put in the vaccines. In March 2020, billionaire and philanthropist, Bill Gates in a chat of the social media site, Reddit, about the pandemic suggested that a time will come when everyone might be required to a digital passport showing their health records. A Swedish biohacking website reported the Reddit discussion of the former richest man in the world with the headline: “Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus.” Since then, the claim has gained massive acclaim by anti-vaxxers through the preaching of Adam Fannin, an American Baptist televangelist and Roger Stone, a former political strategist to a former US President Donald Trump. In Nigeria, two prominent televangelists—Chris Oyakhilome and Chris Okotie—are at the forefront of this rumour and teaching that vaccine is the 666 biblical mark of the beast swollen and that Gates has an agenda to depopulate the earth with it.
We interviewed Mr. Aliyu Olateju, an ICT expert, who talked about how microchips can be infused into vaccines and if it’s possible that this is contained in the COVID-19 vaccine. And also spoke to Dr. Akinyode, an epidemiologist who talked about microchips inside the COVID-19 vaccine. These twin interviews bring us to our verdict for this week, press play to know our VERDICT on the viral claim.
The Production Team for this week’s episode are:
Olakunle Mohammed – Project Manager
Nicholas Ibekwe – Researcher and Assistant Producer
Oluwatosin Ologun – Producer
Adebayo Aare – Presenter
