It is proud people that you find on any tour of Africa. The outsider might suspect they are embarrassed by their lot. Not so! Go through African villages and you find people with a belief in what they are, and a stubbornly resilient pride in their ways. So what happens when these people find themselves subject to the inactions, ineptness and inhumanity of mad, bad and clueless people? We get existences, struggles and demises not worthy of their spirit.
May 10th 1994, twenty years ago today, an unshakeable pride in and commitment to his people’s dignity collaborated with humanity to find the world listening to words even the most optimistic among us had not dared dream of…
“… in full realisation of the high calling I assume as Executive President in the service of the Republic of South Africa I, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, do hereby swear …”
The speech that followed ended with “God bless Africa” and I took it as indication the victory over apartheid in South Africa was being dedicated to all of Africa.
In my 17th April 2014 note on Facebook, I expressed concern about the deteriorating security landscape in Africa, highlighting among other things the Boku Haram destabilisation of Nigeria and the seeming absence of reaction from the rest of the continent. The kidnapping of the girls had happened three days earlier and the Central African Republic was also making the headlines for extremely not so nice reasons. It was about three weeks later, and only after his wife had shown signs of what I will call paranoia by proxy, that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally decided the abduction of over 200 girls by Boku Haram was serious enough for him to make a statement. Leaders, celebrities and peoples from all over the world had by now expressed anger and dismay at this tragedy unfolding under President Jonathan’s watch. More shockingly, Boku Haram, only seven weeks before it grabbed the girls, had slaughtered over fifty boys in a boarding school as part of this nasty campaign against education. The long list of atrocities by this bunch of bandits was still growing.
Mindless banditry and brutality disguised as a religious campaign has met with shocking apathy and ineffectiveness from national leaders. I for one have heard more on this from teenager Malala Yousafzai than from the African Union – the regional body to whose peace enforcing and peace keeping efforts Nigeria is a leading contributor. To me, the African Union’s silence on these issues suggest a rather hollow commitment to the concept of “African solutions for African problems”. Indeed, the sixteen nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of which Nigeria is a member has only just in the last couple of days issued a statement. I will actually pass on making comment about the silence of much of the leadership of Africa. Suffice to say, the solution to this particular problem, if there is going to be one, is looking more likely to be anything but an African one.
The continued failure of leadership on this potentially great continent among other things betrays Mr Mandela hope of twenty years ago that – “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world”. The truth is that oppression, political and economic, continue and at this time I shudder when I try to guess what the rest of the world is actually thinking about Africa’s most powerful country. Skunk of the world… maybe?
The African Union had not a lot to say… and that was after three weeks (date circled)
Listening to an adviser to President Jonathan offer a defence of his boss on the BBC that was as pathetic as it was sycophantic was further confirmation that there really is a problem. He even mentioned the Nigerian military had sent two divisions (i.e. about 20,000 troops}, to the region and that the government was never going to react in the “western way” by giving regular briefings. Mr Adviser, your own people are asking for answers and do not look like regular briefings will bother them.
“If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight like a lion” – so said Napoleon Bonaparte. How relevant is this assessment to the tragedy of Nigeria and much of Africa? Is there something in it that starts to explain the sorry state of affairs on the continent?
I schooled, have worked with, and been friends with Nigerians, and I have no doubt of their pride in what they are as individuals and collectively as a nation. They are like lions really. Comments by world politicians, experts on Nigeria, and some of my Nigerian friends, tell me Nigerians have been let down and continue to be let down by leaders who have not been worthy of the people. This, unfortunately, is the tragic reality that continues to shape the experience of most of the continent’s people.
It’s been a tough three weeks so far here in Nigeria but it’s been tougher for the inhabitants of the Northeastern part of the country which has become a haven of sorts for Boko Haram. Our leadership is poor on this continent and it’s even poorer in countries such as ours with so much wealth yet so much poverty.Corruption remains endemic in our institutions including the military and this is largely responsible for the poor security situation in Nigeria. About six years ago, the world was focused on the Niger Delta where agitators for resource control had grown violent and rendered the oil rich region insecure but since they were given incentives through the Amnesty Program to drop their weapons, there has been relative peace. The program ends next year and our leadership will have to devise new ways of ‘settling’ the boys. Providing these incentives has created the impression that ‘violence ‘can be rewarded and rewarded handsomely. It is well known that the majority of the beneficiaries of the amnesty program wer not actually militants, some were simply criminals while others were just unemployed youth looking for opportunities to have a stipend every month, acquire vocational skills and be sent abroad for training. Unfortunately there are limited or no job opportunties for these youth once the program ends next year. This was simply ‘Band Aid for a wound that had been gaping for more than 50 years and now that this bandage will soon be removed, we are concerned that this wound will only grow deeper and contaminate the entire region.This is why the populace has little or no confidence in the Nigerian government in dealing with the insurgency in the North; they haven’t shown any political will to find lasting solutions to the socio economic problems that continue to plague the country. Hopefully, with international pressure, we may see a change this time.
Florence, the refusal or inability to understand the problem is the most staggering failure of the continent’s leaders. News Watch Sierra Leone reported in September 2013 that:
“The Chief of Defense of the Sierra Leonean army, Major-General Samuel Williams told NEWSWATCH that his forces are well prepared to defend the country’s territorial borders.”
This was in response to a threat from Al Shabab after the Kenya shopping mall attack. My immediate reaction was to look for any Al Shabab operation that involved going through a “country’s territorial borders” because I was sure they don’t work that way. Here was an example of not understanding the nature of the threat which is as good as saying attempts to negate it are likely to come to nothing. So the best hope for Mr Public is that Al Shabab were only shooting off their mouths.
Of course one often ignored dimension to these problems is the corruption that leaves totally incapable people in charge of matters other countries get their best people into. I have had conversations that left me in no doubt the security agencies of Sierra Leone are regarded more as job creation mechanisms instead of as critical to the state’s sacred obligation to keep its people safe.
Military capability is not just about lots of boots on the ground. There is the conceptual element that makes for developing the ‘operational art’ and the morale component which enthuses those asked to risk their lives. In other words, the thinking on how these countries make themselves safe in a world with increasing and evolving threats must be moved up several levels. Until then buffoonery will be the only obstacle to banditry.