INT’L DIALOGUE: Africa in the midst of Covid-19. Will the centre hold?

Coronavirus test kit

When we heard that the most dangerous disease in the world now was ravaging China – Wuhan in particular, it seemed too far a place to catch up with us here in Africa. Then, like a smothering fire on a refuse dump the deadly coronavirus burrowed through the globe – not exempting Africa – as though a fox finding a way into the side walls of a hill.

This, for months now, all media outlets across the globe have majored in one thing. The reportage on the coronavirus also referred to as Covid-19. From business to sports, entertainment to fashion and what have you, Covid-19 trends in all spheres till today. 

In Lombardy, Italy, for instance, the real ‘horror movie’ being filmed as thousands of humans fall flat on the knife of Covid-19 breaks hearts. Also in Spain, the disease keeps punching hard the throat of anyone it comes into contact with that even morgues have ran out of space.

“The first hearse arrived on Tuesday at Madrid's ice rink, hastily transformed into a makeshift mortuary as Spanish authorities scrambled to deal with a rising death toll from the coronavirus,” wrote Aljazeera in a news article on March 24, 2020.

Experts say, the elderly – probably because of compromised immune system – are the main casualties in the hands of the invisible soldiers defeating any military the world has known. Of the many claims by these medical experts, none really thrilled Africans initially as the notion that the virus cannot withstand Africa’s hot weather!

In Ghana, some medical doctors and nurses who joined this propagation of the hot-weather gospel were the very ones who took to their heels when a suspected case of the disease was first reported at the hospital.

Whereas there could be truth in this hot-weather assertion, what makes most Africans and the world at large fear for Africa – in the face of Covid-19 ­– is the weak health institutions on the continent. This, the World Health Organisation [WHO] itself sent a strong warning to the continent to prepare for the worse.

WHO’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva that Africa must “wake up.” Gripped by fear, Mr. Adhanom – an Ethiopian – reiterated his clarion call saying, "Africa should wake up, my continent should wake up."

The reality is that, it is not only the head of the World Health Organisation who is concerned about Covid-19 gruesomely ravaging Africa if it [the disease] manages to break loose on the continent. Indeed, with an already fragile healthcare system across Africa, which is highly manifested in how its leaders [political elites] run to seek for medical treatment abroad, the question as to whether Africa is really prepared for the pandemic constantly lingers on the minds of many.

One needs not consult prophets and sorcerers for an answer to this simple question. No! Africa is not prepared today or even in 100 years from now for any of these diseases [not forgetting what Ebola did]. Yes! While the developed, the developing and the underdeveloped world are overwhelmed by the power of Covid-19, without any argument, the most vulnerable of these categories of the world is Africa.

In Africa, basic resources and facilities such as isolation centers, ventilators, testing kits are often as hard to come by as searching for snow in hell. If even nose masks are not that simple to come by, to talk of the issue of inadequate medical personnel to handle the medical needs of the people on the continent is a nonstarter.

As of Monday, March 30, 2020, the continent of Africa had recorded 3,242 confirmed cases of the disease with 69 deaths and 130 patients recovered. The various heads of state had put in plans to contain the spread of the disease. However, the saddest reality is that these ‘plans’ were not enough. In Ghana and most other African countries, it all appears that the old age culture of begging for alms was at its best. So, when Chinese billionaire Jack Ma offered to donate some protective gears to the continent, an ode was sung to his glory.

‘“We are now properly prepared,’ Mr Agyemang-Manu [health minister] declared while receiving a consignment of assorted protective gears donated by the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma which arrived in the country Wednesday morning from Ethiopia,” said the Ghanaian news portal 3news.com.

The West African state was not ‘properly prepared’ until Jack Ma came to the rescue? This is a country that has for years touted its possession of gold, diamond, bauxite and arguably any other mineral you could think of. Ghana, again, boasts of timber. This we all know and the sort of timber the country has goes beyond mahogany and such tress. The all expensive rosewood is found in Ghana too!

But, the single most important question is that where does the money accrued from sale of all these natural resources go? Greed, corruption and politics without conscience have been gradually eroding the fortunes of this beautiful West African state. Not long ago, the country’s gold and rosewoods were plundered without mercy by Chinese nationals and Ghana could not even cough at them.

After all that Aisha Huang – nicknamed the galamsey/[local parlance for illegal mining] queen, mercilessly did in the mining sector, she was eventually deported to go and sin no more while Ghanaians who were also caught in the same act are still behind bars.

That was not all. Another Chinese national by name Helena Huang was also let off the hook of the country’s laws after she was arrested with four containers of rosewood and eventually deported. In Helena’s case, she even went missing for days in Ghana, after first being arrested, only to submit herself to the police later on.

Away from Ghana to Equatorial Guinea, in Central Africa, a handful of politicians there have for years lived lavishly at the expense of the country’s poor. In the country where a father – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – serves as the president, and his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue as the vice president, issues of embezzlement there are now no news to the world.

Since October 2011 to date, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue has countlessly dominated headlines all for the wrong reasons. From the US seizing his $70 million assets to authorities in Brazil confiscating over $16 million worth of cash and luxury watches, Mr. Nguema has proven notoriously stubborn.

“An appeal court in France has fined Equatorial Guinea's vice-president €30m ($33m; £25m),” reports the BBC in February 2020, “for using public money to fund his lavish lifestyle.”

If one means touching on states of Africa one by one to talk about mismanagement of funds and resources, such a fellow would probably need a whole year to do so. It is therefore not surprising that many fear for Africa over Covid-19. All the monies on the continent are in the pockets of some few powerful men [and women] who effortlessly seek proper medical care abroad leaving their health system, back home, in disarray.

 

It is true that almost all the advanced/developed world are as well struggling to sufficiently provide all the needed equipment to contain the disease. In a CNN news article dubbed “The US is asking other countries for everything from hand sanitizer to ventilators to help fight the coronavirus,” the piece said America had asked for such assistance in the face of the threat of the disease.

This, many people shared on social media and made fun of a struggling giant – America. The question that most Africans who shared this post did not ask themselves is would any country in Africa or the continent proper have survived had it recorded the number of cases [145,369 as of midday, Monday, March 30, 2020] of the disease America has?  

Perhaps, the saddest thing here is how these Africans [especially the youth] are not able to question their own leaders of mismanagement of state resources but take delight in what happens elsewhere. Renowned writer, Wole Soyinka was not far from right when he said: “It is only in Africa where thieves will be regrouping to loot again and the youths whose future is being stolen will be celebrating it.”

In these trying times of Covid-19 ravaging the world, we have seen the serious and non-serious countries around the world. Whereas others could dish their hands into their coffers to give stimulus packages to businesses and citizens, many are those who ran to the International Monetary Fund to beg for funds to do same.

Whereas some used six [6] to 10 days to build a 1000 bed capacity hospital, others only got ‘properly prepared’ after a billionaire somewhere donated protective gears to them. And the mere thought that these non-serious countries are not really poor but corruption and greed placing them in helplessness pains so badly as the sting of an ant.

We can only continue to pray for Africa for the center can never hold should Covid-19 properly torment the continent. The truth is, if we should be in the shoes of Italy or Spain for just a day, dead bodies will carpet our streets!

The writers, Solomon Annan & Solomon Mensah, are Ghanaian journalists who have interest in the world’s politics with an unflinching eye mainly on what pertains in Africa. Views expressed here are solely theirs and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of this media organisation.

Email: internationaldialogue2@gmail.com

Twitter: @abisolo7 & @aniwaba

INT’L DIALOGUE: Faure Gnassingbe, a president for life?

 

President Faure Gnassingbe. Photo: Culled from the internet

Saying it succinctly without any malice or whatsoever attached, he who is really pressed to empty the contents of their bladder could do so by urinating to easily plot the coordinates of the West African state’s borders at a go. Togo, per its land size, is one of the smallest countries in Africa. 

If it would not be considered wild-dreaming, Togo’s populace could be counted within a split of a second by one of those marvelous Chinese drones that it [China] uses to warn its citizens who loiter about in town without nose masks in the midst of the deadly Coronavirus. Indeed, Togo’s population of a little over eight [8] million is but a handful. 

Nonetheless, the smallness of everything Togo cannot be said of the plethora of issues within the country which shares boundaries with Ghana and Benin.

“Faure Gnassingbe seized power in 2005 by a coup following his father’s death. Thanks to the army that maintained his father in power for 38 years,” rants Farida Bemba Nabourema, “in the aftermath of that coup, he held rushed presidential elections and over 500 Togolese citizens were massacred in the process. His ascension to power was not democratic and so has been his ruling of Togo.”

Ms Bemba Nabourema, the Spokesperson for the Faure Must Go movement, in a mail correspondence with International Dialogue sounded much worried. 

“Under Faure Gnassingbe’s regime, laws have been enacted to ban protests, limit freedom of the press and speech. Multiple media houses have been shut down, journalists have been persecuted, arrested and tortured and numerous citizens including children as young as nine [9] have been summarily executed during protests. This situation has caused thousands of Togolese to flee their country and live in exile like myself,” she said.

Getting a proper definition or description for Faure Gnassingbe’s rule/regime is one difficult question political commentators and students of international politics could ever face. Is Mr. Gnassingbe practicing democracy or monarchy? If we are to go by the former as we are made to believe then why his obvious attempt to cling on to power as tightly as a baby would its mother’s breast? 

Since the ascension of Mr. Gnassingbe to the throne of presidency, a series of protests by the opposition political parties have rocked his seat. But with the military’s unwavering support on his side – as alluded to by Bemba Nabourema,  he has survived all attempts to end the over fifty years rule by the Gnassingbe family. Yes! Welcome to Africa where often politics becomes a do-or-die affair.

Faure Gnassingbe has perfected his craft so well that he could not have skipped or missed adopting the bully-boy tactics of his late father. 

Somewhere in May 2019, Togo’s parliament accepted into being a constitutional amendment that gives the president two five-year terms. 

The amendment means that Faure Gnassingbe is very much eligible to stand for reelection in the country’s polls slated for February 22, 2020. But, wait! That’s not all. Faure Gnassingbe could as well stand for the 2025 elections and rule till 2030 when he wins the people’s mandate.

For Farida Bemba Nabourema, however, she believes that this constitutional change “is a mockery to the people of Togo who were one of the first to vote for terms limit on the African continent in 1992.” 

The young woman in exile says, Faure Gnassingbe does not plan on ruling Togo till 2030. That, rather, he wants to be president for a lifetime like his father. And if he manages to stay till 2030, he will find a way to modify the constitution just like his father did in 2002 and rule till he dies.

Writing under the headline “Togo changes law to let president stand for two more terms” on May 9, 2019, Aljazeera’s news report appeared to have cemented the fears of many who dread Faure Gnassingbe.

“Another change passed by the National Assembly guaranteed immunity for life to all former presidents, who the new constitutional terms said cannot be prosecuted, arrested, detained, or tried for acts committed during their presidential term,” the report said.

With a parliament that is fully controlled by members of Gnassingbe’s Union for the Republic party as they hold two-thirds of the seats in the house, do we really expect anything different than what we are seeing?

“Legislators also changed the rules for their own mandate, meaning they can now hold their seats for two terms of six years each. Before, they had a mandate of five years but with an unlimited number of terms,” wrote Aljazeera.

Faure Gnassingbe has the military and the country’s parliament among others on his side making his rule unquestionable. 

In the said February 22 presidential election, nevertheless, 53-year-old Gnassingbe will face it off in that contest of thumbs mainly with Jean-Pierre Fabre.

Mr. Fabre who leads the Alliance for Change [ANC] which is the main opposition party in the country has a huge task at hand. A task as enormous as uprooting the taproot of an iroko tree and Pierre Fabre perfectly knows he must not do so with a shovel. 

Will Jean Pierre Fabre be able to unseat the iroko tree of a man called Faure Gnassingbe? Or, are we faced with a difficult yet an easy question as George Bernard Shaw once said, “No question is so difficult to answer as that which the answer is obvious”?

Well, undoubtedly, Togo’s presidential polls has a lot of interesting tales at stake. For professional bettors and those whose conscience does not restrict them from betting, you may place a bet on the elections and boldly tell Aliko Dangote to watch out as you would whisk from him – the way the hawk does mother hen's offspring – his position of Africa’s richest. 

At this point, we can only wish the good people of Togo a peaceful election and urge the international community to be that interested in Gnassingbe's country. Here, Ghana’s president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo must be lauded for his recent mediation role when Togo’s opposition parties locked horns with the Faure Gnassingbe’s regime.

The African Union proper must be up to the task. It must not comment on the affairs of a member state only to return to comment on same in a decade’s time. 

The writers are Ghanaian journalists who have interest in the world’s politics with an unflinching eye mainly on what pertains in Africa. Views expressed here are solely theirs and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of this media organisation.

Email: internationaldialogue2@gmail.com

Twitter: @abisolo7 & @aniwaba

INT’L DIALOGUE: Libya’s war, can AU stand the world powers?

 

Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj and Khalifa Haftar. Photo: Sourced from online

 It was on Sunday, January 19, 2020, and the venue was in Berlin, Germany. There, they gathered. Leaders and diplomats had met and the agenda for the gathering was not far-fetched. The world’s superpowers had met two peeved strong men from war-ravaged North African state of Libya to unlock their ‘horns’ as they continuously fight for supremacy over who rules their country.

But, even before the Libya Summit could come off, it was as predictable as clockwork as it was impossible for the world powers to get the two factions sign a ceasefire deal. The [foreign] protagonists themselves involved in the war had attended that Berlin Summit holding on to their respective entrenched positions. There was no way these protagonists could convince each other let alone getting their candidates in Libya to halt the war.  

Writing an opinion piece on Politico.eu dubbed “Road to peace in Libya goes through Turkey”— a day before the Libya Summit, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ostensibly expressed anger aimed at crashing Haftar’s power grab. 

“Turkey fully supports Libya’s U.N-backed, legitimate government. Under the most recent security and military cooperation agreements, we pledged to protect the Libyan government from coup plotters. In this regard, we will train Libya’s security forces and help them combat terrorism, human trafficking and other serious threats against international security,” wrote Mr. Erdoğan. 

Considering the enormous support Khalifa Haftar enjoys from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, Russia, US and Saudi Arabia, calling the bluff of the Libya Summit of a no ceasefire deal was not anything too hard to do. He had before that Sunday meeting angrily left Moscow, in Russia, over yet another ceasefire deal without appending his signature to documents. 

Then in Sarraj’s camp are another group of supporters being Sudan, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, Germany and Italy. Certainly, this is more than a complex war. A war that its protagonists would find it extremely hard to end it themselves. 

Just 10 days after the Libya Summit, the arms embargo that was placed on Libya is in tatters. 

“The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) deeply regrets the continued blatant violations of the arms embargo in Libya, even after the commitments made in this regard by concerned countries during the International Conference on Libya in Berlin,” says unmissions.org. 

We are, as well, told that numerous cargo and other flights have been observed landing at Libyan airports in the western and eastern parts of the country providing the parties with advanced weapons, armoured vehicles, advisers and fighters. 

For security analyst Adib Saani who heads the Jatikay Centre for Human Security and Peace Building, “It [peace talks] should go beyond the rhetoric. Concrete actions need to be put on the ground. These various actors need to talk among themselves. If it’s the oil they want which is quite obvious then they should find a way to divide the oil [zone] among themselves.” He spoke in an exclusive interview with the International Dialogue. 

Of a truth, the fire in Libya could be doused with the intervention of a neutral arbiter. Does the African Union [AU] not overly qualify for this role?  It does!

Nonetheless, you ask yourself that in all the back and forth where is the AU? The African Union since the toppling of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi till date has actually become a confused group of states than ever. Was there a unified front of the continent’s powerful states to intervene either diplomatically or militarily in America’s needless intervention in Libya? Is the AU doing so now in the Sarraj-Haftar war? No!

The AU is either clueless or perhaps unable to convince world powers that it has the credibility to resolve the crisis in Libya. 

This, when Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor  Botchwey recently met top government officials in Turkey, she tried covering up AU’s chronic shame. 

“I believe that the steps that Turkey is taking with Russia and others to bring peace to Libya is a step that I think it's in the right direction. However, may I also add that, I think, it's important in taking these steps also to involve the Continental Union, which is the African Union,” she said.

Really? Why does the AU still sit aloof waiting for Turkey or Russia to invite her to the peace process in Libya before it acts? 

Madam Ayorkor Botchwey like many African leaders, indeed, “think that the solution sometimes lie within [Africa],” as she said in Turkey, yet they forever prefer to be spoon-fed. What they forget or rather deliberately fail to realize is that the world has no time waiting for Africa.

In recent years, regional and sub-regional organizations have become more powerful and interested in matters affecting their regional or sub-regional bloc. The Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] became a pacesetter in resolving Gambian 2016/17 election debacle which would have been one of the bloodiest political conflicts of our time. Are these regional blocs useful than the AU? Perhaps, yes!

The African Union cannot justify its silence in the Libyan crisis. The Union has not shown enough leadership for the many souls perishing in the North Africa state. If the European Union among other reasons is concerned about Libya because that is the African migrants’ gateway to their territory, is the AU also not concerned that thousands of its labour force are dying on the Mediterranean? Must the AU be told that repeatedly failing the same examination of incompetence is but shameful? 

If the AU were a force to reckon with, it would have by now stood face-to-face with the protagonists in Libya’s war and levelled sanctions on them to retract its supply of weapons to the North African state. And, these let-alone powerful states would have quietly obliged such a command from the continental body. Rather, it is the opposite.

Africa’s leaders have failed Africans. They hardly value human lives. Saying the truth as it is or ought to be, thousands more of our compatriots will continue to perish in Libya since resolving of the conflict there is left in the hands of the same world powers that lied in toppling Muammar Gaddafi. Today, Libya— once a beautiful young woman with promising breasts— woefully wobbles on her feet. The falcon, indeed, cannot hear the falconer!

Is there an end in sight to Libya’s war? No. If for anything, the fire in the North African country could be doused temporarily. Remember, it is not that simple and easy for the protagonists to walk away from the dining table of Libya knowing that it is leading on the table of African countries with the highest volumes of oil reserves. Libya was Africa’s Europe and the Americas. It was rich and fertile soil for growth. 

We— the AU— looked on to its destruction. If you are an African reading this piece, please skip your food today so we join hands in mourning a lost jewel.

The writers, Solomon Annan and Solomon Mensah, are Ghanaian journalists who have interest in the world’s politics with an unflinching eye mainly on what pertains in Africa. Views expressed here are solely theirs and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of this media organisation.

Email: internationaldialogue2@gmail.com

Twitter: @abisolo7 & @aniwaba