Of Katrina and The Shame of a Great Nation

The Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Niger, Sudan – these are some of the nations around the world that one can easily connect with the image of people dying and begging for help, stewing in their own juices, waiting for drops of aid or help from military helicopters or planes. I never believed the day would come when I would see such sights in a nation as great as The United States of America.

The devastation that Hurricane_Katrina wrecked on the United States is immense. Had this happened to a less developed country, one might wonder how many generations it might take before things take return to a semblance of the way they were prior to the disaster.

While I empathise with the people of the USA, I must state that for a nation as huge and technologically advanced as they are, the obviously confused and disjointed manner in which the American government initially responded to the crisis is indeed shameful.

I know that the United States possesses one of the most powerful and intensive scenario building and crisis management machineries in the world. Were all the experts and resources in this area deployed to fighting the obviously dodgy “War on Terror”, while no plans were made should there be a nuclear or other enemy strike on US territory, an earthquake in California or even a Hurricane as powerful as Katrina? How was it that it wasn’t until the 3rd day that the US military, which possesses the technical expertise, logistical experience and the equipment to render immediate assistance in situations such as is faced in the 12 states affected by the Hurricane, was deployed to the areas concerned? Of course, we all know that 60% of the soldiers who could have helped the nation deal with this disaster were away in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting a senseless war, while their homes were burning.

When I stated earlier that President George Bush was leading Americans to the beginning of the end of what I call “The American Civilisation”, I must have seemed like a raving lunatic, a prophet of doom to some. When a president is ready and willing to commit the financial and human resources of his nations towards enriching business interests and settling senseless old scores under the guise of protecting national interests, you get what happened to the people of the United States via Katrina.

It was already clear to all experts around the world that there were more hurricanes and storms developing more than ever before. Nations that were most at risk have indeed been planning for such and the least that the US government could have done was to have spent the necessary resources to plan for an event like Katrina. Nobody in the United States can say that there was no report, no email, no document from anybody within any of the government agencies stating the necessity of and seriously proposing such a plan.

While America gropes, I however do hope that the Nigerian Government wakes up to its responsibilities, and begins to plan for events such as this. We have no excuse. We can learn from the mistakes and errors of other nations and go beyond the political “solutions” like forming a paperweight National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), an agency without powers or even a strategic direction. We must begin to work out a nexus of planning, interconnection and cooperation between the NEMA, the armed forces, the media, the various arms of government, especially the local and state governments and of course, NGOs like the Red Cross, The Médecins Sans Frontieres, UNICEF etc. We must plan now, because the impact of a disaster like this would be greater on us than the Americans