COVID-19 CRISES AND A SEARCH FOR AFROCENTRIC LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA: USING RELIGIOUS VALUES TO CHECKMATE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Abstract

The common cry from the African Continent is that of poor governance rooted in gross abuse of human rights. Good governance and religious values are fundamental factors for development and sustainability in the quest for a prosperous Nation such as Africa. The primary purpose of this paper is to underscore the importance of religious values in promoting good governance and peace in this age of COVID- 19, as well as to checkmate human rights abuses. The paper argues that African and religious values are prerequisites to good governance and often used to checkmate bad governance. It suggests that human rights abuses; and violence; have come about largely as a result of frequent leadership change, lack of African ideology, policy reversal and weak institutional patterns. The study adopts systematic and descriptive methodological approach of enquiry in presenting a framework for the study. To achieve the aim of this study, qualitative data were generated and collected from published and unpublished literature and analyzed accordingly. Using structural conflict theories the researcher argues for how it affects religion and COVID- 19 crises that leads to the use of religious values to checkmate the polity (Government). The paper also examines the nexus between corona virus pandemic lockdown; violations of human rights and religious values. Hence, the decline in African moral and religious values during the periods of the lockdown and this weakened the system of governance. The paper lays emphasis on COVID- 19 crises, religious values, governance and abuse of human rights in some selected African countries. The paper observes that for African countries to overcome the COVID- 19 crises; Afrocentric leadership governance is key, proper utilization of the religious values in the Country. The paper concludes that religious values is not the only factor to use to checkmate human rights abuses and only resources that have maximum empathy for the people can be relevant to the qualitative movement of African countries from COVID- 19 crises.