http://washosy.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454203

I submit for discussion the speech delivered by His Excellency Gen. Ibrahim B. Babangida, GCFR, Mni, to the Justice Muhammed Uwais (Rtd), former CJN of Nigeria led Electoral Reform Committee when they visited Minna, Niger State for Public discussions, on July 22, 2008.

It is on record that Babangida’s regime orchestrated to completion and annulled a successful election held on June 12, 1993. He has since accepted responsibility for the annulment without equivocation, however, as a citizen of Nigeria and a former President; he has a constitutional right to express his opinion on such an important discourse. Kindly read on. “It is about issues and not individuals.”

This also affords Babangida’s friends the opportunity to read his position on the issue of electoral reforms as well as give his traducers additional opportunity to vent their anger; it is therapeutic indeed….so let’s rumble.

####
The Chairman,
Electoral Reform Committee.

MEMORANDUM

Electoral Reform and the Party System, Notes for Interactive Discourse Felicitation and Introduction

I wish to express our pleasure and sense of privilege and honour for your coming over here for this interactive discourse. Both the subject matter and purpose of our meeting represent one area of our experience in the rare privilege of governance in our country.

Nigeria is a highly blessed nation by the Almighty, but people and the leaders at any point in history have had to cope and will continue to cope, with daunting challenges. Governance is not easy, neither is it extraordinary difficult. It is the amount and quality of knowledge, focus, sensibility and grasp of the challenges that can make a difference. We believe that there may be no dispute about our knowledge of our country and of our experience in its governance. However, it must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship. Nonetheless, that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges. Accordingly, the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship, yet if possessed a clear purpose with observance of basic freedoms and human rights as well as the consciousness to maintain the country’s federal society and federal system of government. It also established the policy basis and structures for a new and better national economy from day one that was inherited. The same thing can be said about country’s foreign policy and international relations.

We are engaged in this discuss in, and for a different governance regime from the one we utilized for the country. There may be defects in the present constitution but the country is being governed under a constitutional regime, democracy and federation. The present ruling class cannot tamper with the system arbitrarily even if with noble causes as it is possible under the military. There is a lot to inform us about our past, but we cannot lose consciousness about the limitations of democracy and constitutional government.

REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
Against the preceding introductions, we wish to draw attention to some lessons and make suggestions, which may be of use in your deliberations.

Imperative of the Environment of Elections: Aside from the cancellation of the result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which is not the subject matter of this discourse, you are likely to agree with us that the elections conducted under my watch between 1989 and 1992 were generally free, fair, acceptable and credible. One of the many success factors of those elections is the environment. The environment, which we utilized for the elections under our regime, may be described as one of “guided democracy.” There is another element in that environment, namely the absence of undue partisanship. It is common knowledge that power incumbency or the power system is always interested in succession elections. But this element is more apparent and brazen under governments of elected rulers. It is therefore easy to understand why elections conducted by the military when they are exiting from power have been much freer and more credible than elections conducted by Nigerians when the rulers are members of one political party. The problem, which this factor poses in how, the credibility of the national framework and of the role of elections in sustaining proper democracy can be guaranteed through succession elections by politician rulers.

We have raised this important issue of environment of elections so that you may wish, after this deliberation; bring into your recommendations the need to sanitize the environment of elections (I will return to this element again below).

We hear these days about the need to return to what, under our watch, we called ‘Modified Open Ballot System’ in elections. This is simply a big phrase for Secret Ballot. We still believe that Nigeria should continue with the Secret Ballot (or Modified Open Ballot System). But this can succeed only if the environment of elections is properly sanitized. This observation and suggestion applies to what we called ‘Option A4’, particularly for party primaries. We believe ‘Option A4’ is good again only if the environment is sanitized. Today in large sections of the country, the use of dangerous weapons including sophisticated arms and ammunitions have become commonplace spectacles. If the environment is not sanitized, any criminally minded fanatic or thug or even those who see every election as the ‘last election’ (what some people call “do or die election”), the venue of conducting party primaries or actual elections can easily be disrupted by the use of guns or any other weapons of threat to life.

The issue of how to fully harness and use the people’s ballot or vote came up for discussion during our regime. This is whether we should continue the ‘first-pass-the-post’; or to adopt proportional representation in which the contesting political parties can be allocated seats in the legislature or in the executive, which are proportional to the votes obtained by them at elections. The fear, to which we subscribe, is that proportional representation may even provide tensed and fractious environment of quarrel and hostility in the calculations of fractions of the vote involved. We therefore subscribe to what has been with us ‘first-pass-the-post’ in winning elections.

We think the emerging factor of staggered election is good for the system. The logistics, security and other items of elections, which create tensions in the one general election, may be reduced. We are therefore persuaded that elections should be staggered whether according to the present geopolitical zones or any permutations and arrangement which makes it easier for elections to be conducted with adequate and concentrated attention of local, national and even international interests. Incidentally, the valuable decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times will now make if possible for elections in many states to be conducted only in those states that have duly completed their stipulated tenures after the re-run elections.

On Election Management Body
Two issues strike me about the body or institution, which manages elections. We recall clearly the work of the Political Bureau (1987) and its recommendations. We deliberately called the body then National Electoral Commission (NEC) as different from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to emphasize the national nature and character of its responsibilities and mandate.

Here, we may recall the historic contention and tension between the structures and values of unity on the one hand, and those of our federal society or diversity or the other. These structures and values were basic to the reforms of the political process and governance during the regime under our watch.

Incidentally, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha also retained the same focus and called the body NECON. The same has been carried forward to the fourth Republic. While the present body is also described ‘Independent’ we operated even within the limits of our military regime the “independence” of NEC.

The issue of interest is whether this body should be the only one under the system of federalism to conduct elections for the national executive and legislative branches, state executive and legislative branches and local government executive and legislative branches; or whether in compliance with the principles of federalism there should be two bodies as we have in the 1999 Constitution or indeed we should have three bodies each to be national, state and local government elections.

Whichever framework is adopted, we need to bear in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages. The Nigerian Nation and the Democracy Project are still being forged. We need therefore to cultivate a sense of balance between institutions that have national focus and those that have state and local government bearings in obedience to the Nigerian federal society.

Our reflection since 1993 is to allow federalism much more space in the politics and governance of our country without the tendency for undue nationalization of the political process. There is nothing wrong if the Election Management Body can be organized for national elections, state elections and local government elections independent of one another, provided however that the implications for fairness, mutual interest rather than destructive partisanship are borne in mind.

The second issue is the composition of the Election Management Body. We adopted during our time – and this has been followed up today – the minimum number of national commissioners under a Chairman. We are aware, as we were then, that the commissioners could be selected to reflect the states (and this was what FEDECO was) or to reflect membership of the political parties. In the case of the last suggestion, it can be most difficult to deal with fifty political parties.

We suggest that the composition of the Election Management Body should continue to be by a carefully selected number of Nigerian men and women who appear not to be too partisan and possessing credible antecedents of either public or private services to Nigeria. Such composition can be undertaken at the national, state and local government levels as we have just suggested.

On the Political Party System:
The issues here are many. One is that of the number of political parties. In obedience to the constitutional provisions and of course, the expectations of democracy, we can allow the free flow of the formation of political parties without any limitation on the number. This is quite attractive particularly in the possibility that a small political party with credible ideologies and commitment can grow over time if it is continuously funded to become formidable political party.

But like many other aspects of our society, the free flow of party formation can easily create chaos. We know that some political parties as registered today have no existence beyond the registration certificates in the pockets of their owners. They are like the ownership of petrol stations, which have business when there is fuel and no business when there is no fuel. In the case of the political parties, they are even aided by the constitutional requirements, which compel INEC to regularly provide them “free fund.”

Can we not continue even in the face of democracy to regulate the formation of political parties? Our feelings are that, perhaps unlike what we did under military rule in 1989, there should be a process of each election (national, state nor local elections) with stipulations which political parties should meet failure of which they can be weeded out from the system or be ‘de-registered.’

There is the issue of internal democracy of the political parties. This is a huge problem. But how can we have internal democracy within the parties when the national political process is not really democratized. It is well known that just as party primaries are captured by individuals in power and money, so also the national political process with reference to elections are captured by individuals with money and other non democratic resources.

We have in my mind what everybody calls political godfathers and godmothers or garrison commanders within the political process. It is a matter, which your Panel will have to deal with. We have only raised the issue because there is logical relationship between lack of democracy in the political process and lack of democracy in the political parties.

The last issues are those of transparency and funding of the political parties. Like internal democracy, these issues are products of the political process. We enjoin you, therefore, to deliberate on the intricacies and dialectics of how the reform of the political process and elections can be made to positively impact on the reform of the internal operations of the political parties.

CONCLUSION
I thank all of you for coming. I wish you success in the discharge of the responsibilities of your assignment.
]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:09:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454203 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454199

I submit for discussion the speech delivered by His Excellency Gen. Ibrahim B. Babangida, GCFR, Mni, to the Justice Muhammed Uwais (Rtd), former CJN of Nigeria led Electoral Reform Committee when they visited Minna, Niger State for Public discussions, on July 22, 2008.

It is on record that Babangida’s regime orchestrated to completion and annulled a successful election held on June 12, 1993. He has since accepted responsibility for the annulment without equivocation, however, as a citizen of Nigeria and a former President; he has a constitutional right to express his opinion on such an important discourse. Kindly read on. “It is about issues and not individuals.”

This also affords Babangida’s friends the opportunity to read his position on the issue of electoral reforms as well as give his traducers additional opportunity to vent their anger; it is therapeutic indeed….so let’s rumble.

####
The Chairman,
Electoral Reform Committee.

MEMORANDUM

Electoral Reform and the Party System, Notes for Interactive Discourse Felicitation and Introduction

I wish to express our pleasure and sense of privilege and honour for your coming over here for this interactive discourse. Both the subject matter and purpose of our meeting represent one area of our experience in the rare privilege of governance in our country.

Nigeria is a highly blessed nation by the Almighty, but people and the leaders at any point in history have had to cope and will continue to cope, with daunting challenges. Governance is not easy, neither is it extraordinary difficult. It is the amount and quality of knowledge, focus, sensibility and grasp of the challenges that can make a difference. We believe that there may be no dispute about our knowledge of our country and of our experience in its governance. However, it must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship. Nonetheless, that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges. Accordingly, the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship, yet if possessed a clear purpose with observance of basic freedoms and human rights as well as the consciousness to maintain the country’s federal society and federal system of government. It also established the policy basis and structures for a new and better national economy from day one that was inherited. The same thing can be said about country’s foreign policy and international relations.

We are engaged in this discuss in, and for a different governance regime from the one we utilized for the country. There may be defects in the present constitution but the country is being governed under a constitutional regime, democracy and federation. The present ruling class cannot tamper with the system arbitrarily even if with noble causes as it is possible under the military. There is a lot to inform us about our past, but we cannot lose consciousness about the limitations of democracy and constitutional government.

REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
Against the preceding introductions, we wish to draw attention to some lessons and make suggestions, which may be of use in your deliberations.

Imperative of the Environment of Elections: Aside from the cancellation of the result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which is not the subject matter of this discourse, you are likely to agree with us that the elections conducted under my watch between 1989 and 1992 were generally free, fair, acceptable and credible. One of the many success factors of those elections is the environment. The environment, which we utilized for the elections under our regime, may be described as one of “guided democracy.” There is another element in that environment, namely the absence of undue partisanship. It is common knowledge that power incumbency or the power system is always interested in succession elections. But this element is more apparent and brazen under governments of elected rulers. It is therefore easy to understand why elections conducted by the military when they are exiting from power have been much freer and more credible than elections conducted by Nigerians when the rulers are members of one political party. The problem, which this factor poses in how, the credibility of the national framework and of the role of elections in sustaining proper democracy can be guaranteed through succession elections by politician rulers.

We have raised this important issue of environment of elections so that you may wish, after this deliberation; bring into your recommendations the need to sanitize the environment of elections (I will return to this element again below).

We hear these days about the need to return to what, under our watch, we called ‘Modified Open Ballot System’ in elections. This is simply a big phrase for Secret Ballot. We still believe that Nigeria should continue with the Secret Ballot (or Modified Open Ballot System). But this can succeed only if the environment of elections is properly sanitized. This observation and suggestion applies to what we called ‘Option A4’, particularly for party primaries. We believe ‘Option A4’ is good again only if the environment is sanitized. Today in large sections of the country, the use of dangerous weapons including sophisticated arms and ammunitions have become commonplace spectacles. If the environment is not sanitized, any criminally minded fanatic or thug or even those who see every election as the ‘last election’ (what some people call “do or die election”), the venue of conducting party primaries or actual elections can easily be disrupted by the use of guns or any other weapons of threat to life.

The issue of how to fully harness and use the people’s ballot or vote came up for discussion during our regime. This is whether we should continue the ‘first-pass-the-post’; or to adopt proportional representation in which the contesting political parties can be allocated seats in the legislature or in the executive, which are proportional to the votes obtained by them at elections. The fear, to which we subscribe, is that proportional representation may even provide tensed and fractious environment of quarrel and hostility in the calculations of fractions of the vote involved. We therefore subscribe to what has been with us ‘first-pass-the-post’ in winning elections.

We think the emerging factor of staggered election is good for the system. The logistics, security and other items of elections, which create tensions in the one general election, may be reduced. We are therefore persuaded that elections should be staggered whether according to the present geopolitical zones or any permutations and arrangement which makes it easier for elections to be conducted with adequate and concentrated attention of local, national and even international interests. Incidentally, the valuable decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times will now make if possible for elections in many states to be conducted only in those states that have duly completed their stipulated tenures after the re-run elections.

On Election Management Body
Two issues strike me about the body or institution, which manages elections. We recall clearly the work of the Political Bureau (1987) and its recommendations. We deliberately called the body then National Electoral Commission (NEC) as different from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to emphasize the national nature and character of its responsibilities and mandate.

Here, we may recall the historic contention and tension between the structures and values of unity on the one hand, and those of our federal society or diversity or the other. These structures and values were basic to the reforms of the political process and governance during the regime under our watch.

Incidentally, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha also retained the same focus and called the body NECON. The same has been carried forward to the fourth Republic. While the present body is also described ‘Independent’ we operated even within the limits of our military regime the “independence” of NEC.

The issue of interest is whether this body should be the only one under the system of federalism to conduct elections for the national executive and legislative branches, state executive and legislative branches and local government executive and legislative branches; or whether in compliance with the principles of federalism there should be two bodies as we have in the 1999 Constitution or indeed we should have three bodies each to be national, state and local government elections.

Whichever framework is adopted, we need to bear in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages. The Nigerian Nation and the Democracy Project are still being forged. We need therefore to cultivate a sense of balance between institutions that have national focus and those that have state and local government bearings in obedience to the Nigerian federal society.

Our reflection since 1993 is to allow federalism much more space in the politics and governance of our country without the tendency for undue nationalization of the political process. There is nothing wrong if the Election Management Body can be organized for national elections, state elections and local government elections independent of one another, provided however that the implications for fairness, mutual interest rather than destructive partisanship are borne in mind.

The second issue is the composition of the Election Management Body. We adopted during our time – and this has been followed up today – the minimum number of national commissioners under a Chairman. We are aware, as we were then, that the commissioners could be selected to reflect the states (and this was what FEDECO was) or to reflect membership of the political parties. In the case of the last suggestion, it can be most difficult to deal with fifty political parties.

We suggest that the composition of the Election Management Body should continue to be by a carefully selected number of Nigerian men and women who appear not to be too partisan and possessing credible antecedents of either public or private services to Nigeria. Such composition can be undertaken at the national, state and local government levels as we have just suggested.

On the Political Party System:
The issues here are many. One is that of the number of political parties. In obedience to the constitutional provisions and of course, the expectations of democracy, we can allow the free flow of the formation of political parties without any limitation on the number. This is quite attractive particularly in the possibility that a small political party with credible ideologies and commitment can grow over time if it is continuously funded to become formidable political party.

But like many other aspects of our society, the free flow of party formation can easily create chaos. We know that some political parties as registered today have no existence beyond the registration certificates in the pockets of their owners. They are like the ownership of petrol stations, which have business when there is fuel and no business when there is no fuel. In the case of the political parties, they are even aided by the constitutional requirements, which compel INEC to regularly provide them “free fund.”

Can we not continue even in the face of democracy to regulate the formation of political parties? Our feelings are that, perhaps unlike what we did under military rule in 1989, there should be a process of each election (national, state nor local elections) with stipulations which political parties should meet failure of which they can be weeded out from the system or be ‘de-registered.’

There is the issue of internal democracy of the political parties. This is a huge problem. But how can we have internal democracy within the parties when the national political process is not really democratized. It is well known that just as party primaries are captured by individuals in power and money, so also the national political process with reference to elections are captured by individuals with money and other non democratic resources.

We have in my mind what everybody calls political godfathers and godmothers or garrison commanders within the political process. It is a matter, which your Panel will have to deal with. We have only raised the issue because there is logical relationship between lack of democracy in the political process and lack of democracy in the political parties.

The last issues are those of transparency and funding of the political parties. Like internal democracy, these issues are products of the political process. We enjoin you, therefore, to deliberate on the intricacies and dialectics of how the reform of the political process and elections can be made to positively impact on the reform of the internal operations of the political parties.

CONCLUSION
I thank all of you for coming. I wish you success in the discharge of the responsibilities of your assignment.


]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454199 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454187

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked.
We must give him credit.

Going by the snide remarks being made by some foreign observers, one would think that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa instigated the present crisis in Zimbabwe. A welter of critical voices, mostly Western and some Africans too, continue to bash Mbeki's facilitator role, and his so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; however, he has been nonplussed, if not totally indifferent to such criticisms. Mbeki has continued with his facilitators’ effort, which on 21 July yielded its first dividend, with the signing of an MOU by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions.

Well before the breakthrough, many believed, as was pointedly expressed by a representative of the United States, that Mbeki was on the wrong side of history. How imperceptive? Perhaps, it is either that when it comes to Africa many Westerners no longer read history or that they just do not care. If they did, they would recall that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the two key players in the Zimbabwe saga, despite living in the same city, had not met face-to-face since 1999. President Mbeki made the long elusive meeting a reality.

It is a matter of deep irony that Westerners continue to query the efficacy of Mbeki’s efforts. First, they overlook the fact that his involvement in Zimbabwe was a moral imperative. Second, they neglect the fact that Mr. Mbeki has been acting on behalf of the SADC, which asked him to undertake the task in 2007, and clearly, without any established timeframe. Third, those jeering nabobs who have become latter-day champions of good governance in Zimbabwe act as if it is only they that appreciate Zimbabwe’s dyspeptic mood. Finally, it is evident that many of those who chastise President Mbeki do not exactly know the man.

It should be understood, that for Mbeki, diplomacy like politics, will always be a counterintuitive act, due to personal insights and deep-seated convictions. Whereas public opinion matters, in the end, the political actor is responsible for his decisions and their eventual outcome. Mbeki’s critics also seem to forget, proximity aside, that South Africa and Zimbabwe are two nations bound by a common destiny in that they share the historical legacy of apartheid. But there is more about Mbeki, which might shed some light on his approach in Zimbabwe. Here, a backgrounder is perhaps inevitable.

Thabo Mbeki is not Nelson Mandela. He would also not aspire to that role. Though fate conspired to force him into Mandela’s shoes, he knows too well that he could never fill it or match the size and giant footprints of iconic Mandela. But certainly, Thabo Mbeki is his own man; a fact many seem to grudgingly refuse to accept. Behind his quiet mane and near docile facade, is a well-honed and politically savvy mind and a strong but deceptive mettle.

Thabo Mbeki prizes the value of persuasion, listening and acting with cautious haste. Those who misinterpret such deliberateness, do so at their own peril. He is also a very dogged negotiator and a patient one at that. Many find this trait very frustrating, especially in a former freedom fighter. But it also goes to show that they do not know the man they are dealing with.

For most of his professional diplomatic career, and well before active politics, Mbeki was a petitioner for the African National Congress (ANC). Often treated as a supplicant than as a genuine interlocutor and representative of his oppressed and disenfranchised people, he had no choice but to learn the value of tenacity and patience. Frequently hiding behind his ubiquitous pipe and the smoke it vented, he became over the years, an adroit listener as his interlocutors pontificated, lectured, commiserated and sometimes patronized him and his ANC colleagues and their cause. But in the main, Mbeki remains a consummate diplomat and consensus-builder – a fact that is lost to some who believe that he is a vacillator, but only shy from publicly calling him such, least they offend the sensibilities of his much valued nation.

One thing Thabo Mbeki is not is a pretender. He is also not a panderer. He will not do things to please the major powers, his compatriots, admirers and adversaries. Rather, he will do the things that he believes in. Often, he would shut up, plugging his mouth and voice with his pipe. At other times, he would drum his fingers on the table top or side, while giving his audience his rapt attention. To misread such a demeanor as ambivalence or not being engaged is fatally dangerous, politically speaking.

Mbeki knows that peace, like victory is priceless. Hence, the cost or the time it takes to achieve a negotiated and sustainable settlement is therefore immaterial. He also knows, that to achieve ones ultimate end, you have to fully allow the opponents to show their hands, reveal their thoughts and unveils their strategy. More importantly, he understands the imperative of collaborative negotiations and the role of a facilitator, which inevitably, includes allowing the parties to have a sense of ownership of the process as well as the end results. If there is one other critical variable that Mbeki is good at, it is dealing with his Western interlocutors. He understood fully, that for them, critical engagement on any issue is driven primarily by national interest, and hardly any altruism.

I first met Mr. Mbeki many years ago - 1981 to be exact, when he was an assistant to Oliver Tambo. We met again in 1984, by then he had become the Director of the Department of Information and Publicity. He was the counterpart to my late friend Comrade Johnstone “Johnny” Mfanafuthi Makatini, Director of ANC's Department of International Affairs and its de facto Foreign Minister. Johnny Makatini was vivacious, bohemian and a gifted orator, who held his audience spellbound with his anti-apartheid rhetoric and persuasive skills. Makatini and Mbeki were the twin arrowheads of ANC’s international engagement. While Makatini was the postulator and spin master, Mbeki was the follow-up fellow whom you asked to parse and decipher the anti-apartheid strategy and plot. It was therefore hardly surprising, that he would step into Makatini’s position in 1989, after the latter died on 3 December 1988 from diabetic complications. It was a role cut out for him.

In the succeeding years, we met at different conferences and rallies. Mbeki was cool, quite and inwardly hard as steel. He was a man on a mission. If he had any singular value for the ANC, it was his renown as mediator, policy shaper and his conversance with the global field of play. Yet, he was not as charismatic as Chris Hani; not as seemingly dogmatic as Joe Modise was, and certainly not as fiery and feared as Patrick “Terror” Lekota -- all these men, his ANC comrades who were deemed successors to the aging gang of Albert Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and the goaled Nelson Mandela.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Mbeki became president of South Africa. He knew Africa well. Likewise, Africans knew and trusted him. Ditto his compatriots and more importantly, Nelson Mandela, his mentor and predecessor.

Many years ago, during negotiations on the international roadmap to end apartheid, I watched Mbeki finesse and run rings around Western diplomats who were unreceptive of Africa’s proposals, contained in the Harare Declaration. A frustratingly deliberate but collaborative negotiator, he believes in navigating around hurdles, while whittling down barriers including the stoic defenses and considered logic of his interlocutors. In the end, he almost always got his way, yet hardly ever showing anger, frustration or raising his voice. It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that he has adopted the same modus operandi in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

This is not the first time that Mbeki has come under severe criticism for his policy options or style. Some international observers have criticized his HIV policy. Indeed, such critics believe that his HIV policy and stance on Zimbabwe will negatively define his legacy. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

On the HIV issue, Mbeki knew the score, far better than he would publicly admit or wanted his critics to know. He knew also, that while Western politicians frothed about solving the HIV/AIDS pandemic, their private sector counterparts consistently made HIV drugs unaffordable to peoples in Third World countries, South Africa included. Confronted with that paradox, Mbeki played the West like a fiddle. If they believed in what they preached, he surmised, they should make HIV drugs and treatment not just available, but affordable to South Africans. There were no takers. Hence, he had unmasked Western hypocrisy and double standards on the matter. All talk but no walk!

On Zimbabwe, some Western observers see Mbeki’s ongoing effort as lackluster. Even some within South Africa’s media have decried what The Citizen recently referred to as “Thabo Mbeki’s hand-holding persuasive skill”. Those who do not appreciate or fathom Mbeki’s working methods miss the point, totally, I might add. In addition, they reveal that they hardly know the man.

Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe should be viewed in the context and with the analogy of someone dealing with a bull in a China shop. Those who seek and therefore push for a quick fix solution, happen also to be the ones that unapologetically push for a regime change by any means. The UK and the US, no longer mask their desire to oust President Mugabe with the usual diplomatic niceties. However, some still do. However, for Mbeki, the question is how to rid the China shop of the bull with minimal collateral damage. The alternative is the total ruin of the shop.

Zimbabwe, admittedly, is in a crisis, but not at war. This really, is what informs Mbeki’s perceptibly gingerly and patient negotiations. Moreover, very few are as cognizant as Mbeki, that the core issue in this crisis –which seems almost forgotten—is land reform. If a crisis of legitimacy exists in Zimbabwe, it did not come from the so-called flawed elections of 27 June. Also, the interlocking crisis has its roots - not in the absence of democracy and good governance, which Zimbabwe always had - but from the domestic land reform dispute, into which the UK had self-servingly insinuated itself. As Mbeki noted recently on BBC’s Hardtalk Show, “There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is a need for land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence, without conflict, within the context of the law - bearing in mind the interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

If there is one thing Mbeki learned from Nelson Mandela, it is not to enter any debate or negotiations too early. This was the sure way of building consensus, but also one that allows others to claim ownership of the process and the successful outcome. Apropos Zimbabwe, after what critical jeering nabobs had characterized as Mbeki’s dithering and pussyfooting over an eighteen-month period, he delivered on 21 July, when the parties did the unthinkable and signed an MOU. Mbeki had against all odds, fulfilled the first major role of any facilitator; but the agreement belonged rightly, as it should, to the Zimbabweans.

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked. We must give him credit. If the West will not salute him, we in Africa will. Mbeki has our gratitude for navigating with safe hands, the maze and minefield of Zimbabwe’s politics, when already some Westerners were proposing peacekeeping troops. Moreover, he brought the Zimbabweans together to talk about their common destiny. More importantly, thanks to Mbeki, the bull is on its way out of the China shop, and the shop is still intact, even if economically messy. What he has done is save Zimbabwe from implosion, which more sanctions and Western highhandedness would not have readily done. That is reality and reality bites.




]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:53:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454187 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454185
We have set a lesson for Africa and the world.

We have shown that it is possible to resolve a difficult border problem without war

and unnecessary loss of lives and property….

History we remember us all for opting for peace rather than war..

~ President Obasanjo, On Bakassi

Bakassi is an emotive word fraught with controversy. It may be so for a long time, but this coming week, - Thursday 14 August 2008 to be exact - Nigeria will have the unique opportunity to seize the moment and end the Bakassi controversy by taking the moral highroad and upholding the primacy of the rule of law. By handing over the territory of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, in keeping the 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice and the 12 June, 2006 Greentree Agreement, Nigeria would have opted to walk a different path; the peace path, which is not frequently chosen by even civilized nations when issues of territorial integrity crops up.

Like many, I have observed the controversy and partisan politics that surrounds the Bakassi question. I know that many Nigerians oppose the transfer and that there is a muddle of motives not to implement the transfer. Also, in these days of febrile partisan politics and bogus nationalistic fervor, the clamor not to cede the territory perceptibly rings loud and proper. Nevertheless, there are equally enormous compelling reasons to implement the transfer and to do so schedule. Whatever be the case, for and against the handover, I feel personally assured that the time is right for us, as a nation to cut our losses and move on.

On 21 August 2006 during ceremonies marking the formal withdrawal of Nigerian troops from Bakassi, President Obasanjo eloquently articulated why we should not trod the path of conflict akin to what transpired between Argentina and Britain over the Falklands; and why we must opt for peace. His words: “History we remember us all for opting for peace rather than war, embracing harmony rather than discord; celebrating unity and love rather than destruction and chaos, appreciating peace and dialogue rather than promoting uncertainty and insecurity.” Our keeping our end of the bargain would guarantee that Bakassi would henceforth, be a critical benchmark and gauge in international peace and security considerations and resolution of boundary disputes. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noted recently, Bakassi will also “serve as a model for the negotiated settlement of border disputes elsewhere”. Still, there are more dividends to be gained.

First, as a nation, our claim to nationhood has not cracked up to be what we have always hoped. Neither have we been great exemplars in the realm of compliance with the rule of law. Hence, this is a unique opportunity we need not scupper and one, which we can effectively exploit its dividends for long.

Second, for what it may be worth, when the obituary of the Obasanjo Administration is written in its totality, the Greentree Agreement that led to the transfer of Bakassi will be on the positive column of his accomplishments, notwithstanding the emotional drag the matter elicits now.

Third, as Nigerians must honestly contemplate the context, in which Cameroon came to lay claim to Bakassi. Granted that the handling of the matter has been bedeviled by a comedy of errors, what Gen. Babangida said to the Electoral Reform Committee on July 22, 2008 about the awkward nature of military regimes and how they arrive at decisions is noteworthy, and I believe we can also place Bakassi in that context. As Babangida noted: “(I)t must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship... that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges … the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship”. This reality, unsavory as it may seem, also applies mutatis muntandis, to Bakassi.

As the great French philosopher, Voltaire, once averred with great foresight, “Success is the child of audacity”. As a nation, we should succeed in Bakassi, even if only we see it as the price to pay, in keeping Nigeria as one nation. Nevertheless, we should not stop there. We must contemplate the alternatives – conflict, war, international peacekeeping and even the unthinkable, the disintegration of Nigeria due to a conflict arising from Bakassi. There are many other consequential outcomes.

The historical, legal and cartographic claims aside, we must accept that Bakassi is not about casual or premeditated irredentism on the part of Nigeria or Cameroon. The genesis of the dispute is itself indisputable. Essentially, the dispute is a resultant fait accompli of improper delineation of boundaries by colonial powers following the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. Also not in contention, is the fact that the setting down of such artificial boundaries were done without due consideration of ethnic and demographic realities on the ground. The reality is that contentions and claims over Bakassi dates back to 1884 and that successive Anglo-German treaties of 1885, 1886, 1913 and the Nigeria-Cameroon Agreements of 1971 and 1975 did not solve the problem.

Hence, Bakassi is a colonial accident, unaddressed by the granting of independence to Nigeria and Cameroon and further compounded by expediency during Nigeria’s civil war, when General Yakubu Gowon, as the head of States and Supreme Commander in a “military dictatorship” signed treaty formally ceding Bakassi to Cameroon. Consequently, since 1981, Nigeria and Cameroon have lost hosts of civilians and soldiers in the spate of intermittent violent encounters arising from claims of ownership of the now oil-rich peninsular.

Whether right or wrong, the fact remains that Gen. Gowon did formally cede Bakassi. Paradoxically, since 1970, all our endeavors seem geared at repudiating and reneging on that singular act, which was legitimate, considering that absolute powers – both executive and legislative – rested with the Supreme Military Council. In fact, our fervor to turn the tables was so conveniently entrenched and blinkered, that when in 1972, Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dr. Taslim Elias affirmed that in law, reality and according to official government documents within his purview, that Bakassi was not ours, some Nigerians left the core issue and sought to discredit him.

Two notable things have happened since that should spare us any further anguish on this matter. In October 2002, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the Bakassi Peninsula belonged to Cameroon. In June 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Paul Biya signed the Greentree (New York) Agreement. After two years, the full implementation of that Agreement will happen with the final transfer of authority in the Bakassi Peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon, on 14 August.

As we move closer to the full implementation of the Greentree Agreement on 14 August, a cacophony of voices has emerged within Nigeria for and against the transfer of Bakassi. Indeed, an added controversy - a monkey wrench of sorts- emerged with the recent injunction by Justice Mohammed Umar, the presiding judge of an Abuja Federal High Court, directing the Federal Government to suspend forthwith, implementation plans for the handover and to “maintain the status quo …pending the hearing of all applications." It is noteworthy, that this domestic court order, seeks to address unresolved implementation plans and related concerns of some Bakassi indigenes, but does not seek to challenge or repudiate the 2002 International Court of Justice decision on the substantive matter, which is ownership of Bakassi. Clearly, Justice Mohammed Umar knows he has no jurisdiction to entertain the latter.

Vexing as the groundswell of the opposition to the handover may be, we must accept that such is normal in a vibrant democracy. However, there is more at play on how we got to this unenviable juncture. The dilemma we now face was in the first instance created by the erstwhile military regimes’ ask-no-questions mindset – be the Gowon, Obasanjo or Abacha regimes. The same mindset guided President Obasanjo in 2006 to sign the Greentree Agreement without fulfilling the due diligence required by the Constitution.

Several observable fumbles are noteworthy. First, Gen. Gowon’s regime did not gazette the formal ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon; even though Nigeria’s cadastral and cartographic representations including the surveyor-general’s maps had ceased to present Bakassi as being within Nigeria. Second, whereas the ICJ did not bother to direct the conduct of a plebiscite in Bakassi, President Obasanjo did not also include a plebiscite for the Bakassi people in the Greentree Agreement, which would have offered the denizens of the peninsula the choice of belonging to Nigeria or to Cameroon, without prejudice to Cameroon getting the peninsula. Third, although President Obasanjo ex-post facto advised the National Assembly of the Greentree Agreement, he did not press or push for its formal ratification as an international treaty as required by the Constitution. Fourth, the National Assembly, for its part, has not deemed it a priority to ratify the Greentree Agreement or pass a motion signaling its intention to withhold its consent. Finally, President Yar’Adua is yet to make a broadcast to Nigerians lining out his position on the matter and underlining why Nigeria must uphold the ICJ ruling and the Greentree Agreement.

Cumulatively, these governance and administrative lapses give merit to the arguments advanced by those who oppose the transfer of Bakassi. They are not necessarily against a negotiated settlement or amity, but seek due diligence and due process, as well as the respect of their rights as the Nigerian government seeks to exercise its right of eminent domain in the national interests. Furthermore, these claims underpin the fact that a procedural and substantive lacuna exists in the full and formal implementation of the Greentree Agreement, since as required by law it has not been ratified. After all, as John Newton observed, “an act against the Constitution is void; and act against natural equity is void”. What is utterly inexplicable is why we have fumbled so badly on Bakassi, despite our so-called knowledgeable technocrats and pseudo-intellectuals?

Nonetheless, apropos Bakassi, the absence of due diligence just as ignorance in law cannot be an excuse. Practical considerations in the national interests, which are quite distinct from expediency and precepts, dictate that we honor our obligations. We must not fail to seize the moment. As a nation, we do not routinely enjoy the highest international respect; and we will not enhance the international standing we seek by being a scofflaw nation. President Obasanjo was right in noting, that “This peaceful preemption is imperative and is less expensive, at least when compared with outright war, in assuring the lives and property of our citizenry and allowing our society to continue to move on the path of sustainable development.”

As a nation, we have spent many years and countless human, material and financial resources, in attempts to repudiate what seems to be the reality in Bakassi. In the process we have disagreed with our erstwhile colonial master, the United Kingdom; we have repudiated the statutory decision of a Head of States vested with sovereign powers, and now we are being pushed to disown a ruling by the International Court of Justice. That will not do. We may not like it; and our leaders may have bungled the entire process, but we must respect the ICJ ruling and the Greentree Agreement we entered into. Our national honor demands that we do no less at this point.

Moreover, we cannot afford to give our detractors the armor with which to destabilize our country. Hence, we must ignore the groundswell of reactionary forces, mindful that heeding their calls might lead to our playing into the hands of Western and even African interests that would love to see Nigeria humiliated and cut to size. If we are required to stoop to conquer, we must do so in Nigeria’s long-tern national interest.

As a nation in good standing, we must seek the path of peace if we indeed seek to lead and have others trust our judgment and mediation in global matters. As far as international law codification goes, Nigeria must see the ceding of Bakassi as a gift to the world and our posterity. It is not a matter of who won and who lost, as it is a matter of affirming our bona fides. In future conflict resolution considerations, the Bakassi Syndrome, will eternally be to Nigeria’s credit, but only so, if we do the right thing now.

Alexander Pope was right when he observed, “For forms of government, let fools contest. Whatever is best administered is best.” Bakassi will be best served and administered under the present arrangement that offers sustainable peace and development to Nigeria and Cameroon. Notwithstanding the attending traditional emotionalism that surrounds the subject, we must find the political will to bring closure to Bakassi. Now is the time for Nigeria to get out for good. We must seize the moment by making the handover of Bakassi a reality.

]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:49:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454185 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454179

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked.
We must give him credit.

Going by the snide remarks being made by some foreign observers, one would think that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa instigated the present crisis in Zimbabwe. A welter of critical voices, mostly Western and some Africans too, continue to bash Mbeki's facilitator role, and his so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; however, he has been nonplussed, if not totally indifferent to such criticisms. Mbeki has continued with his facilitators’ effort, which on 21 July yielded its first dividend, with the signing of an MOU by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions.

Well before the breakthrough, many believed, as was pointedly expressed by a representative of the United States, that Mbeki was on the wrong side of history. How imperceptive? Perhaps, it is either that when it comes to Africa many Westerners no longer read history or that they just do not care. If they did, they would recall that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the two key players in the Zimbabwe saga, despite living in the same city, had not met face-to-face since 1999. President Mbeki made the long elusive meeting a reality.

It is a matter of deep irony that Westerners continue to query the efficacy of Mbeki’s efforts. First, they overlook the fact that his involvement in Zimbabwe was a moral imperative. Second, they neglect the fact that Mr. Mbeki has been acting on behalf of the SADC, which asked him to undertake the task in 2007, and clearly, without any established timeframe. Third, those jeering nabobs who have become latter-day champions of good governance in Zimbabwe act as if it is only they that appreciate Zimbabwe’s dyspeptic mood. Finally, it is evident that many of those who chastise President Mbeki do not exactly know the man.

It should be understood, that for Mbeki, diplomacy like politics, will always be a counterintuitive act, due to personal insights and deep-seated convictions. Whereas public opinion matters, in the end, the political actor is responsible for his decisions and their eventual outcome. Mbeki’s critics also seem to forget, proximity aside, that South Africa and Zimbabwe are two nations bound by a common destiny in that they share the historical legacy of apartheid. But there is more about Mbeki, which might shed some light on his approach in Zimbabwe. Here, a backgrounder is perhaps inevitable.

Thabo Mbeki is not Nelson Mandela. He would also not aspire to that role. Though fate conspired to force him into Mandela’s shoes, he knows too well that he could never fill it or match the size and giant footprints of iconic Mandela. But certainly, Thabo Mbeki is his own man; a fact many seem to grudgingly refuse to accept. Behind his quiet mane and near docile facade, is a well-honed and politically savvy mind and a strong but deceptive mettle.

Thabo Mbeki prizes the value of persuasion, listening and acting with cautious haste. Those who misinterpret such deliberateness, do so at their own peril. He is also a very dogged negotiator and a patient one at that. Many find this trait very frustrating, especially in a former freedom fighter. But it also goes to show that they do not know the man they are dealing with.

For most of his professional diplomatic career, and well before active politics, Mbeki was a petitioner for the African National Congress (ANC). Often treated as a supplicant than as a genuine interlocutor and representative of his oppressed and disenfranchised people, he had no choice but to learn the value of tenacity and patience. Frequently hiding behind his ubiquitous pipe and the smoke it vented, he became over the years, an adroit listener as his interlocutors pontificated, lectured, commiserated and sometimes patronized him and his ANC colleagues and their cause. But in the main, Mbeki remains a consummate diplomat and consensus-builder – a fact that is lost to some who believe that he is a vacillator, but only shy from publicly calling him such, least they offend the sensibilities of his much valued nation.

One thing Thabo Mbeki is not is a pretender. He is also not a panderer. He will not do things to please the major powers, his compatriots, admirers and adversaries. Rather, he will do the things that he believes in. Often, he would shut up, plugging his mouth and voice with his pipe. At other times, he would drum his fingers on the table top or side, while giving his audience his rapt attention. To misread such a demeanor as ambivalence or not being engaged is fatally dangerous, politically speaking.

Mbeki knows that peace, like victory is priceless. Hence, the cost or the time it takes to achieve a negotiated and sustainable settlement is therefore immaterial. He also knows, that to achieve ones ultimate end, you have to fully allow the opponents to show their hands, reveal their thoughts and unveils their strategy. More importantly, he understands the imperative of collaborative negotiations and the role of a facilitator, which inevitably, includes allowing the parties to have a sense of ownership of the process as well as the end results. If there is one other critical variable that Mbeki is good at, it is dealing with his Western interlocutors. He understood fully, that for them, critical engagement on any issue is driven primarily by national interest, and hardly any altruism.

I first met Mr. Mbeki many years ago - 1981 to be exact, when he was an assistant to Oliver Tambo. We met again in 1984, by then he had become the Director of the Department of Information and Publicity. He was the counterpart to my late friend Comrade Johnstone “Johnny” Mfanafuthi Makatini, Director of ANC's Department of International Affairs and its de facto Foreign Minister. Johnny Makatini was vivacious, bohemian and a gifted orator, who held his audience spellbound with his anti-apartheid rhetoric and persuasive skills. Makatini and Mbeki were the twin arrowheads of ANC’s international engagement. While Makatini was the postulator and spin master, Mbeki was the follow-up fellow whom you asked to parse and decipher the anti-apartheid strategy and plot. It was therefore hardly surprising, that he would step into Makatini’s position in 1989, after the latter died on 3 December 1988 from diabetic complications. It was a role cut out for him.

In the succeeding years, we met at different conferences and rallies. Mbeki was cool, quite and inwardly hard as steel. He was a man on a mission. If he had any singular value for the ANC, it was his renown as mediator, policy shaper and his conversance with the global field of play. Yet, he was not as charismatic as Chris Hani; not as seemingly dogmatic as Joe Modise was, and certainly not as fiery and feared as Patrick “Terror” Lekota -- all these men, his ANC comrades who were deemed successors to the aging gang of Albert Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and the goaled Nelson Mandela.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Mbeki became president of South Africa. He knew Africa well. Likewise, Africans knew and trusted him. Ditto his compatriots and more importantly, Nelson Mandela, his mentor and predecessor.

Many years ago, during negotiations on the international roadmap to end apartheid, I watched Mbeki finesse and run rings around Western diplomats who were unreceptive of Africa’s proposals, contained in the Harare Declaration. A frustratingly deliberate but collaborative negotiator, he believes in navigating around hurdles, while whittling down barriers including the stoic defenses and considered logic of his interlocutors. In the end, he almost always got his way, yet hardly ever showing anger, frustration or raising his voice. It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that he has adopted the same modus operandi in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

This is not the first time that Mbeki has come under severe criticism for his policy options or style. Some international observers have criticized his HIV policy. Indeed, such critics believe that his HIV policy and stance on Zimbabwe will negatively define his legacy. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

On the HIV issue, Mbeki knew the score, far better than he would publicly admit or wanted his critics to know. He knew also, that while Western politicians frothed about solving the HIV/AIDS pandemic, their private sector counterparts consistently made HIV drugs unaffordable to peoples in Third World countries, South Africa included. Confronted with that paradox, Mbeki played the West like a fiddle. If they believed in what they preached, he surmised, they should make HIV drugs and treatment not just available, but affordable to South Africans. There were no takers. Hence, he had unmasked Western hypocrisy and double standards on the matter. All talk but no walk!

On Zimbabwe, some Western observers see Mbeki’s ongoing effort as lackluster. Even some within South Africa’s media have decried what The Citizen recently referred to as “Thabo Mbeki’s hand-holding persuasive skill”. Those who do not appreciate or fathom Mbeki’s working methods miss the point, totally, I might add. In addition, they reveal that they hardly know the man.

Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe should be viewed in the context and with the analogy of someone dealing with a bull in a China shop. Those who seek and therefore push for a quick fix solution, happen also to be the ones that unapologetically push for a regime change by any means. The UK and the US, no longer mask their desire to oust President Mugabe with the usual diplomatic niceties. However, some still do. However, for Mbeki, the question is how to rid the China shop of the bull with minimal collateral damage. The alternative is the total ruin of the shop.

Zimbabwe, admittedly, is in a crisis, but not at war. This really, is what informs Mbeki’s perceptibly gingerly and patient negotiations. Moreover, very few are as cognizant as Mbeki, that the core issue in this crisis –which seems almost forgotten—is land reform. If a crisis of legitimacy exists in Zimbabwe, it did not come from the so-called flawed elections of 27 June. Also, the interlocking crisis has its roots - not in the absence of democracy and good governance, which Zimbabwe always had - but from the domestic land reform dispute, into which the UK had self-servingly insinuated itself. As Mbeki noted recently on BBC’s Hardtalk Show, “There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is a need for land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence, without conflict, within the context of the law - bearing in mind the interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

If there is one thing Mbeki learned from Nelson Mandela, it is not to enter any debate or negotiations too early. This was the sure way of building consensus, but also one that allows others to claim ownership of the process and the successful outcome. Apropos Zimbabwe, after what critical jeering nabobs had characterized as Mbeki’s dithering and pussyfooting over an eighteen-month period, he delivered on 21 July, when the parties did the unthinkable and signed an MOU. Mbeki had against all odds, fulfilled the first major role of any facilitator; but the agreement belonged rightly, as it should, to the Zimbabweans.

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked. We must give him credit. If the West will not salute him, we in Africa will. Mbeki has our gratitude for navigating with safe hands, the maze and minefield of Zimbabwe’s politics, when already some Westerners were proposing peacekeeping troops. Moreover, he brought the Zimbabweans together to talk about their common destiny. More importantly, thanks to Mbeki, the bull is on its way out of the China shop, and the shop is still intact, even if economically messy. What he has done is save Zimbabwe from implosion, which more sanctions and Western highhandedness would not have readily done. That is reality and reality bites.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:21:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/454179 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443389 Cocaine Plane Saga: Transport Minister Speaks Out

Sierra Leone’s Transport and Aviation minister, Kemoh Sesay, Foreign minister Zainab Bangura and Information minister Ibrahim Kargbo have all been commenting on an incident that has overshadowed all government business in Freetown in the last couple of days with some members of the local press putting senior government officials on trial, while acting as prosecution, jury and judge at the same time. Some have even condemned whole communities like the inhabitants of Port Loko town (located a few miles from Lungi international airport) to which some of the people involved had fled.

In her comments, foreign minister Zainab Bangura told journalists at a press briefing organized by the Ministry of Information and Communication on Thursday July 17 that she felt like “the most important foreign minister in the world” four days after the Sierra Leone Police impoundment of an alleged cocaine-loaded plane and arrested alleged drug traffickers.

According to government and airport authorities, the plane dubbed “cocaine plane” by many people here, forcefully landed at the Lungi International airport in Sierra Leone on Sunday 13 July 2008 at 3:05 am Sierra Leone time.

“The FBI, Scotland Yard, and you name it, are here in Sierra Leone because our police have intercepted a plane load of cocaine that could lead to a major international drug cartel bust operation for the war on drugs,” Bangura stated.

She explained that the Sierra Leone Police is about to solve a major international drug trafficking problem that has confused the United States, Britain and many other powerful nations’ drug fighting agencies.

“I am host to all of them because some of their nationals are the consumers of the cocaine that was most likely intended for transshipment,” she boasted.

The minister further explained that people should view the cocaine bust positively and that “the Sierra Leone Police have done a good job.”

She said, as foreign minister, she can hold her head up high when she travels around the world knowing her bags would not be subjected to humiliating searches by customs officers on suspicion of drug trafficking.

This, she added, is possible because President Ernest Bai Koroma and his entourage took swift action when they, on returning to the country on Sunday July 13, were greeted with news of an unauthorized landing at Lungi airport of a Beech aircraft 200 believed to be loaded with cocaine; which authorities in Sierra Leone also believe was intended for “transshipment” for hard currency-earner-consumers in the West.

Amid the relentless public relations efforts by Minister for Information and Communication, Hon. IB Kargbo, to “rebrand” this small West African nation’s image from the infamous war-torn and corruption riddled one of the recent past to an open democratic society and a friendly environment for investors, the cocaine plane saga in Sierra Leone has caused a whole new round of unease here among the people that minister Kargbo has to deal with.

According to a Lungi Airport Authority press release on Wednesday 16th July, the "Controller ... contacted the General Manager and comprehensively briefed him on the circumstances surrounding the ... aircraft. On his part, the General Manager took immediate steps to brief the Minister of Transport and Aviation while the controller was still holding on the line on instructions. While this conversation was going on between the Minister and the General Manager, the flight was descending over the airport for the first time and continued to descend lower and lower.” Simply put, the plane forcefully landed even before any clearance from the Minister for Transport and Aviation, Hon. Kemoh Sesay.

There is a lot of hue and cry here about the cocaine plane incident that has been further exacerbated by blistering headlines from the local press, all conjectures, that Transport and Aviation minister Kemoh Sesay has knowledge of the cocaine transshipment. Even more difficult for the Minister is the fact that his brother, Ahmed Sesay, also the national soccer team manager, is one of those already in police custody for alleged connection with the cocaine plane.

At a Thursday press conference at the ministry of Information and Communication, a confident Kemoh Sesay however categorically stated, “I’m not my brother’s keeper,” when journalists questioned him about Ahmed Sesay’s involvement with the cocaine plane.

Kemoh Sesay however stated in the press briefing that he personally instructed the police and the airport fire fighters to impound the plane - to “move all their fire trucks around the cocaine plane in a way that it will not fly away.”

Amidst all of this tension, minister IB Kargbo is hard at work - defending against speculations of government involvement with the cocaine plane and calming down the nerves of the already jittery population over radio, TV and print media that government will not protect anyone who is found involved in the trafficking of narcotics in Sierra Leone.

On July 13th, IB Kargbo stated over radio Unamsil that Sierra Leone would not be a transit point for narcotic traffickers, asking the people to calm down - that the incident was a criminal issue that has no immediate threat of violence - reassuring that the police are in control and arrests have been made.

Last Thursday, both IB Kargbo and Alpha Kanu, the Presidential and Public Affairs minister, in the press briefing insisted, “there will be no sacred cows.” IB Kargbo joked, “We have gotten an aircraft, even if we use it to ensure our vegetables from Port Loko arrive in Freetown fresh.”

The unease among a population just coming out of an 11-year brutal rebel war was evident in Alpha Kanu’s revelation at the press briefing that “I told the President in Banjul that a plane load of ammunition has been impounded at Lungi and I don’t think we should go just yet,” thinking that it was a coup attempt on the leadership based on the first information he had gotten from Sierra Leone. But he said that the President insisted that they come back home regardless of what was happening. Indeed, there was about three hours’ difference between the cocaine plane’s forceful landing and the President’s landing at Lungi Airport.

This somehow lends credence to the theory circulating in the streets of Freetown that the cocaine plane operation went wrong because of the presence of the presidential security personnel who were awaiting the President’s arrival at the airport. The President had cut short his stay in Banjul by a day.
Many people here are saying that there was a panicky situation at the airport amongst the handlers of the cocaine because of the security presence and that some police officers who were a part of the cocaine handling logistics there abandoned their weapons and fled.

Some people maintain that the light weapons that were seized by the police may not have been all brought in by the cocaine plane but rather some were the weapons left behind by those who fled north to Port Loko.

The cocaine plane intrigue and drama was at it best at Youyi Ministerial building that houses the Ministry of Information and Communication when members of the Fourth Estate expressed total unhappiness over police secrecy in withholding the names of the eleven alleged conspirators already in police custody as stated by IB Kargbo. One reporter snapped, “Where is the much talked about open government?” alluding to the UN-sponsored Open Government Initiative (OGI) programme that had been launched by the President.

But the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of police at the head of the cocaine investigation said issues pertaining to national security were the reasons for withholding the names. Whether the AIG’s reason plausibly overweighs the need for access to information, the explanation he espoused is somewhat convincing according to Alpha Kanu.

However, there are strong indications that the President is hell bent on bringing the culprits to book. In the Gambia, according to Alpha Kanu, the President, upon hearing the news of the cocaine plane vowed: “Even if my mother is involved in this, she will not be protected.”

]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:02:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443389 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443371
Every bureaucracy creates its own weakness. Nowhere is this statement truer, than in the way the Nigerian government has handled the Nigeria Delta crisis. Indeed, the government suffers from a deficit of ideas and policies on this dossier, even as President Umaru Yar’Adua continue to insist that a "blood oil cartel is behind much of the violence in the Niger Delta". If so, what is the government doing?

Many have come to believe that Nigerian Government policy or lack thereof, is fraught with hypocrisy and layered with double standards. Well that may be the goods news. Here is the bad news. The Nigerian Government, it seems, have been working against it own goals by financing the militants. The latest twist is that the Nigerian Government is embarrassed and immersed in the controversy of its oil agency, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), paying off militants in the Niger Delta. Whether the payments happened or not, is now immaterial. What is clear is that there has been a systematic bungling and botching of the Niger Delta policy.

Recently under oath and on record, Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua, NNPC's Group Managing Director disclosed to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, that his organization had engaged in talks with the Niger Delta militants. Fair enough. Then the bombshell! He added that NNPC had also paid the militants some N1.4 billion ($12 million) over two months before being allowed undertake repairs of a damaged oil facility in Delta State. Shocks! Government it seems, cannot make up its mind if it wants to negotiate with the brigands who now engage in economic sabotage and terrorism or flush them out.

Moreover, what was Yar'Adua’s rationalization, for actions that ran counter to government stated policies and duplicated the statutory role of the NDDC? His revealing, yet troubling words were: "The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger Delta. We paid militants $12 million because we were losing $81 million to the problem of the Chanomi pipeline in Delta State." Amazing!

Here now is the ex-post facto explanation and attending controversy. On the heels of Yar'Adua’s testimony, the NNPC management speedily recanted its GMD’s claim. For their part, a convenient afterthought I suppose, the money was paid, not to the militants, but to a community-based company to protect its oil facilities. Well, well. The gist is that NNPC paid huge "protection fees", when government continues to deploy a huge military contingent, assets and financial resources towards the same goal. Nevertheless, there are disquieting and damning questions that demand answers.

First, did Abuja approve the payments, or was NNPC unilaterally engaging in expenses from the Federation Account and the disbursement of public funds without statutory authority to incur such expenses?
Second, what capacity and leverage did the nameless community-based organization have over the Niger Delta militants?
Third, where, how and in what context was this payment situated to the Niger Delta Summit, which is in the purview of the Vice President of the Federation and involves presumptive stakeholder in the Niger Delta?

Fourth, how could such large funds, which have security implication, since it could be used to procure more arms for the militants, be disbursed without the national security agencies and the military being involved in its negotiation and transfer.

Finally, what is the morality of such payoffs that only fuels extremism?

We need answers and not whitewash answers! As things stand, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) representatives have refuted being paid off and went further to allege that the said money was “shared among top NNPC, Joint Task Force and Delta State officials while a pittance was paid as "protection fees" to unscrupulous persons masquerading as militants.” MEND also asserted that NNPC had underreported what it actually paid out, which by its own account, was close to N2.9 billion ($25 million).
Although this is merely academic, another question worth asking of NNPC, is what the return in investment has been, vis a vis, security of its facilities and possible reduction in hostage taking and kidnapping. More fundamentally, what was the Nigerian government policy on dealing with and negotiating with kidnappers and those involved in terrorism, be it motivated by political, economic or religious considerations, and did NNPC consider such policies?
It is most ironic that NNPC would disburse funds to a so-called community based organization, when NNDC has an annual budget of almost N80 billion, for similar community support and reinvestment programs. Moreover, oil pipeline technology, including erupted pipeline repairs, is not a job that is outsourced routinely to non-professionals. This point puts to lie the explanation of Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, NNPC’s Group General Manager for Public Affairs, when he claimed recently, that no company could access the vandalized Chanomi Creek pipeline to carry out repairs since the community did not give access to the contractors.

Essentially and on its face value, Dr. Ajuonuma implied that the Chanomi Creek community extorted money from NNPC. If they would not grant access to NNPC vendors to repair the vandalized pipeline, but would take money from NNPC to do the job themselves, clearly there is something untoward about the entire setup.

Additionally, Ajuonuma's explanation calls into question, Government policy of setting up a military, police and security agencies Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta region, at enormous expenses. NNPC engaging locals and communities to police its pipelines amounts to a vote of non-confidence in the JTF and indeed, in the extant government policies. It is also more than ironic, that Ajuonuma never for once indicated if NNPC had requested the assistance of the Joint Task Force (JTF) when access to the area was denied to its contractors. The question of complicity between the community and the militants also arise. If the community could stop militants from attacking the pipelines, then, they must be in direct contact and know who the perpetrators of the vandalism are.

The Nigerian Government should come clean on this matter. It must investigate and make public its findings of the NNPC pay off scheme or is it scam? This much is certain. Despite NNPC’s pay off, the crisis in the Niger Delta has continued unabated. There has been a rash of violence, hostage taking, kidnapping and vandalizing of pipelines, pump stations and even the overrun of offshore bases.

BEYOND THE NIGER DELTA SUMMIT BROUHAHA
Clearly, there is a lot of profiteering off the Niger Delta crisis, by the militants, the local communities and their leaders, criminals, the foreign oil companies and now, government bureaucrats. While the crisis festers and creeps toward the intractable, those engaged in bunkering in the violence-prone region are smiling to the bank. Nigeria is the all round loser. Loss of revenue apart, the Niger Delta crisis has immensely contributed to the perception that Nigeria is a nation perpetually in crisis. The essential tragedy of the Niger Delta crisis, is not just its negative impact on the local communities and Nigeria at large, or its contribution to spiraling global oil prices; rather it is that the government, meanwhile, continue to engage in convenient inconsistencies on the Nigeria Delta.
A troubling trend is the mixed signals from Abuja. Does the Nigerian government want to resolve the crisis through dialogue and a Summit, or through the use force or through pay-offs? There is a seemingly random notion that both the Niger Delta stakeholders and the government want to negotiate. However, this may yet prove fallacious since the militants, have not accepted that the stakeholders speak for them, nor have the stakeholders offered any tangible prove that they can reign in the militants or even bring them to the negotiation table. Moreover, just as the U.S. government is pressing Nigeria to take a peaceful approach to the Niger Delta dilemma, the UK is seeking in insinuate British Special Services military advisers into the region , presumably to advise and assist Nigeria with “river and maritime security”.

Just as the Government is recovering from its misbegotten decision to appoint Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as chairman of the Steering Committee of the Niger Delta Summit, it is clear that seemingly unbridgeable gaps exist procedurally and substantively, on how the Government and the so-called stakeholders believe the summit should be convoked. The swell of opposition to Mr. Gambari justified or not, was a smokescreen. However, the government clearly blundered by not doing its homework. As a diplomat and person, Gambari posses the bona fides to mediate a crisis such as the Niger Delta, but since all politics is local, local objection to his involvement ought to have been anticipated. This is now a moot point since the opposition has nullified Gambari’s relevance in the peace process.

Unquestionably, a lot of posturing and egos continue to bedevil the expeditious resolution of the Niger Delta crisis. If a dichotomy in approach exists, it is less concrete in relation to the alleged grievances. Niger Delta crisis is no longer a dissent of the governed or the disenfranchised. Usurpers, complicit enablers and political opportunists are fully engaged in the process and seek to hold the government hostage, but only so, because the government has allowed itself to be manipulated. These opportunists have succeeded in creating false premises, false agendas and false frontiers they seek to compel the government to address. Such tendencies are not critical elements of purposeful partnership or the route to an open, constructive and productive dialogue on the Niger Delta.

Criminality, vandalism and terrorism have never been and will never be essential ancillaries to Peacebuilding. Decidedly, so long as oil prices keep spiraling upwards and there are foreign oil companies willing to pay hard currency for Nigeria’s sweet crude, either legitimately to Nigerian authorities or illegally to rogue militants and rogue local politicians and rogue community leaders, the Niger Delta crisis will persist. As the cliché goes, the genie is already out of the bottle. What we now have in the Niger Delta is pervasive trade in blood oil.

So what is next? What happens now? For the umpteenth time, I must underline that there is a surfeit of policy prescriptions on the Niger Delta crisis (See,” Curbing the angst in the Niger Delta” and “The Niger Delta Conundrum”). However, there is also an attending dearth of the political will to articulate and implement hardheaded robust and unapologetic policies and programs. Thus, the Niger Delta crisis, which is the direct outcrop of the twisted legacy of Nigeria’s over reliance on oil, and dysfunctional developmental, resource control and revenue sharing public policy persists. Acceptably, there is no justifiable explanation that the region of the country that produces the “golden egg” should remain so underdeveloped. If the environmental degradation caused by oil exploration is factored in, then, the people of Niger Delta has a legitimate grouse. Nonetheless, the solution to the Niger Delta crisis remains essentially purposeful governance, a Marshall Plan and treating the crisis as national security issue that it is, rather than as a vexatious partisan distraction, which it is certainly not, assuming it ever was.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.




]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:54:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443371 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443357 Obama: For the Sake of our Children

Have you ever wanted to say something but could not find a profound way to articulate it?

Well, that had been my dilemma about my thrill for the Obama candidacy for the president of the United States of America. It turned out that I wasn’t alone. Chris Matthews, host of NBC’s Chris Matthews Show and MSNBC’s Hardball, recently appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and gave an answer to the same question that had eluded me.

Chris Mathews has been on a receiving end of criticism for saying that Obama’s speeches bring “thrill up my legs.” Here is Mathews’ defense:

"I'd rather be honest and say what I feel than sit there like some kind of statue and say, 'Oh that was noteworthy.' I'm a frickin' American. I do have a reaction to things. And I do react emotionally to my country. I care about this country, I wanna look out for it. It's my job. I'm not just some umpire. I take a side: us. That's who I'm rootin' for."
It wasn’t Obama’s speeches that thrill me, though they are excellent. It was rather his significance.
In presenting his defense, Mathews stated that he would wish that people look at Obama through the eyes of their kids. Here is how he put it:
"I hope for one thing when people go to vote: that they look at Barack’s background, that they look at the age of the two candidates, that they look at their abilities and really open up their hearts and say “what’s really good for my kids,” who don’t have any color awareness…. Kids don’t think about race. Think like your kids for once. Think the way they think… It would be great if the older people in the country, the 70 year olds, the 80 year olds who are suspicious of change to say, “you know, why don’t I think the way my kids are thinking and think about the future… Whatever they decide, just open up your heart to this prospect of something different.”
In Why Obama is My Man and other musings of mine about this election, I have essentially been concerned about my kids. My time here on earth is as good as gone. All I now ask for is, What are the things that will be good for my kids, Ijeamaka and Ogonna?
And Obama will be good for my kids.

Though we often forget, the world that our kids will inhabit will be a lot different from the one that we know. It is important to remember that. Always.

To understand how different that world will be, we need to look back at the generation before. The generation that struggled with the Civil Rights issues got credit for deciding that their children must live in a new world where the search for a fair and just society must be made plausible.

How did they achieve it? Supremacists, former supremacists, children of supremacists, teamed up with the victims, former victims and children of victims to demand a paradigm shift. It wasn’t an easy task. It was resisted by many in several quarters for varying reasons, many of which sounded credible at the time and some of which sounded scary even at this time. But it did not stop the march of those who believed in change.

In this our time, and for our own generation, the challenge is not any different. We have to magnify the possibilities, pull down the remaining ceilings, widen the horizon and draw the rainbow closer to our rooftop. In our quest, we will face the same challenges like those faced by the generation before. Many will march out in stern opposition. They will say that it cannot be done. They will say that we are too ambitious, too arbitrary, too obscure, too aloof and too abrasive. They will inverse their fear and spread the scent of that fear in the air. The fear in them of change will be marketed and advertised as fear of undue risk we are taking with our collective essence.

We shall persevere because we know that it is the only way to triumph. When beaten down and outfoxed, we shall remember Franz Fanon’s charge that, “Every generation, out of relative obscurity must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.”

We have the power to decide what we bequeath our children. But we have no power to choose what they inherit. May we fulfill and not betray the noble mission of our generation.


]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:45:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/443357 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/387741

POLITICS: BETWEEN IDEAS AND POWER
“Politics, Leadership and Development in Nigeria” by Dr. Ihechukwu Madubuike, Nigeria’s former Minister of Education (1979) and Health (1995), is a major contribution to public discourse and politics in Nigeria. It is a long while we have the opportunity of such beautiful intellectual offering from one of Nigeria’s finest public intellectuals who straddles both the world of ideas and the world of power.

The binary between ‘power’ and ‘idea’ constitutes a veritable conceptual rubric to anchor this review. There is a long standing dissonance between ‘power’ and ‘idea’ in popular mentality, at least in Nigeria. This dissonance expresses itself in the denigration of people of power- the politicians. It is often taken for granted, and with good evidence that those who jostle to control state power are people whose disinclination to ideas and the life of serious reflection is so intuitive and endemic that it reinforces their murderous irrationality in power. But, once in a while a denizen strolls through this chasm and integrates the quest for power and the passion for truth and beauty. Such a philosopher-king holds the promise of transformation.

Dr. Madubuike is such a philosopher-king. He is a reflective politician, an intellectual who does not scorn the utility of political power. Like Plato, Madubuike seeks to make rulers wise and virtuous. But, unlike Plato, his journey to Syracuse does not end in despair and abandonment. Ever since he joined the political class in 1979, Dr. Madubuike has remained closely engaged with politics. The pathologies of power and inanities of Nigerian political culture have not sapped his idealism that the world of political power could also become the world of ideas. This book is an unequivocal testament of this idealism. It brittles with hope that we can transform our political landscape; that politics can still become the art of the possible; and that we can with greater sense of mission overcome the ‘dictatorship of no-alternative’.

There are two broad ways to review a book. We can review the aesthetical and literary qualities of the book and the philosophical cum ideological merits of the book. To dwell briefly on the literary and aesthetic, I will confidently describe Madubike’s book as a literary and aesthetic delight. It is quite an easy book to read. Its reader-friendliness does not detract from its lofty ideas. In fact, its loftiness and grandeur is exemplified and enhanced by the rhetorical felicity and structural simplicity in which it is written. Of course, we don’t expect any less form a man who made just fame scandalizing those who take delight in turgid and tangled prose. In Nigeria it is almost commonplace to confront books that betray lack of editorial attention. It seems as if the authors of these books have the greatest disrespect for their readers that they decide to punish them with an unedited book. But, this book does not belong to that burgeoning class. The book received thorough editorial attention. You encounter little errors and omissions as you navigate through the pages. The size of the book, the arrangement of the chapters and the paragraphs and the quality of the printing make the book a pleasure to hold and read.

Although the essays in the book are written in a time frame that spans about two decade, they have symmetries of language, expressiveness and structural finesse that one would think they were written in a continuous exercise. For example, the second essay in the book (not counting the preface and the introduction), Wealth, Power and Recruitment into Nigeria’s Ruling Class, was written in 1979 as a news commentary by the Imo Broadcasting Service, Owerri. The last essay in the collection (not the concluding remarks) titled “Life Long Education in Nigeria”, was written for the State University of New York, Buffalo, in 2001. These essays are separated by over two decades yet you see astonishing similarities of free flowing and crisp English; lucidity and clarity of thought and almost equivalent degree of analytical dexterity and ideological orientation. These go to show many positive attributes of the author. He is consistent both in the technique of his craft and his ideological disposition to issues and event. In 1979 the author argued that “we must make sure that the power to influence political, social, economic, religious, educational and other events that affect the livelihood and future of the Nigerian population is not concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, simply because they are wealthy. We must insist that transparent honesty, hard work, tolerance, talent and accomplishments be the guide post for recruitment into the ruling class. This is the hope we have for a peaceful, prosperous and stable government in Nigeria”. In 2001, in the Buffalo essay he opined that “Equity and justice are important in education just as they are in other sectors of human endeavor. It is criminal to allow some 80% of our youths between the ages of 16-25 to idle away their time and talent by denying them access to higher education. This is one example of under utilization of resources and capacities whose consequences can only be disastrous for the corporate existence and stability of our country”.

Can anyone miss the common passion, commitment and dialectics that radiate from these two essays written 20year in between? Can anyone doubt the egalitarian and humanitarian impulses that underwrite these essays? Can any one doubt the intellectual sincerity and pedagogical urgency of these essays? We can multiple examples of such positive symmetries in the essays that constitute this collection. They tell the story of a man who has remained consistent to the verities of his profession as a literary critic and the progressivism and radicalism of a left of the centre intellectual politician.

Another delight of the book, indeed a marvel, is the thematic coherence of the book. With the eye for beauty of a poet and the precision of a clinician, Dr. Madubuike has assembled together essays on diverse subjects firmly and finely held together by the thread of transformation. The author is a transformative thinker and politician. This overriding trait is easily seen in the tone and message of the essays. In his dialectics, the author exposes the pathologies and inanities of our present practices and summons us to a new practice for a new future. As a progressive, the author believes in the possibilities of transformation. As a realist, he does not make light the anarchical, conservative and something tragic social and economic contexts that make changes difficult, if not impossible.

In the introduction, the author ably summarizes the theme of the book. It is about nation-building through creative and intelligent harnessing of human and material resources and the construction of alternative narratives and praxis to counter the globalizing hegemony of the TINA –There is No Alternative. In other words, it is about national leadership in the context of globalization. The author starts with this panoramic statement: “Nigeria is one of the unfinished national projects of the twentieth century. To consummate the enterprise, much needs to be done and resolved. The leadership question is in my mind, one of the key issues. That, in essence, is the raison d’etre of this book. Politics, the art of winning and exercising power provides the platform for the leadership and development challenges in Nigeria” (page 3). I doubt if there could be a more succinct summary of the book. This is a book about the national question, not posed in the jejune formula of how we can share the oil revenue or how we should share federal posts along religious, ethnic or religious configurations. This is about the national question in terms of making true the dreams of the founders of the Nigerian nation; a dream for a society of prosperity, solidarity and freedom.

This is a book written by a nationalist summoning his compatriots to higher degree of nationalism through seeking common grounds of civility and the ethics of the common good. As far back as 1979, at the advent of the so-called Second Republic, the author has realized the damages to the dream of Nigerian unity and prosperous which a politics of ethnicity can cause. He argued for the emergency of ideological parties that provide alternative idea-platforms for the value orientation of politics and the socialization of the Nigerian peoples. He wrote at page 25 as follows:

“The traditional political socialization in Nigeria do not make fully for easy cultivation of those political virtues enumerated above which will help the national political life more meaningfully and help us put the right kind of persons in office next year. These processes have emphasized the cultivation of narrow and ethnic political outlooks rather than liberal ones. The result is that Nigeria has several political cultures and not one political culture, as is the case in many of stable democracies in the world. And instead of cultivating values and attitudes relevant to the entire country perceived as one political unit, values and attitudes are cultivated to respond to the specific ethnic, sectional and parochial interests. And because of the deep rooted nature of these attitudes, nurtured and sustained by political biases and indoctrinations of the past, not even the legislations against the formation of ethnically based political parties may provide the long overdue panacea to national political ills or effect radical changes in our national political behavior” (page 25).

Dr. Madubuike was prophetic. The Second Republic emerged with ethnically based political parties. The NPN had its base in the north; the UPN and NPP could be said to be Yoruba and Igbo parties respectively. When Dr. Nnana Ukegbu and Alhaji Waziri, left NPP to form the GNPP, with Alhaji Waziri, a northern as President in resentment at the takeover of the party by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, Dr. Madubuike, inexplicably remained with the Igbo party. There is some wistful pessimism in the statement. He argued that the deep-rooted nature of the negative attitudes in Nigerian politics, sustained by existing processes of socialization and mobilization ensures that Nigeria remains trapped in a heinous path-dependency and a self-fulfilling prophesy. He locates this crisis of values in the conservatism of Nigerian cultural and social institutions and calls for a radical deconstruction that will enable Nigerian electorate go beyond the rhetoric of ‘old’ ‘new’, ‘young’, ‘old’, ‘progressive’, ‘conservative’ politicians and ask penetrating questions about the value orientation of the political platforms and the politicians themselves. His compatriots did not heed the counsel, hence we ended with a disastrous leadership that betrayed the promise of greatness and encouraged the military step in to cremate the carcass of the nation.

Dr. Madubuike devotes a significant portion of the book to essays he wrote on party and political culture. This confirms his claim in the introduction that the objective of the book is to look at leadership and development from the point of view of politics. Politics is the handmaiden of leadership and development. If we fix politics we fix the leadership crisis at the heart of the failure of development. The problem with politics in Nigeria is that it is has refused to escape the path-dependency of the past. In many chapters, especially chapter 5 (The New Breed and Party Politics) and chapter 6 (A Novel Idea in Party Formation), he argues for discontinuation of the politics of the past based on atavistic political culture and hierarchical and conservative norms, and inauguration of a new politics of value and integrity. He deplores ethnicity in politics and affirms the national agenda at every turn of his political career as shown in these essays. But, we must say that the author escapes the tragedy of some Igbo ‘nationalists’ who do not know how to articulated commitment to the Nigerian agenda without disguising or mutilating their Igbo identity. You do not become good by being something else. You become good by being the best of you. The best an Igbo can be is to be a true Nigerian who fights for the common good, including the good of his own people. As Chinua Achebe said it in one of his essays, an African writer becomes a universal writer by just writing to the world as an African writer. It is in celebration of the author’s robust Igbo identity that he includes in the book a polemical essay mercilessly demolishing the myths of [the] Igbo as greedy and valueless. That is Chapter 20 titled Ndiigbo 2007: Propaganda and Politics of Distrust.

Nigeria is conservative in its politics hence it always fails to take advantage of moments of transformation. Politics in Nigeria continues to be assailed by two evils; the evil of ethnicity and parochialism and the evil of predatory gangsterism. Each time we have opportunity for a new beginning the ethnic champions and war lords rush out of the woodworks and manipulate the processes away from national consensus and universal idealism. Then when ethnically and parochially organized parties emerge, the war breaks out between contending bands of predators. Because the typical Nigerian politician is engaged in a primitive battle for economic survival through politics, politics become a vicious and all-out battle for control of resources and privileges. The message of this book is a summon to another vista of politics; a sunny view of politics were compatriots deliberate on how best to achieve the common good. The mantra of the politicians becomes, in Baldwin immortal words, how to achieve my country.

This book is very rich in ideas that can constitute an endless national discourse. The author served in government as political head of two important ministries, education and health. He has graciously offered his reflections on the management of education and healthcare in Nigeria. In some of the chapter, he outlines the policy mixes which enabled him achieve remarkable success as a minister of education and health (for example, Health Reforms in Nigeria: the National Health Summit). It should be noted that the author was the first, as much as I know, non medical or para-medical person to become a minister of health in Nigeria. His success as a minister of health challenges the orthodoxy that it is only medical or allied professionals who can successfully manage the health ministry. It is the same clarity of thinking and incisive social diagnosis evident in this book that enabled the author to succeed as a minister of health.

I will like to end this review on those chapters that express the author’s views on the challenges and opportunities globalization presents to national leadership and development. In the introduction, the author argues that Nigeria’s exposure to the dynamics of globalization could compound its crises of development if it does not understand the nature of the forces driving economic globalization and strategize on it can survive the storm like Japan and South Korea that succeeded by “balancing social harmony with the principles of market forces and by being in charge of her political agenda”. Although the author is not an economist, he handled the economic globalization ably by relying on the insights of economists who have taken critical perspective on globalization and human development. It is in these chapters that the author’s reformist and social democracy credentials come to the fore. For example, he challenges the market fundamentalism of those who insist on rapid privatization not withstanding its social costs by arguing that “There is, without doubt, a justification for the current pro-market reform sentiment. But we must remember that Nigeria is still an emerging market, not yet fully backed by factors that prevail in developed economies. Government must therefore be wary of entering into unholy alliances with businesses, local or international, because these are conducted for private gains and are part of an imperial arsenal for our sustainable poverty and a continuation of the white peril” (page 7).

If the author needs an authoritative support for this view, then he readily finds one in Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean economist at Cambridge whose latest book, ‘Bad Samaritans: the Myth of Free Trade and Secret History of Capitalism, lampoons the myth that nations become prosperous in the global economy by yoking themselves to the ship of free trade and the prescriptions of dominant orthodoxy championed by the World Bank and the IMF. He disagrees with the New York Times Columnist, Thomas Friedman who in his classic, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, argues that there is no alternative to the neo-liberal formula which he calls the ‘Golden Straitjacket’. According to Friedman, “unfortunately, this Golden Straitjacket is pretty much ‘one size fits all’. It is not always pretty or gentle or comfortable. But it’s here and it’s the only model on the rack this historical season”. Ha-joon Chang retorts that “However, the fact is that, had the Japanese government followed the free trade economists back in the early 1960s, there would have been no Lexus. Toyota today would, at best, be a junior partner to some western car manufacturers, or worse, have been wiped out. The same would have been true for the entire Japanese economy. Had the country donned Friedman’s Straitjacket early on, Japan would have remained the third-rate industrial power that it was in the 1960s, with its income level on a par with Chile, Argentina and South Africa…. In other words, had they followed Friedman’s advice, the Japanese would now not be exporting the Lexus but still be fighting over who owns which mulberry tree”.

This should serve as a lesson to Nigerian leaders today. We must recover political leadership to choose our destiny in the world. Although the present globalization is very constraining, there is still enough space to chart a different course like China, Japan, Korea and other successful economy in the Asian continent. This is the message of this book. And to do this, the author urges us to break loose from the dictatorship of the so called economic experts, the technopoles of the World Bank and IMF fame. Drawing from Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the author argues that “economic policies are usually not technocratic in this sense. They involve trade-offs; some may lead to higher inflation but lower unemployment; some help investors; other workers”, therefore economic policymaking is not only for the doctrinaire economists. The ultimate responsibility for making choices about economic policies rests with the politician-leader. Therefore, he or she should develop an expansive policy framework, not the narrow framework of the economic hit-man.

One can go on and on in reviewing the book. But, I will resist that temptation. The book is better than howsoever I describe it. Dr. Madubuike has offered us a great book. He has enriched our repertoire of ideas for change, change from poverty to prosperity; change from politics of eternal returns of regurgitated ethnicity and parochialism to a new politics of changing values for a changing world. Dr. Madubuike summons us to a new horizon of public discourse that enriches politics. As an inhabitant of the barricaded worlds of idea and power, Dr. Madubuike argues that we should break down the walls separating politics and wisdom and re-inaugurate a seamless world of the politician-intellectual. The question is: can we avert the failure of Plato who discovered to his disappointment that the politician can never be a philosopher; and hung his last hope for redemption on the rarest possibility that the true philosopher becomes the King.

Howsoever the riddle unravels this is a great book and needs no further advertisement.


]]> Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:46:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/387741 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378883 Matters of the moment

Damning Xenophobic Incivility in South Africa


The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good…
apartheid violence and black-on-black violence
ought to have made South Africans violence averse.

The harried ghost of South Africa’s past resurrected this week, like a hibernating monster that was inebriated on a life-changing xenophobic portion. Peace was thrown to the wind, and the forgotten violence of the past dredged up in one blinking moment. In the end, there was death – senseless and gruesome death, initially, of 22 innocent people, mostly immigrants from other parts of Africa and mostly Southern Africa. Since I wrote this piece on 22 May the death toll has risen to 52, with some 25,000 immigrants displaced, even with the unprecedented use the South African military to assist the police contain the mob and quell the raging violent chauvinistic attacks.



The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good; and so for several reasons, beyond undermining its decency and normalcy. South Africa is supposedly a member of the alliance of civilization in good standing. However, its reputation in its totality, and along with it democratic credentials, are at risk of being irreparably tarnished by the rising xenophobia and violent backlash against immigrants within its ranks.

Far from its bona fides as the conciliatory and forgiveness exemplar – and Nelson Mandela’s homeland – South Africa is flushed with a spate of exceedingly ugly hate and madness directed at immigrants, which has resulted so far, in reported 52 gruesome deaths. On record, some 400 persons have been arrested for the xenophobic attacks and related acts. Incidentally, the death toll could have been higher with indeterminate outcome, had the targeted immigrants been less law-abiding, rallied and fought back in self defense, as some have vowed to do henceforth, if attacked. In fact, in the outlying areas of Johannesburg, such as Berea, Braamfontein and Yeoville, other non-African immigrants joined ranks to fight back the marauding mob. However, the attacks are spreading away from the Gauteng province and when it reaches the contiguous KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, the death toll will certainly rise.

Backlash against immigrants is nothing new. Indeed, sometimes it is a product of politicization and polarizing domestic rhetoric. Realistically, what is going on in South Africa is no worse than the levels of xenophobia we have witnessed in France or Germany when skinheads and radical extremists routinely pursue African immigrants and maul them. However, I do not recall a singular incident in Europe with such a high toll. Also, in fairness to France and Germany the law enforcement agencies react swiftly to nip such ugly incidents in the bud.

What is appallingly ugly in this case, is that South African are attacking their fellow Africans, many of whom are legitimate refugees or asylum seekers, who have sought succor in South Africa as a haven from their economically and politically troubled countries. Also, some immigrants are in South Africa, as a natural response to the shrinking national borders and dictates of our globalized system. While xenophobic attacks in any form is utterly unacceptable, the attacks on the Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Nigerians is doubly so, considering that those countries carried the burden of the global anti-apartheid campaign, when the present marauders were under the yoke of an oppressive apartheid regime.

However, the attacks on the immigrants or the Amakwerekwere - as they are derogatorily called - have been incremental since the end of apartheid almost 15 years ago. The South African government failed grossly in reading the handwriting on the wall. Ironically, while it may not have seen the need to protect foreigners, it has also failed to protect the South Africans belonging to the Shangaani tribe. The Shangaani are found Mozambique and to a lesser degree in South Africa. South Africans of Shangaani descent have also been victims in this mayhem. What an incongruity?

This unfolding saga is a painful, given that two summers from now South Africa is supposed to throw its borders, doors and homes open to global visitors arriving for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Tournament. Most of its visitors are bound to be from Africa. Unfortunately, tourists and even rabid football fans are loath to go anywhere that is prone to violence or somewhere, they are aware that that their kith and kin were not welcome.

Furthermore, what makes present the South African crisis exceedingly ugly is, that it stokes the memory, conjuring a not-too-distant-past, when the current oppressors, were themselves the victims and the oppressed. Moreover, South Africa has had its share of violence against innocent victims; apartheid violence perpetrated by the state and its third forces and later on, retribution-induced black-on-black violence, against turncoats and real or perceived collaborators of the apartheid regime were set ablaze during “necklacing”, with petrol-filled tires. These realities and experiences ought to have made South Africans violence averse.

Sad and shameful as these developments are, South Africans cannot morally shirk their responsibilities of being their brothers’ keepers and still expect to lead Africa. On a more strategic and political vein, South Africa cannot allow immigrants to be hounded out in an extra-judicial fashion and indeed killed, and still lay claim to its rightful place as the dominant regional power, bulwark and hegemon. Incidentally, there are clear indications that a third force may be inducing these attacks. The South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency boss, Manala Manzini, obliquely acknowledged this point by hinting that some people linked to former apartheid security forces were stoking the violence. Even if it were so, it is still a failure of policy as well as intelligence not to have nipped this crisis in the bud.

With the raging globalization, no country with a large and buoyant economy like South Africa’s can escape attracting immigrants, asylum seekers and odd jobbers; not the United states where reportedly, there are 20 million illegal immigrants from Mexico alone, not the United Kingdom and her European Union partners, not Nigeria, not Saudi Arabia and certainly, not South Africa. That is the reality; and reality bites.

Two decades ago there was as similar backlash in Nigeria against West African immigrants. There were no known killings, but the ruling military government, reacting to public clamor, expelled thousands of immigrants without due process. That action, considered popular then, still haunts Nigerians across the rest of West Africa, especially in Ghana. It was un-African and in the end, counter-productive since it violated extant ECOWAS protocol on free movement of its people.

South Africa has long been a haven for immigrants. The worsening regional and continental economy made migration to South Africa very attractive, well before the crisis in Somali and Zimbabwe threw up more refugees seeking homes away from home. The growing global food crisis has however, added to the level of pressure and irritation for South Africans, who see immigrants as now threatening their livelihoods. Crime rates have risen, as has homicide with the influx of immigrants. These trends, understandably, are worrisome for the locals.

There is some merit in such concerns, but the situation is compounded by the government’s tardy response and even lackluster attitude in publicly countering such polarizing sentiments. As far back as 1998, the Human Rights Watch issued a report, in which it flagged the possibility of the present crisis. It also called for the review of South Africa’s Aliens Control Act, which governs all aspects of migrants control in South Africa, calling it, “an archaic piece of apartheid legislation, at odds with internationally accepted human rights norms and the South African Constitution.”

It needs saying once more, that this crisis is a result of policy failure and inattentiveness. Such failings, give the tacit impression that the authorities are not concerned about violence against foreigners and the evident rise in xenophobia within it boundaries. Unfortunately, there is a deafening silence on the part of South African authorities either in reiterating that vigilante justice and the attendant violence is illegal, or highlighting the utility and upside of immigration as a positive economic force. The belated remarks by President Thabo Mbeki, in admitting that, “Today we are faced with a disgrace, a humiliation as a nation in that we have allowed a handful of people to commit crimes against other Africans living in our country," comes far too late and long after the horses have bolted from the barn.

President Thabo Mbeki also glossed over a critical issue; that the backlash visited on the immigrants may also be a displaced aggression of a domestic population long frustrated about their unmet expectations. Freedom and democracy, clearly has not yielded the dividends many black South Africans expected in the post-apartheid era. Simply, the patience of the poor in South Africa may have just run out, and the immigrants are withstanding the worst of it.

Perhaps, it is worth ending where I started. This crisis sullies the perception of South Africa in everyway possible. The present xenophobic scourge does South Africa no good. Beyond undermining its decency and normalcy, the genie is already out of the bottle. It will require a concerted and extremely assertive hands-on approach to curb this scourge before it makes South African cities ungovernable and unattractive to foreign visitors and investors. There will also be some economic price to pay were that to happen.

South African authorities should also be aware, that there is already anger brewing is several African countries, Nigeria included, against what is perceived as the hostile and malign attitude towards their nationals in South Africa, regardless of whether they are refugees or not. Such feelings can easily turn insidious and lead to retributive acts against South African nationals and interests elsewhere, which really, no one in Africa needs.

There must be a way to cap the present damning xenophobic incivility in South Africa; we need to find and institute it quickly to avoid further mayhem. A stitch in time saves nine!

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.


]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 08:34:00 EDT http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378883 5.5333333 7.48333335.53333337.4833333 http://washosy.tigblog.org/post/378879
Our leaders are pretension in assuming that they know what is best for us
or that what is good for them is good for the nation.
This is an endemic fallacy.

If there is one problem bedeviling Nigeria’s nascent democracy, it is the belief that power is more important than governance. Frequently, one encounters outlandishly crude policy debate, which the underlying impetus is not the substance, but marginal and partisan interests. It is all about politicking and no governance.

I was already reviewing the second draft of this piece, when I read Rueben Abati’s article titled, “Five Things To Remember On May 29” (The Guardian, 18 May 2008). Embedded in the body of that article, was a subtitle, “How Politics Underdevelops Nigeria”, which coincidentally, was the sub theme of my piece. As gratifying, as it was to know that there were other people, who like me, felt that political positioning a