A few months back, during the nascent days on the now-contained Ebola virus disease outbreak in Nigeria, the country’s press that ought to know better was awash with speculations that the pandemic was part of an elaborate, albeit secret, scheme by America and its cohorts to eliminate Africa.

Tagged a “biological warfare” by some misinformed newspaper pundits and beer parlour analysts alike, it was likened to other alleged plots in a cooked up laundry list of economic, socio-cultural, political and medical strategies hatched up by America and the rest of the West to ensure that Africa remains stifled, socio-economically embryonic and firmly in their pockets.

Well, late last month, 30th September to be precise, the first case of the Ebola virus disease diagnosed within the United States was reported at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. In circumstances mimicking the way and manner in which the deadly disease was exported to Nigeria, a Liberian-American by the name Thomas Eric Duncan evaded health and security checks at a Liberian airport and eventually managed to make his way into the United States’ second most populous state, Texas. Unfortunately, he passed away last Wednesday despite being administered with some experimental anti-Ebola drugs.

Over the same period, a Spanish nurse tested positive to Ebola in what was the first incidence in recorded history of the virus being spread outside of Africa. She was part of the medical team that treated late Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo who hitherto was in Sierra Leone for humanitarian works where he got infected.

Then again on Sunday, October 12, a health worker who had come in contact with the Liberian Duncan was diagnosed with the disease after complaining of a low-grade fever – the first time it’s been contracted within the boundaries of the United States of America.

These three incidents are now begging the question: Is Ebola still a biological weapon by the West to eliminate Africans?

As things stand now, Ebola is not only afflicting black Africans, but the Whites are also beginning to get a fair share of it. One has to wonder why America, Europe and the rest of the West would develop a biological weapon aimed at eliminating Africans that is so potent such that it has no known cure and spreads like wildfire, knowing fully well that it could easily come back to haunt them. Do we think that they are really that stupid?

The truth is that there is no biological warfare whatsoever going on. Disease outbreaks occur from time to time. A good number of them have been recorded throughout history. In the 14th century, there was a Black Death pandemic which claimed about 200 million lives in Europe, almost halving the then-world’s entire population. Five centuries later, five separate Cholera pandemics claimed over 20 million lives in India, Europe, Africa and North America. In the early 20th century, the short-lived Spanish flu outbreak shed the world of some 50 million of its inhabitants. Recently, there have been several cases of pandemics breaking out the world over, including AIDS, SARS, H5N1 Avian flu and the current Ebola virus disease. Though there is a possibility of diseases being used as biological weapons, the chances of it occurring in this 21st century are very slim.

We as Africans are always in the habit of laying the blames for our misfortunes and failures on the doors of others. This smacks of an ingrained siege mentality that is reflected in how we go about our daily lives. When there is a conflict in any part of Africa occasioned by decades of misrule, ethnic discrimination and corruption, the government almost always looks beyond the borders to finger the CIA and certain “enemy European powers” as being behind it. Likewise, when things are not going well in an African country, the masses blame the government, absolving themselves of every ounce of responsibility; seemingly forgetting that people get the leaders they deserve.

These are the very orientations and self-defeating beliefs that have discreetly conspired to keep Africa firmly behind the rest of the world in all indices of human development and ensure that, to some extent at least, in this 21^st century it remains the Dark Continent the European colonial explorers met here many centuries ago.

In an ideologically unchanging Africa where false beliefs prevail over conventional wisdom, it’s not surprising that others who used to be in our league have left us behind. China, which was as poor and backwards as Africa in the 1950s, now has the world’s largest economy when measured by purchasing power parity. The four Asian Tigers are also doing well for themselves and the same goes for Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Middle Eastern oil bags.

Conversely, the vast majority of African countries today explicitly depend on foreign aid for survival. According to figures released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in its latest Human Development Index ratings, a good number of the countries within the continent were predictably below par, boasting of scores well below the global average in terms of human development and the quality of life. Fatherland Nigeria was ranked a lowly 152^nd out of 187 countries in a list that was deservedly bookended by an African country, Niger Republic.

We are in a democracy and everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Be that as it may, the truth remains that as long as we, Africans, prefer finger-pointing, baseless speculations and self-deceit to conventional and evidence-based wisdom, our only continent will merely struggle to remain afloat while others will continue to explore new territories and grow in leaps and bounds.

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