Towards A Zombie Apocalypse: The leaders Must Stop Throwing Dust Into Our Eyes

Some of us have condemned the politicization of the fight against COVID-19 and will continue to do so. Comparing What President Nana Addo is donating to what former President John Mahama is donating to a COVID-19 fund is beside the point.

Everyone cannot make the same amount of donations, though we expect more from all our leaders.

However, no serious government and its officials will, under these urgent circumstances, tell us that they are donating their future earnings into a COVID-19 fund to fight a raging pandemic which requires urgent mobilization of resources.

It is a bad example for other private donors. Private individuals and companies are making donations, not against their future profits or earnings, but from their emergency funds.

Why should government officials do otherwise? Why should they tell us that they will work for half of their pay in the next 3 months as a form of sacrificial donation?

Why are they throwing dust into the people’s eyes? Why these gimmicks?

First of all, they overpay themselves as government officials. We all know that. So how does taking a future pay cut amount to a sacrificial donation?

Since we all know that their productivity as a result of the pandemic will amount to little? Can we really consider their gesture as a genuine sacrifice to help fight the disease and to show leadership example for which we should be applauding them?

I double doubt it in my books!

But the point must be made, that it takes more than money donations and quotable rhetoric to stop the spread of this virus.

So if the purpose of donations from any political leader is to score cheap political points, then we-the-people reject their mockery. All the money they will ever donate - from present or future earnings - comes from us - the people. It is our money.

It takes aggressive civil mobilization. It takes a good bio-defense strategy. It takes urgent, proactive and decisive action. It takes massive education and enforcement of WHO-recommended steps. It takes an aggressive fight against growing and baseless conspiracy theories and false information. It takes forward-thinking and acting leadership to defeat the virus.

Let the leaders walk their talk and stop throwing dust into our eyes in order to mislead us all into a zombie apocalypse!

The Writer Is A Ghanaian Journalist & Ghost Writer