Coronavirus jab: Africa’s place on the world map

If it weren’t for the UN and Bill Gates- supported ACT Accelerator initiative, Africa would have had to wait much longer to get the vaccine. PHOTO | FILE | NMG

Summary

• In fact, if it weren’t for the UN and Bill Gates- supported ACT Accelerator initiative, Africa would have had to wait much longer to get the vaccine.
• This situation has to be the most unambiguous demonstration of Africa’s position in the world

By TEE NGUGI

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In a wolf pack, the alpha members feed first. Then the beta. The last to feed are the omega — the

lowliest members of the pack. This pack hierarchy is analogous to the Covid-19 vaccination roll out. America, Britain and Russia have started vaccinating their citizens. Within the next few days, other rich nations will start doing the same.

Poor countries, especially those in Africa, will have to wait their turn. In fact, if it weren’t for the UN and Bill Gates- supported ACT Accelerator initiative, Africa would have had to wait much longer to get the vaccine. This situation has to be the most unambiguous demonstration of Africa’s position in the world. Will this realisation finally force a paradigm shift that will drive Africa’s renewal?

A popular theory claims Africa is underdeveloped because of neo-colonialism which has relegated the continent to the periphery of a Western dominated capitalist world. In this setup, Africa provides the raw materials to feed the development of the West in return for a few crumbs.

However, this view does not consider factors that propelled countries such as Singapore from village backwaters to developed status in a single generation.

These factors include investment in hardware such as education, technology, manufacturing, infrastructure as well as promotion of the software of values such as diligence, common purpose or sacrifice. Another crucial factor is visionary leadership that views power only as a means to the much bigger goal of rescuing people from the indignities of poverty.

In Africa, we are just now beginning — thanks to China — to invest in the hardware. But we have missed 50 years and have quite some way to go in this regard. As for the software of values and leadership, we seem to be going backwards.

Last week, this column decried the absence of values in the makeup of the Kenyan and African nation-state and the crippling consequences thereof. Today, we look at the absence of the kind of leadership that engineered Singapore’s spectacular rise. In Africa, people seek power in order to control resources which are then used to buy political support in order to retain power. In this cynical game, those in power and their cronies become super wealthy. But in the context of national development, this power play is a sickening and meaningless charade. This conclusion is not a hyperbole. Except for Rwanda, African countries failed to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals and are unlikely to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Again, with the exception of Rwanda, African countries will not achieve the goals they set for themselves. Kenya, for instance, will not achieve its Vision 2030. The AU’s Vision 2063 will remain a distant mirage without investment in the requisite hardware and software.

The next virus will be more infectious and more deadly. Will it find us again sitting on our hands, waiting on the goodwill of others to save us? Either we reinvent ourselves or perish.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator