Ebola: Wake-up call for Africa to build its own institutions

26 Oct, 2014 - 06:10 0 Views
Ebola: Wake-up call for Africa to build its own institutions

The Sunday Mail

 

President Mugabe and former South African President Thabo Mbeki are some of the revolutionaries whose ideals would have come in handy during today’s Ebola epidemic

President Mugabe and former South African President Thabo Mbeki are some of the revolutionaries whose ideals would have come in handy during today’s Ebola epidemic

by Brian Sedze

There have been instances where l have been inclined to agree with the ideals, principles and vision of pan African activists that include but are not limited to the late Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi, former South African president Thabo Mbeki, and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on African renaissance.

To a large extent I also agree to Gadhafi’s grandiose idea of the United States of Africa.

Amongst many other benefits, the African renaissance was advocating for the propagation, deployment and development of robust and resourced African institutions that would enable the continent to be at the forefront of solving inherent and new challenges across the broad spectrum of health, economic, social, economic, legal, technological, safety & security and the environment in Africa.

If the continent had solid institutions it would not have reacted in such a pathetic, confused, comprehensively irresponsible and tragic manner to the Ebola catastrophe.

Inasmuch as the “international” community must be of great assistance, Africa itself should have been at the forefront with a working governance value proposition, system, structures and reasonable resources to help fight the scourge.

Maybe the message was not taken by Africa due to the mistrust of the messenger(s) or maybe the continent’s leaders are so drunk due to their efforts to please new and old neo-colonial masters.

The Ebola scourge is surely a wake-up call for the continent to build its own robust institutions.

I say this because the continent seems to be completely outraged at the “international community” for what they believe is a lethargic reaction to efforts at containing the Ebola epidemic.

Murmurs of disapproval within the social media are also that the death of our Liberian brother in United States was also some sort of a racist action or negligence.

A more irrational and deep-seated critique of the international community’s relative inaction emerged in a recent BBC interview with Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general who is from Ghana. “If the crisis had hit some other region,” he’s quoted as telling that news organisation, “it probably would have been handled very differently.”

Unfortunately for Mr Annan it’s true.

Furthermore he (Kofi Annan), must be reminded that his generation of leaders in Africa failed the continent by not building institutions and resources that would have enabled a more resolute leadership in solving this health epidemic.

The world should have followed our cues.

Africa has a white population of a mere 8.9%. Africa also has an Ebola outbreak – and as a matter of fact, the reason it is called Ebola is because the first outbreak of the haemorrhagic virus was in 1976 near the Ebola River in Zaire.

It’s an inconvenient truth but it is hard not to agree that race and geography do play a role in the world’s callousness.

Race and geography help explain why “some other region” — any other region, really — would get more help.

Africa must live with that “truth” and concentrate on developing its own institutions for this epidemic, future epidemics, and other challenges now and in the future.

A lot of African leaders are bad examples and more are jointly and severally liable for inaction because they failed to embrace the Africa renaissance initiative and the United States of Africa idea.

In any case, besides Ebola how does Africa explain that France is at the forefront of negotiating with Boko Haram, while efforts to make the Gulf of Eden safe is led by Americans, that ICC wants to superintend the trial of Omar Al Bashir and Uhuru Kenyatta or that Europeans and Americans are at the forefront in research and financing of the continent’s challenges on water, health, sanitation, defence, security, mineral exploration, education, democracy and governance?

The footprints of the western countries are innumerable in Africa, they even have centres of African studies at their universities!

Africa hosts some of the most resource-rich countries in the world and yet at the same time harbours some of the greatest poverty, corruption and tribal warfare.

Africa has huge potential to propagate forceful institutions as it is resource rich and it has a great pool of human capital with knowledge, expertise and skills scattered all over the world.

If and only if we have a united Africa with minimal corruption, good governance, democracy, open and transparent societies. If only Africa could embrace primary resources value addition, surely we would be in the process of conquering this epidemic as a continent.

This virus has been known since 1976 and the continent still has no capacity to play a pivotal role in fighting this scourge, 40 years later!

The continent has not even invested in research on this virus like what the CDC and private pharmaceutical companies did.

We have a misplaced belief that some country in the world will do the research for us.

Africa should wean itself of this dependency and donor economy syndrome, after all the continent has enough resources to sustain itself and run its own institutions.

Africa has the capacity to deliver a better standard of living to its citizens.

There are also murmurs of disapproval, it is said that instead providing medical personnel, the United States of America provided 3 900 soldiers to help in the fight of Ebola.

The important question is how many doctors and nurses did Africa itself provide for this effort?

Without a doubt, so far insignificant human personnel has been dedicated by the continent due to the belief that the world would step in to assist.

America and Europe have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid — specifically for the Ebola fight.

They also spent a lot to treat Thomas Duncan, a black Liberian man, when he fell ill in the US.

The first nurse who contracted Ebola from Duncan is Vietnamese. The second, Amber Vinson, is black.

They are receiving the same all-out treatments as did the US Ebola survivors, Kent Brantley, Nancy Writebrol and Richard Sacra, all of whom are white, and were flown back from Africa to the US for treatment.

Both Brantley and Sacra have donated blood in hope of helping other patients.

The very reason why these three Americans were exposed to the virus was that they were over the affected African countries trying to provide better healthcare for Africans.

Whilst the world was doing all this for us, Africa was busy spending millions sponsoring tribal conflicts, billions of dollars on corruption, funding lavish lifestyles for its corrupt leaders, siphoning billions of dollars into tax havens and sponsoring warped priorities that only encourage political expedience at the cost of its citizens’ lives.

Africa should have solutions for the continent.

Every country and continent has its permanent interests rather than permanent friends. Forget help if you have no substantial strategic resources like oil, gold, diamonds and uranium under threat by some real or imagined enemy.

The world acted fast in Libya because their resources mattered.

The reaction of other continents on their own to mad cow disease, swine flu and bird flu was swift and well resourced.

They solved their problems, and Africa must learn to solve their own.

It is not fundamentally racist when a nation/continent takes care of its own — especially when that nation is one that values its people as citizens.

Taxpayers demand accountability of their money as it relates to their interests.

The Ebola crisis has unearthed the bureaucratic rot of our systems.

It isn’t specific to any given government but it is endemic to these lumbering, money pit bureaucracies.

The Ebola issue is a slow-moving disaster and I just foresee us having an Ebola “outbreak” of the scale as portrayed in the movies “Contagion”, “Outbreak”, “I Am Legend” or “World War Z”.

No real precautions are being taken by the governmental health agencies, and you really have to wonder what they are thinking.

Most African countries, except a few, have sufficient laboratory equipment that detects the Ebola virus yet there is complacency to close the borders just so as for all of us to show our thin patina of patriotism as well as a show of support of our brothers and sisters exposed to this epidemic.

We have no capacity to contain this virus if it hits some of our borders.

Does Zimbabwe, for example, have enough laboratory equipment for present and prevailing health situations, has it invested in Ebola research; prevention and control, does it have any known vaccine for Ebola or any specialist in that area? Dies it have financial resources to deploy to fight the virus, even for a minimum cases (it cost America millions per patient)?

This could be true with many other African countries yet we are willing to put this generation at risk simply to pursue a path to show our solidarity.

It’s true! It’s not a racist action for any nation to take care of its own citizens first. Donors can do so much but we must do more for ourselves unless we are willing to be pigeons in some experiments that may go wrong.

The present generation of leaders failed dismally in embracing the ideals of an African renaissance with some causing the actual demise of some of its fiercest drivers.

The founders of our nations and the continent like Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Kenneth Kaunda, Samora Machel, Robert Mugabe, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Albert Luthuli and Kamuzu Banda, amongst many others, bequeathed an inheritance of independence from colonial rule.

It is the duty of the present generation to bequeath an inheritance of an Africa that works, with good governance, open and transparent leadership, deliver complete and unfettered economic independence rid economies of corruption and conflict and build working institutions.

Africa must believe in its renaissance and a united Africa. We shall achieve much more as a continent working together than as individuals.

Let’s not allow another Ebola to be managed for us ever again.

Brian Sedze is the President of Free Enterprise Initiative and Executive Chairman of Africa Innovation Hub. He can be contacted on brian.sedze@gmail .com

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