Coronavirus vaccine geopolitics: Ghana at sea

What is Ghana's current foreign policy stand on the world’s geopolitical dimensions? It is no secret that globally, the covid-19 vaccines are distributed according to economic and geopolitical alliances. It’s simply either “who you know” or you get it at an astronomical price via middlemen.

Ghana opted for the latter to receive its first 1.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines because of weak diplomatic alliances with any of the major vaccine manufacturing countries and paid twice ($19) as much as the factory price ($10).

At independence, our forefathers hypocritically declared the young nation to join the “Non-Aligned Movement” as a foreign policy rather than aligning themselves with either of the bipolar world (U.S.A. or the Soviet Union), even though they practiced sovietism. With the fall of the Berlin War, the Cold War expired exactly three decades ago. Are we still a non-aligned state?

Presently, Ghana is in the good books of the United States—hosts one of the 29 U.S military bases in Africa. But this doesn’t make us any special given the one-sided benefits accusations that glamoured the deal from the opposition NDC.

Maybe China is a closer ally given the number of bilateral economic relations between Ghana and China. The evidence though is that some of these deals like Sino hydro, have fallen on the hard rock. I’m not sure this is any special relationship either given the countless number of such relationships China has with other African countries.

In my view, at best, Ghana is only one of the actors on the theatrical stage strategically set by China to become the most powerful country in the world.

Today, we are struggling with life-saving vaccines to attain head-immunity from the novel deadly coronavirus. Tomorrow, we may need military aid to conquer an aggressor. I am not sure the African Union or our sub-regional body is formidable enough to come to one another’s aid.

Food for thought.