July 25, 2016 By Alfred Kamanda
In a country where people suffer chill penury, where 70 percent of its active population are unemployed, and majority of the citizenry go to bed on a hungry stomach, many can eat with pleasure even from the dust bin! This was the situation on 21 July, 2016 when a government as irresponsible, reckless, arrogant and corrupt as ours, left in the hands of the masses poisoned chicken for their meal.
Methinks a government which is responsible and responsive to the needs of its citizens would have found a better way of disposing tonnes of “disease infested” chicken instead of being disposed with reckless abandon to be scavenged by poor, unemployed, deprived, malnourished, vulnerable and hungry people. The people who suffer endemic poverty rushed to the dustbin when they discovered the government has sent some of its agents to dispose cartoons of chicken that have been tagged as poisonous, and therefore unfit for human consumption, but accessible and can be consumed anyways regardless of any potential health repercussions.
As professional as our police force should be, and as caring as our government ought to be, they allowed rampaging youths to scramble for as much chicken as possible for their survival. I just saw in a video how some police officers even assisted some of the desperate people to cart away the inedible chicken.
The Ministry of Health, after the Ebola outbreak, would have known we should do our very best to prevent another outbreak of any kind of diseases. We saw how we were reaped apart as a nation during and after the outbreak. We saw how many people died during the Ebola outbreak. We know how the outbreak affected our education, our economy, agriculture, to name but a few. We should have been better prepared to put mechanisms in place to prevent another epidemic than being reckless in the handling of hazardous substance like the poisoned chicken yesterday.
Now to our people: we should know our governments (present, past and future) care more about votes and less about our wellbeing. We should therefore not relegate our very essence as human beings by fending from the dustbin contaminated food that has been clearly defined as unfit for purpose. But ayyyyyyy yaaaaaa, how for do, when the ordinary man has nowhere to fend for his survival, save fending from the dustbin, save from involving in crime and other dishonourable acts? This is really pathetic and calls for urgent action to be taken against officials who have placed our people in such a risky situation that could cost them their lives and cost the nation another outbreak.
Now I have watched videos in which police officers violate the rights of innocent people because they have decided to make good from the mess they have created! They are arresting poor and hungry people who have no choice but fend from the dustbin for their daily survival! They are beating up people caught in harvesting from the BUMEH STATE FARM, which some reckless and irresponsible government officials have created! Address the root cause(s) of the problem! We all know how poor, deprived, vulnerable, and hungry our people are! We all know they have no choice when it comes to feeding to extend their stay on this rugged planet earth. We all know they have voted a government that will protect their interests, a government that will provide them with jobs, a government that will alleviate poverty and make agriculture a boom, a government that will fight corruption and make life comfortable for the majority of its citizens. If the price of our staple food has risen to heights unattainable by the very poor who constitute the majority of voters, then we need not blame them when they take dishonourable means to survive. We need not beat them and frown at their action for eating food that has been described as poisonous, but made accessible for their consumption.
Thanks to Emmerson, the lyrical prophet, for making us know that a hungry man has no choice, in his recent album ‘Survivor’. We truly appreciate those lines when the people had to rush to Bomeh to grab their own share (should I say of the national cake that is now unfit for consumption by the high and mighty in society but still fit for consumption by poor and impoverished people of society?). They must be saying if Ebola nor kill them, nar poison Chicken go kill them? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm God is watching!!!