Check out Bill Easterly’s comment’s on the ongoing debate about millenium village tourism…
And what is the deal with Nigeria and its oil rebels? I still do not understand how a country as big as Nigeria – with potential to be Africa’s biggest oil exporter – cannot get it together when it comes to dealing with these rebels. I mean, how about talking to them if you can’t take the fight to them and win?
So there is this story on the BBC website about the Nigerians raising about US $630,000 that they intended to contribute to the Obama campaign. This is as ridiculous as it is stupid. First of all, if these people care enough about Obama they would have visited his website already and noticed that when you try to contribute money you get asked specifically whether you are a US citizen – US politicians are prohibited by law from receiving contributions from foreigners.
Second, these people have got their priorities all wrong. Why raise so much money to send to the US? Aren’t there enough suffering Nigerians and Africans that this money might have helped? Come on Nigerians. Come on!
A few months ago, after the Nigerian election, I read a piece in a leading international newspaper that said that Africa had yet again failed at democracy. The article infuriated me because it was a blanket write off of the entire continent as being undemocratic. I thought about Kenya, Senegal and Botswana as viable democracies that were capable of holding free and fair elections and which had freedom of the press.
But then Kenya happened. A country that was largely peaceful and with prospects of becoming a middle income country in the next decade and a half suddenly imploded and descended into never-before seen chaos. An election was stolen by a man who was viewed as one of the better behaved presidents on a continent infested with autocrats and dictators.
How, after all this, can we convince the world that Nigeria, Zimbabwe, the CAF, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, the DCR and all the others are isolated incidents? How are we going to convince ourselves that we are capable of running peaceful and prosperous countries when all that exist around us are chaos and murderous wars? Total failure?
It is true that countries like Botswana and Senegal still remain stable and democratic and also headed towards economic prosperity. South Africa is also doing quite well, although I am holding my breath to see what a Zuma presidency has in store for us. But the rest of the countries either have wars, or some form of instability and those that are peaceful have poverty rates that are utterly inhuman, to put it mildly.
It is extremely vital for the continent not to let a working model like Kenya sink into the same pit that has the Somalias of the continent. This is because many countries in East Africa depend on Kenya for their own economic success. A failed Kenya would mean no hope for Somalia and serious problems for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, Eastern DCR and Northern Tanzania. A failed Kenya will also mean a serious blow to the spread of democracy on the continent and especially East Africa. Besides Tanzania, Kenya was the only other democracy in the region. Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi all have autocrats who would happily use Kenya as an excuse for them to stay in power.
While Washington and Brussels have been scrambling to ensure a return to order in Kenya after the disputed presidential election, African leaders have been quiet, only issuing half-hearted statements condemning the violence that has gripped the country.
One would have thought that since Kenya was one of the remaining beacons of peace and stability on the continent, many leaders would come out to seek a speedy solution to its problems. But no. African leaders, in their characteristic style, would never be caught criticising each other. So even after one of them was believed to have rigged his way back to power, none of them had the spine to roundly condemn the rigging and call for dialogue.
Yar’Adua of Nigeria, Wade of Senegal and Mbeki of South Africa are nowhere to be seen. Kofuor attempted to be the mediator but later pulled back because the Kenyan government wasn’t too keen on getting his help. Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and South Africa, being the four countries that can credibly criticise/influence Kenya, should have acted fast in order to restore peace and order in the country by pushing for negotiations between the president and the opposition leader.
Because of the silence of these African leaders we have been left with a situation in which the US and the UK seem to be more interested in peace in Kenya than Kenya’s immediate neighbors and other countries on the continent. Next time any of these leaders complain of neo-colonialism they deserve to have rotten eggs land on their faces. They have failed the continent and by allowing outsiders “run the show” on the continent gravely dented Africans’ self confidence, again.
It is most deplorable that no single leader on the continent has come out in defense of democracy. It just shows how long Africa still has to go before it can be called a land of democrats.
kenopalo.com 