The deprivations and plague of the Covid 19 and its new variant , Omicron have altered our way of life and expectations of governments and leadership globally . Yet this is an evolving situation as the virus refuses to go away and is leading the world on a wild goose chase with the governments facing the dire consequences of being charged with the ominous irresponsibility of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted . We take a look at the world at large today to see the ravages of the pandemic in economic and political terms to see how or when managing this pandemic could have been done better . It will be foolhardy to apportion blames as usual on mismanagement or lack of vision on the part of those governments and institutions leading the fight to contain the pandemic world wide . That is not my mission here today but rather to see ways that things could be done better now and in the future in containing a most unwanted , debilitating and murderous visitor to the world at large that covid 19 and Omicron have become in the world we live in today
Superficially we take a look at both Uganda and Nigeria where the former is losing a major airport to the Chinese on account of debt default and the latter is destroying expired vaccines and politely asking vaccine donors to send them well before expiry dates . We examine the situation in the US where the Biden Administration is being restrained from implementing its vaccine mandate for private sector and government employees by both the courts and the powerful US senate . We take a peep at the EU where judicial independence and rule of law is being invoked against Poland and Hungary to prevent them from having access to the huge funds on pandemic recovery voted by the EU authorities . Lastly , but on a lighter note , and since every cloud , especially a pandemic one must have its silver lining , we just wonder aloud on how the British PM and his unmarried wife got a second baby in this pandemic while a scandal is a raging over allegations that the PM staff had a rollicking party last December while the government locked down the rest of the nation , under stringent covid 19 hygiene protocols . We now proceed to critically go over these issues in terms of the topic of the day in consonance with our earlier resolve to learn and not necessarily to apportion blames .
Uganda is to lose its widely known Entebbe International Airport to China because it defaulted in paying the loan lent it by the Chinese in 2015 on the airport. This is because China has refused to alter the original terms of the loan and the airport which handles 1.9m passengers annually is to be forfeited by Uganda to China which through it famous Belt and Road Initiative is building infrastructure globally ostensibly to export Chinese values and culture all over the world . China is saying loud and clear on debt recovery in Uganda , that it is not a father Christmas and does not offer free l unch on infrastructure construction and finance in any part of the world in consonance with its Belt and Road Initiative. Uganda’s debt is said to be about 50 % of its GDP and Uganda is expected to pay back $3bn in the next 10 years . Uganda had borrowed $270m from Exim Bank of China in 2015 . Uganda now joins the debt ridden list of China debtors like Sri Lanka , Malaysia and Maldives who have lost control of vital infrastructure to the Chinese because of blatant debt recovery on which the Chinese have shown no mercy . While the pandemic can be blamed for the need to borrow nations which borrow any time and any way , must prepare for rainy day . That brings us to Nigeria where the Chinese presence is quite visible across the Lagos Lagoon in terms of massive bridge construction towards Victoria Island and the massive Railway construction across the nation . In a mono product economy based on oil which is being globally discarded in the face of a strong move towards climate change , Nigeria must prepare for the rainy day and learn quickly from the fate of Uganda and its loss of face , sovereignty as well as the Entebbe International Airport to the Chinese on account of debt default.
Again on the pandemic issue I have always insisted that Nigeria and many African nations are not as prone as their former colonialists to the ravages of the covid 19 . The death tolls in Nigeria on a comparative basis bear this out and need no repetition here . But the Nigerian health authorities are acting with the same desperation to contain the virus like their overseas counter parts . This explains why stored covid palliatives expected to be distributed to Nigerians were looted by those brigands who hijacked the End SARS anti police protests recently . The news that expired vaccines were being destroyed and donors kept at bay this week is not therefore difficult to explain . Even though people are getting vaccinated , most Nigerians joke about the masks and in many parts of the nation don’t wear them because they see them as a huge government joke . The fact that not up to 3000 Nigerians have died while the death toll in US , Brazil and some EU nations are up to 700000 and daily death tolls rise on some occasions to a thousand , showed the shoe pinched in terms of deaths and fatalities more in these places than in Nigeria . That explains why vaccines that Nigerians wont take would expire in storage and a vaccine beggar nation like Nigeria would have the audacity to give conditions to vaccine donors because the figures just don’t add up on how many Nigerians are healthy enough not to need the vaccine . Yet we embark on lock downs and the government is planning vaccine clearance in government establishments and institutions which is quite alarming . A very clear example of the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand of pandemic magnification , if not outright illusion .
I take the issues I mentioned earlier on the US and EU together because they are two parts of the same coin , which is the rule of law , which in both instances is being mischievously weaponised and politicized . In the US the rule of law is at play because the courts are being used to thwart government objective and intention by a hostile senate still irked that the pandemic helped the Biden presidential candidacy to win the 2020 presidential election . Republicans in the senate and elsewhere are hell bent on turning the tide in that 2022 US mid term elections by portraying the Biden Administration as inefficient in the way and manner it has handled the pandemic , in retaliation for what it deemed was the Democrat ploy that made it impossible for Donald Trump to be re elected in the 2020 presidetial election . A simple tit for tat .
In the EU vs Poland /Hungary on pandemic fund disbursement based on compliance with the rule of law , a ruse of a fallacy is at work . Both nations are sovereign states and have rightly claimed they are not colonies of EU , which is a fact . Any way what is at stake really is cultural and sexual orientation . Both nations do not recognize gay and LGBT rights which the rest of the EU regard as fundamental for EU values and human freedom .and there is no meeting point on that . Some have even coined the word Polexit similar to Brexit to show that Poland may be on the way out of the EU ,a prospect the Poles firmly denied . It is apparent then that the rest of the EU want to muscle both Poland and Hungary to change their sexual orientation on marriage and gay rights in order to have access to pandemic funds but I doubt if they can succeed on that score as the two nations see their views on sex and marriage as the authentic European values and will not make a u turn on the matter while insisting on their right on access to EU pandemic funds as bona fide members of the EU . The battle line is drawn indeed on pandemic driven European values in a union that prides itself on being Christian Europe .