by TINTSWALO BALOYI
Executive Editor
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – CENTRE for African Journalists, (CAJ) News Africa founder and editor-in-chief, Savious-Parker Kwinika, has broken his silence over his snub of the COVID-19 vaccine.
At the height of the pandemic, he let pass the privilege accorded to media professionals for first preference to be vaccinated alongside health experts, the presidium, parliamentarians, the judiciary and civil servants as well as those in key sectors of the economy.
Kwinika said it was the moment he retreated from public life.
“Naturally I become resistant when things are being forced upon me. So, COVID-19 was one of them,” Kwinika recalled.
“Before the lockdown was imposed upon us, I told myself this time I must be highly disciplined and secretive about my movements, my health status and of course, isolate myself from the general public, including fellow journalists.”
Kwinika recalled how the outbreak of the COVID-19 coincided with his son studying in China, to which the outbreak was attributed.
“My beloved son was studying at Guilin University of Technology in Guangxi Zhuang, which is not far from Wuhan, the origin of the pandemic,” Kwinika said.
“It is then that we extensively engaged in the COVID-19 discussion, queried it, discussed pros and cons. As a prayer warrior, I then instructed my son to join me in consulting Jehovah God about it through prayer, supplication and fasting, which my son complied with.”
The multiple award-winning journalist recalled phoning his wife, Chiedza, back home in Harare, Zimbabwe, dissuading her to vaccinate against COVID-19.
Prior to receiving some briefing from his son, who had come from China, and who along the way suggested survival tactics learnt from the Chinese people, Kwinika immediately dispatched his son to Harare, before countries in Southern Africa got locked down.
“I told my wife not to allow our two children to go for any COVID-19 vaccination since I did not trust it,” he said.
“We did not succeed on our daughter Khesani because she was at a boarding school out of Harare. Zimbabwe was one of the first southern African countries to lockdown, meaning my wife would not manage to go and see our daughter on time.”
Kwinika said another reason why his heightened resistance against COVID-19 vaccination was the manner in which the Western media, especially the American and British, pushed the world to embrace it.
“Usually when I read or see the news that sounds like propaganda, I quickly develop shock absorbers against it,” the media executive said.
“At university, ‘Agenda Setting’ was part of journalism and media studies. So, I know when certain information has an agenda on it, hence choosing not to vaccinate for COVID-19,” Kwinika explained.
The agenda setting theory intensified when the West labeled COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.”
“As the geopolitics around the COVID-19 started exposing the shenanigans, the hullabaloos, accusations and counter-accusations surrounding the disease, I strongly suspected this COVID-19 must be a man-made disease for money-making schemes hence boldening my moves not to allow any COVID-19 injection into my body,” Kwinika said.
He said his fears were further confirmed when African companies capable of producing medicines against COVID-19, including traditional medicines that saved the continent for centuries, and how they were brushed aside by Western media and the multinational conglomerate companies.
“There was no attempt at all to try and test our African medicines’ efficacy except dismissing them without trial,” the media practitioner said.
“From my journey of life with Jehovah God, I’m certainly sure every continent has its own ways of survival, solutions even without Western medicines. So, why ban other people from practicing their cultures, traditions and religions that saved them before colonialism,” Kwinika queried.
Madagascar was the first country in the world to announce its traditional medicine aimed at fighting the COVID-19, but was ridiculed by the West.
Kwinika remembered how then US president, Donald Trump, nearly withdrew the country’s financial support to the World Health Organisation (WHO) after the United Nations’ health body director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, spoke about how this infection must be curbed.
“The way WHO was told not to approve certain medicines coming from Africa, worsened my dislike of being vaccinated for any COVID-19,” Kwinika continued.
Suspicions were further fuelled by having the majority of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers being from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.
“From the global South, countries such as Brazil, Russia and China had to fight for their medicines to be accepted. That showed me there was an ‘Agenda Setting’ in this whole COVID-19 story,” he said.
Kwinika said taking a closer look into the companies involved in the vaccine production, their rhetoric was not convincing.
“The speed at which the vaccines were discovered, and how the speed of production was conducted, left me with many more questions than answers.”
Kwinika used the example of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and cancer, which broke out decades and centuries ago, but up until now, a cure or vaccine for these ailments had not been found.
“This heightened my fears of getting vaccinated for the COVID-19. Why was it so easy to find the cure for COVID-19 within a very short space of time?”
Kwinika disclosed his family survived the pandemic through the use of traditional medicines as well as boiling water.
“Different tree leaves I and my family used were a master stroke to the COVID-19 pandemic. My family used tree leaves, boiled water and regular drinking of tea with lemons. These performed miracles and wonders,” he said.
Kwinika also hailed divine intervention.
“The good thing when one worships Jehovah in truths and faith, God always speaks to His children whether with or without prophets, pastors or bishops,” he said.
He said he was inspired by a biblical verse on Psalm 50:15 on Good News Translation, which states: “Call to me when trouble comes; I will save you, and you will praise me.”
He called upon believers to remain vigilant arguing more challenges were on their way. He predicts more deadly infections than the COVID-19 would appear, pointing out many believers’ faith and beliefs would be compromised.
“This is why so many pastors, bishops, evangelists, those with powerful positions in different churches were all quick to vaccinate for COVID-19 without consulting the above simply because they did not hear any signal from the Mighty Jehovah.”
Turning to how he trusts in Jehovah God, Kwinika concluded, “Those who were alert in spirit never risked going under the COVID-19 vaccine because the Almighty Jehovah would have spoken to them the same way He did to me and my family.”
He however refused to share how he travelled across the continent without the certified COVID-19 letters or documents arguing this was the top secret he would not reveal.
– CAJ News