Ebola: The Upshot of Liberia’s Western Aid Curse

When an Ebola-afflicted man collapsed in Nigeria’s Lagos
airport, Nigerian authorities didn’t call the Western aid hotline demanding mulah and
manpower. They hunkered down and took aggressive steps to prevent
the contagion from spreading.

By contrast, Liberia started holding press conferences and
calling Western aid organizations when it belatedly detected the
disease. The outcome? Ebola is raging through this sad, sad
country, attacking over 300 people last week alone.

What’s the difference between Liberia and Nigeria? Liberia is
among the most indebted nations in Africa, I note in my column at
The Week, and Nigeria is the least. It’s capital Monrovia
is crawling with NGOs and the U.N. is already spending $500 million
to maintain a peacekeeping force. As one African put it: “The virus
has managed to escape from a country that has one of the largest
concentration of ‘helpers’ in the world.”

 With Western aid like this, developing countries don’t
need drones and bombs.

Go
here to read the whole thing.