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AFRICA 2002 - A Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
By Chika A. Onyeani (African Sun Times, Dec. 26, 2002-Jan. 8, 2003)
The events at the end of 2002 in Africa made me very proud to be an African.
We as Africans can look at one another, smile and give ourselves high-fives.
We achieved what America has yet to achieve, a free and fair election. It
was an election free of "chads," free of one particular group of Americans
being prevented from voting or when they cast their votes, more than 40,000
of those votes being thrown out; it was an election where Africans didn't
have to run to an Supreme Court packed with our supporters to be named a
President; it was an election decided by a majority, where the person who won
the majority of votes cast by the masses became the President, and not by a
so-called Electoral College. Yes, if I dwelt on this I may never ever finish
and I don't want to spoil the euphoria with a bad taste in my mouth. I am
starting the beginning of 2003 with the knowledge that motherland Africa is
marching in the direction of our dream. Kenya's electoral victory, as that of
our Senegalese Soccer team, is Africa's victory.
But where are the same Western media pundits who have suddenly crawled back
into their caves, but who continually beat the drum of armageddon when
elections were held in Zimbabwe, an election which African Heads of State
pronounced free and fair? Unfortunately, the people who are always asking
you to remove the moat from your eyes always forget that on their own eyes.
It is like the teacher who asks his students to always brush their teeth in
the morning when the children are looking at the piece of black vegetable on
his teeth. I am yet to see the same amount of scorn they heaped on the
outcome of the Zimbabwe election translated into the same amount of praise
they should accord to the outcome of the election in Kenya. I am yet to see
the same editorializing that attended the Zimbabwe election accorded to the
outcome of the Kenyan election, and what it means and portends for the
African continent.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that everything in Africa is
hokie-dorie because of one election that took place in Kenya. But we have to
pat ourselves on the back, give a Bronx cheer to our elder statesman - am I
really using that word - former President Daniel arap Moi, because he has
behaved like a Statesman. Moi confounded his critics as well as his admirers
with the grace with which he left the scene. After all, if Americans could
give former Mayor Rudolph Guilliani all that accolade and money for one act
of one good deed, why can't we as Africans do the same for Daniel arap Moi.
I don't care what anybody says, he deserves to be called a statesman; former
President Abdou Diouf of Senegal deserves to be called a statesman; former
President Jerry Rawlings deserves to be called a statesman; and former
President Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali has always been a statesman. Like
Guilliani, Africans lived under the unbearable autocratic and dictatorial
leadership of the former three Presidents, but at the right time, bowed out
gracefully. I cannot in any way ascribe the word statesmanship to a Mayor
Guilliani, but I am totally comfortable with ascribing the same to the former
three Presidents despite their past misdeeds.
First, it was Leopold Senghor followed by Nelson Mandela who first sowed that
seed of statesmanship, followed by Diouf, Rawlings and now Moi. I can say
that looking at the future, the core leadership of Africa has started to
understand transparency in governance is not only good for themselves, but
better for the masses of Africans. After all, there is no other group of
people who have been so oppressed, victimized and balkanized as Africans by
European imperialists, and if we see a light at the end of the tunnel with
what is happening today in Africa, it is a time for more prayer for more to
come.
Kenya is not the only country that we could look at in Africa, and see how
the election turned out. We could look at the earlier election in Mali, w
here former President Alpha Oumar Konare had basically orchestrated one of
the smoothest elections to occur in Africa. Konare is tipped to do for the
African Union what he did in Mali when, if he so accepts, he is elected as
the new Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union when the Heads of
State hold their next meeting in Mozambique this year.
Yes, 2002 is a year Africans can look with a sense of belonging and a sense
of pride. On July 9, 2002, in Durban, South Africa, we saw the Organization
of African Unity transformed into the new African Union. It was the
culmination of three years of efforts which started in 1999 when Libyan
President Muammar Quaddaffi called for a stronger African Union than the OAU,
which many critics had benevolently dubbed "the dictators' club."
Of course, there were few outside Africa who believed that Africans could
come together, united in their resolve to see a stronger Africa, especially
given the proponent of such an idea. The question most people continue to
ask is whether the new African Union is really different from the
Organization of African Unity. Only time will tell, although already there
are rumblings that the new African Union has started to flex its muscles.
For example, from its beginning it not only denied admission of Madagascar
into the Union, it insisted that new elections must be held if President Marc
Ravalomanana were to be recognized as President. The West said the island
nation didn't need Africa to survive, but eventually there was a new
election, which conferred on Ravalomanana the legitimacy he needs to be
admitted to the African Union.
Africans are also watching with anticipation how the new vehicle of NEPAD
will be used to empower the economic growth of Africa. NEPAD, the New
Partnership for Africa's Development, is premised on Africans taking charge
of their own economic renaissance through planning what they want and how
they want it. The so-called G8 nations have already promised $6 billion to
the continent; of course there is a drawback, which is that Africa must first
of all show good governance vis-a-vis democratic institutions before any of
that money could be dispensed to the continent. There is nothing wrong with
having good governance in Africa, after all it is what we all want. But the
same G8 nations did not ask the same conditions of Russia before handing
Russia the sum of $20 billion, no questions asked.
In that frame of the positive events that happened in Africa in 2002, we must
not forget Angola, where we saw the demise of Western-supported rebel leader
Jonas Savimbi. It is sad that egomaniacs like him don't know when it is time
to retreat and make peace with their fellow countrymen. Unfortunately, we
have to admit that the death of Jonas Savimbi was one of the best things to
happen to Angola in particular, and Africa in general. At least, it is one
less war to settle in a continent which has seen its share of wars and
millions of deaths by power-hungry men.
Having said all the above, 2002 was not apples and roses and it would be
remise and misleading on my part to claim otherwise. While we were
jubilating on the triumphs of the election results in Kenya, Africa was being
stabbed in the back by the knockle heads in Togo, West Africa, where the
"legislators" decided to take Africa back to the dinosaur era by "voting" to
make the dictator of Togo, Gnassingbe Eyadema, president for life. He is the
rotten egg and sewer that is now stinking up the whole continent. As they
say it takes only one bad apple to spoil the rest.
Eyadema has been in power since 1967, when as a sergeant he engineered a
coup. In 1998, he staged an election and abruptly had to cancel the vote
counting when it appeared that he was going to lose. What has now been
established is that given the choice, African voters would make the right
decision. It is pathetically shameful that people like Eyadema, I hate to
use the word leader to refer to such a person, who was even President of the
Organization of African Unity, don't understand how history would treat them.
Eyadema might have the illusion of being powerful, but at the end of the day
the same fate that befell dictators and totalitarians with grandeur complex
like Hitler, Moussulini, Mobutu Sese Seko, Sani Abacha, awaits Eyadema. When
the day of reckoning comes, he will be tossed into a make-shift grave, with
hardly a teary eye to mourn his demise. Togo and Africa will still be
existing long after we have all gone.
Africans are happy to celebrate the lives of Leopold Senghor, Julius Nyerere,
Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jomo Kenyatta, and if this
doesn't give Eyadema pause for reflection, he should ask himself who is
celebrating the lives of Mobutu Sese Seko, Sergeant Doe or Sani Abacha.
You will ask what happened to AIDS pandemic in Africa before I close this
article. I will answer that I didn't forget it, because I know that a large
number of African leaders have started paying major attention to the
eradication of the disease.
But right now, I want to close with a positive spin, which is that Africa is
marching to the beating of the drums of progress, albeit in a small way, but
nevertheless quite significant for the comfort of most of us.
Dr. Chika A. Onyeani, Author
"Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success"
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
The African Sun Times
463 N. Arlington Avenue, Ste 17
East Orange, NJ 07017-3927
Phone: 973-675-9919
Fax: 973-675-5704
email: afrstime@aol.com
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