Who Are We Waiting For?

Ghana and other African countries cannot go on waiting day by day hoping and praying that someone, somewhere will conjure a vaccine for the dreaded disease, coronavirus to heal and immunize their afflicted citizens.

A large number of companies and academic institutions globally are racing to create a vaccine for the novel virus, COVID-19.

What is Ghana doing, Who are we waiting for?

Success does not happen by chance, it must be consciously worked for. In a country where basic education is free and government prides itself with the expedient growth of literacy rates, one would expect our actions to be in line with our utterances.

With over hundreds of science-oriented senior high schools and a whole University of science and technology, which churns out graduates annually, theoretically, we have all it takes to undertake intense research to produce the derived vaccination or at least attempt to derive.

So then my question, what are we waiting for?

Unless our school systems are not robust enough or the curriculum and scientific knowledge we churn out to our locally produced scholars and graduates, is not good enough or up to global standards, I should be able to confidently say that we have no one but ourselves to rely on in creation of a vaccine.

The President, since the invasion of the gory Coronavirus into our motherland Ghana, announced that $10 million, will be allocated to help fight and mitigate the dire effects of the disease and to battle it effectively.

Portions of the money have been spent, acquiring PPE's, providing logistics, equipment and materials for health workers who are the Frontline soldiers in this battle. That is quite laudable, however, the problem still persists. The problem is that, no money has strategically allocated to undertake intensive research that can aid to the discovery of a cure for the virus.

Instinctively, we have prayed on empty stomachs through the direction of the government to beg God to heal our land. The question again is , how should God heal our land? Should he miraculously conjure a vaccine and insert it into the lungs of Ghanaians discreetly?

Africa should have learnt a lesson from Ebola. Ebola killed more than a myriad of Africans while a fraction of the world nonchalantly watched. After the death of a United States citizen, spontaneously a cure was released to Africa by the white man. This connotes that we all Africans may have been defunct without the existence of the white man.Though we are grateful for them, we need to activate our proactivity and capabilities to demonstrate that we too can take care of ourselves or at least try.

The culture of overly relying on efforts of the white man to produce vaccines for our very own ailments and plagues that affect humans globally must stop otherwise we are rendering ourselves incapable without the white man.

Our school system should be structured such that we do not school without learning anything. Rather every ounce of knowledge we consume in our schools must be of relevance to the everyday citizen. The whole curriculum must be reviewed and revised to fit the African culture.

In Ghana, Government should not only intensify its efforts to increase literacy but rather viciously invest in scientific research and knowledge by providing logistics and resources to augment scientific knowledge in the country.

In relation to the $10 M on the subject of Coronavirus in Ghana, a fraction of the amount must be dedicated to aid the few local intellects and health institutions we have, to at least try and derive a vaccine for the dreaded disease not only for Ghana but for the world. We too can heal the world, it is a matter of time and effort.

We must learn to stand up for ourselves ✊

Article written by

Obeng Silas, The African Panacea