Africa Has Strong Men; Not Strong Institutions

US President Barack Obama

“Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”

When Barack Obama said these words last July in Accra, many were happy that perhaps some African leaders were going to turn over a new leaf following the advice from their most respected “cousin” in the White House.

The optimists may have been disappointed that no sooner had Obama left the shores of Africa, President Mamadou Tandjah of Niger started a process to change the constitution of his country to enable him to extend his stay in office since he wanted to finish “some projects” that he initiated.

Parliamentarians and civil society protested but the protests were to no avail. The president dissolved Parliament, as well as the nation's constitutional court and used the military to his advantage.

He then proceeded to change the constitution under very dubious and controversial circumstances which the opposition described as a coup d'état.

After Mamadou Tandjah's unconstitutional act, both the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS did what they usually do best; barking but not biting.

He ruled for some time and lived in his own Fool's Paradise. As fate would have it, the very soldiers he used to deceptively consolidate himself in power turned against him and overthrew him.

Gauging the mood of his people regarding the second “coup” (the one by the soldiers) on the various international media outlets, one can only conclude that a greater number of Nigeriens were glad.

Even if Nigeriens do not want any military adventurism in their body-politic, at least, they welcome this latest one as it is a sort of good riddance to bad rubbish. Once again, the AU and ECOWAS have come out to condemn the coup.

Well, the questions are “On what basis are they condemning a coup which overthrew another coup? Are they just condemning it because it was embarked upon by soldiers?

Is it the case that a coup is only a coup when soldiers are involved? Well, by the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, what the junta did in Niger would have been constitutional in Ghana.

It would have been unconstitutional only if they had decided to hold on to power without relinquishing it to a constitutionally elected government.

What Tandjah did was a coup pure and simple.  The inability of bodies like ECOWAS and AU to take punitive measures against leaders like Tandjah may have resulted in some of the coup d'états in the West African sub-region.

Hopefully, the junta members who massacred poor, innocent and unarmed civilian demonstrators last year would not go scot-free in the name of having a transitional government in place. Compared to the European Union (EU) from which ECOWAS and AU take so much inspiration, the African groups are not doing well as expected.

It looks as if the strong institutions advocated by Mr. Obama are either not in place or are in placed but are not respected.

If there were strong institutions which were seriously respected, Muamar Gaddafi would not have ever dreamt of extending his chairmanship term of the AU when his time ended.

For once, it was gratifying that the AU stood its ground and elected Bingu Wa Mutharika of Malawi as its Chairman.  

According to Article 30 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, “Governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union.”

But is that the reality presented to us? There have been several occasions when AU observers have gone to oversee less credible elections but concluded in the usual phrase of “free, fair and transparent elections.”

Currently, President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast has serious problems with the opposition parties after unilaterally dissolving the country's independent Electoral Commission.

The action has led to demonstrations which have ultimately resulted in deaths of several innocent people.

There have been occasions when the AU and the other bodies like ECOWAS, COMESA and SADC have quickly come to the defence of some leaders when they were supposed to denounce them for such leaders to be arrested and dealt with. It happened in the case of former President Charles Gbankey Taylor of Liberia when he attended a conference in Accra.

It took some political “chicanery” from former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria for Taylor to be arrested.

Just last year, when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Al-Bashir for some human rights abuses, his colleague African leaders (except Jacob Zuma of South Africa) boldly declared that they were not going to lend any support to the ICC.

Africa has harboured and pampered a lot of leaders who have virtually become political dinosaurs who think that without them in power, their countries might cease to exist.

They include Muamar Gaddafi (41 years in power), Theodore Obiang Nguema of Equitorial Guinea (30 years in power), Jose Eduado Dos Santos (30 years in office), Robert Gabriel Mugabe (30 years in power), Hosni Mubarak (28 years), Paul Biya (27 years), Yoweri Museveni (24 years), King Mswati (24 years) Blaise Compoare (23 years) and the Tunisian leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (22 years).

A number of these African leaders have either stolen electoral verdicts or manipulated and mutilated constitutions in their favour and remained in power.

Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, who has been in power for the last 18 years, has only succeeded in muzzling the press, stifling opposition and getting United Nations sanctions against his nation.

Although two-thirds of the population of the country is dying of hunger, the intransigent and unrepentant dictator has consistently prevented aid and humanitarian agencies from getting access to Eritrea.

He deliberately and unremorsefully keeps shifting the posts for political reforms. In a recent 30-minute interview with President Afewerki on Aljazeera, his only answers to all the questions posed were “It's a lie” and “That's a fantasy.” He however admitted openly that “there is no commodity called democracy.”

Afewerki does not allow his nationals to go outside the small nation to tell the rest of the world about the monstrous atrocities and inhuman indignities that he perpetually subjects them to.

Little wonder that his people abscond when the slightest opportunity presents itself. Two national teams of Scotland and Holland vanished into thin air when they were due to return home. Human Rights Watch says the President has turned the nation into a giant prison.

Eritrea, an otherwise promising nation, has become a successful failure where democracy is under constant rape as a result of one man's greed.

Afewerki's sworn enemy, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia is also averse to dissent and therefore manhandles people whose dissenting views are so pronounced.

War has ravaged the DR Congo and its cobalt (a precious metal, which is used for the manufacturing of computers and batteries) is under constant plunder by rebels.

The country is the producer of half of the world's cobalt but gets very little if not nothing from this rich resource.

Joseph Kabila, Faure Gnassingbe and Ali Ben Bongo replaced their autocratic fathers in DR Congo, Togo and Gabon respectively.

The wealth of these nations only benefits a few friends and families in these nations. The story of father-son replacement after death or retirement is likely to repeat itself in Senegal, Egypt and Libya. And as if words do not mean anything, African leaders can say one thing and then do another thing or renege on their promise without the slightest sense of shame.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf promised she would not seek a second term when she was vying to be the President of war-torn Liberia.

At the eleventh hour of her administration, she has suddenly realized that a second term as president would not be a bad idea after all.

While Gnassingbe of Togo has serious problems with the opposition, Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and Mugabe are almost always at their coalition partners' throats.

The most amazing thing about these African heads is that most of them are very well educated. Mugabe is said to possess seven University degrees, Gbagbo was a History lecturer at a University, Kibaki was a lecturer in Economics at the prestigious University of Makerere, Johnson-Sirleaf attended Harvard, while Faure Gnassingbe was educated at the prestigious Sorbonne University before joining the Togolese army when his father presided over Togo like a family fiefdom.

Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia, apart from turning himself into a buffoon of a leader and a native magician recently, has become so intolerant of dissenting views that journalists and opposition members in his country have borne the brunt of his monstrous cruelty.

Dedra Hydra, a vociferous Gambian journalist was murdered in cold blood under mysterious circumstances under the watch of Jammeh.

As if that was not enough, 77 nationals of other African countries, including 44 Ghanaians were killed wantonly in Gambia. When the Media Foundation for West Africa criticized him for his atrocities, he threatened to deal with its members, especially the Executive Director, Prof. Kwame Karikari.  

On Monday, 15th February, 2010, Jammeh expelled the UNICEF country representative to The Gambia, Min Whee-Kang for no reasons though pundits suggest she had in recent times been very critical of the government. The woman was given 24 hours to leave the country.

She therefore traveled over land to neighbouring Senegal.    

Like a petulant child who just drops himself on the ground for a misunderstanding with his sibling, Mugabe threatened to pull out of the Kimberley Process because the EU had taken a decision the previous day to extend sanctions against his country for 12 months, as his handling of the unity government was not satisfactory.

The leadership report card of most African leaders is repulsive and appalling and it is only hoped that they would mend their ways and heed to the words of Obama: “…Development depends upon good governance.

That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.”

By Sylvanus Nana Kumi