Lessons Of The Pandemic For Our Collective Humanity

By Femi Falana SAN

The most telling lesson of the coronavirus pandemic is that “no
one is safe until everyone is safe.” It is an indisputable proof of
our biological connectedness which is even more consequential for
life and livelihood than the digital connectivity that is the buzz
word of the millennials.

As it happens in any pandemic, the coronavirus does not respect
geo-political boundaries; neither is it restricted by
socio-economic and cultural divides. The virus infects the poor and
the rich alike. It overwhelms developed countries and
underdeveloped countries despite the sophistication of the
healthcare system of the industrialised countries. Yet humanitarian
disasters loom in some parts of the world because this obvious
lesson seems to be currently lost on mankind.

Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me illustrate this point
with the politics and economics of vaccines being played out before
our very eyes around the globe. About this time last year, no fewer
than 140 world leaders and experts issued an unprecedented joint
statement calling for equity and humaneness in the distribution of
the vaccines meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus. It was
indeed a battle cry for “people’s vaccines.” The essence of the
call was to ensure a global arrangement to guarantee the provision
of COVID-19 diagnostics, tests, vaccines and treatments to everyone
on earth.

Among the signatories to the statement were President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South
Africa and Chair of the African Union, the President of the
Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall, and the Prime Minister of
Pakistan, Imran Khan. Notable economists including Nobel Laureate
Joseph Stiglitz and public health experts join the political
leaders in signing the statement. Their motivation was obvious: the
pandemic is a tragic reminder of our shared humanity which some
members of the global elites and establishments seem to have
forgotten. They are immersed in their myopic and selfish pursuit of
polices defined by unbridled competition instead of cooperation and
isolationism rather than multilateralism. The world leaders and
experts argued as follows:

“It is time for Health Ministers to renew the commitments made
at the founding of the World Health Organization, where all states
agreed to deliver the ‘the highest attainable standard of health as
a fundamental right of every human being.

Now is not the time to allow the interests of the wealthiest
corporations and governments to be placed before the universal need
to save lives, or to leave this massive and moral task to market
forces. Access to vaccines and treatments as global public goods
are in the interests of all humanity. We cannot afford for
monopolies, crude competition and near-sighted nationalism to stand
in the way.”

It is also worth noting that President Ramaphosa in a separate
statement added an African note to the clamour for the equitable
distribution of vaccines:

“Billions of people today await a vaccine that is our best hope
of ending this pandemic. As the countries of Africa, we are
resolute that the COVID-19 vaccine must be patent-free, rapidly
made and distributed, and free for all. All the science must be
shared between governments. Nobody should be pushed to the back of
the vaccine queue because of where they live or what they
earn.”

Since the May 14, 2020 statement, the epicentre of the
coronavirus pandemic has shifted from China to Europe, the Americas
and now back to Asia, in India, where more than 230,000 persons
have died. More than 5,000 human beings die daily in India!
Watching the grim footages on television today of the havoc being
wreaked by coronavirus in places as diverse on the planet as India,
Brazil and Turkey you would not believe that that statement was
ever made in the sober moment of May 2020 when the whole world was
on a virtual lockdown.

The sad story is that of the resurgence of vaccine nationalism
with all its perils for our shared humanity. The current battle is
not only against coronavirus; it is also a war against vaccine
inequality. The trend is a portrayal of the huge deficits in the
global consciousness about our collective humanity. Intriguingly,
these deficits are not on the part of the poor people who continue
to exude immense humanity despite their sordid conditions. The
deficits are noticeable more on the part of the selfish poltical
and economic elites who make decisions in the rich countries.

Some countries are stocking vaccines more than their urgent
needs while some countries lack vaccines to save the extremely
needy sections of their populations. In Nigeria, a country with a
population of more 200 million people, only about a million persons
have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, it was reported at the weekend
that the highly virulent South African variant of coronavirus has
been found in Ghana and Togo. The proximity of the variant to
Nigeria suggests a greater need for vaccination with the
population. This should be treated as a matter of emergency because
of the porous borders. Corruption has rendered the surveillance at
the airports ineffective.

The story is more pathetic in some African countries such as
Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Men and women of good conscience
should join in the campaign against vaccine inequality because of
its destructive implication for mankind. The reputable British News
Agency, Reuters, made a review of about a dozen contracts involving
major suppliers of vaccines in the United States. The revelations
put into serious question the consciousness about our collective
humanity.

The richest and most powerful nation on earth has been
stockpiling finished vaccines as well as the ingredients and
equipment desperately needed by other countries such as India,
Brazil and Turkey to manufacture vaccines. Employing selfish policy
instruments, the U.S. only grants access to American manufacturers
to make the jabs. Less developed countries in dire need of vaccines
have been pushed into looking for alternatives. As a matter of
fact, this trend began during the tenure of President Donald Trump
who would rather lure vaccine manufacturers into the United States
from other countries instead of establishing supply chains with
those countries.

There is a global debate about the patent for COVID-19 vaccines.
Some countries being ravaged by the pandemic are requesting the
richer countries to grant them waivers on the patent for the
existing vaccines. They need the waivers on intellectual property
so that enough could be produced to check the explosion of
infections in those countries. Although President Joe Biden of the
United States expressed support for the waiving of patent for
COVID-19 vaccines only last Wednesday, the problem could still
persist without addressing the hidden question of the universal
access to the ingredients and equipment for making vaccines.

The United States controls the supply of those items such as
tubing, special disposable bags and filters. If the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) accepts the waiver on patents, the gate may be
opened for a faster production of vaccines to reduce significantly
the number of infections. But the access to the ingredients would
still be a hurdle to scale by manufacturers in other countries.
Surprisingly, the United States is invoking a law made during the
Korean War of the early 1950s to justify this vaccine inequity. The
law is called the Defence Production Act (DPA). Agencies of the
federal government are empowered by the law to decide the priority
of items related to national defence. Like defence items, America
is restricting ingredients for making vaccines.

So the most powerful nation on earth is treating the fight
against COVID-19 as a geo-political war by this application of the
70-year old law to restrict the democratisation of the distribution
of vaccines. A false equivalence is being drawn between military
supplies and materials needed to make vaccines! Trump invoked the
same law to give American manufacturers priority over those in
other countries. The same Trump took his isolationism to the
outrageous level when the United States stopped funding the World
Health Organisation (WHO) amid the pandemic last year.

Meanwhile, Americans have access to full doses of the vaccines
while the country’s pharmaceutical companies are making a lot of
money in the process. It took weeks of appeals before the Biden
administration granted waivers to the Indian vaccines
manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII), to import
filters needed for making vaccines. The net result is that more
than 45% of the American population has been vaccinated while less
than 1% of the population of Guatemala, Thailand or Nigeria has
received the jabs.

The foregoing is the ugly picture of vaccine inequality. Mr.
Chairman, ladies and Gentleman, talking about the political economy
of COVID-19 in relation to a sense of our common humanity, let us
contrast the role of Cuba in the crisis with those of the western
capitalist countries. Whereas the United States and some other
capitalist countries have been largely selfish in the approach to
the pandemic, Cuba has heroically demonstrated humanism. At the
height of the lockdowns last year, some British voyagers infected
with coronavirus were stranded in a ship. No western ally of the
United Kingdom allowed the ship to berth because of the travel bans
imposed by countries around the world. Europe was then the
epicentre of the virus infections. It was only Cuba that welcomed
the infected passengers and ensure that they returned to the UK. It
was another teachable moment for the whole world. In a highly
compassionate tone, the Cuban foreign ministry put the matter like
this: “Given the urgency of the situation and the risk to the lives
of sick people, the Cuban government has decided to allow the
docking of this ship. “The passengers will be repatriated by air to
the UK and their home countries… These are times of solidarity, of
understanding health as a human right, of reinforcing international
cooperation to face our common challenges, values that are inherent
in the humanistic practice of the Revolution and of our
people…”

That was a practical demonstration of our shared humanity! The
significance of the Cuban gesture even becomes more conspicuous
when you remember that in the course of the 60-year old callous
economic blockade that the United States has imposed on the Cuban
people, the UK and other western capitalist have never risen even
in moral defence of Cuba or shown any compassion. At the request of
the Italian government, Cuba doctors armed with their drug,
interferon, were in Italy when that country’s healthcare system was
overwhelmed by coronavirus infections last year. Cuba doctors were
on ground also in other countries in different continents of this
world to battle coronavirus.

The reputation of the Cuban social medicine is legendary. The
conscious investment in its healthcare system as a social good has
paid off for the tiny Caribbean country. The investment is so huge
in public health and primary healthcare that no one is left behind.
It is an exemplary policy of social inclusion. The result: lifespan
in Cuba is higher than that of any of the U.S. and all the other
members of the G7. Apart from India, Cuba is the only country
that’s not a member of the G7 but is actively involved in
production of vaccines. Cuba already has five candidate vaccines.
The heroism of the Cuban nation in this crisis is firmly hinged on
the assertion of our common humanity in words and action.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I like to draw a particular attention to the
philosophical underpinnings of the difference in the response of
socialist Cuba and western capitalist countries. Internal and
foreign policies of Cuba are determined by an ideology that makes
man the object and subject of development. And one other lesson of
this pandemic is that issues of healthcare cannot be inclusively
resolved by market forces. The excluded members of the society in
healthcare provision are more vulnerable during this pandemic in
advanced capitalist societies.

The present situation in which some national policies are
informed by low humanity is not due to lack of efforts by
multilateral institutions. For instance, about a year ago, the WHO
created the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool for sharing of
intellectual property, information and the technology needed to
manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. Surprisingly, nothing has been put
into the pool despite the fact that the Director-General of the
WTO, our own Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has called on vaccine makers
to share their technology knowhow with others.

Those hoarding vaccines as if they are oblivious of a common
humanity should be reminded of history. To make penicillin
available during World War II, the British government waived the
intellectual property on the anti-biotic needed to treat wounds
during war. The anti-biotic was discovered in 1928 by Alexander
Fleming, but it was not until 1941 that some Oxford University
researchers demonstrated its anti-bacterial effectiveness. Rather
than make a fetish of intellectual property, the Oxford researchers
went to the United States to share their knowledge and American
manufacturers began to make about 100 billion units of penicillin
in a month. The same knowledge was shared with India with the
support of WHO and UNICEF. India became a big manufacturer of
penicillin. The principle then was exchange of knowledge because
untreated wounds constituted a global health problem. That same
principle could still be applied to as mankind battles this
pandemic.

One thing is crystal clear from the global debate on the central
factor of intellectual property in the production of coronavirus
vaccine: the capitalist logic rules the policies of the advanced
countries. The priority of the big pharmaceutical companies is
profit and not saving humanity from the pandemic. Western
governments are giving a political and ideological stamp to this
approach to the problem. But the approach to a global public health
emergency is not only selfish, it is also scientifically myopic. As
long as the virus exists in any country, it could spread to other
countries. One other lesson of the pandemic is that public
healthcare system cannot be developed by applying the logic of
market forces. Public health services should be treated as social
goods because a pandemic is a challenge to the common good. The
implication is that government should invest more in public
health.

Nigeria, for instance, devotes less than 5% of its budget to
healthcare. Little surprise that the response of Nigeria to the
pandemic has been extremely weakened by the manifestation of
poverty in the healthcare system. Most of the states are yet to
comply with the law on universal healthcare coverage. Health
insurance still remains essentially an idea whose time is yet to
come in Nigeria. In fact, the chairman of the presidential steering
committee on COVID-19 and secretary to the government of the
federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, said last year that he never knew
that the condition of healthcare system was so derelict until he
was given the assignment. Health is still not yet a budgetary
priority in Nigeria. In a culture that is bereft of humanism,
members of the political and economic elite are content with the
situation in which they pay exorbitant fees in private hospitals at
home and abroad. Here we are talking of less than 1% of the
population. Policy makers are not losing their sleep because the
99% cannot afford quality healthcare.

It is, therefore, shocking that with all the billons garnered by
the private sector Coalition Against COVID (CACOVID) last year, the
federal and state governments are yet to report noticeable
improvements in healthcare infrastructure. Not enough molecular
laboratories have been built. Ventilators are not in adequate
supply in hospitals and isolation centres. Even with all the
warnings that the pitiable situations in India, Brazil and Turkey
are presenting to the world, Nigeria is not getting prepared for
the possibility of another virulent wave with massive production of
medical oxygen and other essential materials to save lives.

In this respect, Mr. Chairman, I like to call on African
governments not to wait naively and irresponsibly on those who may
not have compassion on the poor African countries. They should fund
the health sector as a public good. For instance, Nigeria was
producing vaccines in the 1980s. How come we are not talking of
Nigeria’s own vaccines against coronavirus in 2021? The challenge
of the hoarding of vaccines by the developed countries is that
Africa should begin to prepare for future pandemics by producing
its own vaccines.

Meanwhile, the little quantity of vaccines available in Nigeria
came from India through the facility of the COVID-19 Vaccines
Global Access (COVAX). Now, India itself has now run of stock of
vaccines for its population being ravaged by coronavirus. So the
vaccine situation for Nigeria like other third world countries is
precarious. This is despite the great efforts of the Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) which has been
nudging the American government to remove the restriction to the
production of vaccines by manufacturers located in other parts of
the world. The alliance comprises governments, international
organisations, drug companies and non-governmental
organisations.

In sum, the response to the crisis should, therefore, be based
on the principles of compassion, cooperation and multilateralism.
In fact, apart from the pandemic other global issues such as
climate change, social inequality, drugs and identity crisis
require cooperation and multilateral approaches because they
constitute dangers to our common humanity. Those who for profit
motives, power and other considerations ignore these issues of
common humanity while pursuing recklessly selfish private interests
are really short-sighted. They are like fleas; the parasites
inflict so much pains on their dog host forgetting that the death
of the host would be their own end too.

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I like to end
this keynote address on a little optimistic note. Humanism can find
expression at the global level. It can also manifest at the
national level. Contrary to the cynical viewpoint of bourgeois
theorists, humanism could be expressed in moments of crisis as it
happened last year in Nigeria. The coronavirus unmasked the grave
inequality in the Nigerian society during the lockdown imposed to
cut the chains of the virus. Most of those working depended on
daily incomes. Millions of others are jobless. The pressure was
such that some starved members of the society hid behind the
placards of the legitimate #EndSARS protests to loot warehouses
full of foodstuffs. The good news was that food items were provided
by a coalition of private businessmen for the benefit of the most
vulnerable people.

Another piece of good news is that people living in middle class
and upper middle class estates supplied their poor neighbours in
slums with food. Many individuals also quietly assisted others with
provisions and money during the lockdown. No, all these kind
gestures did not address the systemic question of the poverty of
the majority. However, they pointed to the realisation of our
common humanity. The trend provides a basis for hope as we ponder
the future of mankind.

(Being a Keynote Address delivered by Femi Falana SAN at
the International Conference Humanism in the Era of Pandemic at
Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State on Monday, May
10, 2021)

By Femi Falana SAN

The most telling lesson of the coronavirus pandemic is that “no
one is safe until everyone is safe.” It is an indisputable proof of
our biological connectedness which is even more consequential for
life and livelihood than the digital connectivity that is the buzz
word of the millennials.

As it happens in any pandemic, the coronavirus does not respect
geo-political boundaries; neither is it restricted by
socio-economic and cultural divides. The virus infects the poor and
the rich alike. It overwhelms developed countries and
underdeveloped countries despite the sophistication of the
healthcare system of the industrialised countries. Yet humanitarian
disasters loom in some parts of the world because this obvious
lesson seems to be currently lost on mankind.

Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me illustrate this point
with the politics and economics of vaccines being played out before
our very eyes around the globe. About this time last year, no fewer
than 140 world leaders and experts issued an unprecedented joint
statement calling for equity and humaneness in the distribution of
the vaccines meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus. It was
indeed a battle cry for “people’s vaccines.” The essence of the
call was to ensure a global arrangement to guarantee the provision
of COVID-19 diagnostics, tests, vaccines and treatments to everyone
on earth.

Among the signatories to the statement were President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South
Africa and Chair of the African Union, the President of the
Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall, and the Prime Minister of
Pakistan, Imran Khan. Notable economists including Nobel Laureate
Joseph Stiglitz and public health experts join the political
leaders in signing the statement. Their motivation was obvious: the
pandemic is a tragic reminder of our shared humanity which some
members of the global elites and establishments seem to have
forgotten. They are immersed in their myopic and selfish pursuit of
polices defined by unbridled competition instead of cooperation and
isolationism rather than multilateralism. The world leaders and
experts argued as follows:

“It is time for Health Ministers to renew the commitments made
at the founding of the World Health Organization, where all states
agreed to deliver the ‘the highest attainable standard of health as
a fundamental right of every human being.

Now is not the time to allow the interests of the wealthiest
corporations and governments to be placed before the universal need
to save lives, or to leave this massive and moral task to market
forces. Access to vaccines and treatments as global public goods
are in the interests of all humanity. We cannot afford for
monopolies, crude competition and near-sighted nationalism to stand
in the way.”

It is also worth noting that President Ramaphosa in a separate
statement added an African note to the clamour for the equitable
distribution of vaccines:

“Billions of people today await a vaccine that is our best hope
of ending this pandemic. As the countries of Africa, we are
resolute that the COVID-19 vaccine must be patent-free, rapidly
made and distributed, and free for all. All the science must be
shared between governments. Nobody should be pushed to the back of
the vaccine queue because of where they live or what they
earn.”

Since the May 14, 2020 statement, the epicentre of the
coronavirus pandemic has shifted from China to Europe, the Americas
and now back to Asia, in India, where more than 230,000 persons
have died. More than 5,000 human beings die daily in India!
Watching the grim footages on television today of the havoc being
wreaked by coronavirus in places as diverse on the planet as India,
Brazil and Turkey you would not believe that that statement was
ever made in the sober moment of May 2020 when the whole world was
on a virtual lockdown.

The sad story is that of the resurgence of vaccine nationalism
with all its perils for our shared humanity. The current battle is
not only against coronavirus; it is also a war against vaccine
inequality. The trend is a portrayal of the huge deficits in the
global consciousness about our collective humanity. Intriguingly,
these deficits are not on the part of the poor people who continue
to exude immense humanity despite their sordid conditions. The
deficits are noticeable more on the part of the selfish poltical
and economic elites who make decisions in the rich countries.

Some countries are stocking vaccines more than their urgent
needs while some countries lack vaccines to save the extremely
needy sections of their populations. In Nigeria, a country with a
population of more 200 million people, only about a million persons
have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, it was reported at the weekend
that the highly virulent South African variant of coronavirus has
been found in Ghana and Togo. The proximity of the variant to
Nigeria suggests a greater need for vaccination with the
population. This should be treated as a matter of emergency because
of the porous borders. Corruption has rendered the surveillance at
the airports ineffective.

The story is more pathetic in some African countries such as
Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Men and women of good conscience
should join in the campaign against vaccine inequality because of
its destructive implication for mankind. The reputable British News
Agency, Reuters, made a review of about a dozen contracts involving
major suppliers of vaccines in the United States. The revelations
put into serious question the consciousness about our collective
humanity.

The richest and most powerful nation on earth has been
stockpiling finished vaccines as well as the ingredients and
equipment desperately needed by other countries such as India,
Brazil and Turkey to manufacture vaccines. Employing selfish policy
instruments, the U.S. only grants access to American manufacturers
to make the jabs. Less developed countries in dire need of vaccines
have been pushed into looking for alternatives. As a matter of
fact, this trend began during the tenure of President Donald Trump
who would rather lure vaccine manufacturers into the United States
from other countries instead of establishing supply chains with
those countries.

There is a global debate about the patent for COVID-19 vaccines.
Some countries being ravaged by the pandemic are requesting the
richer countries to grant them waivers on the patent for the
existing vaccines. They need the waivers on intellectual property
so that enough could be produced to check the explosion of
infections in those countries. Although President Joe Biden of the
United States expressed support for the waiving of patent for
COVID-19 vaccines only last Wednesday, the problem could still
persist without addressing the hidden question of the universal
access to the ingredients and equipment for making vaccines.

The United States controls the supply of those items such as
tubing, special disposable bags and filters. If the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) accepts the waiver on patents, the gate may be
opened for a faster production of vaccines to reduce significantly
the number of infections. But the access to the ingredients would
still be a hurdle to scale by manufacturers in other countries.
Surprisingly, the United States is invoking a law made during the
Korean War of the early 1950s to justify this vaccine inequity. The
law is called the Defence Production Act (DPA). Agencies of the
federal government are empowered by the law to decide the priority
of items related to national defence. Like defence items, America
is restricting ingredients for making vaccines.

So the most powerful nation on earth is treating the fight
against COVID-19 as a geo-political war by this application of the
70-year old law to restrict the democratisation of the distribution
of vaccines. A false equivalence is being drawn between military
supplies and materials needed to make vaccines! Trump invoked the
same law to give American manufacturers priority over those in
other countries. The same Trump took his isolationism to the
outrageous level when the United States stopped funding the World
Health Organisation (WHO) amid the pandemic last year.

Meanwhile, Americans have access to full doses of the vaccines
while the country’s pharmaceutical companies are making a lot of
money in the process. It took weeks of appeals before the Biden
administration granted waivers to the Indian vaccines
manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII), to import
filters needed for making vaccines. The net result is that more
than 45% of the American population has been vaccinated while less
than 1% of the population of Guatemala, Thailand or Nigeria has
received the jabs.

The foregoing is the ugly picture of vaccine inequality. Mr.
Chairman, ladies and Gentleman, talking about the political economy
of COVID-19 in relation to a sense of our common humanity, let us
contrast the role of Cuba in the crisis with those of the western
capitalist countries. Whereas the United States and some other
capitalist countries have been largely selfish in the approach to
the pandemic, Cuba has heroically demonstrated humanism. At the
height of the lockdowns last year, some British voyagers infected
with coronavirus were stranded in a ship. No western ally of the
United Kingdom allowed the ship to berth because of the travel bans
imposed by countries around the world. Europe was then the
epicentre of the virus infections. It was only Cuba that welcomed
the infected passengers and ensure that they returned to the UK. It
was another teachable moment for the whole world. In a highly
compassionate tone, the Cuban foreign ministry put the matter like
this: “Given the urgency of the situation and the risk to the lives
of sick people, the Cuban government has decided to allow the
docking of this ship. “The passengers will be repatriated by air to
the UK and their home countries… These are times of solidarity, of
understanding health as a human right, of reinforcing international
cooperation to face our common challenges, values that are inherent
in the humanistic practice of the Revolution and of our
people…”

That was a practical demonstration of our shared humanity! The
significance of the Cuban gesture even becomes more conspicuous
when you remember that in the course of the 60-year old callous
economic blockade that the United States has imposed on the Cuban
people, the UK and other western capitalist have never risen even
in moral defence of Cuba or shown any compassion. At the request of
the Italian government, Cuba doctors armed with their drug,
interferon, were in Italy when that country’s healthcare system was
overwhelmed by coronavirus infections last year. Cuba doctors were
on ground also in other countries in different continents of this
world to battle coronavirus.

The reputation of the Cuban social medicine is legendary. The
conscious investment in its healthcare system as a social good has
paid off for the tiny Caribbean country. The investment is so huge
in public health and primary healthcare that no one is left behind.
It is an exemplary policy of social inclusion. The result: lifespan
in Cuba is higher than that of any of the U.S. and all the other
members of the G7. Apart from India, Cuba is the only country
that’s not a member of the G7 but is actively involved in
production of vaccines. Cuba already has five candidate vaccines.
The heroism of the Cuban nation in this crisis is firmly hinged on
the assertion of our common humanity in words and action.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I like to draw a particular attention to the
philosophical underpinnings of the difference in the response of
socialist Cuba and western capitalist countries. Internal and
foreign policies of Cuba are determined by an ideology that makes
man the object and subject of development. And one other lesson of
this pandemic is that issues of healthcare cannot be inclusively
resolved by market forces. The excluded members of the society in
healthcare provision are more vulnerable during this pandemic in
advanced capitalist societies.

The present situation in which some national policies are
informed by low humanity is not due to lack of efforts by
multilateral institutions. For instance, about a year ago, the WHO
created the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool for sharing of
intellectual property, information and the technology needed to
manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. Surprisingly, nothing has been put
into the pool despite the fact that the Director-General of the
WTO, our own Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has called on vaccine makers
to share their technology knowhow with others.

Those hoarding vaccines as if they are oblivious of a common
humanity should be reminded of history. To make penicillin
available during World War II, the British government waived the
intellectual property on the anti-biotic needed to treat wounds
during war. The anti-biotic was discovered in 1928 by Alexander
Fleming, but it was not until 1941 that some Oxford University
researchers demonstrated its anti-bacterial effectiveness. Rather
than make a fetish of intellectual property, the Oxford researchers
went to the United States to share their knowledge and American
manufacturers began to make about 100 billion units of penicillin
in a month. The same knowledge was shared with India with the
support of WHO and UNICEF. India became a big manufacturer of
penicillin. The principle then was exchange of knowledge because
untreated wounds constituted a global health problem. That same
principle could still be applied to as mankind battles this
pandemic.

One thing is crystal clear from the global debate on the central
factor of intellectual property in the production of coronavirus
vaccine: the capitalist logic rules the policies of the advanced
countries. The priority of the big pharmaceutical companies is
profit and not saving humanity from the pandemic. Western
governments are giving a political and ideological stamp to this
approach to the problem. But the approach to a global public health
emergency is not only selfish, it is also scientifically myopic. As
long as the virus exists in any country, it could spread to other
countries. One other lesson of the pandemic is that public
healthcare system cannot be developed by applying the logic of
market forces. Public health services should be treated as social
goods because a pandemic is a challenge to the common good. The
implication is that government should invest more in public
health.

Nigeria, for instance, devotes less than 5% of its budget to
healthcare. Little surprise that the response of Nigeria to the
pandemic has been extremely weakened by the manifestation of
poverty in the healthcare system. Most of the states are yet to
comply with the law on universal healthcare coverage. Health
insurance still remains essentially an idea whose time is yet to
come in Nigeria. In fact, the chairman of the presidential steering
committee on COVID-19 and secretary to the government of the
federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, said last year that he never knew
that the condition of healthcare system was so derelict until he
was given the assignment. Health is still not yet a budgetary
priority in Nigeria. In a culture that is bereft of humanism,
members of the political and economic elite are content with the
situation in which they pay exorbitant fees in private hospitals at
home and abroad. Here we are talking of less than 1% of the
population. Policy makers are not losing their sleep because the
99% cannot afford quality healthcare.

It is, therefore, shocking that with all the billons garnered by
the private sector Coalition Against COVID (CACOVID) last year, the
federal and state governments are yet to report noticeable
improvements in healthcare infrastructure. Not enough molecular
laboratories have been built. Ventilators are not in adequate
supply in hospitals and isolation centres. Even with all the
warnings that the pitiable situations in India, Brazil and Turkey
are presenting to the world, Nigeria is not getting prepared for
the possibility of another virulent wave with massive production of
medical oxygen and other essential materials to save lives.

In this respect, Mr. Chairman, I like to call on African
governments not to wait naively and irresponsibly on those who may
not have compassion on the poor African countries. They should fund
the health sector as a public good. For instance, Nigeria was
producing vaccines in the 1980s. How come we are not talking of
Nigeria’s own vaccines against coronavirus in 2021? The challenge
of the hoarding of vaccines by the developed countries is that
Africa should begin to prepare for future pandemics by producing
its own vaccines.

Meanwhile, the little quantity of vaccines available in Nigeria
came from India through the facility of the COVID-19 Vaccines
Global Access (COVAX). Now, India itself has now run of stock of
vaccines for its population being ravaged by coronavirus. So the
vaccine situation for Nigeria like other third world countries is
precarious. This is despite the great efforts of the Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) which has been
nudging the American government to remove the restriction to the
production of vaccines by manufacturers located in other parts of
the world. The alliance comprises governments, international
organisations, drug companies and non-governmental
organisations.

In sum, the response to the crisis should, therefore, be based
on the principles of compassion, cooperation and multilateralism.
In fact, apart from the pandemic other global issues such as
climate change, social inequality, drugs and identity crisis
require cooperation and multilateral approaches because they
constitute dangers to our common humanity. Those who for profit
motives, power and other considerations ignore these issues of
common humanity while pursuing recklessly selfish private interests
are really short-sighted. They are like fleas; the parasites
inflict so much pains on their dog host forgetting that the death
of the host would be their own end too.

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I like to end
this keynote address on a little optimistic note. Humanism can find
expression at the global level. It can also manifest at the
national level. Contrary to the cynical viewpoint of bourgeois
theorists, humanism could be expressed in moments of crisis as it
happened last year in Nigeria. The coronavirus unmasked the grave
inequality in the Nigerian society during the lockdown imposed to
cut the chains of the virus. Most of those working depended on
daily incomes. Millions of others are jobless. The pressure was
such that some starved members of the society hid behind the
placards of the legitimate #EndSARS protests to loot warehouses
full of foodstuffs. The good news was that food items were provided
by a coalition of private businessmen for the benefit of the most
vulnerable people.

Another piece of good news is that people living in middle class
and upper middle class estates supplied their poor neighbours in
slums with food. Many individuals also quietly assisted others with
provisions and money during the lockdown. No, all these kind
gestures did not address the systemic question of the poverty of
the majority. However, they pointed to the realisation of our
common humanity. The trend provides a basis for hope as we ponder
the future of mankind.

(Being a Keynote Address delivered by Femi Falana SAN at
the International Conference Humanism in the Era of Pandemic at
Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State on Monday, May
10, 2021)