Tendai Ruben Mbofana
Once again, Africa finds itself watching in stunned silence as one of its most powerful monarchs, King Mswati III of eSwatini, reportedly battles a deteriorating health condition that has stirred growing concern within and beyond the tiny kingdom.
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According to media reports citing confidential royal sources, the king was recently rushed under emergency circumstances to his private hospital in Manzana after weeks of speculation over his wellbeing.
His frailty has become difficult to conceal, with visible signs of rapid weight loss during recent public appearances sparking rumours of a serious medical condition.
While plans had allegedly been underway to fly the king out of the country for treatment, sources say his condition was deemed too fragile for immediate travel.
As a result, his medical team decided to admit him locally while preparations continue.
These developments have drawn fresh attention not only to the monarch’s health, but also to a much broader African problem—one that stretches from royal palaces to presidential estates: why do our leaders always have to be flown abroad when their health fails?
Why, after decades in power and control over national budgets, are their own countries’ hospitals never good enough for them?
This is not a new phenomenon.
Over the years, we have seen a disturbing trend where African leaders, upon facing serious health challenges, conveniently flee their nations to receive treatment in faraway countries—ironically, in the same Western nations they publicly blame for the continent’s woes.
They shamelessly turn to these former colonial powers for care and refuge, leaving behind their own crumbling health systems that they have governed—sometimes for decades—yet failed to improve.
The irony is stark, and the insult to the suffering masses is unforgivable.
How does a leader, who has presided over a nation for decades, not trust the same public healthcare system he oversees?
If these hospitals are not good enough for our leaders, why should they be good enough for the people they lead?
If these leaders cannot walk into a hospital built under their own administration and receive treatment, is that not the ultimate admission of failure?
Yet, rather than being shamed into action, they continue this cycle—living lavishly at home, and dying quietly in foreign hospitals.
Across the continent, this pattern repeats itself.
We witnessed how Zimbabwe’s late President Robert Mugabe frequently flew to Singapore for medical attention, eventually dying there.
His family is believed to have since established themselves in that country.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean public hospitals are starved of basic resources—antibiotics, painkillers, functioning incubators—leaving millions of ordinary citizens at the mercy of dilapidated wards and overworked nurses.
Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari became a symbol of the trend, having spent several extended periods in London for medical treatment during his presidency, often shrouded in secrecy.
Gabon’s President Ali Bongo suffered a stroke in 2018 while in Saudi Arabia and remained there for months during his recovery.
Angola’s former President José Eduardo dos Santos also followed this pattern, receiving long-term treatment in Spain, where he eventually died in a Barcelona clinic in 2022.
These are just a few among many African leaders who, despite decades in power and vast access to national resources, still found it necessary to entrust their health to foreign systems rather than their own.
So many African leaders, dead or alive, have more faith in Western medicine than the systems they oversee.
Yet this is the same continent that possesses some of the richest natural resources on earth.
Africa is home to 30% of the world’s mineral reserves, including 40% of global gold, 90% of chromium and platinum, and more than 70% of the world’s cobalt.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) alone holds an estimated 3.5 million metric tons of cobalt—crucial for electric vehicles and batteries in the green energy transition.
Zimbabwe is said to possess around 220,000 metric tons of lithium reserves, placing it among the top ten globally.
Nigeria, Angola, and Algeria sit on billions of barrels of proven oil reserves.
In 2023, Africa’s mineral wealth generated more than $300 billion, yet so little of this is reflected in local development or healthcare investment.
Africa is also an agro-based continent.
We possess 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, with diverse climates and fertile soil that can support large-scale food production.
Countries like Zambia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia boast ideal conditions for maize, wheat, and coffee production.
Yet, rather than becoming the breadbasket of the world, Africa remains a net importer of food—spending over $50 billion annually to buy what we should be growing ourselves.
Agricultural productivity remains stifled by poor investment, outdated methods, and corruption.
If properly harnessed, our land could feed not only ourselves but the world.
Amid this unimaginable potential lies a tragic paradox.
A growing number of African citizens live in extreme poverty, many earning less than $2.15 a day, the World Bank’s international poverty line.
According to the African Development Bank, over 431 million Africans currently live below this threshold.
In some countries, such as Nigeria, over 40% of the population is considered extremely poor.
Meanwhile, some African leaders are listed among the wealthiest individuals on the continent, their riches hidden away in offshore accounts and luxury real estate around the world.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, for instance, is reported to have billions of dollars stashed abroad, while his son, Vice President Teodorin, has been convicted in European courts for embezzling hundreds of millions of public funds.
In Zimbabwe, the infamous Gold Mafia exposé by Al Jazeera pulled back the curtain on how the country’s gold was being illegally siphoned off to Dubai by cartels with alleged ties to the ruling elite.
These illicit proceeds were reportedly being used to build luxury mansions and establish financial footholds in the UAE, far away from the economic decay at home.
It is suspected that these investments are part of a succession strategy—a safety net for life after power.
In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s healthcare infrastructure has become a death trap for the poor.
Maternity wards without gloves, cancer patients turned away due to lack of chemotherapy drugs, and dialysis patients dying for lack of equipment are common realities.
This looting and decay persist in a post-colonial Africa where infrastructure—once left in relatively good condition by the colonizers—has crumbled under the weight of corruption, neglect, and incompetence.
At independence, many African countries inherited health, transport, and education systems that were among the best on the continent.
Zimbabwe, for example, had one of the finest public health systems in Africa, with Parirenyatwa and Mpilo Hospitals offering quality care.
Yet decades later, the rot has reached an irredeemable level.
When African leaders opt to flee to their former colonial rulers for care, they are unwittingly admitting the effectiveness of systems built by outsiders and the shame of their own inability to replicate or improve upon them.
It’s as if they are saying: we have failed ourselves, and now must rely on those we once fought against.
That is an indictment not of colonialism—but of our post-colonial leadership.
While these leaders luxuriate in foreign medical suites, ordinary Africans are left to die at the hands of failing systems.
Pregnant women bleed to death on hospital benches.
Cancer patients lose their battles before even getting an appointment.
Children die of diarrhea for lack of clean water and basic rehydration.
These are not isolated tragedies—they are systemic failures.
It is time for Africans to demand more from those who lead them.
Leadership must come with responsibility—and consequences.
We cannot continue to be led by those who rob the continent blind and then abandon it in times of need.
Africa deserves leaders who believe in their countries, invest in their people, and stay to fight when things fall apart.
We must no longer tolerate the shame of being abandoned by those entrusted with our collective future.
If our hospitals are not good enough for our presidents, then they are not good enough for our people.
And if our leaders cannot fix them, then they do not deserve to lead.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/