COVID-19: A Leader In Crisis Time

Names like Kwame Nkrumah, Winston Churchill, and Barack Obama are remembered when we talk about leaders who took their countries out of difficult situations.

That of Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, came to the rescue of people under colonial rule. Churchill led Britain through the World War Two (WWII). And Obama, taking the United States of America out of recession, economic crisis in the 2008 global economic meltdown.

Their beautiful stories are now enshrined in gold, and engraved in our hearts.

Today, leaders world over, including President Akuffo Addo of Ghana are battling a devastating war in a virus called COVID-19. It was born in China, and in few months ravaging the world with recorded deaths in thousands.

Ghana's President, as doing all leaders, is issuing orders to the populace in attempts to stem the spread and lethargy of the virus.

In a broadcast on Friday 27th March, 2020, the President imposed a partial lockdown in the two biggest cities of the country designated as hotspots of the COVID-19 - Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi.

As a leader of a Movement, the One Ghana Movement, I draw the attention of the president, and all Ghanaians to this scenario:

We're rather facing panic buying and steep spike in prices of food items.

*I've said it before. I'll reiterate that: though not picking it blindly hookline-and-sinker, Ghana can pick a leaf from South Korea's success story.*

The Asian country didn't impose a partial or total lockdown after they learnt the disease has already laid siege and overwhelmed them. They simply called on the populace to avail themselves for a free willingly mandatory coronavirus testing. You can drive to makeshift hospitals made in booths to learn your status, being positive or a happy negative.

As the world waited to hear a sorry story from the US ally in the region, they flattened the curve as magicians do with their magic wand.

Death toll was minimal, and infection rate reduced exponentially.

As Italy buries hundreds of souls a day, Spain seeing strongmen and the weak alike fall like grass to the sword of COVID-19, South Korea is presenting a blueprint worthy of emulation to the world.

If President Donald Trump had walked in the path of his friends in Seoul, New York may not have now taken the unenviable accolade of "the epicenter of the COVID-19 disease". Washington wouldn't had closed the borders to outgoing and incoming travellers.

The answer was a simple mandatory test.

Judging by the speedy rate of the transmission of this novel coronavirus, imposition of lockdown invokes fear. Fear in stigmatisation arriving out of being tested positive for the virus, one that deter the masses to even announce it if they show symptoms of the pandemic. They'll rather live with it and die untested, not quarantined, and not treated.

Their attendants and neighbours bear the ripple effects from this hypothesis.

A typical example is the case of the father of Obuor, the president of Musicians Association of Ghana, (MUSIGA), who was only tested for the disease after his death.

It's reported he'd entered Ghana from the United Kingdom on March 19th, 2020. That was not said to the healthcare workers by his handlers, though he came from a place with recorded cases of the virus. They treated him as a normal patient. Imagine the sad news we're possible to hear out of this in the coming days.

Coupled with the fear of stigma is the fear of living under a lockdown. Lockdown, a word that was only used for prisoners in the state's custody is unpleasant to a free person. Hearing such word means stockpiling food, water, and other primary essentials that we cannot live without.

Those without the wherewithal to join the public panic buying will travel to their villages. There, they can get firewood and foodstuffs freely from a relative's farm.

As it takes weeks to show symptoms in a patient carrying the COVID-19, these people travelling to the villages from the lockdown cities called hotspots of the disease, are likely to carry it unknowingly, and the recipients are the family members who unsuspectingly embrace them.

As the One Ghana Movement with me as the leader, I still call on the faithfuls to call on our God as we still experiment with conventional orthodox medicine in this unnatural times. Decisions made by the head of the state and other leaders in other regimes will concern us. The God I pray to give guidance in times of crisis. This disease is novel to the scientists, and it'll take at least a year and half to manufacture a vaccine to battle. The God I serve is an immune booster that wards off the infection of the disease. Before the physician get ready his medicine, he heals the sick. As leaders read theories of conventional warfares in times like this one we find ourselves, the God I'm talking about send down solutions.

Such solution we need for Ghana to maintain her name before we rescue and rebuild to her deserving Paradise status, a pilgrims' pride.

Out of this hovering cloud, this darkness, the stars will brighten, and a leader would be born to douse the crisis.

God heal our country, and save our world.

*Written by: Charles Yeboah (Sir Lord)*

*The Founder of One Ghana Movement (#1GhM)*

*Contact/WhatsApp: +233249542111*

*Email: [email protected]*