Africa remains unarguably one of the richest continents in the world in terms of the volume of mineral resources found in the continent.
The continent is touted to have a bulging population of youths, which can be productively engaged in the development of the continent.
It hurts that these mineral resources have unfortunately turned to the prime source of our so many conflicts more than the blessing they should be to Africa.
There is no justifiable way to explain why the continent seems to always be disposed to compete with some other continents of the world, as to which continent becomes the worst performing in ranking with respect to disease burden.
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Africa has consistently featured on the first runner up cadre of poor performance ranking as the continent with the highest disease burden in the world but with the least investment in the health sector.
What we are trying to say here is that irrespective of the volume of mineral resources found in Africa, we are not able to refine most of them, as we export them in their raw forms to Western nations.
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As we know, the disadvantages of not processing these mineral resources are enormous and could be said to be one of the major reasons we have not developed the way we should as a continent. The volume of wealth we export with these raw mineral resources out of Africa cannot be imagined nor quantified.
In most cases, just like we have in DRC or Zamfara State in Nigeria, these mineral resources become huge sources of conflict in such regions where they are found. These conflicts often escalate to full blown man-made disasters in most cases.
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Despite being so blessed as Africa, we are still not able to manage these resources efficiently in our own interest and possibly convert these resources to wealth, with which we can make our disease burden in Africa a thing of the past.
There is no justifiable reason why we do not have very functional health care service institutions across Africa.
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What is even more embarrassing is that without the support of non-governmental organizations (NGO) like USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI, Global Fund, Caritas and many other non-governmental organizations, it would have probably been far worse for the African people with respect to health care.
The conversation here is aimed at informing every African alive, that the time to engage our various political leaders, high end businessmen and churches more than ever is now.
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African founded churches known for raking in so much revenue from their many thriving branches all over the world should seek for ways to contribute to the quality of healthcare services in Africa just as the Roman Catholic Church is doing.
We must stop indulging these political office holders thus enabling their continued destruction of the continent’s economy through their primitive greed for wealth acquisition at the expense of the development of the continent.
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There is no reason we should not all have functional health care service systems in the continent without anyone becoming broke for the sake of seeking quality healthcare, which is often paid for from out of pocket, which we know does not come cheap.
There is an overwhelming need for our political leaders to prioritize making the Universal Health Coverage a reality in the continent. The political class in Africa, are largely a selfish bunch that care the least about offering themself sincerely to the service of Africa.
Africa is in dire need of accountable, visionary, innovative and healthy leaders who are not going to be puppets of the West but men/women with impeccable character of excellence in leadership, who would do all it would ever take to move the continent from a dumping ground of the world of sort, to an equal stakeholder in the scheme of things.
We must normalize engaging our political leaders at the various levels of government.
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We must engage the administrators of government owned medical institutions to know in empirical terms how they are deploying the resources made available to them on behalf of these institutions.
As I end this article, it should be unheard of that after the Abuja Declaration in 2001 by African Heads of State, that these African nations and the various subnational in the continent are yet to implement that 15% provision for healthcare in their annual budgeting schedules.
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Why is it that we are not making legislations and implementing a fit for purpose health insurance scheme across African States? The National Health Insurance Scheme of Nigeria has proven on all spheres that we would continue to be a source of ridicule to ourselves if we do not stand up to have square pegs in square holes, when it comes to leadership positions in Africa.
Finally, it is embarrassing that with the so many resources at our disposal as a continent, our health care system is still in shambles. We must rise up as Africans based all over the world to demand functional, accountable, innovative and result oriented leadership from our political office holders and administrators in public owned health institutions.