Opinion: Dear Africa, your Ebola salvation is not in America Weep not, Africa. Weep not, Africans for your salvation is not in Washington DC, Europe or Asia. Rise and hold your leaders responsible. Lately I have been bereft of sleep. No thanks to Ebola. I believe I’m not alone, it’s a panic that grips almost all of West Africa. The fear of contracting the deadly Ebola virus which has ravaged many countries in West Africa and has risen to an epidemic scale is devastating especially because of how it has reduced patients to chicken in the face of mortality. The level of helplessness that dying Africans have had to face is the main cause of my nightmares. I keep recalling the disturbing stories of how Ebola victims in Sierra leone had fallen by the way side and are left to die even by road users who could have acted good Samaritans. In fact it gets so worst that some families had to dump infected loved ones on the street to die. It breaks my heart that the spread of the virus has not been curtailed and confined to minor incidences and so depressing that it has overwhelmed the capacity of our “myopic” health care systems. Few days back, over 40 African leaders converged in Washington DC for the US-Africa Summit while their countries and continent was on fire and their citizens dying daily like animals. You could have thought saving lives could have been their priority? May be not! They were more concerned about Obama’s $33 billion planned investment. Nevertheless, to say that their attitude resembled and painted a “Berlin conference mood” which was more like partitioning Africa but this time with permissions from our leaders. They trooped to Washington like Pilgrims in search of salvation, alas! Their salvation wasn’t in Washington as the virus kept spreading rapidly. I’m not in power so I may not really say what is and what is not at the helms of affairs but my anger is born out of the dire dearth of infrastructure in Africa and the level of non-challant attitude of her leaders. Walter Rodney’s indictment of our Leaders sometimes paints a real picture of what’s in an average African leader’s political DNA. West African nations have suffered heavily since the rise of the scourge still we are yet to hear of any meaningful research going on in Africa to help fight the virus. Americans are the only ones who have come up with a possible drug experiment even before any case of Ebola was reported in the country. The Japanese have also intensified their research to find a cure while they’re yet to witness any Ebola case and Africa where the problem has moved from minor to a major scale cannot even provide a good medical system to curb the spread. reunionblackfamily/apps/blog/show/42563140-weep-not-africans-for-your-salvation-is-not-in-washington-dc-europe-or-asia-rise-and-hold-your-leaders-responsible-#.U-dXwLKGPb0.twitter
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 18:57:19 +0000
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