President Obama- the deliberative president, as expected has figured out how to move forward with assistance to Ebola plagued West African countries. I feel obliged to ask, where are the leaders of Ebola free African states? How many have stood up to be counted?
The leaders are mostly holed up in their palaces and mansions, mostly running down their countries with most of their thoughts and by their actions. It is usually not easy to be ones brother's keeper when what one does mostly, is waddle on the excuse treadmill, seeking and finding which case to make for not getting things done even when the one can.
Ebola is a deadly disease. It has killed thousands of people in the affected countries. It could kill many more. The conversation on why the deadly Ebola virus took hold and seems to be tenaciously spreading in the countries it has, should begin in earnest. It must not wait any longer. Now is as good a time as there will ever be.
Public policies have a lot to answer for. The governments of the countries without question have failed their people. If the governments had done their job as they should, institutions, structures, and resources to prevent or robustly control diseases' outbreak- epidemics or pandemics would generally be in place. Governments should always be prepared because things happen.
Poverty is not an indelible human condition. There is material poverty. There is mental poverty. Good government policies and actions help to reduce and eradicate material poverty. Wrong government policies and actions help to create it. So constructive anti-poverty policies and action work. They do when government truly wants them to. They do not when governments pay no better than lip service to them.
The state of poverty is widely recognized as an active enabling condition for disease causing germs and viruses to thrive. Material poverty is bad. Mental poverty- poverty of the mind is worse. The latter seems to be a common affliction of many of Africa's leaders. Do I know this for a fact? No of course. How else however does anyone explain why many African leaders do not seem to know, what many of their fellow citizens know and expect them to know as they should know, because they are educated enough, and have been around enough to know. The current Ebola outbreak has exposed the soft underbelly of the affected African countries' governments. It has also exposed the unfaithfulness of the countries' leaders to the better interest of their people. It did not have to be that way.
oa
-----Original Message-----
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 7:53 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: FW: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Barack Obama, Femi Osofisan,Soldiers and Ebola
Sep 16, 8:11 PM EDT
Southeast Missourian
Obama's Ebola response: Is it enough and in time?
By LAURAN NEERGAARD and JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press
...............
..............
Stated aims of the mission:
"White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the 3,000 troops would not provide direct care to Ebola patients.
In addition to delivering the 17 treatment facilities, they will help train as many as 500 local health care workers a week. Among the other initiatives, the military will:
-Set up a headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, led by Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, head of U.S. Army Africa.
-Build a regional transportation and staging base in Senegal where the U.S. will help coordinate the contributions of other allies and partners.
-Provide home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, designed to help healthy people caring for Ebola-stricken family members.
That includes 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver to Liberia this week.
-Carry out a home- and community-based campaign to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients.
In Monrovia, Boima Folley runs a sport materials shop and said he'd welcome the U.S. military response.
"We have been praying to get the disease wiped out of our country, so if the coming of U.S. troops will help us get that done,
we should be happy," he said. "The soldiers don't have to have medical backgrounds.""
---
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:01 PM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Barack Obama, Femi Osofisan,Soldiers and Ebola
, Soldiers by Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth, London,England U.S. President Barack Obama has just announced that 3000 U.S. troops would be sent to Liberia to curtail the Ebola Epidemic by setting up health centres, training health workers and helping with logistics I wonder if Barack Obama has read Kolera Kolej by the Nigerian Writer , Professor Femi Osofisan.Strange nobody seems to be talking about Kolera Kolej.
In Kolera Kolej we read about a Cholera epidemic on the campus of an African University.
The combatants in government then in charge of this university reasoned that soldiers are not trained to combat epidemics and so Kolera College was granted the status of a Nation state.And there the politics of the African continent began to unfold.
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