Features

Politics is a ‘do or die’ affair

Sokari Ekine

2010-07-01, Issue 488

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65595

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A water crisis is emerging in the Nile Basin where some 300 million people in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi rely on the Nile indirectly and directly along its 6,741-kilometre stretch. In 1999 the countries of the Nile Basin formed the Nile Basin Initiative. Since then there have been a number of disputes between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand and a challenge by the other countries on the validity of the Nile Water Agreement, which they claim is an unjust colonial relic and should not be applicable in a post-independent Africa. Sahel Blog Sahel Blog has been following the present dispute which appears to be at a stalemate with Egypt and Sudan refusing to join the others in a water sharing agreement:

‘The nations that signed the agreement in May – Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya – will not back down. But they will need help to bring the agreement into being. The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries – Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – one year to join the pact. The new deal would need at least six signatories to come into force. Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not signed the deal yet and have so far been tight-lipped about whether they plan to or not. Egypt and Sudan are still saying no to the deal: Responding to the [latest] developments, Kamal Ali Mohamed, Sudan’s water minister, said his country would now stop co-operating with the NBI because the agreement raised legal issues.’

This is Zimbabwe Sokwanele has been publishing an informative series on the debate around Zimbabwe’s new constitution which includes a timeline of events. In their latest post, they raise the issue of women’s participation in ‘constitutional making’:

‘Ordinary women remain in the dark about the proposed new constitution and what exactly they are supposed to contribute. Activists warn that this could lead to women being left out of the constitutional making process and therefore lose out on their constitutional rights. “It could compromise women’s rights advocacy and the drive to have more women in parliament and other decision-making positions,” warns Rejoice Timire of the Disabled Women Support Organisation. For women’s issues to come out as they want in the constitution, it needs women at the grassroots to be educated about what is a constitution. If they don’t know what is a constitution then we cannot say our issues will come out as we want them to as Zimbabwean women…’

Bombastic Element,with specific reference to Somalia, continues the discussion around aid to Africa and the role of NGOs, relief agencies and foreign governments in being ‘complicit in the the dysfunctional economics that has helped gut the country’. He quotes from a piece by Nasna Warah, writing in the Nation that the US food aid programme is designed to support US business and create outlets for their commodities whilst journalists, rather than point out this fact, focus on writing the tiresome stories about starving children. He comments:

‘I'm sure you are asking yourself the old question why, instead of importing corn from Nebraska to Somalia, U.S aid money can't buy the food locally and boost the local agriculture eco system and value added chain? In case you missed these old vids, check out foreign aid expert Bill Easterly and an Al-Shabaab spokesman of all people lay it all out…’

Nigerian bloggers have taken time out from discussion on next years elections – date still unknown – to comment on the country’s 50 years of independence celebrations.

Chidi Opara Reports has a delusionary poster showing the flag and the words ‘Independence Anniversary 1960-2010 Celebrating Greatness’ and comments that ‘The Nigerian Government in spite of wide spread poverty, especially in her rural areas have budgeted ten billon naira for her 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations.’

Nigerian Curiosity goes into more details about the spending which has risen from N60 Billion under the late President Yar’Adua to N10 Billion under President Jonathan. She provides a breakdown of the spending which includes N70 million for the president’s wife alone and asks is this money an underhand way of ensuring politicians have sufficient money to ‘thwart their competition in the nations forthcoming elections?’ This is a really important point raised by Nigerian Curiosity as electioneering begins in earnest and some politicians will do anything to win:

‘Politicians such as Eme Zuru Ayortor who swallowed 100 cocaine parcels and attempted to fly abroad with them in a futile effort to raise campaign funds. He was thankfully arrested before boarding his flight. Some politicians even stockpile weapons in preparation for violence that often erupts during election season.

‘Politics is a “do or die” affair, with incumbents doing everything to hold onto their power and opponents doing as much as possible to clinch their desired seat. And, it is easy to understand why. Members of the National Assembly become automatic millionaires once they enter the legislative body as they earn millions of Naira from their salary, more millions from their government-issued allowances and possibly billions from brown paper bags and duffel bags containing the occasional bribe.’

HIV in Kenya comments on a statement by British politician that East African Intellectual property legislation will not confuse generic and counterfeit drugs with fake drugs. However Kenya’s Consitutional Court has already stated there is confusion between the three.

‘…the court admits that this could result in people presently receiving affordable antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for HIV being denied the drugs the future. Chalker describes Kenya's decision as a “drawback” to anti-counterfeiting efforts…

‘Worse still, Uganda and several other countries seem keen to follow Kenya's lead, despite the Kenyan's change of mind. Chalker and others who follow this tendency to conflate counterfeits, generics and fakes then go on to deny that their stance could jeopardize availability of affordable generic drugs, such as ARVs. But their denial sounds hollow when they go to so much trouble to confuse generics with counterfeits and fakes.’

Black Looks returns to the world of football, but this time not to the ‘glory’ and corruption of the World Cup but to Lesotho. Rethabile has a wonderful story of an unknown Lesotho footballer called Mochini Matete who played left wing for Matlama FC. Rethabile writes about how he and friends would gather round the radio and listen to the big matches of the World Cup with Brazil coming first followed by Kaiser Chiefs and finally Matlama in a kind of inverted pyramid.

‘My warped football world. I wonder if I did not base everything else on that scale. International is better–local isn’t good. The Inverted Pyramid Syndrome. I know that I wasn’t the only one, and I know that this syndrome wasn’t reserved to football. It permeated our society from clothes to foods to sport to skin colour. And, sadly, it had not started with my generation, but with the colonialism fighting generation. While these folks were engaged in negotiations or conflict with the English for independence, they were also trying to dress like them, talk like them, and eat like them, most of them to this day. Some were using skin lotion to lighten their skin. I don’t blame them–it was the order of the day, and one had to swim or sink, right? But I wish they’d stop it, today, and dress African and talk like Africans and champion our African ways.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

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