President Tubman of Liberia presented two proposals at a meeting in Lagos for the establishment of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) after he was asked to come up with a formula for Africa’s development. The first meeting bringing together some Heads of State in Monrovia in 1961. This group was referred to as the “Monrovia Group”. The proposal was accepted and this was the beginning of the formation of these two fine institutions. This year the AFDB which is a triple A International finance institution will be fifty and has returned to its headquarters in Abidjan.

Mention must be made also of the fact that President Tubman had expended more resources than any Head of State in the early years in the formation of these fine institutions but opted out from the establishment of the headquarters of these two institutions in Liberia’s capital city of Monrovia. Romeo Horton, former chairman and president of the Central Bank of Liberia was the drafter of the first concept and one of the instrumental persons, recounted that to bring in francophone Africa, President Tubman politically proposed to President Houphouët Boigny of Ivory Coast to have the headquarters in Abidjan. What if Tubman had pushed for it to be based in his country and in Monrovia where today Ebola is causing untold hardships?

It is also recounted that many African Heads of State before independence travelled on Liberian passports due to their inability to have passports. Hence people like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Touré were able to meet their counterparts to fight for the independence of the rest of Africa. We owe it to their memories and to Africa to join forces in the Ebola crisis affecting Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and not to depend on the “international community” to lead the way.

Today, the Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,800 persons in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and continues to affect the lives of all other nations in the West African region due to some travel bans and border closures. After a decade of post-conflict, Liberia began witnessing tremendous economic growth despite wide inequalities. Whiles living and consulting there, I witnessed a lot of efforts by aid and development agencies despite the numerous challenges due to poor infrastructure. Liberia had the highest cost globally for electricity production (70-75 c/kWh). This affected doing business and revenues for its government came largely from the mining industry. Similarly, Sierra Leone and Guinea shared the same dynamics.

When the outbreak of Ebola started, most countries in the sub-region instituted border closures and travel bans. Till today, most have not lifted these travel bans and others have banned the citizens of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone from entering their countries. Other African countries have told their citizens that should they decide to go to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the state cannot take responsibility for them and hence they do so at their own risk! If President Tubman were alive together with some of his compatriots: Ahmed Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah who pushed for the formation of OAU and AFDB with their meagre resources and lives they would have wept considering all the tireless efforts and sacrifices they made to improve Africa’s development and unity. Today it is rather the USA that has sent more than 3,000 troops and other states sending their best to curtail the spread of the disease whiles African states donate pittance and little human resource to help in the fight.

What Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone need is our support and not to treat their citizens like a “virus”. We need to be sending our best people to help them after they sent their best in helping other countries become independent and in the formation of the AFDB and OAU. People like Romeo Horton sacrificed the possibility of becoming president of the AFDB and proposed for the headquarters of the AFDB to be in francophone Africa to unify Africa. Now is the time to push for regional integration since whether you come from the three most affected countries or from West Africa you will be treated the same once you leave the shores of West Africa to visit Europe or America. This is the window of opportunity we have to push for regional integration or else we would not have it in a long while.

Our approach should not be focused on just fighting the Ebola outbreak with hand-outs and words but with action and help build the health infrastructure in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Principal amongst these is to help them in building the energy infrastructure. Through the use of the West African power pool, we need to assist these countries more with building their generation, transmission and distribution capacity and their own energy infrastructure. Most often than not we fail to see the link between energy, water and sanitation and hence we fall in the cycle of tackling the effect and not the cause of today’s crisis.