L'Afrique minée par ses dirigeants
GHANA for now serves as a strong island of peace in West Africa, as you know that Liberia is enjoying relative peace. Cote d’Ivoire is in a rotational state of collapse and promise as rebels are always threatening President Laurent Gbagbo, day-in-day-out. We all know that the rebels rejected President Thabo Mbeki as a dishonest arbiter.
I am not sure whether today Mbeki will be an honest one in the Zimbabwe’s Sadc-initiated talks. And also given Jacob Zuma’s challenge, Mbeki might emerge as a seriously bruised arbiter. The other compounding factor now being that he has lost the ANC presidency to Jacob Zuma. Only time will tell! Cote d’Ivoire, another interesting African country is a place where you see French soldiers roaming around the streets in their armoured tanks. You only get to be reminded by the black market women that you are still in Africa. Such is the state of shadow colonialism in most Francophone countries, maybe with the exception of Algeria.
Nigeria is quite peaceful as well. But it depends on one’s understanding of peace, as crime rate is soaring and gangs continue to kidnap any white face around them and start phoning mining companies hunting for ransom. At least, President Yar’Adua has pledged to handle the situation once and for all. His record for the last eight months in office, after a disputed election, is proving to be impressive. With the situation in Nigeria, a regional political competitor to Ghana it means that the latter is comparatively peaceful and helping her economy as most countries are no longer trade routes.
Having discussed the West African situation and generally some situations elsewhere, I wish to conclude with a critical analysis of one major factor which forms a serious oversight on our African democracy. It seems as if in Africa as long as one political party stays in power and there is leadership renewal that is democracy. Due to the nature of our leaders, people end up being forced to vote for individuals being placed at the helm of the party, instead of critically engaging political party policies.
Examples include countries like Botswana; whose ruling party to this day, Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) was first elected in 1965, and has continued being elected at five-yearly intervals. Then Tanzania forms another interesting case of TANU which got into power in 1961, then merged with Zanzibar’s ruling party, Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) in 1964, to form Chama-cha-Mapinduzi (CCM). Since then they have stayed put and that is considered a great mark of democracy. What a shame to democracy!
In Mozambique and South Africa, there are similar cases of liberation winning political parties in power, Frelimo and ANC, respectively. These parties undergo constant leadership renewal only at the apex with all the structures remaining unchanged.
Zimbabwe also has Zanu PF, another case of a liberation winning party. They claim to be civilian here and there, but are quick to engage their liberation mode when seriously challenged. This also forms a major feature of most of these liberation winning political parties in Africa. Be that as it may, an array of questions arises: what has gone wrong with the African leaders? Are we supposed to blame the leaders or the opposition political parties in Africa that seem to fail to understand the same power game and political tactics used now and again? Where is Africa going? Mad men are at the helm of the AU and driving it wild.
Sadly, the recent developments in Kenya, a once promising democracy are a serious cause for concern. The government has gone all out in full military force and massacred innocent civilians who are complaining about a stolen vote. Indeed, the vote has been stolen in the same African ludicrous fashion, with the government showing no tinge of shame. Their only response — instead of saving life — is to accuse Odinga of causing a genocide. Most African scholars and social actionists have blamed Africa’s problems on her colonial legacy. Much as this narrative is plausible what of the actions of the third generational leaders like Mwai Kibaki of Kenya? Can we also blame it on the fact Mwai Kibaki has in the past years been rubbing shoulders with the old tired first generation leaders in the African Union gallery? If it is that contagious then shame be on the future of Africa.
Following these observations one can glean that Africa’s cause for leadership and political change hangs in the balance. The most saddening thing is that very few lessons are there for the aspiring leaders to learn from. One can even speculate that following the actions of our leaders even the young and promising have nothing to build on; as a result the likelihood is that people’s rights will be trampled on even more. At least our prayers now are that the African ancestors save the almost imminent crisis in South Africa.
The angling and framing of my contribution might be accused by some overzealous Pan Africanists as some form of Afro-pessimism. It is not. In fact, it is informed by the fact that too many mistakes continue to be made wantonly by our leaders, as a result this has tended to far out weigh their contributions to our lives. This forms the basis of my contribution and will continue for as long as Africa’s leaders continue to hold the masses at ransom. Otherwise failure to do that is tantamount to dressing oneself on borrowed robes. Africa can not afford sweet talking anymore. All odds are against us. Seemingly, the African ancestors are angry as well.
