The vaccine for this Pandemic is with us – – I got a few calls from some regular readers who felt I should have written about the brutal killing of George Floyd, the Black American who was killed by a White police officer while three other policemen watched.

The video that detailed the killing was difficult for me to watch and for days, I couldn’t watch it. But it was inescapable. Every news channel played it and I had to steel myself at some point to watch. I saw a giant of a man – 6’ 6″ of him –lying prostrate on the floor with a knee to his neck.

I saw a grown man grovelling, snivelling and begging for his life. I saw a father and grandfather asking for his mama in the throes of death. I saw a human being completely dehumanised and killed like a dog. I saw a man with his hands in his pocket and his knee on another man’s neck playing God by taking life. I saw murder being played out in the afternoon sun in front of scores of witnesses.

I saw an officer of the law displaying the utmost form of lawlessness. I saw power in its raw, ugly form. I saw wantonness; I saw impunity. Finally, I saw encapsulated in nine minutes, a four hundred year history of systemic racism and oppression.

What I saw was not new. It was merely the latest in a series of brutal police killing of unarmed black men. Like actor Will Smith was reported to have said ‘Police brutality has always been there. It is just getting filmed now’.

Meanwhile, not once to the best of my knowledge, has a white police officer been jailed for killing an unarmed black man. Hence the impunity. Hence the never ceasing harassments and murders. Makes one wonder if there is an implicit plan to depopulate the black race in America. What hypertension doesn’t take, what diabetes doesn’t takedue to a skewed healthcare system, the police takes.

The slogan ‘black lives matter’ has almost become clichéd. But its hoarse repetition is because the system gives the impression somehow, that animal lives are more important. While the case of African-Americans might be more ingrained and deep-rooted, there is hardly any black person who has travelled to Europe, or America or even Asia that has not experienced some sort of discrimination – from the subtle to the blatant; from an unconscious body language to outright racism. Some whites are not even aware that they are patronising you.

They are simply acting out their beliefs and upbringing. Comments like ‘your English is good, from where did you learn it’? Or you are in the company of some whites and whistling to a popular jazz tune and someone is surprised that‘you listen to this kind of music in Africa’.The fact that some refer to Africa as a country is in itself patronising. It gets obvious when you are on a short flight between two European countries and you are the only black. The immigration is moving fast until it gets to your turn.

Then you are asked to step aside so the others can pass because yours will take a while.It gets even more obvious when you are in a convoy of three cars. The other two are driven by whites. You are the only one that gets pulled over and asked some provocative questions. It gets deadly obvious when someone lashes out with some provocative ‘N’ words and dares you to be physical. All these have happened to me and I am not talking about yesterday.

In spite of all these, it is pretty difficult for me to look too far abroad when the situation in my backyard is even more concerning. In much of Africa, when the white ‘masters’ left and the black ‘masters’ took over, the oppression continued, even more so. To the elites and their descendants who took over from the colonialists, it is as if poor lives don’t matter. They have cornered everything that is lucrative; everything that is desirable, leaving the poor to be permanent ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’. Where Europe has used colour and race to subjugate, our elites have used religion and tribe to achieve their purpose. What is worse is that these elites take our resources to the same Western World that jeers and patronises them. They deplete our continent to enrich the European continent.

In Nigeria my dear country, power and priviledge are in concentric circles even among those elites who claim affinity to power. The innermost circle is largely populated by the northern elites. They feel the system is designed for them because the system works for them. Many of them have fed off government virtually from birth.

If there is anything lucrative, anything of consequence that the nation has to offer, they get to pick and choose. To them, there is nothing wrong with the system that a little tinkering won’t solve. Sound familiar with the thinking of white supremacists? And as they age, they bring their children into the circle. In the centre, the ‘bull’s eye’, are the Fulani elites. The ‘born to rule’ or to use President Trump’s lingo, ‘to dominate’.

The dominated ones in our case are the poor who continue to be denied basic things. So while the blacks in America are shouting ‘black lives matter’, the poor in Africa are screaming ‘poor lives matter’.

There are two pandemics right now in the world – COVID 19 and Inequality. The world is searching for vaccines for both. Some white folks, the liberal minded among them, are doing some soul searching. They have realised they have benefited rather unfairly from a system that is crafted to favour them. The corporate organisations are doing some soul searching. They are trying to find ways to remove the glass ceilings they have deliberately or inadvertently placed on a race on account of their skin colour. The leaders of government are doing some soul searching. They want to see how much of institutionalised bottlenecks they can remove to level some playing fields. Our elites at home need to do some soul searching too. They are guilty of all of the above and they need to remove the priviledges that accrue to themand their children just by their place of birth. They need to let the poor breathe.

The vaccine for the pandemic of racism and inequality is in the hands of you and I. We need to be colour blind, race blind and tribe blind. We need to remove the biases that have hardened our hearts and tainted our views. God created all humans equal but with different talents; so we should give equal opportunities to all. Synergy and love can only make for a better, happier world.