By Chinweizu
(21 October 2014)
As the spectre of Ebola stalks
the world, people everywhere are looking accusingly at the ECOWAS presidents.
Like the commandants from whose prison a jailbreak of very dangerous prisoners
has just happened, they had better have a damned good explanation of the event
or face court martial etc. The citizens of ECOWAS demand no less. How can these
presidents allow such a thing to happen on their watch and disgrace all
Africans? Aspersions of all sorts are
being cast on us as incompetent to manage our countries. Africa is being
demonized as this mysterious human backwater from which strange diseases emerge
to afflict the whole world. Before long it will be argued that Africa should be
re-colonized by the West to protect the whole world from the deadly
incompetence of its corrupt black misrulers. In the meantime, the economies of
ECOWAS countries are suffering. Their tourism sector has already been hit by
postponement and cancellation of conferences, group tours, private visits
etc. In farming villages economic
activities are being disrupted as the people flee for safety. And when the
entry bans being urged in the USA and elsewhere are imposed, there will also be
the cost of social disruption as family members, barred from entry into America
and Europe, cannot visit one another. Students back home on vacation may not be
able to return to their campuses abroad, nor will importers be able to make
quick trips abroad to buy and bring in goods.
Emergency trips abroad for treatment of other ailments will be affected.
Until the epidemic is ended, the economies of ECOWAS will be seriously hit and
the economic and social coats will keep mounting. And the epidemic can’t be
ended without knowing its causes and therefore the effective ways to combat
them. After all, if you don’t understand it you can’t fix it. I, as a concerned
ECOWAS citizen-- and I believe many other Africans would join me in
this--therefore demand an emergency ECOWAS Summit on Ebola at which the ECOWAS
presidents should set up a public and independent Commission of Enquiry comprising eminent international judges and jurists to investigate the
event and find answers to some pertinent questions:
