The Editor,
I say it again: Buyers beware of the purported Corona “cure” that has Africa on edge but has not been medically and scientifically tested and is now being delivered via chartered planes to select or gullible African capitals, most of them in the West Africa ECOWAS zone.
If you carefully look at the video and photos of the “mailman” or messenger who delivered this unproven Corona “cure” to Liberian President George Manneh Weah at Liberia’s Roberts International Airport early this week, strangely, the messenger himself wore Corona face mask and hand gloves. If the cure works, then why would he need a face mask? Or maybe, some say because he said he has not yet drunk his dose of the “cure/medication.” That is the first bell ringer there for those rushing for the golden cure.
Now, look carefully at the 15 countries that reportedly bought the Coronavirus “cure” from the African Indian Ocean island nation of Madagascar, mysteriously the most advanced country in Africa in terms having the best healthcare system, South Africa, was convinced not to buy the untested Corona cure, or perhaps is testing it now.. And South Africa is just a stone throw away as compared to Senegal, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Liberia that are thousands of miles away from Madagascar. Hello?
And what does the latest ECOWAS “refute” claim means for its members proclaiming the “Corona Cure Is in Africa” mantra? Glory and hallelujah if true then it means millions$ or billions$ or trillions$ of dollars will be flowing into Africa.
So why won’t Madagascar convince the African Union first before telling the world it has the cure for the Coronavirus?
I have been criticized by friends and foes for, as they put it, “putting African medicines/herbs down while glorifying American or western medicines.” Because the last time I checked only African leaders and other Africans with money have been and are still flying to Europe and America for the best medical care in the world paid for with their citizens’ tax dollars. I have yet to know which American president or European leader that has sought medical treatment with African herbs anywhere in Africa.
For my native Liberia, President William VS Tubman who ruled Liberia with an iron hand for 27 years died on an operating room bed/table in a London hospital in JukyJ1971. Other Liberian leaders who sought American or Western “medicines” were Samuel Doe, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and soon- to-be-next is George Manneh Weah if US President Donald Trump lifts the Coronavirus travel blockade he has imposed on foreign countries including Africa that he has total disdain for and he calls “shithole countries.” And despite Trump’s insults, African leaders are begging Trump for Corona PPEs including Liberia that just got $40 million in PPEs from Mr. Trump.
So yes, ECOWAS has just distanced itself from the Madagascar Corona “cure” because it says there is no “proven medical and scientific test results” thus far, which is the prudent thing to do. In our haste to beat western medicine to the finish line for the cure of Corona, we need to be careful, prudent and convince ourselves first that the Madagascar “cure” works before crying wolf of racism that the World Health Organization which is now headed by an African is now playing the same old game of African marginalization.
If the African cure works then we must guard/protect the formula so the west doesn’t steal it from us and laugh their way to the bank while we sing the same old Blues we have been singing since the era of imperialism, colonialism, slavery and to the new economic decolonization of Africa with the Chinese Dragon swallowing up our natural resources in exchange for modern infrastructures of roads, airports, seaports, railroads, electricity and healthcare centers. Just a thought and not a sermon.
Jerry Wehtee Wion,
[email protected]
Washington, DC, USA
