The ITU’s top officials get elected in a quadrennial event and the current one commences on October 20 at Busan. More than 3,000 government officials and 600,000 attendees from 193 countries are expected to visit. South Korean government is, however, worried about more than 170 delegates, including 107 Nigerians, from West Africa – the epicenter of Ebola outbreak.
Seoul has, therefore, “politely” asked Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia not to participate in the ITU’s PP-14, said Wall Street Journal. ITU’s outgoing secretary-general Hamadoun Toure, who also hails from West Africa’s Mali, supports South Korea’s embargo.
Yet, some citizens and lawmakers of Busan are quite jittery. They are even “protesting the convening of the conference and want it postponed. Others want to block participants from West African countries,” reports Korea JoongAng Daily.
Attendees might hesitate to shake hands, let alone kissing on the chicks or hugging the African participants, in Busan. A bar in Seoul has already put up a sign saying, “We apologize but due to the Ebola Virus we are not accepting Africans at the moment,” according to the Washington Post. Will it be much different in Busan?
Qatar is may be also nervous about Ebola, as it hosts the Telecom World 2014 in December. Down the road is Mobile World Congress in March 2015 at Barcelona. Will the Ebola situation, which we have been complacent about, be any better by then? Who cares, just ban the Africans!
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