Wamkele Mene, the secretary general of the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA), says the travel restrictions imposed on some African countries due to the Omicron variant is shameful and disgraceful.
Speaking at the ongoing third edition of the Kusi Ideas Festival in Accra, Mene says the developed world is practising neo-colonialism.
“It is an absolute disgrace that in Holland, two or three weeks before the detection by South Africa and Botswana that evidence suggests that Dutch scientists were aware that there is a variant and yet did not disclose this information to the international community,” he said.
“It is equally shameful and disgraceful that many in Europe were very quick to ban, restrict, travel from African countries when, in fact, it is now known that many more countries around the world have more cases of the Omicron variant than Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia Botswana than many other countries that have been banned who had zero cases of the Omicron variant.”
“And yet, countries that had double the number of the Omicron variant did not have travel restrictions imposed on them… this is modern-day neo-colonialism, this is disgraceful apartheid… today these restrictions are imposed because we are Africans,” he added.
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Kusi Ideas Festival
This year’s Kusi Ideas conference, which will be a hybrid event (in-person and virtual), is under the theme “How Africa Transforms After the Virus” and subtitled “Beyond the Return: African Diaspora and New Possibilities”.
It will take place in Ghana on 10 and 11 December 2021.
The festival will be opened by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, with other leaders taking part, including Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.
Many prominent figures from business and politics across Africa are billed to grace the event.
Clifford Machoka, the head of external affairs and marketing at Nation Media Group, has described this year’s Kusi Ideas Festival as a way to drive conversations about the AfCFTA by connecting African businesses.
About Kusi
Nation Media Group (NMG) launched the Kusi Ideas Festival in 2019 during its 60th-anniversary celebrations. The festival aims to be an “ideas transaction market” for the challenges facing Africa, and for the various solutions and innovations the continent is undertaking to secure its future in the 21st century.
The kusi is the southerly trade wind that blows across the Indian Ocean between April and mid-September, and enabled trade up north along the East African coast and between Asia and Africa for millennia.
Beyond trade, over the centuries, the kusi and other trade winds made possible cultural, intellectual and technological exchanges, and considerably shaped the history of the nations on the east coast of Africa, the eastern hinterland, and the wider Indian Ocean rim.
In the 21st century, the spirits of the trade winds express themselves in new ways. The Indian Ocean is a rich bed for the fibre-optic cables that make the Information Age possible in a large part of Africa.
The first Kusi Ideas Festival was held in Kigali, Rwanda, and was co-hosted by President Paul Kagame.
Fred Dzakpata
To register to attend the Kusi Ideas Festival, visit: www.kusiideasfestival.com or dial *920*233# (AirtelTigo, MTN or Vodafone).
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