The pandemic have not just exposed us to the shambolic effect of elite cluelessness in leadership or lack of vision but most importantly, of how it has endangered our collective immunity to tolerance of their bad effect. How long shall this continue? The image of our fellow brothers and sisters in many African states queuing up, fighting while begging for handout during this period has shown, how collectively we have failed in our vision for a stable continent not to talk of statehood. From the various regions that make up the collective georegion of our Political concave, the story is just the same. What has actually happened for us to get to this point? We sold our collective right to few individuals who have made it a duty to benefit from our woes, defrauded our cognitive ability and left us vulnerable. This story is the same, everywhere in the continent as politician make promises, that can’t be fulfilled yet, we fail to hold them to account simply because our tolerance level is so high. Even when pressed against the wall, we hardly fight back but rather break the wall to give them enough space. Here we are today, as experiments in a lab of trial and error. Like Friedman sums it using Trump analogy: “Trump talks like China, envies Sweden, prepares for neither and insist that his strategy is superior to both.” This is how our response in the pandemic can be summarily explained. We have become victims of change and continuity simply because, our lapses gives room for same outcome.
How prepared are we for what is to come?
It is projected that death would increase and poverty would grow just from this pandemic alone. We have been dying even before this but please don’t get me wrong. This is an opportunity for change and not continuity as we know it before. Are we prepared for it? Fellow Africans, our national elites have failed us and it is time we reclaim our space, if ever we hope to come out of this pandemic a better humanity. It is time we stand up for our right and ask that we be treated rightfully as bonafide citizens of this beautiful continent. Not just the touch and go of the past but fully invested to decide the fate, our fate,for it is about our lives and those of the future generation, not for the few rich, the elite whose failures we have fallen victim. The elite who take pride and benefits from our woes, who have made it a duty to ride on our, forgive me for this- collective amnesia as they would like to ridiculously refer to us. We play dumb not because we are afraid to act, we are a people with immense respect and unimaginable level of tolerance yet it cannot be business as usual. Tolerance has limit, so too is amnesia, for sometimes the rush of memory is all we need. Many diseases has been plaguing the continent some would say-Ebola, malaria even poverty itself. It only took a single act for Arab spring to unravel the northern part of our continent and beyond, never forget that.
What can be done?
The statement “am an African” is a vision that aligns us to working as a collective, in solidarity with who, where, and when the need arises. It is not today’s vision but has unfortunately become a vision without tooth, a tooth without the jaw. It is a fragmented vision, rational though, yet remain an elitist project- spectacle of top-down chatter without vision or ambition. It is propaganda that has overwhelmingly failed to enroll the poorest of the poor, a vision shrouded in mystery. It is time, the people lead the course and cause the elite to listen. No people can be free if the least amongst them is in shackle. Government must work for all, for what is good for the goose is good for the gander. African leaders have prided themselves not in service to their people but rather have made the people servants of the leaders. Most have prided themselves visiting foreign hospitals for checkups while the poor are left to deal with broken down hospitals beds. Fighting for their life’s in limited life support machines, if ever they are working. These are not rocket science, it is simple mathematics of doing what is right. A leader remains a servant. But they have misspelt politics to mean policing, because they feel the people are beyond redemption and without an ability of reasoning. This is not a revolution against the current political class but of a thinking minds, the collective involvement of the people to choices that can leads to a better life for all. It is calls for and involves thinking on how to revive ourselves from the ruins of the select few who have played us for a fool and placed us all in danger. The elite have failed us ones again, the pandemic has expose them as shams and we are without vision as to where we may land. It is time for a more common African promise that is simple and understandable to all.
How can this be done?
We need to put aside our nationalist sentiments, which is a convenient tool deployed at will as cover for political failures and we must wear a solidarity mask. The mask should be symbolic, not only does it prevent us from contracting future disease through fail policy, it is a tool in our hands to prevent others from contracting the disease-disease spread through political hate, incompetence, ineptitude and other political vices. Hate divides, incompetence and ineptitude shreds our collective immunity. This is how, the people’s power become captured if they fail to take action. We must dare to dream starting now, for what happens post the pandemic must show repurposing for change rather than continuity as we know it-as though nothing ever happened.
This continent was conceived with a people but has so far been led without the people in mind. It is time we turn the tide against those who feel, we are just a pawn.
Celestine Chidi
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