THE Ebola story in West and Central Africa is painful and sad for many reasons.
More so because the crisis that our brothers and sisters are facing has been exacerbated by ‘poverty’ and they have had to rely on the ‘benevolence’ and charity from the West to cope.
What is heartrending is that ‘poverty’ without doubt has resulted in the rapid spread of the deadly disease and has made it difficult to contain .
The Western media without shame is rallying the world to support the ‘poverty stricken’ nations.
An appeal is being made to rescue the ‘poor Africans’, what cheek.
As we have highlighted elsewhere in the paper these nations are not poor at all.
These are resource-rich nations.
The nations possess resources that, as I write, are oiling the capitals of the West.
These are countries with resources that are on a yearly basis generating millions of dollars for Western nations.
How can a country like Liberia, which boasts of the largest rubber plantations in the whole world, be poor?
Why does Sierra Leone, which for many years has been one of the top 10 producers of diamonds in the world, need assistance because it is lacking in many departments required to stop the deadly virus?
And does it make sense that Guinea-Conakry, which is home to one of the largest high grade iron ore deposits in the world is suffering?
But this is the sad reality, the countries are not poor, it is just the people of these lands that are poor.
Why?
Simply put, because the West is siphoning resources from these countries for their benefit.
This must be a wakeup call for Africa.
This is the reason why a little but resource-rich country like Zimbabwe has stood up against the so-called superpowers and refused to be exploited.
The sad situation in West and Central Africa is the very reason we remain resolute and will not back down when it comes to how our vast resources must be exploited.
When people perish because basic infrastructure like hospitals is absent in a country making millions of dollars for Western countries on a daily basis we must stop and rethink our approaches.
Future generations will not forgive us for giving away, for allowing the exploitation of the continent’s resources while it remains impoverished.
It is time that we learn from disasters such as these.
It is sad that the most we can do in such situations is ululate and thank the West for being our ‘saviour’ and not see them for who they really are.
All the affected nations are in a position to be self-sufficient and address their problems and disasters without looking up to the West if they were in control of their resources.
Ebola has served to show just how much the continent is being exploited.
The exploitation is so bad that our fellow African brothers and sisters have been left in a position where they cannot even buy hospital beds and protective clothing.
This is how serious the West is in its exploitation of our resources; its conscience does not twinge.