EDITORIAL: We must denounce leaders’ life of luxury and entitlement
The ‘school trip’ vibes accompanying images of world leaders aboard buses to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral yesterday have set tongues wagging.
Africans climbed on mountaintops to mock and ridicule their leaders for accepting to be transported on coaches, yet the same people often discourage the life of luxury that their leaders display – including the high-end hotels they book on foreign trips.
Also true is the fact that leaders from other parts of the world, and not only those from Africa, were transported in a similar manner.
Those taking the group transport included Irish prime minister Micheál Martin, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Italian president Sergio Mattarella.
Also taking the bus were members of European royalty, including King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain and King Philippe of Belgium, and China’s official delegation.
It would have been a scandal of unimaginable proportions if it was only leaders of the Third World transported on buses. But it wasn’t.
For context, German is Europe’s largest economy - but their president went on a bus.
What do African leaders do for their people that there’s now fury about their mode of transport in England? We should actually be happy that, for once, they have been cut down to their legitimate size.
Africans climbed on mountaintops to mock and ridicule their leaders for accepting to be transported on coaches, yet the same people often discourage the life of luxury that their leaders display – including the high-end hotels they book on foreign trips.
Also true is the fact that leaders from other parts of the world, and not only those from Africa, were transported in a similar manner.
Those taking the group transport included Irish prime minister Micheál Martin, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Italian president Sergio Mattarella.
Also taking the bus were members of European royalty, including King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain and King Philippe of Belgium, and China’s official delegation.
It would have been a scandal of unimaginable proportions if it was only leaders of the Third World transported on buses. But it wasn’t.
For context, German is Europe’s largest economy - but their president went on a bus.
What do African leaders do for their people that there’s now fury about their mode of transport in England? We should actually be happy that, for once, they have been cut down to their legitimate size.
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