African leaders have been charged to wake up and realize that it is not business as usual as the continent is at stake as well as the lives of Africans going by the recent upsurge of travel bans imposed on some Africa countries.
Dr.Ayoade Alakija, the co-chair of the African Unions Vaccine Delivery Alliance made this charge recently while expressing concerns about what she described as the locking away of Africa which according to her is discriminatory as well as xenophobic she said.
The globally renowned authority on bridging the humanitarian-development-peace nexus observed that it is now clear that had covid been first identified in Africa last year, the urgency to develop a vaccine would not be there as the high-income countries of the world would have locked Africa away and thrown the keys making the continent expendable.
Alakija, while saying that what is going on now was inevitable and a result of the world’s failure to vaccinate in an urgent and equitable manner; a result of what she described as the hoarding by high-income countries of the world.
The woman who had between 2016-2019 served as the former Chief Humanitarian Coordinator for the government of Nigeria to lead the joint national and international humanitarian response in the Lake Chad region said it is time African leaders stand up and find their voice.
Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija however described the travel bans on African countries as political and not backed by science and asked African leaders not to allow the world to do this to us she said.
