In July last year, I indulged
in one of my frequent pastime which is to be glued to my television at least
five times a day to watch the hourly World news from the internationally
renowned Cable News Network [CNN]; British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]
and sky News television all based in the United States of America and the
United Kingdom respectively.
These broadcasting stations
have the global reputation for always relaying comprehensive analysis and
coverage from the actual scenes of events of global dimension to their millions
of international audiences. The British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] has the
reputation of reporting Africa's many and seemingly unending civil conflicts
given the fact that the United Kingdom constituted the largest bloc of
former European colonial powers that dominated much of Africa before the
continent gained political independence on national and individual basis since
fifty or so years now with the exception of Zimbabwe that became independent in
the 1980's and South Africa that got liberated from minority racist rule by the
Apartheid rulers in 2006 when the now late Nelson Mandela emerged as the first
ever black political President of the liberated South Africa.
In the case of doing that my pastime
aforementioned, I came face- to- face with the program featuring the Pontifical
High Mass being held in the Italian's tiny Island of Lampedusa
by the Holy Father Pope Francis in memory of the over 40
African migrants that perished while attempting the very dangerous crossing
into Europe through the Island that is only 113 kilometers [70 miles] from
Tunisia. The sleepy Island in Italy normally used to live off fishing and
tourism but according to REUTERS agency reports the place has become the main
points of entry into Europe for poor and desperate migrants willing to risk the
crossing in overcrowded and unsafe fishing vessels and small boats.
During the proceedings of the
spiritual event by the globally recognized symbol of humility and passion for
the plight of the poor, the Holy Father condemned what he termed as the 'global
indifference' to the dangerous experiences of the World's poor by the comity of
nations even as he canvassed a World that will be fair, just and compassionate
to the World's poor to stop the disturbing phenomenon of migration crises on
the African continent and other grossly underdeveloped parts of the globe in
South/Latin America, Asia and other neglected regions of the World.
As reported on July 8th 2013 by the
British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC], on arrival, the Holy Father threw a
wreath in the Sea in memory of the many people who have drowned trying to reach
Europe. Symbolically, the pastoral visit of the Pope was the first of its kind
outside of Rome since being elected the leader of the World's 2 billion
Catholics in March 2013. As the Pope made his famous appeal for a 'reawakening
of consciences' to counter 'the indifference shown to migrants', I almost wept
when I remembered the crisis of underdevelopment and mass poverty that have
continued to afflict African continent even after half a century of political
freedom from colonialism and foreign domination.
The question that immediately came
to my mind and rolled down from my eyes as balls of tears, is why
Africans have found it difficult to build our continent to become truly a home
for all irrespective of our status, ethnic or religious affiliations since we
are all created equally by God. I could not find reason for why the political
elites deliberately underdeveloped Africa and enrich themselves at the cost of
their people even as they individually amass assets for themselves in choicest
parts of Europe and America and the World stand by and let these atrocities
continue even in this twenty first century. All the noise about the United
Nations anti-money laundering strategies have failed to stop this phenomenon.
As I battled to come to terms with
the reality that Africa has increasingly become an intolerable and harsh
continent for her populations resulting in the ongoing massive migration into
Europe and the brain drain of the finest minds out of Africa into the civilized
and developed United States of America and parts of Europe, the crises
afflicting parts of our continent have even heightened and escalated leading to
further and wider displacement internally of thousands of our African people in
places such as Central African Republic [CAR] and the World's newest
independent nation of Southern Sudan.
These conflicts sparked off even
while most rational Africans and other development oriented thinkers of the
human race were still cracking their brains to work out mechanism for resolving
the growing migration crises which has seen thousands of Africans not only
embarking on the life threatening journey through the high seas into Europe
through Malta and the tiny Italian Island but also the political establishments
of nations such as Malta and Italy have cried out that a solution must be found
to stop the unrelenting inflow of African migrants.
Specifically, from a report carried
in the British based newspaper Telegraph on July 21st 2013, the Prime minister
of Malta Mr. Joseph Muscat protested at the European Union meeting calling the
World's attention to the fact that Malta is the smallest State in the European
Union, and that they are carrying a burden that is so much bigger than any
other country in matters of migration of foreigners onto its shores from all
parts of the globe including Africa. Telegraph recalled that the tiny Island of
Malta has received 17,743 mainly African migrants this decade-equivalent, in
Britain, of 2.5 million people.
As the World confronts the reality
of the deluge of migrants and unwanted visitors from the African continent into
other developed Western states, the African leaders are busy chasing political
trophies through the staging of choreographed and heavily manipulated electoral
processes to assist their self perpetuation agenda. Sadly, African Union that
evolved from the moribund Organization of Africa's Unity and other sub-regional
bodies have so far failed to wield the kind of political and military
influences that will serve as checks and balances to the over fifty or so
national political leaders to stop them from throwing their respective nations
into chaos through the implementation of certain political agenda that would
engender national distrust on a scale that could cause civil conflicts among
their people and create further refugees' crises to the continent and the World
as a whole.
The African Union has failed to
emulate other World economic and political blocs such as the European Union by
not setting up structures and mechanisms/frameworks for detecting early
conflict signs and resolving these conflicts before they evolve into full blown
civil wars the types that are raging in the Southern Sudan and the Central
African Republic created essentially by what I may call the virus of the
African concept of 'big man' whereby incumbent political leaders will
tinker with the rules to self perpetuate themselves in offices thereby
creating animosity among the various contending political forces who are ever
so willing to play up some mundane and primordial affiliations such as
tribes/Ethnicism to throw their nations into civil conflicts. The conflicts
going on simultaneously in Southern Sudan and the Central African Republic
[CAR] are both linked to certain indiscretions of the respective political
forces in contention for power.
Specifically, reports have it that
the ongoing conflict that have resulted in the gruesome killings of thousands
of vulnerable civilians, started on the eve of December 14th 2013 when a
faction of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army caused a political crisis which
began as a mutiny in South Sudan. But the bottled up anger of certain sections
of the military and political establishments in Southern Sudan actually sparked
off the scenarios that characterized the conflict in that nation that only less
than one year became independent of Northern Sudan dominated by Arab Moslems.
Before Southern Sudan was declared a republic, the various armed wings waged
over three decades long bush wars against the Sudanese Arab dominated junta.
Now to the issues that culminated in
the ongoing conflict which spread across the country in December 2013, the
underground scenarios started actually after rumors about planned coup surfaced
in Juba, the political capital in late 2012. The President issued series of
decrees according to reports and sacked a lot of high profile military and
police officers and in July of last year, he escalated the political crisis by
sacking his Vice President Mr. Rick Macher along with his entire cabinet.
Macher who got the boots accused the Southern Sudanese President of growing
dictatorial tendencies even as he announced his determination to become a
candidate to vie for the flag of the Presidency in a primary that will pit him
against the incumbent President in the 2015 presidential poll. Marcher and
President Sylva Kiir although are members of same political family but
belonging to two different powerful Ethnic groups. Kiir is an Ethnic Dinka
while Marcher is an Ethnic Nuer.
Fighting which flared up has
continued to such an extent that several thousands of ordinary civilians are
bearing the brunt of this mindless show of force and naked contention for
political power by two influential elitist groupings who would rather that they
are seen as champions of their various Ethnic blocs. President Barack Obama of
the United States and the United Nations officials including the Secretary
General Mr. Banki Moon are said to be concerned about the escalation of
conflicts in this newest member of the United Nations and have called for
immediate cessation of fire and for negotiations to take place so genuine peace
can be restored. The African Union has stepped in and negotiation for peace is
slow but ongoing.
Some observers have stated
that the increased and unrelenting attention paid by the global leaders on the
growing and widening Southern Sudan's conflict may have come about because of
the fact that this tiny nation is one of the World's largest crude oil endowed
nations in the World. But other development observers think that it will be
better for the World leaders' attention to be focused properly on Southern
Sudan so that peace can reign and for the people of this new nation to collectively
utilize their God given natural resources to build a better economy and a great
nation for their people such as has been achieved by the people and government
of Botswana. Botswana the home of the Tswana people, is a success story,
peaceful, democratic and wealthy, so stated rightly by Richard Dowden the
British journalist with considerable knowledge of African affairs.
Writing in his beautiful book
'Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles', Richard Dowden in this book with a
foreword from the late internationally renowned novelist Professor Chinua
Achebe, asserted rightly that the success story recorded by the people of
Botswana has demonstrated the futility of the widely held 'Resource Curse'
theory which most writers think has afflicted much of the African nations which
although are heavily resource endowed but these resources and the funds
generated therein are stolen by the political leaders thus rendering the rest
of the populations wretched and very impoverished for the rest of their lives.
For instance, over $400 billion of Nigeria's crude oil revenue have been stolen
by the political elites in the last fifty years.
Richard Dowden recalled that
Botswana had nothing at independence except a few cows and a lot of bush.
Diamond mining was developed there only from 1967. Since then, the country has
earned billions from Diamonds. In two decades its wealth has increased by 500
per cent. Per head of population, Botswana had $122 each in 1970. This grew to
$4755 by 2006, so says Richard Dowden in this widely acclaimed book.
To me this is political sagacity and
excellent leadership at its best when compared to Nigeria another equally
resource rich nation but whose resources are stolen by the ruling elites
allowing the greatest majority of the populations to become so poor that living
has become nightmarish and dangerous.
In the Central African Republic
[CAR] fighting was sparked off on December 10th 2012 between government and the
seleka rebels, a coalition of rebel groups many of whom were previously
involved in the Central African Republic Bush war that raged between 2003 and
2007 when a peace accord was signed by the fighting forces. In this latest
conflict in the Central African Republic, the Rebels accused President Francis
Bozize of reneging on several terms of their peace accord signed in 2007and
also repeated in 2011. Rebel forces known as seleka [meaning 'union' in
the Sango language] according to the Wikipedia the online encyclopedia, began
by capturing many towns in the Central and Eastern regions of the country in
2012. Seleka is composed of two main groups based in the North Eastern Central
African Republic namely the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity [UFDR] and the
Convention of patriots for justice and peace [CPJP], but lso includes lesser
known groupings such as the patriotic convention for saving the country [CPSK]
and two other groups based in Northern region of Central African
Republic and a Chadian group which announced an alliance with saleka.
As reported, the Economic Community
of Central African States made up of Chad, Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, South
Africa sent troops to try to stop the rebels from destabilizing the country but
were overrun resulting in the eventual overthrow of President Bozize and the
forceful take over of power by the rebel leader Mr. Michel Djotodia. The rebels
that captured power allegedly got support by an al-Qaida affiliated Chad
based rebel group.
France and the United Nations are
still battling to restore some semblance of normalcy but the conflicts have
resulted in genocidal killings along ethnic and religious lines. There
have been reported cases of rape and the growing trend of child soldiers in the
conflicts.
These dangerous occurrences remind
us of the ever increasing need for Africans to work towards ensuring that
respect for rule of law and democratic tenets become sacrosanct to such an
extent that one man with political power will not be given the latitude
to abuse his privileges directed towards eliminating his political rivals
and to create atmospheres of self perpetuation. Western powers including China
and Russia must also rein in their illegal arms dealers to stop them from
infiltrating Africa with illicit arms and weapons of mass destruction which
fuel these conflicts.
Speaking about dictatorial
attitudes, the case in point is Southern Sudan whereby the President gave
himself so much power as to demolish all the democratic structures with the aim
of transmuting into a tin political god. In the Central African Republic
the unbridled quest for naked political power for selfish ends is solely
responsible for the ongoing conflicts which have now become religious and
ethnic in outlook resulting in loss of precious lives.
Some international and local
scholars have blamed the West for much of Africa's civil wars but again we need
to take a critical look at the role that selfish political agenda of certain
political 'demi-gods' have led their nations into economic meltdown and/or
civil conflicts. Zimbabwe, Southern Sudan and Central African Republic are
examples of this evil trend.
Richard Dowden on his own part wrote
thus; "independence officially restored power in Africa to Africans, but
the countries created and the systems that the Europeans imposed on Africa as
they left were not rooted in African culture or experience and not strong
enough to contain social and ethnic pressures that lay immediately beneath the
surface".
Good enough, but again are Africans
perpetual slaves to these foreign political systems since the last half a
century that they gained political independence and liberation? Why have
African leaders and elites and members of the civil society in these African
nations failed to work out home made panacea to their problems of underdevelopment?
I do not believe that we should perpetually blame the Western powers for our
problems but we should look inwards and work out measures to end the perennial
agenda of self perpetuation in political powers by Africa's various political
'demi-gods' and 'big men' who have refused to abide by the rules of the game
and allow democratic ethos to take root in Africa. We should blame ourselves
for our problems and must look for solutions rather than indulge in the lazy
pastime of always shifting blames. Political stability and economic growth are
basic if the crises of migration and civil conflicts tearing African nations
apart are to be contained.
+ Emmanuel Onwubiko; Head, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria,
blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.org,
http://www.huriwa.org/.
9/1/2014
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