Much stink was kicked up in May last year when American George Floyd died at the hands of a police officer in a clearly racist incident. The condemnation was universal and among the more strident voices were those of leaders of African nations and multilateral bodies.

Among the first high-profile Africans to wax indignant as video footage of a hapless, dying Floyd went viral on social media and protests cascaded across the world was the senior-most continental civil servant, African Union (AU) Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat. In a statement, he emphasised the AU’s “rejection of the continuing practices against black citizens of the US”.

Faki’s number two at the AU Commission, Thomas Kwesi Quartey, also weighed in, writing on his Facebook page: “The AU is distressed to witness yet another unwarranted execution of an African-American male – George Floyd – for no other reason than being black. This is one too many.”

Then followed a succession of strongly worded condemnatory statements from heads of State and others. Even President Cyril Ramaphosa felt compelled to comment publicly, telling a virtual audience in June that Floyd’s murder opened old wounds.

Our leaders were spot-on in speaking out about the George Floyd incident. But I was appalled when, in late November, African Presidents – including Oom Cyril, the current rotational chairperson of the AU – chose to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil when the Ugandan police gunned down 45 supporters of musician-turned-Presidential hopeful Bobi Wine, who, at the time of writing, was due to challenge the incumbent of 34 years, Yoweri Museveni, in the country’s January 14 elections. The justification for the cold-blooded killings and the arrest of several hundreds of other Wine supporters was that the victims had attended a rally where more than the stipulated 200 people were present – a restriction imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19. According to reports in the Ugandan media, supporters of Museveni and his National Resistance Movement had been equally guilty of this infraction, but the self-same police had elected to look the other way.

What is really worrying is that the deathly hush that greeted the late November massacre in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, was not a one-off occurrence. African leaders have, for a very long time, been all too ready to pontificate about incidents like the Floyd murder opening old wounds, yet they lose their voice when African blood is spilled for no other reason than to ensure that dictators prolong their stay in power.

As those who follow developments in Africa with more than a passing interest will recall, back in April, Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission reported that tens of people had been killed by police enforcing a Covid-19 curfew. There was no condemnation at all from the AU and other African States. Ditto when, later in the year, 69 people who were part of a larger crowd protesting for police reform in the West African nation ironically died in a hail of police bullets.

In Kenya, brutal policing of the country’s Covid-19 curfew has reportedly also had a sizeable number of casualties, while in South Africa soldiers beat a resident of Alexander township to death in a crackdown against those breaking Covid-19-induced restrictions. Again, the AU and others were not moved to call out the authorities in the two countries.

Those in the know say tens of Africans protesting bad governance and other forms of malfeasance by those in power were killed by police in other African countries last year. The figure would run into hundreds, perhaps thousands, if the tally included all those killed by police and the military during the past five years.

My wish for 2021 is that those privileged to govern us begin to realise that African lives matter too and that we begin to hear voices of protest whenever the lives of innocent sons and daughters of the African soil are cut short.