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In case you do not have enough time to read this brief piece, the answer to the question raised above is: corruption. Yes, sounds familiar? I am talking about politicians in developing countries. In general terms, politicians in developed nations are not angels but they are structurally constrained to corner public monies to build private mansions and buy private jets. They hardly can stash away their taxpayers’ monies in ‘foreign accounts’. Any time a leader in Africa is removed, what you hear next is that his assets (and many of the guilty leaders are men) are being frozen in Switzerland or London. It still beats my imagination why someone entrusted with public trust will embezzle public monies and lodge same in private accounts in foreign lands.
Not all politicians make empty promises, and some of them do try to deliver. Human problems cannot be solved a hundred per cent. Some politicians sincerely want to make a difference in the lives of the electorate. Some want to genuinely improve the welfare of the people; build more roads to connect rural farmers to urban consumers, make drinking water available to millions who need it, make environment clean to reduce health hazards, and pay more wages to teachers, civil servants, doctors and nurses to deliver services. But public funds cannot duplicate themselves. As promises and plans are made, and contracts awarded, the same politicians or their cronies or their patrons are somewhere busy, planning and promising themselves and their concubines some big mansions and exotic cars and jets in Dubai, London, New York and Geneva. You see, out of nothing, nothing comes. And the cycle continues till the next election. To break such an ugly trend, people will generally need to wake up, vote right leaders into power and devise means to hold them accountable.
African countries are going through a dynamic change, a change that the regimes cannot curtail even with the oppressive state apparatuses that have been employed over the years vehemently hold power. Two leadership casualties have been recorded so far; Ben-Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. These protests which regimes describe as social unrest are mainly driven by the use of the internet. Apart from the police brutality and killing of innocent protesters, the main tool with which these leaders are responding to these live demonstrations is the shutting down of the internet. Algeria’s President Abdul-Aziz Bouteflika and Moumah Ghaddafi are examples at point. Will shutting down the internet stop the revolt?
While the Algerians have been on the streets for a few weeks, their Libyan counterparts just joined the ‘wave of protest’ or revolution blowing across the continent. In Libya, Bengazi, one of Libya’s largest cities, is playing host to the uprising just like the Tahir Square in Egypt. The people of Libya have endured the reign of terror under president Ghaddafi in connivance with state security agencies for over four decades amidst numerous human right abuses. Suppression of opposition parties and silencing dissent voices has been the order of the day. But how long will Ghaddafi and his cohort continue to repress the popular uprising from same people they have maimed, traumatized and killed over the years?
One thing about these popular protests or revolution on the continent is their regional spread. The Maghreb states (Egypt not inclusive) that have been under the leadership of ‘Iron-fisted’ leaders are the most affected. The latest trend, however, shows a departure but the same message is the same as Tunisians and Egyptians gave to their erstwhile leaders: Reform government, Change your ways, Give us freedom.
The waves are gradually trickling down to other parts of Africa where people are experiencing similar inhuman conditions. This is a clear demonstration of the fact that basic human needs are the same: freedom and dignity, and that, African leaders are the same also. Therefore, I believe the popular uprising will leave no country untouched except the leaders learn fast to improve the condition of lives of the suffering millions and revitalize their economies, promote fair and balanced elections and respect election results as well as stop human-right abuses.
In line with Obama’s assertion in his speech in Ghana last year, ‘Africa does not need strong men; rather, it needs strong institutions’ that would bring the desirable development the people are yearning for’. African leaders who are not ready to shape their countries for good will be shown the way out by the people. The era of absolute dictatorship is gradually becoming extinct.
History was made last week in Egypt when the incumbent President Hosni Mubarak after what has been described as an ‘unprecedented protest’ which lasted for about two weeks finally in a press briefing declared he was quitting office. Presently, Egypt’s national administration is temporarily in the hands of the military until fresh elections are conducted to meet the yearning and aspirations of the people. True sovereignty was restored to the people after a 30 years rule that lost the support and confidence of the majority. Congratulations Egypt, Congratulations Africa!
There is no doubt that true sovereignty and freedom ultimately lies with the people as demonstrated by Egyptians in their recent struggle and unrelenting demand for a change in government. In a previous article on the protest in Egypt titled ”AFRICAN LEADERS MUST LEARN TO ACCEPT CHANGE”, I fervently addressed the need for Mubarak and His allies to give a responsive ear to the cries, yearnings and sacrifices of the people. He must accept the call for ‘CHANGE’ from his people. Similarly, in an article I coined ‘GLOCALISATION’; therein it was defined as an idea and a process. As an idea ‘it refers to a set of principles wherein developing sovereign national states in the Global community, will formulate policies of regional and local content for the actualization of development in their respective regions. As a process, ”Glocalisation” is the beginning of a new era for developing states to attain optimum development viz-a-viz globalizing the local, and localizing the global’. Egypt’s recent transformation is a practical application of ‘GLOCALISATION’.
Out of international relations and diplomacy, the United States, Great Britain, and other concerned nations intervened in the Egyptian crisis. Both President Barrack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron were reported to have called on Hosni Mubarak to tell him that Washington and the British parliament were interested in a ‘transitional government’ that will be smooth and transparent. However, much of what resulted into this change is entrenched in the principle of Glocalisation. Though foreign pressure was applied, through Glocalisation, the voice of the people mattered and their demands were granted.
However, other nations intending to replicate the success in Egypt must be caution. In my view, the success achieved in Egypt was predicated on the localizing of the global to the prevailing circumstances in their country. Hence, it is imperative that other nations in the similar struggle and those who might be naturally inclined to want to emulate Egypt be wary of measures adopted.
That the two weeks of protest yielded positive result in Egypt does not necessarily guarantee success in similar situations. Countries who believe that there is an urgent need for a change locally as recently demonstrated by Egyptians should look inwardly and work with available laws and circumstances peculiar to those nations. In other words, nations should learn to take advantage of other legal means in their struggle for a change. This could come in the form of industrial strike, petitions, law suits or any other available measure at their disposal. Danger looms for any country that believes that Egypt’s prolonged protest can be automatically replicated in her situation. The same principle can equally be applied by individuals or groups who are in need for a change. ‘Glocalisation’ must guide us as individuals and nations in proffering workable and lasting solutions to our challenges.
The focus on Egypt recently with the eventual victory of the populace only proves beyond reasonable doubt that true sovereignty lies in the hands of the people. Those in autocratic power elsewhere and henceforth must learn to respect the call of the people for ‘CHANGE’, because true sovereignty belongs to the PEOPLE.
Once again, congratulations Egypt, Congratulation Africa!!!
John Dramani Mahama, Vice President of Ghana
John Dramani Mahama, Vice President of Ghana
Watching the the Egyptian crowds as they listened to a speech by their now former president, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak, who had been in power since the assassination of Anwar El Sadat in 1981, only confirmed what is becoming more and more obvious: that for Africa there is no going back to the way things were; the only way we can move is forward. But Egypt is only the latest evidence of this trend. Any astute observer is aware that the desire for democracy is spreading through the African world like a contagion.
In 2010 there were at least a dozen presidential democratic elections in African nations, places like Guinea that hadn’t had an election since 1958. In 2011 there are scheduled to be nearly two dozen presidential elections in various nations — including Egypt, which is currently in the midst of what could most certainly be called a people’s revolution.
Though the methods being employed by protesters can be alarming at times in their ferocity, the demand for freedom itself is not altogether surprising. Just as there were signs, over a half century ago, foreshadowing the collapse of colonialism on the continent, there have been signs recently pointing toward the end of an era of dictatorship. What is, however, most fascinating about this inevitable death is the pivotal as well as provocative role that digital technology is playing to bring it about.
For the most part in recent times, we Africans have taken our requests for democracy to the polls, not the streets. Unfortunately, in some nations, that has not resulted in any real change. And ultimately, that is what sparks all revolutions: the urgent, non-negotiable need for sustainable change.
When Tunisian authorities in the city of Sidi Bouzid seized Mohamed Bouazizi’s unlicensed produce cart and the unemployed computer-science graduate set himself aflame, it took no time at all for that act of protest to turn into a trending topic. After Bouazizi’s self-immolation, the youth in Sidi Bouzid took to the streets. Because of the broadcasts of a single satellite channel, the world watched as those young men displayed their rage and frustration — and a hashtag was created.
The final condition to create this perfect storm was, of course, the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. State Department communications, revealing that even the ambassador of one of the nation’s strongest allies shared the beliefs of most Tunisians about their leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali: out of touch, surrounded by corruption, determined to stay in power. It’s no wonder that when protests began in Egypt, one of the first measures authorities took to quell the burgeoning insurrection was cutting off all access to the Internet. No Facebook; no Google; no YouTube; no Twitter; no WikiLeaks. Also cut off were SMS and BlackBerry Messenger services. And satellite television as well — no Al-Jazeera.
In December I made my first official visit to Egypt as vice president of Ghana. I met with the prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, and toured the Smart Villages high-tech park in Cairo, where more than a hundred technological companies like Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are housed. I was impressed with how fully Egypt had embraced IT and thought that they might even serve as a model for other African countries. In many ways I was right to assume that; of course I had no idea that the example they would set with technology would be the attainment of social justice.
Repressive regimes thrive on ignorance — the ignorance of their people, and the ignorance of the outside world. For too long, the image of Africa has festered under the haze of the Western world’s ignorance and its resulting apathy. A relevant example of this is the unofficial annexation of Tunisia, Algeria and the continent’s other northern nations, for reasons of race alone, to the Middle East. (Though the majority of Egypt’s land mass is in Africa, a portion of that nation, the Sinai Peninsula, is in the Middle East, making it transcontinental.)
Africa is, and has been for the past several centuries, a continent of artificial boundaries and of divisions constructed along the lines of race, class, tribal and ethnic grouping — divisions cleverly constructed for the purposes of conquering. It is an infrastructure that, by design, lends itself to dictatorship, to the powerlessness of the masses.
It wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted to post a letter from Ghana, a former British colony, to any of the countries that border us — Côte d’Ivoire, Togo or Burkina Faso, all former French colonies — it would be routed through Europe first before finally arriving at its destination. The same was true of telephone calls, and it was virtually impossible to travel by air from one African country directly to another. Now all you need to be connected via computer or mobile phone to anyone anywhere in the world is a signal.
A little over a decade ago, as minister of communications, I was privileged to be part of the process of deregulating and liberalizing the previous monolithic state-owned telesector in Ghana. Initially, people did not understand the new technology and were hesitant to embrace the monumental changes that seemed to be required. Mobile telephony as a communication tool was, for all intents and purposes, in its infancy, and only a privileged few had access. Looking back now, I can feel only a sense of satisfaction in seeing how telecoms and ICT have exploded not only in Ghana but across the continent.
Every year since 2000 the Internet population in most African countries has doubled. Over the past decade, the spread of telecommunications and ICT in Africa went from below an average of 3 percent teledensity to a whopping almost 50 percent.
“Knowledge is power, and information is liberation,” Kofi Annan, former United Nations secretary-general, has been quoted as saying. Mobile phones and the Internet are liberating Africa in a way that even independence from colonialism could not. Digital technology is redefining our political landscape and will continue to do so in ways that we have yet to even imagine.
What makes digital technology such an ideal tool for social and political empowerment in the formation of new democracies is the fact that it is ever changing; new media and applications are constantly being produced to meet the shifting needs of users. When President Mubarak shut down the Internet in Egypt, Google and Twitter joined forces to create “Speak to Tweet” to help people circumvent the block and post their tweets.
History has shown that when it comes to the fight for freedom in Africa, as one nation goes, so goes the entire continent. I am hopeful that now democracy will ultimately prevail in Egypt. The people of Africa deserve to live with dignity and in peace, to have their voices heard, to be free. Perhaps then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said it best when, in his presidential-campaign speeches, he noted, “Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.” Especially when they are armed with the unifying force of digital technology.
Malaria advocacy group, Malaria Taxes and Tariffs Advocacy Project (M-TAP), is insisting that governments drop all taxes and tariffs on medicines, mosquito nets and other anti-malaria tools in order to bring down the costs of the products and facilitate their delivery to the people who need it.
M-TAP says only six countries worldwide have completely removed tariffs on products used to fight the disease, despite a promise 10 years ago from African leaders to do so.
Campaigners say dropping taxes and tariffs can play a key role in cutting costs because the vast majority of drugs and other products used to fight malaria are imported from overseas.
To date, M-TAP says, only the African countries of Guinea, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and Uganda and the Asian nation of Papua New Guinea have done away with tariffs on commodities recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as essential to effective malaria control.
These include long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets, malaria drugs known as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), rapid diagnostic tests, insecticides for indoor spraying, and insecticide spray pumps.
M-TAP, which has been gathering evidence from nearly 80 malaria-hit countries over the past two years, said it found that taxes and tariffs on anti-malaria products provide only minimal revenues, and these gains are often offset by health costs and lost productivity from preventable malaria illnesses.
Taxes and tariffs may also prevent the poor from gaining access to malaria treatment, the group said.
For 17 years Peter worked as a machine operator in a South African textile plant. It was not high-paying work, but it paid the bills and kept his family above the poverty line. When he lost his job because foreign imports were cheaper, he told University of KwaZulu-Natal researcher Claire Ichou, he was plunged into poverty — and despair. “Peter explains very painfully how he has lost his dignity,” she wrote in an academic paper. “He declares that his wife does not respect him. He tells us that his children are starving.” In Peter’s eyes, she continued, “a man without a job is not a man and there is nothing he can do. He has no status.”
As the world enters the final phase of the drive to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ambitious targets for slashing poverty, improving health and education, empowering women and protecting the environment by 2015, African leaders are starting to focus on the economic underpinnings of sustainable progress. Lifting the most destitute out of poverty, they note, will require greater investments in agricultural and industrial production, greater job creation and policies that favour economic growth.
Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika, who also serves as chair of the African Union (AU) this year, told world leaders gathered in New York last September for the UN MDGs Summit, “For Africa as a whole, we strongly appeal to the United Nations to review the supply side [of development] to improve access of ordinary people, especially women and children, to the services envisaged under the MDGs. Most MDGs depend on the availability of more schools, more hospitals, more rural infrastructures, more boreholes, dams and wells, more trained teachers, doctors, nurses, agronomists, scientists.… Let us pay attention to the supply side if we are to meet these goals.”
Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo K. Peter Pinda told the audience that creating jobs and opportunities in the countryside is critical to Tanzania’s progress on the goals, since the majority of his citizens make their living from the land, and farm incomes are well below the poverty line.
Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, received the loudest applause at a meeting when he observed that when donors first began aid programmes in Africa, “they brought us fish, but we told them we had fish. Then they came to teach us how to fish, and we told them we already knew how to fish.” What Africa needs today, Mr. Kaberuka said with a smile, is for its partners to “help us build a fishing industry” that supports processing and packing industries, generates steady jobs, links up with other parts of the domestic economy and improves African competitiveness in the global marketplace.
‘Assume effective leadership’
Such a focus on employment and economic development has grown more important in the wake of the global economic crisis and the failure of Africa’s traditional donors to honour pledges to double development aid to the region.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda told the MDG Summit that “the MDGs must remain the international priority.” But he underscored the importance of Africa’s charting its own path: “The debate on the MDG agenda has, at times, been dominated by a few voices, primarily from the developed nations and affiliated non-governmental organizations. Despite their good intentions, their perspective is often predicated on paternalism not partnership, on charity not self-reliance, and on promises unfulfilled rather than real change.”
President Kagame continued, “We can no longer rely on the goodwill of other nations — we neither need to, nor should want to. We must assume effective leadership, take full ownership of the development of our countries and truly deliver for our citizens.”
Supachai Panitchpakdi, the secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), cautioned that expanded social services, while important, are not sustainable without a firm economic base. Excessive emphasis on social services, along with widening social and economic inequality, Mr. Panitchpakdi continued, require “repositioning the MDGs within a broader development framework.
Such a framework emphasizes investment, especially in productive capacity, an equitable distribution of resources, policy space, and sustainable employment generation as the main drivers of poverty reduction.” He concluded, “One reason we risk missing many MDG targets is that the economic model that underpinned them has, I believe, been indifferent to the kind of values behind a ‘sufficiency economy’” that provides a decent living for all.
Michael Fleshman has been a writer and consultant for the UN Department of Public Information in New York since 2000, working primarily for the UN’s Africa Renewal Magazine and Africa Renewal Online programme. Prior to joining the UN he spent 20 years at the anti-apartheid American Committee On Africa and The Africa Fund, working to build US solidarity with the African liberation struggles in South and southern Africa, and with the Nigerian pro-democracy and environmental movements
Change is often referred to as the only constant thing in life. How prepared are we as individuals, families, nations and the global community to accept change? If you would recollect, it was the need for change that brought paved the way for Barrack Obama to emerge as the 44th president of the United States of America in 2008. Change as a natural phenomenon usually takes it course regardless of whether a society is prepared to accept change or not. Humans experience changes in parts of the body whether they are prepared for it or not . ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ are natural phenomenal changes we experience.
The crisis rocking Egypt calls to question if African leaders, as demonstrated so far by President Hosni Mubarak, are agents of change and are always ready to submit to change when needed. The uprising broke out last week as the public grew frustrated with corruption, oppression and economic hardship under Mubarak. More than 100 people have been reported dead in the ongoing protest taking place in various centers in Egypt. Mubarak has ruled for a period of 30 years marred largely by indiscipline and abuse of power.
[ad#Adsense-200by200sq]Recently, supporters of President Hosni Mubarak attacked protesters with fists, stones and clubs in Cairo as the Egyptian government rejects calls for Mubarak to end his 30-year-rule now, Reuters reports. Anti-Mubarak protesters were seen hurling stones back and claimed the attackers were police disguised in plain clothes. The attack caused chaotic scenes in central Tahrir square, some of the Mubarak supporters rode into the crowd on horses, wielding whips and sticks. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, has called the army to intervene to stop the crisis.
Interestingly, the uprising in Egypt is seen to have triggered other neighboring Arab nations protesting for a change. Algeria and Yemen are replicating Egyptian struggle for change. Protesters are often seen with placards displaying various messages such as ”change we need” to the government. The development in Egypt is of interest to the global community especially Africans. Of interest to me is what I describe as the ‘slow and diplomatic approach” of the west to the ongoing crisis in Egypt. U.S President Barrack Obama has been reported to have telephoned the 82-year- old to say Washington wanted him to move faster on political transition.
” What is clear and what I indicated tonight to president Mubarak is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must begin now,” Obama said.
In the same vein, British prime Minister, David Cameron speaking recently with the United Nations secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said that the political transition to a new broad-based government in Egypt needed ”to be accelerated and to happen quickly”.
In my view, the West’s slow diplomatic approach to a national crisis that have resulted in the loss of lives of Egyptians and journalists only lend credence to the claim that Hosni Mubarak is a strong ally of the west especially the United States. Some political observers have identified Mubarak as a tool used by the west to stabilize their relationship politically and otherwise with the Arabians.
Mr. Mubarak must not easily forget history even of his own country. Historically, Egypt under a monarch named Pharaoh (the great) emerged as the first world power. However, as change would have its course, Egypt was succeeded by Assyria (extinct). Assyria was succeeded Babylon (extinct), Babylon by Medo-Persian (extinct), Medo-Persia by Greece, Greece by Rome, and Rome was eventually succeeded by the mighty Anglo-America world power of our time. When Alexander the Great of Greece was in power, he never believed like his predecessors that his regime can be overthrown by another because of the power he exercised. Same also applies to Rome when it was the world power. Her kingdom and influence spread to far corners of the earth. However, the only constant thing in life, ‘CHANGE’, also brought down the Roman empire overtaken by the British which formed ally with the United States as Anglo-America ally.
President Barrack Obama’s emergence as president of the United States was largely facilitated by Change; a need for Change by the Americans. It was the reason the Democrats adopted ‘CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN’ as their party’s slogan which psychologically met the yearnings and aspirations of an average American. Hence, it is pertinent that President Obama, David Cameron and other western leaders who secured the mandate of the electorates on this premise equally respect and recognize the plight of the Egyptians for a Change in their country. President Mubarak must come to terms with the reality that the bloodshed, pain and agony experienced by his people under this two weeks of what has been described as an ‘unprecedented” struggle for rights, justice and good leadership must be honored.
He should humbly submit himself to the call for a CHANGE NOW in Egypt.
In the last couple of months, there hav been pockets of crises here and there on the African continent. From Ivory Coast to Sudan, and from Tunisia to Egypt, it has been tales of cacophony and woes. This seems worrisome in a continent blessed with abundant human and material resources. There is a tendency to regard our dear continent as cursed, given the enormity of turmoil in the land. But when viewed against the backdrop that there is no nation or continent which has not been through this phase of development in its historical evolution, we may be consoled that all is not lost.
I have read all sorts of comments on the happenings in Africa in recent times – from the cosmetic to the logical. But the funniest has been the one saying that what is happening is a sign of the end time. I consider this laughable as I see this more or less as a phase in our development. As much as one would have expected that by now Africa should have outgrown this stage, we must know that it is not what is going on that matters but how we handle it. We therefore need to tread on the side of caution, as violence cannot end violence. It will only escalate it.
In the face of the on-going adversity, one thing is obviously clear: the current generation of African leaders is bereft of ideas. The onus is now on us (the younger generation) to begin to look inwards. We must begin to light up our corners with bright ideas. After all, ideas, they say, rule the world. We must be guided by Stedman Graham’s advice that “people who let events and circumstances dictate their lives are living reactively. That means that they don’t act on life, they only react to it.” The only price we have to pay to prove to the world that Africa is blessed and not cursed is to be conscious of the fact that “leaders are not born, they are made. They are made just like anything else…through hard work” (Vince Lombardi)
