National and international media appeared to have missed the fact that although he came here as a plain commoner, the US President departed Ghana a royal: The Oguaa Traditional Council of Cape Coast conferred on him the title of Nana Okokodurufo Obueakwan Kofi Obama while his wife also got the queenly title of Obaahemaa Efua Nyamekye. The council will invite the newly minted royal couple to come down to Cape Coast for their investiture sometime soon.
However, the formal coronation (or re-coronation) of another foreign leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, as the King of Kings of Africa in Ghana this week was postponed. The theme of the conference was to be “the Role of the Traditional Ruler in the Integration of Africa”.
The President of the National House of Chiefs, Pugansoa Naa Professor John S.K. Nabila explained to the National House of Chiefs that the honorary title of "King of Kings of Africa" given to the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was in appreciation to his efforts at bringing traditional rulers together to fulfill the continental union objective. He said in Kumasi on Tuesday, two days after the postponement, that the conference will now take place in Accra on August 24 this year.
Regarding the cancellation of the conference, the Ghanaian Times reported a “misunderstanding between the organizers and the government over the purpose of the conference”. The National House of Chiefs, the official hosts of the conference said only that the cancellation was due to a “technical hitch”.
The Times reported further that “a source at the Libyan Embassy in Accra said [that] Col. Gaddafi, Chairman of the African Union, halted the trip to the country because Ghana was not entirely happy about his mission in the country. The source, however, added that the meeting would now come off in September without giving further details”. A Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, told the Times that “the government received information from the Libyan government that Col. Gaddafi could not make the trip because he was attending to some exigencies”.
In August last year, a meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers bestowed the title "king of kings" on the Libyan leader. According to a BBC report, “the rulers, wearing gold crowns, sequined capes and colourful robes met in the Libyan town of Benghazi in what was billed as a first of its kind. Col Gaddafi urged the royals to join his campaign for African unity”.
The traditional rulers were reported to have come from “countries such as Mozambique, South Africa, Ivory Coast, and the DR Congo”, according to the report. The King of Kings told the assembled royals that he wanted “an African military to defend Africa, we want a single African currency, we want one African passport to travel within Africa”.
It is believed that Mr. Gaddafi’s strategy is to engage traditional rulers, who wield enormous influence in many African countries, to prevail upon their governments to sign up to his campaign for a unified African state. A Tanzanian Chief, Sheikh Abdilmajid, said at the time that "the people believe in the chiefs and kings more than they believe in their governments”.
Whether the strategy will work depends largely on how other African governments perceive the overall Gaddafi Pan-African project. Since the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union, the Libyan leader has assumed leadership of the “instantist” faction in the Union that advocates for an immediate institution of a continental African government. Some analysts say that the movement is not gaining ground because it is identified too closely with the person of the Libyan leader. Becoming King of Kings will not improve the mood of his opponents.
In January Uganda stopped a meeting similar to the one that was to have been held in Ghana on the grounds that it was going to violate the country’s constitution which bans traditional rulers from indulging in politics. In Uganda, hundreds of traditional rulers from several African countries were expected to converge in Kampala for a forum of traditional rulers where a secretary-general was to be elected for the “Eastern Zone”.
A senior official of the Ugandan Foreign Ministry, James Mugume issued a statement at the time saying that having traditional rulers discuss political issues without a mandate from their governments could lead to instability. The cancellation of the Ghana meeting a few days before the event has led to speculation that the government needed time to study the issue.
It is reported that there is a general misgiving in Africa about the "King of Kings" title which was to be bestowed on Col. Gaddafi, and some commentators have wondered why a re-coronation was necessary. In addition to the original coronation in Benghazi last year, Col. Gaddafi was further crowned at another ceremony in Addis Ababa on February 1 during the AU meeting at which he was elected Chairman of the organisation.
Obviously, the Libyan leader takes the King of Kings business rather seriously because convening these kingly meetings must be a bit of a drain on the exchequer of the oil rich country. In a widely reported incident, Col. Gaddafi was said to have stormed out of an Arab meeting in Qatar last March after informing the gathering that he was the King of Kings of Africa. “I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level”.
The Libyan leader’s royalist pretensions probably foreshadows a clamour by traditional rulers for a formal places within the structures of the African Union. During the 10th anniversary of his enstoolment, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has called on the African Union (AU) to consider giving traditional authorities in Africa a seat in their deliberations. He said apart from instigating debates at different forums on the need to place African traditions and culture in the midst of the globalization process, a greater purpose will be served if traditional leaders are allowed to be part of the AU. A senior chief of the Soli people of Lusaka recently made the same case to journalists at Lusaka Airport on his way to attend a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) meeting. "Good governance cannot be good governance without participation of traditional rulers,” he said.
There is a case for debating the merits of these suggestions but whether Col Gaddafi who came to power through a military coup 40 years ago should be the mouthpiece of Africa’s traditional rulers is a debatable point too. Only time will tell whether the postponement of the Accra conference has been a missed opportunity or saved Ghana from embarrassment.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Obama Puts African Strongman Under Fire
President Obama’s speech is like the elephant that was visited by six blind men, except that this time instead of six visually impaired men reporting their sensation of the elephant it is millions of people interpreting and projecting their perceptions of what the US President said at the Accra Conference Centre last Saturday. Everyone takes the part they love or hate, or even love to hate and amplifies it to their hearts content. Some have called it tough love, in the manner of the biblical prescription not to spare the rod and spoil the child. Others say he spoke down to Africans like a father scolding a child. I would rather endorse the comment passed by a perceptive friend: he told Africans what all right-thinking Africans already knew.
There is a sense in which Mr. Obama’s speech was a self-revelation to the self, like seeing yourself for the first time in a mirror after a haircut. It takes more than a second to realise that this is just you as others see you. For the right-thinking African, the themes of the speech may have been rehashed in the mind a million times, and many have canvassed them at meetings, forums, articles, lectures, debates and conversation. But after that what?
That is where Obama comes in: it is not just the rhetoric, although that helps. The cadences and intimate stops; the inner rhymes of the spoken convictions all help to convey the message in the most appropriate way. The man has a way speaking that makes the old sound new and exciting.
Take this for example: Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. Yes, we know that and have said that and preached that. But maybe because we have said it for so long using too many words, this simple assertion said so simply bore a new power that can be deployed as a weapon. I can dance all day to the sound of that simple sentence. Africa does not need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
We have known for so long that the Africa big-man syndrome is the obstacle to development in this continent. The desire for some leaders, especially those who come to power through force of arms or undermine their constitutions, to stay in power for ever has been recognised as the source of tension, violence, corruption, kleptomania and therefore of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa.
Perhaps it is necessary here to explain the Africa big-man or strongman syndrome as a specific reference to a type of perverted leadership that monopolises power by destroying all dissent, taking their countries’ money to be their own, commandeering women as if they were chattel, dictating to parliament, if there is one, placing restrictions on the media and above all controlling the judiciary and the security apparatus of the state. Mr. Obama was not talking about “strong men”, who as some have suggested, are needed to run strong institutions.
The African strongman does not allow for the development of institutions but instead makes himself the only institution that matters in the country. The African strongman is above every institution, including the constitution, and believes in his heart with former French President Charles De Gaulle that “L’etat ce moi” – I am the state.
Africa’s founding fathers were the original strongmen. Kwame Nkrumah, Azikewe, Awolowo, Kenyatta, Kaunda and the long list of independence leaders, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “bestrode the world like Colossus “; begetters of the constitution; giver of life… in Ghana Nkrumah was “Civitatis Ghanensis Conditor”, - Founder of the Ghana nation. They differed in ideology and outlook but all believed in their status as the vehicles for their nations’ manifest destiny.
It made sense in the 150s and 60s. Leadership was characterised by a strong sense of Weberian charisma in which the leader had to show enormous amounts of evidential dedication and almost godlike devotion to his person and every person he liked and every project he endorsed. They were not alone; the world was like that. The United Kingdom had Winston Churchill chomping on a fat cigar; France had De Gaulle frowning on everyone from on high; the US had Kennedy who was simply a phenomenon. In their places we have Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy and Barak Obama; can you imagine anyone of them wearing a high military kepi, or chewing on a Churchillian cigar. Not likely.
Today, we would laugh at the Africa big man and his inbuilt sense of insecurity if this issue was not so serious. I once arrived at an African capital just as the presidential plane was about to land. We were shooed to one side and had to sit in the heat while Son Excellence disembarked. At the foot of the plane’s steps were lined up all the ministers, deputy ministers, managing directors, ambassadors and their deputies – and all of them formed a never-ending conga-line that snaked the entire length of a curvilinear red carpet.
They were being introduced to the President. In other words, the Strongman who had been away a few days was being introduced to the ministers that he had appointed. He was not being welcomed back by the vice president and a few officials but everyone had to leave their offices to be on that tarmac to be introduced to the President. It was explained that failure to turn up would count as extreme disloyalty. He wanted to be reassured that no-one had thought of staging a coup in his absence.
These strongmen are a serious drain on their nations’ finances because the entire state security apparatus is organized around protecting them, their families and cronies. Furthermore, because they cannot trust their own people they feel the need to hide their stolen wealth abroad. A few days ago, a court in Switzerland ruled that money banked in that country by the late Congolese dictator, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, should be returned to his family. Mobutu, who later named himself, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (all-conquering warrior who goes from triumph to triumph) was reckoned by Transparency International to be third most corrupt leader in world history.
The strongman syndrome is self-perpetuating. The latest strongman wheeze is the father-and-son regime perfected by the oxymoronic republican dynasty in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, popularly known as North Korea. The late Laurent Kabila of the DR Congo was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila; the late Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo (toujour au pouvoir!) has been replaced by his son Faure Gnassingbe. The Gabonese Democratic Party founded by the late Omar Bongo has just announced that Ali Ben Bongo would be the candidate of his father’s party at the coming presidential election. This means he will be the next president of Gabon. Obviously, where strongmen rule the sons also rise!
As President Obama said, the African strongman inhibits the growth of institutions and is therefore bad news for the continent. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of them, and the earlier thinking that a new breed of leaders would move away from the authoritarian ways of their predecessors has proved way of the mark. The African people need to think seriously about this phenomenon as some leaders are derailing the democratic train that appeared to have been set on course since the beginning of the 1990s throughout the continent.
//Ends
There is a sense in which Mr. Obama’s speech was a self-revelation to the self, like seeing yourself for the first time in a mirror after a haircut. It takes more than a second to realise that this is just you as others see you. For the right-thinking African, the themes of the speech may have been rehashed in the mind a million times, and many have canvassed them at meetings, forums, articles, lectures, debates and conversation. But after that what?
That is where Obama comes in: it is not just the rhetoric, although that helps. The cadences and intimate stops; the inner rhymes of the spoken convictions all help to convey the message in the most appropriate way. The man has a way speaking that makes the old sound new and exciting.
Take this for example: Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. Yes, we know that and have said that and preached that. But maybe because we have said it for so long using too many words, this simple assertion said so simply bore a new power that can be deployed as a weapon. I can dance all day to the sound of that simple sentence. Africa does not need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
We have known for so long that the Africa big-man syndrome is the obstacle to development in this continent. The desire for some leaders, especially those who come to power through force of arms or undermine their constitutions, to stay in power for ever has been recognised as the source of tension, violence, corruption, kleptomania and therefore of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa.
Perhaps it is necessary here to explain the Africa big-man or strongman syndrome as a specific reference to a type of perverted leadership that monopolises power by destroying all dissent, taking their countries’ money to be their own, commandeering women as if they were chattel, dictating to parliament, if there is one, placing restrictions on the media and above all controlling the judiciary and the security apparatus of the state. Mr. Obama was not talking about “strong men”, who as some have suggested, are needed to run strong institutions.
The African strongman does not allow for the development of institutions but instead makes himself the only institution that matters in the country. The African strongman is above every institution, including the constitution, and believes in his heart with former French President Charles De Gaulle that “L’etat ce moi” – I am the state.
Africa’s founding fathers were the original strongmen. Kwame Nkrumah, Azikewe, Awolowo, Kenyatta, Kaunda and the long list of independence leaders, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “bestrode the world like Colossus “; begetters of the constitution; giver of life… in Ghana Nkrumah was “Civitatis Ghanensis Conditor”, - Founder of the Ghana nation. They differed in ideology and outlook but all believed in their status as the vehicles for their nations’ manifest destiny.
It made sense in the 150s and 60s. Leadership was characterised by a strong sense of Weberian charisma in which the leader had to show enormous amounts of evidential dedication and almost godlike devotion to his person and every person he liked and every project he endorsed. They were not alone; the world was like that. The United Kingdom had Winston Churchill chomping on a fat cigar; France had De Gaulle frowning on everyone from on high; the US had Kennedy who was simply a phenomenon. In their places we have Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy and Barak Obama; can you imagine anyone of them wearing a high military kepi, or chewing on a Churchillian cigar. Not likely.
Today, we would laugh at the Africa big man and his inbuilt sense of insecurity if this issue was not so serious. I once arrived at an African capital just as the presidential plane was about to land. We were shooed to one side and had to sit in the heat while Son Excellence disembarked. At the foot of the plane’s steps were lined up all the ministers, deputy ministers, managing directors, ambassadors and their deputies – and all of them formed a never-ending conga-line that snaked the entire length of a curvilinear red carpet.
They were being introduced to the President. In other words, the Strongman who had been away a few days was being introduced to the ministers that he had appointed. He was not being welcomed back by the vice president and a few officials but everyone had to leave their offices to be on that tarmac to be introduced to the President. It was explained that failure to turn up would count as extreme disloyalty. He wanted to be reassured that no-one had thought of staging a coup in his absence.
These strongmen are a serious drain on their nations’ finances because the entire state security apparatus is organized around protecting them, their families and cronies. Furthermore, because they cannot trust their own people they feel the need to hide their stolen wealth abroad. A few days ago, a court in Switzerland ruled that money banked in that country by the late Congolese dictator, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, should be returned to his family. Mobutu, who later named himself, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (all-conquering warrior who goes from triumph to triumph) was reckoned by Transparency International to be third most corrupt leader in world history.
The strongman syndrome is self-perpetuating. The latest strongman wheeze is the father-and-son regime perfected by the oxymoronic republican dynasty in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, popularly known as North Korea. The late Laurent Kabila of the DR Congo was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila; the late Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo (toujour au pouvoir!) has been replaced by his son Faure Gnassingbe. The Gabonese Democratic Party founded by the late Omar Bongo has just announced that Ali Ben Bongo would be the candidate of his father’s party at the coming presidential election. This means he will be the next president of Gabon. Obviously, where strongmen rule the sons also rise!
As President Obama said, the African strongman inhibits the growth of institutions and is therefore bad news for the continent. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of them, and the earlier thinking that a new breed of leaders would move away from the authoritarian ways of their predecessors has proved way of the mark. The African people need to think seriously about this phenomenon as some leaders are derailing the democratic train that appeared to have been set on course since the beginning of the 1990s throughout the continent.
//Ends
Friday, July 17, 2009
African Strongman under Fire
President Obama’s speech is like the elephant that was visited by six blind men, except that this time instead of six visually impaired men reporting their sensation of the elephant it is millions of people interpreting and projecting their perceptions of what the US President said at the Accra Conference Centre last Saturday. Everyone takes the part they love or hate, or even love to hate and amplifies it to their hearts content. Some have called it tough love, in the manner of the biblical prescription not to spare the rod and spoil the child. Others say he spoke down to Africans like a father scolding a child. I would rather endorse the comment passed by a perceptive friend: he told Africans what all right-thinking Africans already knew.
There is a sense in which Mr. Obama’s speech was a self-revelation to the self, like seeing yourself for the first time in a mirror after a haircut. It takes more than a second to realise that this is just you as others see you. For the right-thinking African, the themes of the speech may have been rehashed in the mind a million times, and many have canvassed them at meetings, forums, articles, lectures, debates and conversation. But after that what?
That is where Obama comes in: it is not just the rhetoric, although that helps. The cadences and intimate stops; the inner rhymes of the spoken convictions all help to convey the message in the most appropriate way. The man has a way speaking that makes the old sound new and exciting.
Take this for example: Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. Yes, we know that and have said that and preached that. But maybe because we have said it for so long using too many words, this simple assertion said so simply bore a new power that can be deployed as a weapon. I can dance all day to the sound of that simple sentence. Africa does not need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
We have known for so long that the Africa big-man syndrome is the obstacle to development in this continent. The desire for some leaders, especially those who come to power through force of arms or undermine their constitutions, to stay in power for ever has been recognised as the source of tension, violence, corruption, kleptomania and therefore of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa.
Perhaps it is necessary here to explain the Africa big-man or strongman syndrome as a specific reference to a type of perverted leadership that monopolises power by destroying all dissent, taking their countries’ money to be their own, commandeering women as if they were chattel, dictating to parliament, if there is one, placing restrictions on the media and above all controlling the judiciary and the security apparatus of the state. Mr. Obama was not talking about “strong men”, who as some have suggested, are needed to run strong institutions.
The African strongman does not allow for the development of institutions but instead makes himself the only institution that matters in the country. The African strongman is above every institution, including the constitution, and believes in his heart with former French President Charles De Gaulle that “L’etat ce moi” – I am the state.
Africa’s founding fathers were the original strongmen. Kwame Nkrumah, Azikewe, Awolowo, Kenyatta, Kaunda and the long list of independence leaders, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “bestrode the world like Colossus “; begetters of the constitution; giver of life… in Ghana Nkrumah was “Civitatis Ghanensis Conditor”, - Founder of the Ghana nation. They differed in ideology and outlook but all believed in their status as the vehicles for their nations’ manifest destiny.
It made sense in the 150s and 60s. Leadership was characterised by a strong sense of Weberian charisma in which the leader had to show enormous amounts of evidential dedication and almost godlike devotion to his person and every person he liked and every project he endorsed. They were not alone; the world was like that. The United Kingdom had Winston Churchill chomping on a fat cigar; France had De Gaulle frowning on everyone from on high; the US had Kennedy who was simply a phenomenon. In their places we have Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy and Barak Obama; can you imagine anyone of them wearing a high military kepi, or chewing on a Churchillian cigar. Not likely.
Today, we would laugh at the Africa big man and his inbuilt sense of insecurity if this issue was not so serious. I once arrived at an African capital just as the presidential plane was about to land. We were shooed to one side and had to sit in the heat while Son Excellence disembarked. At the foot of the plane’s steps were lined up all the ministers, deputy ministers, managing directors, ambassadors and their deputies – and all of them formed a never-ending conga-line that snaked the entire length of a curvilinear red carpet.
They were being introduced to the President. In other words, the Strongman who had been away a few days was being introduced to the ministers that he had appointed. He was not being welcomed back by the vice president and a few officials but everyone had to leave their offices to be on that tarmac to be introduced to the President. It was explained that failure to turn up would count as extreme disloyalty. He wanted to be reassured that no-one had thought of staging a coup in his absence.
These strongmen are a serious drain on their nations’ finances because the entire state security apparatus is organized around protecting them, their families and cronies. Furthermore, because they cannot trust their own people they feel the need to hide their stolen wealth abroad. A few days ago, a court in Switzerland ruled that money banked in that country by the late Congolese dictator, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, should be returned to his family. Mobutu, who later named himself, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (all-conquering warrior who goes from triumph to triumph) was reckoned by Transparency International to be third most corrupt leader in world history.
The strongman syndrome is self-perpetuating. The latest strongman wheeze is the father-and-son regime perfected by the oxymoronic republican dynasty in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, popularly known as North Korea. The late Laurent Kabila of the DR Congo was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila; the late Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo (toujour au pouvoir!) has been replaced by his son Faure Gnassingbe. The Gabonese Democratic Party founded by the late Omar Bongo has just announced that Ali Ben Bongo would be the candidate of his father’s party at the coming presidential election. This means he will be the next president of Gabon. Obviously, where strongmen rule the sons also rise!
As President Obama said, the African strongman inhibits the growth of institutions and is therefore bad news for the continent. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of them, and the earlier thinking that a new breed of leaders would move away from the authoritarian ways of their predecessors has proved way of the mark. The African people need to think seriously about this phenomenon as some leaders are derailing the democratic train that appeared to have been set on course since the beginning of the 1990s throughout the continent.
//Ends
There is a sense in which Mr. Obama’s speech was a self-revelation to the self, like seeing yourself for the first time in a mirror after a haircut. It takes more than a second to realise that this is just you as others see you. For the right-thinking African, the themes of the speech may have been rehashed in the mind a million times, and many have canvassed them at meetings, forums, articles, lectures, debates and conversation. But after that what?
That is where Obama comes in: it is not just the rhetoric, although that helps. The cadences and intimate stops; the inner rhymes of the spoken convictions all help to convey the message in the most appropriate way. The man has a way speaking that makes the old sound new and exciting.
Take this for example: Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. Yes, we know that and have said that and preached that. But maybe because we have said it for so long using too many words, this simple assertion said so simply bore a new power that can be deployed as a weapon. I can dance all day to the sound of that simple sentence. Africa does not need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
We have known for so long that the Africa big-man syndrome is the obstacle to development in this continent. The desire for some leaders, especially those who come to power through force of arms or undermine their constitutions, to stay in power for ever has been recognised as the source of tension, violence, corruption, kleptomania and therefore of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa.
Perhaps it is necessary here to explain the Africa big-man or strongman syndrome as a specific reference to a type of perverted leadership that monopolises power by destroying all dissent, taking their countries’ money to be their own, commandeering women as if they were chattel, dictating to parliament, if there is one, placing restrictions on the media and above all controlling the judiciary and the security apparatus of the state. Mr. Obama was not talking about “strong men”, who as some have suggested, are needed to run strong institutions.
The African strongman does not allow for the development of institutions but instead makes himself the only institution that matters in the country. The African strongman is above every institution, including the constitution, and believes in his heart with former French President Charles De Gaulle that “L’etat ce moi” – I am the state.
Africa’s founding fathers were the original strongmen. Kwame Nkrumah, Azikewe, Awolowo, Kenyatta, Kaunda and the long list of independence leaders, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “bestrode the world like Colossus “; begetters of the constitution; giver of life… in Ghana Nkrumah was “Civitatis Ghanensis Conditor”, - Founder of the Ghana nation. They differed in ideology and outlook but all believed in their status as the vehicles for their nations’ manifest destiny.
It made sense in the 150s and 60s. Leadership was characterised by a strong sense of Weberian charisma in which the leader had to show enormous amounts of evidential dedication and almost godlike devotion to his person and every person he liked and every project he endorsed. They were not alone; the world was like that. The United Kingdom had Winston Churchill chomping on a fat cigar; France had De Gaulle frowning on everyone from on high; the US had Kennedy who was simply a phenomenon. In their places we have Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy and Barak Obama; can you imagine anyone of them wearing a high military kepi, or chewing on a Churchillian cigar. Not likely.
Today, we would laugh at the Africa big man and his inbuilt sense of insecurity if this issue was not so serious. I once arrived at an African capital just as the presidential plane was about to land. We were shooed to one side and had to sit in the heat while Son Excellence disembarked. At the foot of the plane’s steps were lined up all the ministers, deputy ministers, managing directors, ambassadors and their deputies – and all of them formed a never-ending conga-line that snaked the entire length of a curvilinear red carpet.
They were being introduced to the President. In other words, the Strongman who had been away a few days was being introduced to the ministers that he had appointed. He was not being welcomed back by the vice president and a few officials but everyone had to leave their offices to be on that tarmac to be introduced to the President. It was explained that failure to turn up would count as extreme disloyalty. He wanted to be reassured that no-one had thought of staging a coup in his absence.
These strongmen are a serious drain on their nations’ finances because the entire state security apparatus is organized around protecting them, their families and cronies. Furthermore, because they cannot trust their own people they feel the need to hide their stolen wealth abroad. A few days ago, a court in Switzerland ruled that money banked in that country by the late Congolese dictator, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, should be returned to his family. Mobutu, who later named himself, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (all-conquering warrior who goes from triumph to triumph) was reckoned by Transparency International to be third most corrupt leader in world history.
The strongman syndrome is self-perpetuating. The latest strongman wheeze is the father-and-son regime perfected by the oxymoronic republican dynasty in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, popularly known as North Korea. The late Laurent Kabila of the DR Congo was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila; the late Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo (toujour au pouvoir!) has been replaced by his son Faure Gnassingbe. The Gabonese Democratic Party founded by the late Omar Bongo has just announced that Ali Ben Bongo would be the candidate of his father’s party at the coming presidential election. This means he will be the next president of Gabon. Obviously, where strongmen rule the sons also rise!
As President Obama said, the African strongman inhibits the growth of institutions and is therefore bad news for the continent. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of them, and the earlier thinking that a new breed of leaders would move away from the authoritarian ways of their predecessors has proved way of the mark. The African people need to think seriously about this phenomenon as some leaders are derailing the democratic train that appeared to have been set on course since the beginning of the 1990s throughout the continent.
//Ends
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Michael Jackson Finally Makes Sense
This article has not gone according to script. It was meant to be about the incredible goings on in Honduras where the President was removed at dawn in his pyjamas and taken to nearby Costa Rica. His crime was that like President Tandja of Niger and several other African leaders, he wanted to force his way to another presidential term through dubious constitutional means.
I started to write at about the same time that the Michael Jackson Memorial Service was starting in Los Angeles. I thought it would be the usual celebrity sop to a departed entertainer, full of flashbacks and insincere I Love you whispers blown to a worldwide audience that would later become the bestselling DVD. But it started with a tribute read on behalf of Nelson Mandela, the closest we have to a living saint on earth.
This was the day President Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Putin who is former and perhaps future President of Russia. The previous day the President of the US had met the President of Russia who will become Prime Minister or Chief Justice in the future, in the curious revolving door Putin-Medvedev double governance act.
I did not pay much heed to that TV because I knew the Michael Jackson story inside out. He burst on the scene as a musical child prodigy when I was a young adult; I knew the lyrics and the moves. We imitated him and slid on carpeted and concrete floors; we swayed and gyrated to tunes loud or in our heads. There was Moonwalk, Thriller and Bad. But beyond that, what?
Then a choir came on stage and sang a very beautiful song, the kind that lifts Black American choral performances straight to heaven. And then the Casket appeared borne by his brothers each wearing one white glove. It was a bit theatrical but why not, this is showbiz after all.
So I ploughed on with Mr Zelaya of Honduras and his antics. He tried last Sunday to go back to his country, but of course, he must have known there was no way the military that removed him in his pyjamas would let him in wearing a suit. I thought for moment how Mr. Tandja of Niger would look in Pyjamas.
But by now what was happening on stage in LA was too powerful to ignore, because it turns out that I, like millions of people who thought we knew Michael Jackson, did not know him at all. We heard the music and saw the dancing moves but we did not know the wellspring of the melody and the inspiration behind the choreography.
Pastor Lucious Smith who described himself as a friend of the Jackson family opened the proceedings with such simple dignity that one had to take notice; easier to ignore would be a loud and raucous introit in the mould of notice-me me Hollywood style. Now on stage we have Queen Latifah reading a poem by Maya Angelou written specially for this occasion:
"We Had Him"*:
Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing,
now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind….
…We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.
His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing. He gave us all he had been given.
Today in Tokyo,
beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh,
in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him,
and we are the world
Then the Rev. Al Sharpton came to the mike. I had not seen any image of him for years so I was shocked by what I saw. Gone is the big afro of twenty years ago and with it the almost baby-tubby fat in his middle and face. His hair is thin but he is not looking bad, only older like all the rest of us. What he said matters because he has known MJ for decades and known that he deliberately set out to break barriers, especially between the races. This matters in America more than anywhere else. But Michael also broke the barriers between people from “Japan to Ghana to France”.
But listen to this because it makes sense. According to the Rev. Sharpton, the line that runs from Michael Jackson to Barack Obama is a straight and logical one and goes like this: From a cute kid to the present moment Michael Jackson refused to give up but lived the dream of uniting people with his music. He made it comfortable for people to see Black people on TV and on magazine covers so that fifty years later they were able to vote for a “person of colour”. There is a lot in that.
Then there were basketball legends Kobie Bryant and Magic Johnson who said that it was Michael Jackson that opened the doors for black sportsmen and women, entertainers and public personalities. I thought to myself: hang on. Before MJ we had Mohammed Ali, James Brown, Jack Johnson, hundreds of jazz and blues musical legends and athletes. Surely they opened the doors for MJ.
But I knew what Kobie and Magic were saying. Previous African American sports and entertainment legends were seen as BLACK this and that but Michael Jackson broke the colour bar and united the races in their enjoyment of himself and his music. I know you cannot, indeed, are not expected to make sense of the silly nose job and the extreme skin bleaching, but where James Brown sang Say it Loud, I am Black and Proud, MJ said it did not matter if you were black or white.
Some may denounce Black American current leaders for being all bourgeois and comfortable with integration (it ain’t matter if you are black and white), but that is where we are now. The afro haired and dashiski angst of a previous generation has given way to besuited middle class pursuits of fat mortgages and SUVs. That is the way it is in practice, poetry and song. And if that is the case then we failed to see twenty years ago that Michael Jackson was not only the King of Pop but the Prophet of our time. The US Congress will honour MJ with Resolution 600 which according to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
But when Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris took the mike and said only two tearful sentences and then everything made sense to me, as it must have for millions of people watching. The message is that life is far more complex than simple black or white… That when MJ went home, he was met by real human beings for whom his I-love you made personal sense…
That MJ was in the Guinness Book of Records for having given more to charity than any other entertainer in history. I bet you didn’t know that!
*This is only a section of the poem “We Had Him”, written by Maya Angelou, performed by Queen Latifah.
//Ends
I started to write at about the same time that the Michael Jackson Memorial Service was starting in Los Angeles. I thought it would be the usual celebrity sop to a departed entertainer, full of flashbacks and insincere I Love you whispers blown to a worldwide audience that would later become the bestselling DVD. But it started with a tribute read on behalf of Nelson Mandela, the closest we have to a living saint on earth.
This was the day President Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Putin who is former and perhaps future President of Russia. The previous day the President of the US had met the President of Russia who will become Prime Minister or Chief Justice in the future, in the curious revolving door Putin-Medvedev double governance act.
I did not pay much heed to that TV because I knew the Michael Jackson story inside out. He burst on the scene as a musical child prodigy when I was a young adult; I knew the lyrics and the moves. We imitated him and slid on carpeted and concrete floors; we swayed and gyrated to tunes loud or in our heads. There was Moonwalk, Thriller and Bad. But beyond that, what?
Then a choir came on stage and sang a very beautiful song, the kind that lifts Black American choral performances straight to heaven. And then the Casket appeared borne by his brothers each wearing one white glove. It was a bit theatrical but why not, this is showbiz after all.
So I ploughed on with Mr Zelaya of Honduras and his antics. He tried last Sunday to go back to his country, but of course, he must have known there was no way the military that removed him in his pyjamas would let him in wearing a suit. I thought for moment how Mr. Tandja of Niger would look in Pyjamas.
But by now what was happening on stage in LA was too powerful to ignore, because it turns out that I, like millions of people who thought we knew Michael Jackson, did not know him at all. We heard the music and saw the dancing moves but we did not know the wellspring of the melody and the inspiration behind the choreography.
Pastor Lucious Smith who described himself as a friend of the Jackson family opened the proceedings with such simple dignity that one had to take notice; easier to ignore would be a loud and raucous introit in the mould of notice-me me Hollywood style. Now on stage we have Queen Latifah reading a poem by Maya Angelou written specially for this occasion:
"We Had Him"*:
Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing,
now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind….
…We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.
His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing. He gave us all he had been given.
Today in Tokyo,
beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh,
in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him,
and we are the world
Then the Rev. Al Sharpton came to the mike. I had not seen any image of him for years so I was shocked by what I saw. Gone is the big afro of twenty years ago and with it the almost baby-tubby fat in his middle and face. His hair is thin but he is not looking bad, only older like all the rest of us. What he said matters because he has known MJ for decades and known that he deliberately set out to break barriers, especially between the races. This matters in America more than anywhere else. But Michael also broke the barriers between people from “Japan to Ghana to France”.
But listen to this because it makes sense. According to the Rev. Sharpton, the line that runs from Michael Jackson to Barack Obama is a straight and logical one and goes like this: From a cute kid to the present moment Michael Jackson refused to give up but lived the dream of uniting people with his music. He made it comfortable for people to see Black people on TV and on magazine covers so that fifty years later they were able to vote for a “person of colour”. There is a lot in that.
Then there were basketball legends Kobie Bryant and Magic Johnson who said that it was Michael Jackson that opened the doors for black sportsmen and women, entertainers and public personalities. I thought to myself: hang on. Before MJ we had Mohammed Ali, James Brown, Jack Johnson, hundreds of jazz and blues musical legends and athletes. Surely they opened the doors for MJ.
But I knew what Kobie and Magic were saying. Previous African American sports and entertainment legends were seen as BLACK this and that but Michael Jackson broke the colour bar and united the races in their enjoyment of himself and his music. I know you cannot, indeed, are not expected to make sense of the silly nose job and the extreme skin bleaching, but where James Brown sang Say it Loud, I am Black and Proud, MJ said it did not matter if you were black or white.
Some may denounce Black American current leaders for being all bourgeois and comfortable with integration (it ain’t matter if you are black and white), but that is where we are now. The afro haired and dashiski angst of a previous generation has given way to besuited middle class pursuits of fat mortgages and SUVs. That is the way it is in practice, poetry and song. And if that is the case then we failed to see twenty years ago that Michael Jackson was not only the King of Pop but the Prophet of our time. The US Congress will honour MJ with Resolution 600 which according to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
But when Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris took the mike and said only two tearful sentences and then everything made sense to me, as it must have for millions of people watching. The message is that life is far more complex than simple black or white… That when MJ went home, he was met by real human beings for whom his I-love you made personal sense…
That MJ was in the Guinness Book of Records for having given more to charity than any other entertainer in history. I bet you didn’t know that!
*This is only a section of the poem “We Had Him”, written by Maya Angelou, performed by Queen Latifah.
//Ends
ASK WHAT WE CAN GIVE MR. OBAMA
Expectations had hit stratospheric levels as the crowd gathered for the inauguration of the President that January in Washington DC. As the bitter winter winds whipped in from the Potomac, people from all walks of life huddled together to catch a glimpse of the young president and his charming wife and sweet little children. It was all rather quaintly beautiful, but the weight of the world rested on the shoulders of the young president and he was aware of it.
That was 48 years ago, when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first Catholic was inaugurated the youngest president of the United States. In his inaugural speech, Mr. Kennedy said to the admiring but expectant world: ASK NOT WHAT AMERICA CAN DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR AMERICA. The world arrived at a Kennedy-esque moment in January this year when Obama was sworn in as the second youngest President of the United States.
Mr. Obama’s race was to Mr. Kennedy’s catholic faith, an indication of how far the US electorate had moved away from the racism, narrow-mindedness and xenophobia of the past. Like Kennedy, Obama also arrived at the White House with a young family, a charismatic and brainy wife, a bagful of reform ideas, and slogan that caught the expectant mood of the international public. We are all believers: YES, HE CAN.
In Africa the coming of Obama represented a moment of triumph for two reasons: despite the largesse of the Bush administration towards the continent, especially with money for healthcare, Africa had never warmed to the younger Mr. Bush. Our leaders trooped to Washington to get the usual seal of approval and Mr. Bush and Dr. Condoleeza Rice, his Secretary of State, among other high-level officials visited Ghana but that was for officialdom. The public imagination was not ignited. So, let us agree to love Obama because he is not Mr. Bush.
The second reason, obviously is that Obama is one of us, a son of the soil. Never mind that he has not stepped much on the soil, but he belongs as legitimately as any African everywhere. That is the way it is with the tribe; that is how the elders designed OUR system. If you belong, you cannot be a stranger, so when this son of the soil was elected, we danced all night and some nights more. He also danced throughout the night of his inauguration. He has rhythm, ergo, he is one of our own.
The coming of Mr. and Mrs Obama has excited this country like nothing else bar qualifying for another football World Cup, and as with choosing the players for the Black Stars, everyone has interesting ideas, for why he is coming, what he is bringing and what Michelle will wear. Some say he is coming because we have democracy, others say it is the new oil, still some worrying themselves sleepless put it down to the US wanting to take us into its conflicts by siting the African Command or AFRICOM HQ in Ghana.
I believe that we need to do a Kennedy here and ask not what Obama is bringing to us but what we can give to Obama. In the traditions of our people, we welcome our guests not by asking what they are bringing but we prepare what we will give to the visitor. Let him worry about what he will bring.
So Mr. and Mrs Obama will arrive; our elders will sit down with them and welcome them. Then our elders will tell them that here it is peaceful but we are all ears to listen to the story from the road. They will speak; our elders will listen. Then our elders will speak, hopefully on our behalf. This is the way it is done. And it is at this point that we must give the Obamas what we have for them.
In my view, the best gift Ghana can give to the US President is to tell him the truth. We are lucky that this President has African blood coursing through his veins. He is an American President who knew before receiving official briefing that Africa is not a country but a continent, so we can speak to him truthfully; America may be a superpower but our blood-bond should privilege us to speak truth to power.
And what shall we say that will be the truth? That we may be cash poor but we are resource rich and that should enable us to cash in on dignity and respect. That we should be seen as partners in the global marketplace of money, things and people. That we need trade not aid, and that the old paternalism that saw the US on the side of any dictator raising the spectre of communism should not be replaced with bolstering new dictators hiding behind the Wall of the willing.
We should say that putting an American force HQ in Ghana is not a good idea because willy-nilly we will be drawn into battles not of our making. We have remained a peaceful nation, despite the odds, because we have contained our squabbles within the tribe. God knows we have a hard time of it but in the evening we sit under the tree and listen to stories (actually, if we are honest, we sit in front of the telly or beside the radio and hear long political tirades).
That is part of the bargain. We have opted for democracy. That means a lot of political talk and disputes. We argue about everything including their visit. We need encouragement on that front, but we do it best when we have to rely on our own ingenuity. Mr. Obama is the third American President to visit Ghana, following in the wake of Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush, and each in his own bolstered our democracy and basked in its performance. Hand go, hand come, is the name of the game.
We have many things to give in addition to the truth, but those will be hiding behind the stool, and will be brought out one by one. It will be after that then we will thank our visitor for the gifts from his land.
That was 48 years ago, when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first Catholic was inaugurated the youngest president of the United States. In his inaugural speech, Mr. Kennedy said to the admiring but expectant world: ASK NOT WHAT AMERICA CAN DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR AMERICA. The world arrived at a Kennedy-esque moment in January this year when Obama was sworn in as the second youngest President of the United States.
Mr. Obama’s race was to Mr. Kennedy’s catholic faith, an indication of how far the US electorate had moved away from the racism, narrow-mindedness and xenophobia of the past. Like Kennedy, Obama also arrived at the White House with a young family, a charismatic and brainy wife, a bagful of reform ideas, and slogan that caught the expectant mood of the international public. We are all believers: YES, HE CAN.
In Africa the coming of Obama represented a moment of triumph for two reasons: despite the largesse of the Bush administration towards the continent, especially with money for healthcare, Africa had never warmed to the younger Mr. Bush. Our leaders trooped to Washington to get the usual seal of approval and Mr. Bush and Dr. Condoleeza Rice, his Secretary of State, among other high-level officials visited Ghana but that was for officialdom. The public imagination was not ignited. So, let us agree to love Obama because he is not Mr. Bush.
The second reason, obviously is that Obama is one of us, a son of the soil. Never mind that he has not stepped much on the soil, but he belongs as legitimately as any African everywhere. That is the way it is with the tribe; that is how the elders designed OUR system. If you belong, you cannot be a stranger, so when this son of the soil was elected, we danced all night and some nights more. He also danced throughout the night of his inauguration. He has rhythm, ergo, he is one of our own.
The coming of Mr. and Mrs Obama has excited this country like nothing else bar qualifying for another football World Cup, and as with choosing the players for the Black Stars, everyone has interesting ideas, for why he is coming, what he is bringing and what Michelle will wear. Some say he is coming because we have democracy, others say it is the new oil, still some worrying themselves sleepless put it down to the US wanting to take us into its conflicts by siting the African Command or AFRICOM HQ in Ghana.
I believe that we need to do a Kennedy here and ask not what Obama is bringing to us but what we can give to Obama. In the traditions of our people, we welcome our guests not by asking what they are bringing but we prepare what we will give to the visitor. Let him worry about what he will bring.
So Mr. and Mrs Obama will arrive; our elders will sit down with them and welcome them. Then our elders will tell them that here it is peaceful but we are all ears to listen to the story from the road. They will speak; our elders will listen. Then our elders will speak, hopefully on our behalf. This is the way it is done. And it is at this point that we must give the Obamas what we have for them.
In my view, the best gift Ghana can give to the US President is to tell him the truth. We are lucky that this President has African blood coursing through his veins. He is an American President who knew before receiving official briefing that Africa is not a country but a continent, so we can speak to him truthfully; America may be a superpower but our blood-bond should privilege us to speak truth to power.
And what shall we say that will be the truth? That we may be cash poor but we are resource rich and that should enable us to cash in on dignity and respect. That we should be seen as partners in the global marketplace of money, things and people. That we need trade not aid, and that the old paternalism that saw the US on the side of any dictator raising the spectre of communism should not be replaced with bolstering new dictators hiding behind the Wall of the willing.
We should say that putting an American force HQ in Ghana is not a good idea because willy-nilly we will be drawn into battles not of our making. We have remained a peaceful nation, despite the odds, because we have contained our squabbles within the tribe. God knows we have a hard time of it but in the evening we sit under the tree and listen to stories (actually, if we are honest, we sit in front of the telly or beside the radio and hear long political tirades).
That is part of the bargain. We have opted for democracy. That means a lot of political talk and disputes. We argue about everything including their visit. We need encouragement on that front, but we do it best when we have to rely on our own ingenuity. Mr. Obama is the third American President to visit Ghana, following in the wake of Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush, and each in his own bolstered our democracy and basked in its performance. Hand go, hand come, is the name of the game.
We have many things to give in addition to the truth, but those will be hiding behind the stool, and will be brought out one by one. It will be after that then we will thank our visitor for the gifts from his land.
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