COVID 19: Ultimate Test For Leadership

Despite the pain, grief and monstrous economic losses that characterise COVID 19, it is obviously difficult to miss the huge beams of light it has shone on the quality of world leadership. Is leadership on free fall?

When the first cases were reported in China in December 2019, the news was treated as just another news item in a multitude of other world news. Days and months saw more and more cases reported without loud enough alarms being sounded. The story that the world was being fed on was that of a mild virus doing some harmless rounds in Wuhan China.

This calls into question the willingness of China to share factual information on the virus with the rest of the world. Was there really a cover-up? Why the cover-up? Was the intention to conceal weakness or just raw recklessness? Or was it a finely calculated plot to export death and see other nations also suffer as they took a beating physically, psychologically and economically?

That way China a global power would have a chance to get back at other global powers especially Western Europe and North America who rival and question China’s economic, political and social policies. It would be a case of we (China)won’t suffer reversals alone as the rest of the world prospers.

If that is proved to be the case China a global leader would stand accused of gross crimes against humanity. She would risk isolation and payment of reparations just as Germany after the first and second world war. The republic would go down in history as an enemy of humanity in the superlative.

Even as we rain torrential blame on China, we must ask ourselves bigger questions. If there really was a cover-up where were the apex intelligence institutions various world nations boast about? Such venom brews in this planet and no spy nose smells it! Where was WHO the institution charged with global health matters? What about the alarms they sounded?

One wonders whether they were talking about the same monster that is now chewing lives like gum or they were warning humanity about some common cold.

We never heard WHO issue any serious travel advisories against visiting any part of China. No one heard WHO talk about the insanely contagious and lethal nature of the virus. Were they in the dark or accomplices to the crime? The world needs these answers to be safe again(actually start being safe).

It is absolutely unbelievable that a super modern planet that claims to be awake round the clock was caught napping in this manner. But what is even more disturbing is the manner in which our leaders chose to deal with the pandemic.

Before taking any meaningful measures, over 99% of world leaders waited patiently for the virus to knock on the doors of their countries. They warmly welcomed it and allowed it to comfortably settle among their populace. It was only when the virus embarked on its life-crushing mission that these leaders jolted to some action.

Italy especially became its second home after China. Mass deaths and hospitalizations were being reported on a scale unknown to this generation.

The rest of Europe and the USA instead of taking meaningful measures just stared confusedly, dilly-dallying and making conflicting statements. In no time COVID 19 was crushing lives in their numbers in France, Spain, UK, USA among others prodding their soundly sleeping leaders to action.

The measures taken were also characterised by confusion and half-heartedness. The number of precious lives wasted by this recklessness runs to hundreds of thousands. Let us not dress the naked truth, this is mass murder rubber-stamped by our leaders through sheer indecision, untold carelessness and dullness.

The Africa continent has been the last to suffer from the fangs of COVID 19. The approach has been spectacularly poorer than it’s handling in Europe, North America and vast parts of Asia. It could only be comparable to parts of Latin America.

If anyone ever imagined that the current species of leaders had an iota of ability to learn and some rays of foresight then find out how some countries in Africa are handling this pandemic.

Africa had all the time to learn and above all keep off the virus from its shores. African leaders had seen the horrors in the rest of the world. The question begs, what did they do? Nothing! Oh, at least they sat waiting for it.

Our leaders feigned ignorance and it was business as usual. Flights continued in and out of our countries to the rest of the world that was in the thick of infections. In Kenya for instance, it was the ordinary citizens who were crying to the government to take measures. The leadership completely ignored and passenger planes even from China continued to fly in.

A widely read local daily carried a headline, ‘Enemies of the People’ with the portraits of the ministers of health and transport. This was a whole fourteen days before the first case was reported. The enemies of the people unperturbed continued to live true to this label: Zero measures were taken!

Even an ordinary employee of the National carrier, Kenya Airways took it upon himself to film a passenger plane on arrival from China with hundreds of passengers. The poor employee was thoroughly intimidated by some other enemies of the people at the helm of the company.

During a press conference purportedly meant to address the cries of the citizenry, the Health Chief Assistant Secretary Dr. Rashid Aman said that banning flights from China was tantamount to discrimination. Imagine that! So our leaders kept waiting for COVID 19 as if it were a wonderful guest. You would think it was something fashionable and romantic to have this virus pay us a visit. Some cosy beds were actually on display to demonstrate how ready we were for the rockstar!

Finally, the first case was reported in Kenya. This was the grand day our leaders had been waiting for. They came out in style to make the announcement. To them, it was now the right time to take some measures. What a rare kind of 'wisdom'! You hear a deluge is imminent but instead of building dykes, you bask in the sun waiting. Holding your head high, your hope is that you will learn to swim as you drown.

It is astounding that even after more and more cases were being reported in Kenya, flights from abroad continued uninterrupted. Passengers on arrival would casually be advised to self-quarantine. Who self quarantines? Even the most ordinary of minds would have banned these flights a long time before, treating it as a matter of urgency.

The other question begs, why allow these passengers to simply enter the country on mere advice to self-quarantine?

The best decision should obviously have been to detain them and test them. This they learnt after two weeks. See how long it took our leaders to load one cheap idea! It was only later again after infections piled that they loaded the idea that international flights were doing absolute harm. Our dull, slow thinking leaders halted international flights after enough infections had been imported.

One wonders what happened to the discrimination that Dr. Rashid Aman had talked about weeks earlier when the masses cried for these flights to be halted. Now he unashamedly jams our screens enumerating the number of deaths and new infections. He also dares preach to us how to battle the virus.

All our leaders could not see in time what ordinary citizenry from the thickest of bushes could see. What leadership! What you can see from your closet your leader cannot see from the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Two weeks into the crisis in Kenya, a poll conducted was evidence enough that people wanted a total shut down in order to effectively strangle COVID 19. The leadership once again was too blind to see that as a viable solution. They resorted to some kindergarten restrictions here and there which any ordinary mind could tell was a waste of time. Just chasing rainbows! The ever exponentially growing numbers of infections evidence that.

Kenya’s approach has been rickety and devoid of any coherent plan. Testing has been pitiably minimal averaging at around 600 tests per day for the month of March, April, all the way to late May. It has now intermittently hobbled towards 3000 tests a day. A whole government machinery with bulging financial muscles and streams of donor funds from abroad can only afford this minuscule number? You sure thought we are talking about some private lab in some backwater village.

The country is being treated to an overdose of PR as if it were a cure. The health minister and a host of senior officials from the ministry jam our screens religiously every afternoon. They announce new numbers of infections and promise even bigger numbers. Instead of investing in actions, our leaders are investing heavily on tired rhetorics as infections engage higher gears on a daily basis.

The leadership in Kenya, if at any one time you imagined cared for lives, has chosen this very delicate time to evict thousands of squatters. People who for months have not been on any wage have now been thrown out there in the cold and exposure to COVID 19.

Their children’s condition due to starvation and the biting cold is a loud reminder of our leaders’ banditry nature. Even some tents offered by well-wishers (the citizenry has human hearts) who found their condition overly pathetic were thrown away by the police. That’s our beloved government for you!

It is laughable that when the WHO announced that the virus could linger in our lives for quite some time, the Kenya government understood this to mean that it was time to throw in the towel. The leaders were swift as usual to crowd our screens to announce that even the kindergarten measures in place would be lifted. The citizenry would forthwith be on their own.

This is obviously pressing the detonator for the virus to run riot and pulverize lives with abandon. Their stunted analysis of the situation is totally blind to the fact that their purported intentions to salvage the economy is actually going to take the same economy to the grave. This is of course together with the bodies of the citizens who are supposed to build the economy.

It is however not surprising given the casualness with which this crisis is being handled. The president has actually been neck-deep in succession politics. He is taking his sweet time to throw bare-knuckled punches at the deputy president who is seemingly not interested in the cheap duel. Meanwhile, hospitals are bursting at the seams and can no longer cope with the ballooning numbers. But who cares about lives lost, hospitalizations, and the ever-soaring numbers?

Luckily a momentary change of mind will delay the move to daredevil and throw all caution to the wind. In his own words, the president said only a fool ignores expert advice. Doctors have warned of an imminent catastrophe if the kindergarten measures are also lifted. That is laudable! But if testing is not stepped up and stringent measures employed, the country will soon be overrun by the virus.

The sorry situation in Kenya pales compared to what is happening in Tanzania and Burundi. The leadership in the two countries has publicly dismissed COVID 19 as a non-issue. It is just an ordinary common cold! Few if any measures are in place in these countries. Actually information on COVID 19 in these countries is hush-hush.

It is however surprising that the first lady of Burundi was recently flown to a high-end hospital in Kenya after contracting the virus. Why fly someone abroad for treatment of common cold? See the hypocrisy! What is going to happen to the poor Burundians suffering from this ‘common cold’? You can bet that the virus is actively brewing and spreading in these countries. These could be disasters in waiting.

Who knows what is happening in Somalia and Southern Sudan?

If a vaccine or cure is not found soon, I am afraid Africa might become COVID 19’s eternal home.

Africa is not utterly arid of quality leadership. It is worth recognizing the demonstration of responsible leadership in Uganda and Rwanda where stringent measures were put in place in time. These countries may be safe to reopen soon. The same can fairly be said of Ghana and South Africa where massive testing has been undertaken.

Beyond Africa, we could talk about Greece, Germany, Denmark and above all Newzealand a country that has not worked just towards containing the virus but to actually eliminate it! The country is now virus-free and life is back to pre-COVID. See what is possible with quality leadership!

This has happened as other leaders split hairs saying such a feat is impossible. It is, of course, way beyond their character and imagination.

The world has gone and is still going through one of the most difficult times in its history. Not because nature willed it but simply because the world leadership has been given a very simple test and has fallen like a pack of cards. The product of their ghastly failure is a historic tragedy: colossal loss of lives and livelihoods.

Their hands are dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of precious innocent souls. They stand charged with mass murder.

When making decisions on leadership, we must learn, we are choosing between life or death. Next time you go to the ballot choose life!

It is saddening though, that on so many occasions there may not be life on the ballot. The brightest and soberest of minds have left politics to the dullest and most chaotic of minds!

Two proverbs from the Holy Book (the Bible) capture our predicament aptly:

Proverbs 22:3 A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

Proverbs 24:10 If you are weak in a crisis you are weak indeed!