Where we go from here?

The old adage of "between the devil and the deep blue sea" resonates with every African now more than ever. While the rest of the world is battling with flattening the curve of cases of covid19, Africa is also facing the battle of hunger and civil unrest. Without wanting to be labelled as the prophet of doom, you will all agree with me that this tunnel we are in, is very very dark and imagining a light at the end of it is almost impossible..

Nevertheless, I take a cue from history to say that even the israelites had to be faced with the option of the devil or the deep blue sea for them to reorientate themselves annd not only did Moses show how great a leader he was, God showed how great a supreme being he is and will always be. Also, that moment of powerlessness of the israelites and how they reacted to it eventually paved a way into a world of new possibilities. When they thought it was over, instead, it was just the beginning of something great. Just as we all know, the night gets darkest before dawn.

The greatest mistake we will ever make as a people is the same mistake we have always made that put us in this mess, it is that the government is the messiah. Well, with the way our presidents and finance ministers are either running helter skelter asking for help from the private sector, international organizations and from Europe who themselves are busy fighting the virus, it is clear that the government themselves need a messiah. Taking a cue from the holy book that says "God will not change the situation of a people until they change what is in themselves", we are our own messiahs and it is left for us to decide whether we will perish or we will pick ourselves up, point the rod and divide the sea.

Let us not think that our misfortune is a curse, it is not, as according to political history, great countries of the world especially in Europe faced such unprecedented times in form of wars which served as the launchpad for the progress they have made as a people. We run to those countries to enjoy the fruits of their labour but it is time for us to labour for our own fruits, I dont see the borders opening anytime soon so we dont have an option.

In picking up ourselves especially in this pandemic, we first need to be alive. Several governments across Africa have started easing the lockdown, this is not because they want us to die, but because if we think we are running away from covid19, hunger is waiting patiently for us. While we slowly go back to our places of work or our businesses, for those who can afford to, we need to adhere strictly to the guidelines of physical distancing, using the facemask appropriately and also washing our hands frequently. This, my people has to be done by us, not the government. While doing so, this is the time to also put on our thinking caps and start looking for ways to harness the opportunities in this lockdown eg making of facemasks, we cannot keep relying on paid employment as unemployment is expected to rise. What I am saying is thus, we need to start looking inward to produce what we need as a people, well, the borders are shut and several African currencies are falling so we have no other alternative.

To the government, you know we don't trust you and it is something you have earned over the years. Listing the reasons for the high level of distrust will take several books, not even pages. If despite our resources, we had saved and invested in social security and built necessary infrastructure or even shut the borders on time, we would have been in a better position today. But we cannot keep bemoaning the past, it is what it is, the past. Now more than ever, we need people in political office to be more transparent with the citizens, in short we need empathy, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. We need you to be visionaries like moses and chart a clear and understandable path for us, we need to know that even though you are not experts in crisis management, you clearly have a plan.

Where we go from here depends on the type of mindset we decide to build, though it is not easy, I say lets pick ourselves up and point our rods to the sea and have that strong faith in God, that that sea will divide and i am very optimistic that it will.

Hakeem Onasanya is a public policy graduate student at the Blavatnik School of Government as an Africa Initiative for Governance(AIG) scholar. He also serves as the Vice President of the Oxford University Africa society.