On Thursday, Ghana’s immediate past President, Nana Akufo-Addo, called for African nations to work together to address their difficulties.
The Ghanaian leader believes that cooperation among African nations can help them overcome their issues.
Akufo-Addo made the call during a book event in Abuja in honour of former military president General Ibrahim Babangida.
He said that African nations should not rely on foreign aid for existence, claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic forced certain governments to become independent.
“There is no such thing as charity in international relations. Nobody is going to give you vaccines until their own needs have been fully satisfied,” he said.
“African countries therefore need to cooperate with each other and not count on aid from the international community. That is why Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and others have taken the responsibility of manufacturing their own vaccines.”
According to Akufo-Addo, the pandemic taught the world several lessons, including the need for global leaders to “admit the urgency of the infrastructural deficiency in our countries, especially in the health sector, as was exposed by the pandemic”.
He noted that the pandemic also enabled governments to embark on a programme that involved the construction of hospitals for the citizens.
COVID-19, a respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was first identified in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and led to a global pandemic.
