The Sumani Case: A Damning Indictment on Us.

The recent callous bundling of a seriously ill Ghanaian woman from her sick bed in Wales straight unto an aircraft bound for Kotoka Airport rightly rankled with many decent-minded persons who heard the news. How could the British be so evil and treat this woman without a shred of humanity, we wondered, especially as a commonwealth citizen? In spite of all that the black race had done to help build Britain’s prosperity through cheap slave labour? Where was the justice and compassion? Haba, we thought to ourselves, as for this, they did not try at all.

A look at the legal context of Ms. Sumani’s case would perhaps be helpful. Britain has adopted a very hard line approach towards people who have no lawful basis to remain in the country and yet do not wish to be removed for serious medical reasons, even if the only outcome of being removed is their certain death. This was entrenched in 2003 with the landmark case of N (Uganda) v Secretary of State, which has become the benchmark case against which medical cases are assessed. In that case, the Court of Appeal ruled that the fact that an HIV positive woman would face certain death within two years if removed from the UK was no barrier to her removal, and that her case was not ‘truly exceptional’ and did not breach her rights under the European Convention of Human Rights. The courts’ view was that HIV was no longer a death sentence due to availability of anti-retroviral drugs. The fact that they were expensive and therefore very difficult to access was not considered relevant, so long as availability could be established in the home country. This ruling was partly based on the fear of the ‘floodgates’ opening if the perception arose that people could travel to the UK and obtain free healthcare at the expense of the taxpayer if they had a terminal illness, and there was a feeling that a more robust system of immigration control was needed.

The ‘truly exceptional circumstances’ test was deemed to have been met in the earlier case of D (St. Kitts) v Secretary of State [1997] where the appellant was not only HIV positive but was actually in the AIDS stage and was receiving palliative care at a hospice, with only a few weeks left to live and beyond the help of medication and medical treatment. Of course it was a hollow victory, for there was no point in allowing him to remain here with only a few weeks to his death. But this goes to demonstrate that unless you are literally on your death bed, then UK case law says your medical condition does not entitle you to remain in that country!

So whilst Ms. Sumani’s case was most heart-rending and sad, it was not surprising as a matter of law that she had failed to persuade the authorities to be allowed to remain in the UK due to her medical condition. Given that there are many people in Ms. Sumani’s position, I believe the fear in the Home Office was that to allow her to stay would lead to a precedent being set where others would claim a legitimate expectation to be able to granted the same concession. That is the policy and legal framework within which Ms. Sumani’s removal from the UK was effected.

Of course, it was only human to feel sympathetic to Ms. Sumani’s cause and outraged at her treatment whatever UK law says. Whilst many railed against the British government for its callousness, others vented their spleen on the Ghanaian High Commission in London for not intervening, and also on the NPP presidential aspirants for spending lots of money on their campaign instead of helping Ms. Sumani. The churches also came in for criticisms for not doing enough to help the poor and needey. Of course the government itself did not escape the vitriol for allegedly doing nothing about the health care system in Ghana. But what amused me most was that of all the people railing and ranting on the internet and on the radio, almost nobody thought to put their money where their mouth or keyboard lay.

Why does it only have to be politicians who have a moral obligation to help Ms. Sumani out of their private pockets? How about the wealthy businessmen, for instance? I find it hard to accept that an individual Ghanaian citizen or group of citizens could not set up a fund to seek contributions from Ghanaians in the UK to raise money to pay for Ms. Sumani’s treatment, to show the British that we care about our own. I find it hard to believe that someone could not organise a charity concert with a Ghanaian performer to raise funds for her. As a Ghanaian, I bow my head in shame for not doing anything to help Ms. Sumani.

But I bowed my head deeper in shame till my forehead scraped my kneecaps when I heard that a kindly woman living in Wales had offered to pay for Ms. Sumani’s treatment. Dear Lord, I asked myself, does it have to take a foreigner to do a good deed to our own kith and kin whilst we carp and wag fingers at each other and everyone else but ourselves? The cruel irony is that we, black Africans, berate a white government for being callous to our fellow citizen, but it takes a white woman to save this black citizen whilst we bellow ourselves hoarse and do nothing to help her.

There is no doubt we have many people in our society, both home and abroad, who are relatively well off, even if Ghana is not a wealthy country. Yet to what extent do we seek to help our countrymen less fortunate than ourselves? Why does it have to take a western NGO to come to Ghana to drill boreholes and provide water for our rural folks when some of our own citizens are prepared to buy a piece of land for over 100 million cedis and can donate to a local NGO without feeling the pinch if they were minded to do so? Where is the spirit of philanthropy? And what effective framework does our government have in place by way of tax breaks to encourage our citizens give to charity?

I understand that the kind lady in question paid for three months’ treatment for Ms. Sumani. Now, who will take the mantle? Who, among our so-called ‘big men’ of our society, will dare step in? And for the rest of us, who is prepared to give up part of their time and lead a campaign to raise funds for Ms. Sumani’s continued treatment? Until we are able to do so, let us stop blaming the British. True, their laws are cruel and they have tightened their law to take care of their citizens, for it is their citizens that they will have to face at the next election, and the British electorate love a party that acts tough on immigration.

Ms Sumani is Ghanaian. Let us claim her with pride, and show that the community spirit of our traditional society is still alive, that we take care of our own and need not depend on the white man for the crumbs that fall off his table and which he may give to us out of sympathy if he is so inclined. We are not, and should not see ourselves as, victims.

Now let me stop pounding my keyboard and try figuring out how best to help Ms. Sumani and others in her situation in my own small way and thereby redeem my battered conscience.