Back Issues

FEATURED THIS WEEK

2006-07-13

FEATURED: If you thought that University education was brought to Africa by the Europeans, you were wrong, writes Paul Zaleza
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Censorship and suppression of freedom of expression by bloggers is becoming rife in Africa, writes Sokari Ekine
- Parties in Nigeria are 'established as coalitions of various factions of regional and economic rent-seekers' according to recent research
- There are lessons from East Timor for failing state of Cote d'Ivoire, warns Juan Federer
LETTERS: Readers pay tribute to Issa Shivji on his retirement
OBITUARY: Africa has lost one of its giants - Chachage. His contribution is celebrated in prose and poetry
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wonders what Nkrumahists are doing at the Dr Busia's memorial in Ghana
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine rounds up the African blogosphere
BOOKS AND ARTS: New publications about Looting of Congo
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: As the AU celebrates its 6th anniversary, calls are made for the continents scientific renaissance
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: No agreements on small arms conference while killings on the ground escalate
HUMAN RIGHTS: Human rights defenders in East Africa publish report
WOMEN AND GENDER: Women hail Zimbabwe's domestic violence bill
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Europe seeks African collusion in controlling migration
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: DRC Elections - calls made for delays
DEVELOPMENT: ActionAid exposes corruption of development aid
CORRUPTION: Opportunistic money in creating a new elite in Zimbabwe
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Male circumscision and HIV risk
EDUCATION: Fear of 'language genocide' in South Africa
ENVIRONMENT: Pastoralists organise in week-long meeting
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Egypt printing stoppage in protest against new laws
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Migrant songs hits the internet in Senegal
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops; Jobs.

Beyond Afropessimism: Historical accounting of African Universities

2006-08-30

Paul T Zeleza

There are two widespread assumptions about university education in Africa: first that the Europeans introduced it, and second that it has declined since independence. Both are false, writes Paul Zeleza. Higher education including universities long antedated the establishment of “western” style universities in the nineteenth century and the post-independence era was a period of unprecedented growth during which the bulk of contemporary Africa’s universities were established.


Discourses about Africa continue to be infected by what we used to call in the 1980s and 1990s Afropessimism, the belief that Africa is irredeemably doomed to backwardness and chaos. Afropessimism embodies two tendencies—vilification of African experiences and valorization of Euroamerican engagements with Africa, that Africa is incapable by itself of historical progress and that any progress evident there is the result of Euroamerican interventions. Discourses of African higher education have not escaped this narrative. There are two widespread assumptions about university education in Africa: first that the Europeans introduced it, and second that it has declined since independence. Both are false. Higher education including universities long antedated the establishment of “western” style universities in the nineteenth century and the post-independence era was a period of unprecedented growth during which the bulk of contemporary Africa’s universities were established.

As a historian profoundly committed to Africa’s development and social transformation, I believe history—a long historical perspective—is a powerful antidote to the fatalism often induced by the overwhelming flow of current events that Afropessimism turns into eternal trends. In this case, as an intellectual historian interested both in the history of ideas and of knowledge producing institutions, and one who is engaged in African and global debates about the future of higher education, the need for a proper understanding of Africa’s long and complicated history of tertiary education is imperative. I offer here brief reflections on the history and contemporary challenges of African universities.

The origins of higher education in Africa including universities as communities of scholars and learning can be traced to three institutional traditions: first, the Alexandria Museum and Library, second, the early Christian monasteries, and third, the Islamic mosque universities. The Alexandria Museum and Library was established in the third century B.C. in Egypt. It grew to become the largest center of learning in the ancient world. The complex is estimated to have housed more than 200,000 volumes, and supported up to 5,000 scholars and students. Clearly, this was a large research institution, and many of the leading Egyptian and other African as well as Greek, Roman, and Jewish scholars of the ancient world studied or worked there at some point in their lives. The library gradually declined as buildings were destroyed by fire, its holdings looted in times of warfare, and scholars left due to political instability in the twilight years of the Roman empire. Alexandria left a rich legacy of scholarship covering a wide range of fields from mathematics and the sciences to philosophy and religion.

It was also in Egypt, one of the earliest centers of Christianity in the world, that monasteries first developed in the third century A.D. Tens of thousands of Christians gathered in the monasteries in the desert not only to escape the exactions of Roman rule, but also for a life devoted to spiritual contemplation. The monasteries and the monastic orders that regulated them provided important spaces for reflection, writing, and learning. The idea and institution of monasteries spread to other parts of Africa, and elsewhere in the world as far as Britain and Georgia in Europe and Persia and India in Asia, out of which some universities later developed.

One country where monastic education developed early was Ethiopia where Christianity was introduced in the fourth century A.D. and became the state religion. From the period of the Zagwe dynasty in the twelfth century this system included higher education, which was largely restricted to the clergy and nobility. At the bottom of the system was the Qine Bet (School of Hymns), followed by the Zema Bet (School of Poetry, and at the pinnacle was an institution called Metsahift Bet (School of the Holy Books) that provided a broader and more specialized education in religious studies, philosophy, history, and the computation of time and calendar, among various subjects.

It is the third tradition, Islam, which gave Africa its first higher education institutions that have endured to the present. Indeed, Africa claims distinction as the center of the world’s oldest Islamic universities and some of the world’s oldest surviving universities. They include Ez-Zitouna madrassa in Tunis founded in 732. Next came al-Qarawiyyin mosque university established in Fez in 859 by a young migrant female princess from Qairawan (Tunisia), Fatima Al-Fihri. The university attracted students and scholars from Andalusian Spain to West Africa. Then in 969 Al-Azhar mosque university was established in Cairo, the same year that the city was founded by the Fatimid dynasty from the Maghreb. It came to be regarded as the most prestigious center of Islamic education and scholarship and attracted the greatest intellectuals of the Muslim world, including Ibn Khaldun the renowned historian who taught there. Another major early Islamic university was Sankore mosque university in Timbuktu founded in the twelfth century where a wide range of courses were taught from theology, logic, astronomy and astrology, to grammar, rhetoric, history and geography.

The legacy of the ancient Islamic university for modern Africa is three-fold. First, many of the Islamic universities have survived to the present, although they have undergone major changes over the centuries, including the introduction of more secular, technical and professional fields of study. This is true of three of the four universities mentioned above—Sankore being the sole exception. Second, in recent times new Islamic universities have been created in several countries across the continent often patterned on the old Islamic universities as part of the wave of privatization of higher education as state control has loosened. Third, the “western” university introduced in Africa from the nineteenth century bore Islamic influences. Europeans inherited from the Muslims a huge corpus of knowledge, rationalism and the investigative approach to knowledge, an elaborate disciplinary architecture of knowledge, the notions of individual scholarship, and the idea of the college, all of which became central features of the European university exported to the rest of the world with the rise of European imperialism.

Missionaries—both European and African including those from the diaspora—initially undertook the introduction of Africa’s “western” style universities. The process was largely concentrated in the expanding European settler colonies of South Africa and Algeria, and in Sierra Leone and Liberia newly established colonies for African diaspora resettlement. The first was Fourah Bay College founded in Sierra Leone in 1826 and more than three decades later, in 1862, came Liberia College. The two institutions became the beacons of West Africa’s bourgeoning colonial intelligentsia and nationalism. Edward Blyden, the renowned Pan-Africanist scholar-activist was actively engaged with both colleges. In addition, there were a series of smaller colleges in Liberia.

In the meantime, in South Africa segregated institutions were set up beginning in 1829 with the South African College in Cape Town (later the University of Cape Town), which mostly catered to the English settlers. In 1866 a college for the Afrikaner settlers was created called the Stellenbosch Gymnasium, which finally became Stellenbosch University in 1918. A small college for Africans, the Lovedale Institution, was created in 1841, which was increasingly modeled on African American industrial and vocational colleges in the United States. Then in 1873 the University of the Cape of Good Hope (renamed the University of South Africa in 1916) was established initially as an examining body before it became one of Africa’s and the world’s leading distance education providers.

As in South Africa, in French Algeria higher education was largely confined to the settler population. It began with the establishment of the School of Medicine in 1857, followed in 1879 by the creation of four specialized schools of medicine, pharmacy, sciences, letters, and law, which merged to form faculties of the University of Algiers in 1909. Another French colony where higher education started in the late nineteenth century was Madagascar where the Antananarivo Medical Training Academy was established in 1896.

It was not until the twentieth century following the European conquest that colonial universities spread to the rest of the continent. Two countries escaped colonization, Liberia and Ethiopia, but both sought to modernize their educational systems. In Liberia, where American models were popular, Cuttington University College was created in 1949 with support from the Protestant Episcopal Church, and Liberia College destroyed by fire in the late 1940s was reconstituted into the University of Liberia in 1951. The brief Italian occupation of Ethiopia 1935-41 shocked Ethiopia into embarking on a drive for educational modernization. In 1949, the government created Trinity College, which was granted a charter in 1950 under the name of University College of Addis Ababa, and renamed Haile Selassie University in 1961.

In colonial Africa, the development of higher education remained limited until after the Second World War because the colonial authorities were generally suspicious of and opposed to the modern educated African elite and their nationalist demands for equality and freedom, and colonial civil servants feared African competition. Africans seeking higher education were often forced to go abroad including the imperial metropoles themselves. During this period higher education was limited to the British and French empires, virtually none was provided in Belgian and Portuguese Africa.

The first colonial university college in Northern Africa was the Gordon Memorial College founded in the Sudan in 1902, renamed Khartoum University College in 1951 and Khartoum University at independence in 1956. A decade later, in 1912, the Islamic Institute was founded; it became a college in 1924 and was renamed the Omdurman Islamic University in 1965. In Egypt, Cairo University was founded in 1908 despite the vehement opposition of the colonial governor. It grew to become one of the largest universities in Africa, with a student population presently of 155,000 students and more than 5,500 faculty members and instructors. In 1938 the university formed a branch in Alexandria, which later became Alexandria University in 1942. In South Africa, a new era in higher education began with the establishment of the Inter-State Native College in 1916, later renamed the University College of Fort Hare in 1951. Fort Hare became a magnate for not only black South African students but also for African students from across Southern Africa as attested by its list of alumni who include such nationalist leaders as Nelson Mandela, Seretse Khama, and Robert Mugabe.

Elsewhere, before the war a few institutions were created that functioned largely as secondary schools or technical schools before they were converted after the war into university colleges. Examples from the British colonies include Makerere Government College established in Uganda in 1921 first as a vocational school before it was turned into Makerere University College in 1949. In Nigeria Yaba Higher College was set up in 1932, which served for years as the country’s major higher education institution. In Ghana there was the Government Training College, which was formally opened in January 1927 and renamed the Prince of Wales School and College, Achimota. Among its most famous instructors was Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey, the eminent educator, and its alumni include Kwame Nkrumah who obtained his teacher’s certificate from the college in 1930. These colleges were often affiliated with and provided courses, examinations, and qualifications from British universities.

In the French colonies, higher education was hampered by the preference among both the colonial authorities and the African elites, spawned by the policies and ideology of assimilation, for higher education in the metropole. Moreover, missionary provision of education was rather limited, which undermined the development of primary and secondary education that could feed into higher education. The institutions of higher education established before the war included the French Western Africa Medical Training Institution founded in 1918 in Dakar, the William Ponty School established in Goree in 1903 that provided some medical training and teacher training, schools of marine engineering and veterinary medicine in Goree and Bamako, respectively, and a polytechnic also in Bamako.

It was not until the end of the Second World War that more systematic efforts were undertaken by colonial governments to establish higher education. In the British colonies, the new era started with the establishment of university colleges in Nigeria (Ibadan in 1947), Ghana (Legon in 1948), Sudan (Khartoum in 1949 from the merger of the Gordon Memorial College and the Kitchener Medical School), and Uganda (Makerere was upgraded in 1949). In addition, in Kenya the Royal Technical College was established in Nairobi in 1951, and further south the University College of Salisbury was formed in 1953 and renamed two years later as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Meanwhile, Fourah Bay College became the University College of Sierra Leone. Most of these new or upgraded university colleges served as regional universities and were affiliated with and awarded degrees of the University of London.

After the war French universities also set up a few overseas campuses in the colonies. The University of Paris established Institutes of Higher Studies in Tunis in 1945, and together with the University of Bordeaux, in Dakar in 1950 and Antananarivo in 1955 that became the University of Dakar in 1957 and the University of Antananarivo in 1960, respectively. In Algeria access to the University of Algiers for Algerians was expanded slightly, although by the time of the Algerian revolution in 1952 there were only 1,000 Algerian university graduates. In the rest of the French colonial empire university education had to await independence.

The Belgians in the Congo followed the French practice as the Catholic University of Louvain established the Lovanium (little Louvain) University Centre in 1949, with which it became affiliated in 1954, while the state created the Official University in 1956 in Lubumbashi. Lovanium also catered for students from Rwanda and Burundi. In the Portuguese colonies higher education lagged behind until the turn of the 1960s. In Angola, institutions to train priests were formed in 1958 in Luanda and Huambo, followed by the establishment in 1962 of two General University Studies in Angola and Mozambique as branches of the Portuguese university system that were converted in 1968 into the Universities of Angola and Lourenço Marques, respectively.

In the meantime, in South Africa where apartheid had been established in 1948 higher education became even more racially segregated than before. Blacks were no longer allowed to attend the “white” universities without special government approval and separate universities were created for Africans in the so-called self-governing homelands and for Coloreds and Indians in the major cities. By 1994, the year that ushered in the country’s first democratically elected government, there were 36 higher education institutions consisting of 21 universities and 15 technikons, of which 19 were for whites, 2 for coloreds, 2 for Indians and 13 for Africans. Needless to say, higher education was far better resourced for whites than for the other races with the Africans at the bottom. In Namibia, under South African occupation from the end of the First World War until independence in 1990, college education started as late as 1980 with the establishment of the Academy for Tertiary Education, followed in 1985 by the formation of the Technikon of Namibia, and the College for Out-of-School Training.

Decolonization was a staggered process as African countries got independent at different times, but the bulk of them did so in the 1950s and 1960s. Colonial rule left behind very few universities, the majority of countries did not even have a single university, so that one of the key challenges for the new independent states was to establish or expand their higher education systems. Also, since the few existing universities were patterned on European models and were rather elitist there was the need to make them more relevant to Africa’s developmental needs and socio-cultural contexts and more accessible to students of different social backgrounds.

Across Africa the growth in higher education after independence was nothing short of phenomenal. The new states embarked on ambitious development programs in which universities were seen as central for training a highly skilled labor force, creating and reproducing a national elite, and enhancing national prestige. The new national universities were quite diverse and flexible in their structures and models. On the whole, they were much larger in size than their colonial predecessors, broader in their missions, and they expanded their disciplinary and curricula offerings from the arts and social sciences to include professional fields of study such as business, medicine and engineering, and they incorporated graduate programs.

In 1960, often taken as the year of African independence, there were an estimated 120,000 students in African universities; the number jumped to 782,503 in 1975 and to 3,461,822 in 1995, and presently it is probably around 5 million. Similarly, the number of universities grew from less than three-dozen in 1960 to more than four hundred in 1995 and several hundred more have perhaps been introduced since then with the explosion of private universities. Today, tertiary education exists in all African countries, although the systems vary enormously in terms of size and levels of development and internal differentiation. For example, in 1995 the largest concentration of university students was in Egypt (850,051), followed by South Africa (617,897), Nigeria (404,969), Algeria (347,410), and Morocco (294,502) (World Bank 2000: 111). In contrast, in the same year there were 23 countries with fewer than 10,000 university students.

There were also sharp gender differences in terms of access to higher education. While several countries had managed to attain gender parity at the primary and secondary levels by 2000, very few had managed to do so at the tertiary level. The exceptions were Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, and South Africa. The gender gap also manifested itself in fields of study and faculty distribution. Women were concentrated in the humanities and social sciences, while they were grossly underrepresented in the sciences and most of the professional fields. As multi-ethnic, sometimes multi-racial, and invariably class societies, access to university education in African countries was further differentiated according to ethnicity, race, and class, as well as, in some cases, religious and cultural affiliations. Class became increasingly salient as the African middle classes grew rapidly after independence, in many cases thanks to the establishment or expansion of university education itself, and sought to reproduce themselves.

The massive expansion of education across the continent not only led to huge improvements in the African human capital stock, it also laid the institutional basis for the social production of African intellectual capacities and communities. But Africa remained the least educated continent in the world, with a tertiary gross enrollment ratio of less than 5 percent, as compared to 10 percent for the low- and middle-income countries and 58 percent for the high-income countries. The challenges facing African higher education deepened with the imposition in the 1980s and 1990s of draconian structural adjustment programs (SAPs) by the international financial institutions including the World Bank that led to severe government cutbacks in social expenditures, including education, especially for higher education whose rates of social return were deemed by the supporters of neo-liberalism to be lower than for primary education.

Thus from the 1980s even as the number of colleges and universities continued to expand, it became increasingly evident that the higher education system in many countries was in crisis, which was expressed in declining state funding, falling instructional standards, poorly equipped libraries and laboratories, shrinking wages and faculty morale. Academics increasingly resorted to consultancies or they became part of the “brain drain” as they sought refuge in other sectors at home or universities abroad. The costs on teaching, research, and Africa’s capacity to produce highly skilled human capital were predictably high.

There were other responses to the crisis besides increasing academic labor migration. One was the proliferation of regional research networks, the growth of an academic NGO sector. Examples include the Dakar-based Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and the Nairobi based International Institute of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE). These organizations and networks provided crucial support for basic and applied research, both individual and collaborative, and offered training, internships, and fellowships to graduate students.

Another response was seen in the explosion in private universities and the privatization of programs and funding sources in public universities, both of which were manifestations of the growing liberalization of African higher education. The private universities can be distinguished in terms of their institutional types (their status—not-for-profit and for-profit; identity—religious and secular; and focus—business, Christian or Islamic), programs and levels, staffing and funding, and governance structures and regulation. While these universities faced numerous challenges, by the beginning of the 2000s they had begun to outstrip the number of public universities in some countries, a development that profoundly and permanently altered the terrain of higher education.

From the late 1990s African leaders, educators, researchers, and external donors became increasingly aware of the challenges facing African higher education and the need for renewal if the continent was to achieve higher rates of growth and development and compete in an increasingly knowledge intensive global economy. The reform agenda has centered on five broad sets of issues, even if expressions of concern have yet to be matched by the provision of adequate resources. First, the need to examine systematically the philosophical foundations of African universities is widely recognized. Included in this context are issues pertaining to the principles underpinning public higher education in an era of privatization, the conception, content and consequences of the reforms currently being undertaken across the continent, and the public-private interface in African higher education systems.

The second set of issues center on management, how African universities are grappling with the challenges of quality control, funding, governance, and management in response to the establishment of new regulatory regimes, growing pressures for finding alternative sources of funding, changing demographics and massification, increasing demands for access and equity for underrepresented groups including women, and the emergence of new forms of student and faculty politics in the face of democratization in the wider society. Third, there are pedagogical and paradigmatic issues, ranging from the languages of tuition in African universities and educational systems as a whole to the dynamics of knowledge production—the societal relevance of the knowledges produced in African higher education systems and how those knowledges are disseminated and consumed by students, scholarly communities, and the wider public.

Fourth, the role of universities in the pursuit of the historic project of Africa nationalism: decolonization, development, democratization, nation-building and regional integration is under scrutiny. Included in this regard are questions of the uneven and changing relations between universities and the state, civil society, and industry, as well as the role of universities in helping to manage and resolve the various crises that confront the African continent from civil conflicts to disease epidemics including HIV/AIDS. Also, the part universities have played and can play in future to promote or undermine the Pan-African project is a of great interest as African states, through the African Union, renew their efforts to achieve closer integration within Africa and between Africa and its diasporas.

Finally, there is the question of globalization, the impact of trends associated with the new information and communication technologies, the expansion of transborder or transnational provision of higher education, and trade in educational services under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) regime. Critical in this context for Africa is the changing role of external donors from the philanthropic foundations to the World Bank and other international financial institutions and multilateral agencies. The impact of these trends on African higher education and vice-versa are of utmost importance and provide one area of fruitful collaboration between researchers from Africa and other world regions.

The challenges facing African universities are serious and disquieting, but higher education in Africa has a long history and it will have a long future. And the onus for ensuring that such a future is a healthy and productive one lies primarily with African leaders, educators, and scholars, who cannot afford the morbid indulgences of Afropessimism.

* This article was first published on http://zeleza.com/ the website of the author, who has kindly given permission for its reproduction by Pambazuka News.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Blocking the Blogosphere – online censorship in Africa

2006-07-12

Sokari Ekine

The internet and more so blogging has enabled a growth in freedom of speech amongst civil society groups and individual activists and citizens across the continent. In China, Iran and the Middle East the governments have been active in monitoring and restricting access to the internet by it’s citizens. The first African country to ban websites was Tunisia which hosted the second phase of the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) was held in Tunisia last November. The irony was not lost on many of the participants who held their own workshops and seminars promoting freedom of expression despite threats from government employed thugs. Earlier on March 1st Tunisian journalist Muhammad Abou was arrested and subsequently imprisoned for publishing an article on a banned website where he compared the President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The first reports that the Ethiopian government was blocking blogs hosted by blogger.com came on the 18th May as Ethiopian blogger, Ethiopian Life reported that his blog had been blocked along with a number of others. Later Meskel Square asked “Where have all the Ethiopian Blogspot Bloggers gone?. In addition, Free Our Leaders and Ethiopian Review were also unavailable. In total 75% of Ethiopian blogs tracked on Global Voices are no longer accessible from Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian blogosphere has been one of the most vibrant on the continent and highly critical of the government of Meles Zenawi. Though the government is still denying any involvement in the shut down there is really no other explanation. Ethiopian bloggers in the Diaspora continue to relentlessly attack the tyranny of Zenawi’s government and question the US and other Western countries who continue to support his government. Ethiopia is not the only country trying to prevent African citizens an online presence. RSF http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17842) reports that the Gambian government has hacked into the website of exiled Gambian journalist, Pa Nderry Mbai, who runs the Freedom Newspaper and posted “a false statement of allegiance to an associate of the president together with the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all its subscribers, describing them as “informers”(http://www.freedomnewspaper.com/).

The false statement was made worse by the exposure of people’s names and email addresses who had set up user accounts on the site. Mbai’s email and phone number in the US were also published. Those living in Gambia are now at personal risk of arrest and detention by the Gambian government.

The same day, the Gambian police ordered all those “who continually supplied him with information which he used to castigate and vilify the democratically elected government of His Excellency President Alhaji Yahya Jammeh” to report to the nearest police station within 24 hours or face immediate arrest.
The hacking was done from an IP address in Southampton, England.

The implications for activists and dissidents in Africa are obvious. How safe is your personal information? How safe are you? This is especially worrying for those blogging from Ethiopia, Tunisia and Egypt - governments which have arrested and detained bloggers and journalists in recent months. Egypt has been particularly viscious…. in it’s response to bloggers. On May 7th activist and blogger, Alaa Ahmed along with 11 others, was detained in prison by the Egyptian police. They had all been arrested for supporting another group of protestors. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the thousands of police were deployed against protestors proving once again that President Mubarak “is committed to zero tolerance when it comes to peaceful dissent”. Despite the arrests, Egyptian bloggers launched a collaborative campaign against the governments repression and to free the arrested activists and bloggers. Alaa Ahmed was not the first Egyptian blogger to be arrested. Last October, 21 year old activist, journalist and blogger, Abdel Karim Seliman was also arrested and detained for 18 days. His writings were confiscated by the Egyptian state security.

In Zimbabwe where freedom of speech died many years ago, the government is planning to enact legislation that will allow it to monitor the phone calls and mail of anyone suspected of threatening national security or involvement in criminal activities in the country. The Interception of Communications Bill will include the monitoring of email and there is no doubt in my mind that the government will seek ways to block internet usage and particularly blogs from operating within the country. In truth the Bill is simply another tool for the government to continue its repression of the people of Zimbabwe and places Zimbabwean bloggers at an increased risk to their personal safety.

Two African countries that have had relatively free press and freedom of speech, South African and Kenya, are now hinting at curbing free expression. In the case of South Africa the government is proposing legislation that will monitor require mobile phone providers to monitor and intercept phone calls.
The proposed law requires operators Vodacom, MTN and CellC to put in place systems for the interception of cellphone communications, and to keep detailed information of all their clients, as well as phones and SIM cards .

The providers such as Vodocom (http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=17511,1,22) are angry at the legislation which will increase their administration costs on a scheme they say is unworkable. They will face huge fines for not complying with the proposed legislation - the “Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communications Related Information Bill” (http://www.legalbrief.co.za/filemgmt_data/files/RIC%20Bill.pdf) and of course they will loose millions in revenue as their customer base is reduced by as much as 20 million people (http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=BD4A206373).

However from a user perspective the Bill has implications for both privacy and access or use of mobile phones. As always it is the poor that will mostly be affected by this legislation. If you dont have an address, do not work in the formal economy or are an illegal immigrant then under the Bills regulations you will no longer be able to use a mobile phone. The second hand sale of SIM cards which again is used by mostly poor and rural people will be criminalised as failure to report the sale or exchange will result in a prison sentence of up to 12 months.

The governments cites the high crime rate as the main reason behind the legislation. There is no doubt about the high level of crime in South Africa and that mobile phones are used in carrying out many crimes. However it will be the poor, the migrants, the low paid or those employed in the informal sector who will suffer most and become even more disenfranchised from society and not the criminals who as one report states (http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=17511,1,22) can afford to buy SIM cards from a neighbouring country, use them and dispose of them with ease.

Last month the Kenyan Internal Security Minister, John Njoroge Michuki place an advert in the Daily Standard where as Kenyan blogger, Thinkers Room wrote “not so subtly dishes out warnings to radio talk shows, newspapers and Internet bloggers……. Bottom line – bloggers are now on the government radar”. He continues….”I won’t be cowed online but I jolly well will keep a very low profile physically.”

Africa’s dictators and paranoid leaders are beginning to discover cyberland where, unlike traditional media (newspapers, radio and TV), freedom of expression is much more difficult to control. Nigeria, has a huge online presence not only from bloggers but from news portals, forums and discussion groups – most of them highly critical of the present government. Two weeks ago, a Nigerian photographer, Jide Adeniyi-Jones, was refused publication of an article by various Nigerian newspapers so he simply sent the article to various bloggers who published it on his behalf. Many dissidents and activists from the Niger Delta and Igboland who are calling for secession already use the internet to publish their writings which would be banned in Nigeria. How long before they find themselves on the governments radar.

* Sokari Ekine is Blogging Africa editor for Pambazuka News

* * Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Political parties indispensible for democracy in Nigeria

2006-07-12

Jibrin Ibrahim, Fabian Okoye and Tom Adambara

Political parties are indispensable for making democracy work and deliver. Finding the proper conditions for better internal functioning and effective legal regulation of political parties is of key importance anywhere.

This report is a result of world-wide research and dialogue with political parties as part of International IDEA’s Political Parties’ programme, where International IDEA is working with national and regional research partners to improve insight and comparative knowledge. The purpose is to provide for constructive public debate and reform actions helping political parties to develop.

Political parties researched: Alliance for Democracy; All Nigeria Peoples Party; All Progressives Grand Alliance; and Peoples Democratic Party.

Methodology

Nigeria currently has 33 registered political parties. Some 24 of them were registered just before the 2003 elections, while three were registered in February 2006 after the completion of the research. Most of them are very small and have little impact on the political process. The four parties chosen for this report were selected because they won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the 2003 elections. The desk study phase on the country context and external regulation of political parties drew on an analysis of the country’s constitution and laws, as well as published sources. Unpublished materials—such as party documents, newspaper reports and mimeographs—were also consulted.

Interviews were held with paid, full-time party officials at the party secretariats. The interview process on the internal functioning of the political parties was difficult and time-consuming, since all four parties underwent periods of internal crisis during the research period. Indeed, some of the party offices were closed and under police protection, or were occupied by one faction of the party. The situation improved by April 2005, however, and it was then possible to administer the questionnaires with the help of party staff at their secretariats.

Background

Nigeria is a federation of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. It has a presidential system of government with an executive President, a judiciary and a bicameral National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives) whose members are elected. Political crisis during the First Republic led to intervention by the armed forces and a civil war between 1967 and 1970. It also led to 30 years of military rule, except for the four-year period between 1979 and 1983. In 1999, the military government organized general elections and President Olusegun Obasanjo thereafter took office.

The last general elections were in April 2003. The next are scheduled for 2007, because those elected at the state and federal levels have a four-year tenure, with a maximum of two terms for the executive. The human rights situation has improved relative to the period of military rule, but there are still several human rights violations. The population lives in profound poverty, largely due to mismanagement of the economy and widespread corruption. In Transparency International’s last report, Nigeria was ranked sixth from last on the organization’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

The ruling party is the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), whose winner-takes-all outlook, coupled to the authoritarian tendencies of incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo, pose a threat to the country’s democracy. Stability is also threatened by communal clashes, as well as violent insurgencies in many parts of the country.

Nigeria’s first general elections were held in 1960 when the British colonial authorities were preparing to hand over power to a local political leadership under the parliamentary system of government. The second general elections in 1964 were marked by boycotts in many areas. This led to the end of the First Republic in January 1966 and a military takeover of power. The armed forces ceded power to civilians in 1979 under the leadership of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Widespread electoral irregularities and other malpractices, however, were decried by opposition parties, as well as by civil society following the 1983 elections. This led to another military takeover in December 1983.

The military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida organised elections in 1992. The elections were inconclusive, however, because the result of the presidential election was annulled just before the vote-counting was completed. A new election was held by General Sani Abacha in 1997, but these too were inconclusive. General Abdulsami Abubakar, who succeeded Sani Abacha, organised the elections that brought the present incumbent, President Obasanjo, into power. President Obasanjo presided over the last general elections in April 2003. Both elections have been generally acknowledged by the opposition parties, civil society, and local and international observers as beset by large-scale irregularities.

During the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), an eight-year transition programme began. General Babangida went further than the earlier regime in the regulation of political parties, decreeing that only two political parties would be registered. He instructed politicians to choose one of these parties as the platform for the attainment of their political ambitions. His government also wrote the parties’ constitutions, funded them and built offices for them throughout the country.

General Sani Abacha, who succeeded Babangida, registered five political parties. Remarkably, he induced all five parties to adopt him as their sole presidential candidate, but he died shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by General Abdulsalami, who registered three political parties and organized general elections that led to the election of General Obasanjo in 1999.

On the Freedom House World Country Ratings, Nigeria is classified as partly free in terms of political rights and civil liberties. This rating has been unchanged for the past five years.

Regulatory framework

Sections 221-229 of the 1999 constitution make elaborate provision for the registration, functioning, conduct and finances of political parties setting difficult conditions for the registration of political parties. As a result, only three parties were registered to contest the 1999 elections. This was partly because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the country’s election management body, imposed conditions for registration that were more stringent than the provisions of the constitution. The Electoral Act was later amended and the procedure for registering parties was liberalised somewhat. Nonetheless, Nigeria retains a very illiberal regulatory regime for the registration and functioning of political parties.

The effect of these conditions is that parties that emerge must be very big, very rich and have the capacity to bring together money-wielding forces from different parts of the country. In effect, the major factor in party formation is not the aggregation of people with similar ideologies or interests but the establishment of ethnic coalitions led by regional barons with strong financial backing.

Internal functioning and structure

Election of leadership

The most important aspect of the parties’ internal functioning is that the regulatory framework outlined above tends to give rise to a situation in which political ‘godfathers’ play a major role in internal party politics. Parties have formal procedures for the election of their leaders but these procedures are often disregarded; when they are adhered to, the godfathers have means of determining the outcomes.

At the party congresses, leaders are elected and candidates are nominated for elective positions. The elections, however, are usually pre-determined and party bosses tend to have the final say in the selection of leaders. This process leads to the continual internal party crisis that the country has experienced. Party bosses or godfathers are unwilling to allow internal party democracy, a circumstance that leads to frequent conflicts and constrains the development of parties as popular organizations. Indeed, over the years these party bosses have developed comprehensive techniques for eliminating popular aspirants from party posts and for preventing them from being nominated for elective positions.

Techniques for the elimination of popular aspirants

Nigerian parties have a wide range of techniques to eliminate people from party primaries, including the use of power by powerful ‘party owners’, party barons, state governors, godfathers and so on; zoning and other forms of administrative fiat; violence by thugs or security personnel; bribing of officials and voters to support particular candidates; and simply disregard for the results declaring the loser as the winner

Policy development

Given this history, policy development tends to be disarticulated from policy implementation. While formal party structures such as the National Conventions and the National Executive Council have responsibility for policy formulation, the policies that get implemented in practice tend to reflect the desires of godfathers rather than formal party organs. Given this context, Nigerian party life is characterised by a very low level of debate on policy options and by members that are only active during election periods. There is urgent need for Nigerian parties to prioritise the issue of policy development.

Funding

Parties are partly funded by the state. The regulatory framework requires that parties prepare regular audited financial reports. Most party funds, however, come through party financiers and the details of these sums rarely enter the formal process of party accounts. Indeed, the role of money in contemporary Nigerian politics is so overwhelming that it tends to supersede other considerations. Precisely for this reason, the country’s political parties provide only very limited opportunities for marginalised individuals—youths, the poor and women.

Marginalization of women in politics

The marginalisation of women from political power in Nigeria’s patriarchal political system dates back to the colonial era, and women were not allowed to vote in Northern Nigeria until 1976. This marginalization has continued into the Fourth Republic. Of the 11,881 electable positions available during the 1999 elections, only 631 women were in contention. Only 181 of them won (a mere 1.62 per cent of the total positions).

Following the political party primaries for candidates in the 2003 elections, it became evident that the elimination of women through a well-orchestrated process of manipulating the outcome of most primaries was virtually party policy across the board. Indeed, the primaries were a charade because most popular candidates—female and male—were eliminated by party barons and replaced by other candidates who enjoyed the support of state and party executives. Studies of 15 female political aspirants reveal the following means of marginalizing women.

The indigeneity ploy

The 1979 constitution introduced the concept of ‘indigeneity’ into Nigerian public law to guarantee a fair regional distribution of power. Over the years, the principle has been subverted to discriminate against Nigerian citizens who are not indigenous to the places where they live and work. Women married to men who are non-indigenes of their local governments suffer discrimination. In their own constituencies, they are told that by marrying out, they have lost their indigeneity. In their husband’s constituency, they are told they do not really belong because indigeneity is based on the consanguinity principle.

Challenges and opportunities

Nigerian political parties were conceived to be cohesive, national bourgeois parties. Nonetheless, the aim or political project of most Nigerian parties has been the development of a national system for sharing out the ‘national cake’ as a system of patronage. This is why the parties are established as coalitions of various factions of regional and economic rent-seekers. Most party leaders see their political party activity as a means to further their business interests.

Nigerian political parties face two challenges. First, an extremely high level of corruption has made politics a competitive business. Second, the regulatory framework for the establishment of parties should to be changed so that new parties do not have to forge coalitions of the wealthy as a basis for their registration.

About International IDEA

Founded in 1995, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) is an intergovernmental organisation that seeks to promote and develop sustainable democracy world-wide.

About CDD

The Centre for Democracy and Development is a non-governmental organisation which aims to promote the values of democracy, peace & human rights in Africa and especially in the West African sub-region.

The full report is available at the link shown.

*Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, is Principal Researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Development; Fabian Okoye and Tom Adambara are Research Assistants at Global Rights.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
FULL REPORT.


Nigeria

Country Report based on Research and Dialogue with Political Parties
About this report:

Political parties are indispensable for making democracy work and deliver. Finding the proper conditions for better internal functioning and effective legal regulation of political parties is of key importance anywhere.

This report is a result of world-wide research and dialogue with political parties. Together with national and regional research partners, International IDEA is improving insight and comparative knowledge. The purpose is to provide for constructive public debate and reform actions helping political parties to develop.

For more about the Political Parties’ programme, please visit www.idea.int/parties

Country researchers:
Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, Centre for Democracy and Development (Principal Researcher); Fabian Okoye and Tom Adambara, Global Rights (Research Assistants).
Partner Organization:
Centre for Democracy and Development, Global Rights
IDEA Research coordinator:
Per Nordlund
Research Period:
November 2004 to May 2005. Questionnaires were administered in April and May 2005.

Political parties researched:
Alliance for Democracy;
All Nigeria Peoples Party;
All Progressives Grand Alliance; and
Peoples Democratic Party.

© International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance 2006

International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of IDEA, its Board, its Council members or other organizations involved in its production.

Printouts of this document for individual use are allowed without special permission from IDEA. For reproduction or translation of any part of this publication a request should be made to:

Publications Office International IDEA SE -103 34 Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: publications@idea.int


Methodology

Nigeria currently has 33 registered political parties. Some 24 of them were registered just before the 2003 elections, while three were registered in February 2006 after the completion of the research. Most of them are very small and have little impact on the political process. The four parties chosen for this report were selected because they won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the 2003 elections. The desk study phase on the country context and external regulation of political parties drew on an analysis of the country’s constitution and laws, as well as published sources. Unpublished materials—such as party documents, newspaper reports and mimeographs—were also consulted.

Interviews were held with paid, full-time party officials at the party secretariats. The interview process on the internal functioning of the political parties was difficult and time-consuming, since all four parties underwent periods of internal crisis during the research period. Indeed, some of the party offices were closed and under police protection, or were occupied by one faction of the party. The situation improved by April 2005, however, and it was then possible to administer the questionnaires with the help of party staff at their secretariats.

Background

Nigeria is a federation of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. It has a presidential system of government with an executive President, a judiciary and a bicameral National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives) whose members are elected. Political crisis during the First Republic led to intervention by the armed forces and a civil war between 1967 and 1970. It also led to 30 years of military rule, except for the four-year period between 1979 and 1983. In 1999, the military government organized general elections and President Olusegun Obasanjo thereafter took office.

The last general elections were in April 2003. The next are scheduled for 2007, because those elected at the state and federal levels have a four-year tenure, with a maximum of two terms for the executive. The human rights situation has improved relative to the period of military rule, but there are still several human rights violations. The population lives in profound poverty, largely due to mismanagement of the economy and widespread corruption. In Transparency International’s last report, Nigeria was ranked sixth from last on the organization’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

The ruling party is the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), whose winner-takes-all outlook, coupled to the authoritarian tendencies of incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo, pose a threat to the country’s democracy. Stability is also threatened by communal clashes, as well as violent insurgencies in many parts of the country.

Nigeria’s first general elections were held in 1960 when the British colonial authorities were preparing to hand over power to a local political leadership under the parliamentary system of government. The dominant political parties then were the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Action Group (AG); there were also other opposition parties.

The second general elections in 1964 were marked by boycotts in many areas. This led to the end of the First Republic in January 1966 and a military takeover of power. The armed forces ceded power to civilians in 1979 under the leadership of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Widespread electoral irregularities and other malpractices, however, were decried by opposition parties such as the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the Nigerian Peoples Party, the Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP), the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and later the Nigeria Advanced Party (NAP), as well as by civil society following the 1983 elections. This led to another military takeover in December 1983.

The military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida organized elections in 1992. The elections were inconclusive, however, because the result of the presidential election was annulled just before the vote-counting was completed. A new election was held by General Sani Abacha in 1997, but these too were inconclusive. General Abdulsami Abubakar, who succeeded Sani Abacha, organized the elections that brought the present incumbent, President Obasanjo, into power. President Obasanjo presided over the last general elections in April 2003. Both elections have been generally acknowledged by the opposition parties, civil society, and local and international observers as beset by large-scale irregularities.

In the First Republic, individuals and/or associations were free to come together to form political parties without restrictions, and many political parties were then active. By 1979, during the second republic, the departing military regime changed this convention by insisting that only political parties registered by the state’s election management body could contest elections. The argument was that political parties under the First Republic were ethnic pressure groups whose activities divided the country. It was therefore decided that parties must not henceforth be formed on the basis of ethnic support. The regime also decried the use of religion in politics and decided to set guidelines for the formation and registration of political parties, with a view to promoting national unity. The guidelines included registering the names of officials, open membership, non-sectarian names and logos, situating the party headquarters in the federal capital and establishing party branches in at least two thirds of Nigeria’s states. Consequently, at the end of the exercise, only five of 59 associations that submitted applications for registration were actually registered; the NPN, the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), the GNPP, the UPN and the PRP. Four years later, the NAP was added.

During the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), an eight-year transition programme began. General Babangida went further than the earlier regime in the regulation of political parties, decreeing that only two political parties—the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Party (NRC)—would be registered. He instructed politicians to choose one of these parties as the platform for the attainment of their political ambitions. His government also wrote the parties’ constitutions, funded them and built offices for them throughout the country.

General Sani Abacha, who succeeded Babangida, registered five political parties. Remarkably, he induced all five parties to adopt him as their sole presidential candidate, but he died shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by General Abdulsalami, who registered three political parties and organized general elections that led to the election of General Obasanjo in 1999.

On the Freedom House World Country Ratings, Nigeria is classified as partly free in terms of political rights and civil liberties. This rating has been unchanged for the past five years.

Regulatory framework

Sections 221-229 of the 1999 constitution make elaborate provision for the registration, functioning, conduct and finances of political parties. These stipulations are mainly patterned on the provisions of the 1979 constitution, which set difficult conditions for the registration of political parties. As a result, only three parties were registered to contest the 1999 elections. This was partly because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the country’s election management body, imposed conditions for registration that were more stringent than the provisions of the constitution. That decision was challenged judicially by those parties that were seeking to register in 2003 but whose registration was being denied by INEC. The case went to the Supreme Court and INEC was overruled. The Electoral Act was later amended and the procedure for registering parties was liberalized somewhat.

Nonetheless, Nigeria retains a very illiberal regulatory regime for the registration and functioning of political parties. Section 222 of the constitution restricts the definition of a political party to organizations registered by INEC under the stringent conditions stipulated by Sections 221-229. Section 229 defines a political party as ‘any association whose activities include canvassing for votes in support of a candidate for election to the office of President, Vice-President, Governor, Deputy Governor or membership of a legislative house or of a local government council’. This is a very narrow definition that reduces the essence of political parties to canvassing for votes.

Section 222 of the constitution specifies the conditions under which an association can function as a political party. It states that no association by whatever name called shall function as a political party unless:

• the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with INEC;
• the membership of the association is open to all citizens of Nigeria irrespective of their place of origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion or ethnic grouping;
• a copy of its constitution is registered in the main office of INEC in such form as may be prescribed by INEC;
• any alteration in its registered constitution is also registered in the main office of INEC within 30 days of the alteration being made;
• the name of the association, its symbol or logo does not contain any ethnic or religious connotation or give the appearance that the activities of the association are confined to only a part of the national territory;
• the headquarters of the association is situated in Abuja; and
• the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with INEC.

The effect of these conditions is that parties that emerge must be very big, very rich and have the capacity to bring together money-wielding forces from different parts of the country. In effect, the major factor in party formation is not the aggregation of people with similar ideologies or interests but the establishment of ethnic coalitions led by regional barons with strong financial backing.

Internal functioning and structure

Election of leadership

The most important aspect of the parties’ internal functioning is that the regulatory framework outlined above tends to give rise to a situation in which political ‘godfathers’ play a major role in internal party politics. Parties have formal procedures for the election of their leaders but these procedures are often disregarded; when they are adhered to, the godfathers have means of determining the outcomes.

INEC and the Independent State Electoral Commissions have powers under the Electoral Act 2002 to be present as observers at the parties’ conventions, congresses, conferences or meetings. Section 75 of the Electoral Act provides that:

• Every registered party shall give the Commission at least 21 days notice of any convention, congress, conference or meeting convened for the purpose of electing members of its executive committees, other governing bodies or nominating candidates for any of the elective offices specified under the Act.
• The Commission may, with or without prior notice to the party, monitor and attend any convention, congress, conference or meeting convened by a party for the purpose of (i) electing members of its executive committees or other governing bodies; (ii) nominating candidates for an election at any level; or (iii) approving a merger with another registered party.

At the party congresses, leaders are elected and candidates are nominated for elective positions. The elections, however, are usually pre-determined and party bosses tend to have the final say in the selection of leaders. This process leads to the continual internal party crisis that the country has experienced. Party bosses or godfathers are unwilling to allow internal party democracy, a circumstance that leads to frequent conflicts and constrains the development of parties as popular organizations. Indeed, over the years these party bosses have developed comprehensive techniques for eliminating popular aspirants from party posts and for preventing them from being nominated for elective positions.

Techniques for the elimination of popular aspirants

Nigerian parties have a wide range of techniques to eliminate people from party primaries, including:

• A declaration by powerful ‘party owners’, party barons, state governors, godfathers and so on that those entitled to vote must support one candidate and other aspirants must withdraw. Since these people are very powerful and feared in their communities, their declarations carry much weight.
• Zoning and other forms of administrative fiat are used to exclude unwanted aspirants simply by taking the party zone out of the seat or position in question to an area where the aspirant being excluded is not indigenous.
• Aspirants who oppose the godfathers’ candidates are often subject to violence by thugs or security personnel.
• Money, a significant factor in party primaries, is used to bribe officials and to induce voters to support particular candidates. Since the godfather generally has more money than the ‘independent’ aspirants trying to gain access, many are eliminated because they simply cannot match their opponents’ spending.
• One disturbing technique is what Nigerians call ‘results by declaration’, whereby an aspirant wins a nomination or election, but polling officials simply disregard the results and declare the loser as the winner.

Policy development

Given this history, policy development tends to be disarticulated from policy implementation. While formal party structures such as the National Conventions and the National Executive Council have responsibility for policy formulation, the policies that get implemented in practice tend to reflect the desires of godfathers rather than formal party organs. Given this context, Nigerian party life is characterised by a very low level of debate on policy options. There is urgent need for Nigerian parties to prioritise the issue of policy development. Unfortunately, the arsenal of sophisticated techniques for the elimination of candidates from democratic party arenas means that democratizing the parties’ internal processes poses a huge challenge for party reform.

Membership

All the parties indicated that their members are active only during elections. In non-election periods there are very few activities that concern the membership, and thus the opportunity to consult members on policy issues hardly arises. Party membership is male-dominated and very few women manage to become active in party affairs.

Funding

Parties are partly funded by the state. The regulatory framework requires that parties prepare regular audited financial reports. Most party funds, however, come through party financiers and the details of these sums rarely enter the formal process of party accounts. Indeed, the role of money in contemporary Nigerian politics is so overwhelming that it tends to supersede other considerations. Precisely for this reason, the country’s political parties provide only very limited opportunities for marginalized individuals—youths, the poor and women..

Marginalization of women in politics

Women are marginalized from political power. According to the Declaration of the Summit of All Women Politicians in Nigeria, held in Abuja on 28 June 2002, the ‘women of Nigeria have noticed with utter dismay the almost complete deterioration of our political and social values, born out of more than three decades of continued male-dominated and -oriented misrule. The obvious conclusion is that enough is enough; the time for positive change has arrived … The systematic entrenchment of practices aimed at the continued marginalization of women in the political process must stop.’1

The marginalization of women in Nigeria’s patriarchal political system is not new. It dates back to the colonial era, and women were not allowed to vote in Northern Nigeria until 1976. This marginalization has continued into the Fourth Republic. Of the 11,881 electable positions available during the 1999 elections, only 631 women were in contention. Only 181 of them won (a mere 1.62 per cent of the total positions).

Table 1. Number of Women Elected in the 1999 and 2003 Elections
Office
No. available
No. in 1999
No. in 2003


% (2003)
President
1
0
0
0
Vice-President
1
0
0
0
Senate
109
3
3
2.80
House of Representatives
360
12
21
5.80
Governors
36
0
0
0
Deputy Governors
36
1
2
5.60
State House of Assembly-Speakers
36
1
2
5.60
State House of Assembly
990
12
23

Cabinet Ministers
34
4 (of 49)
6
17.65

Source: Habiba M. Lawal Overview of Political Participation of Women in Nigeria: Challenges, Triumphs, and the Way Forward. Paper for IRI, 30 March 2004, p. 12.

Conscious of the need for change, many gender activists and civil society organizations in Nigeria have organized programs of advocacy, training and research on affirmative action for women leaders in political parties. They have succeeded in encouraging a significant number of women to compete for political office in an effort to ensure that women, in line with Nigeria’s National Policy on Women, occupy at least 30 per cent of all appointed and elected posts.

Following the political party primaries for candidates in the 2003 elections, it became evident that the elimination of women through a well-orchestrated process of manipulating the outcome of most primaries was virtually party policy across the board. Most of the women that sought to compete in the primaries were eliminated, although the parties had previously promised that many female aspirants would be encouraged and supported in their search for nominations. Indeed, the primaries were a charade because most popular candidates—female and male—were eliminated by party barons and replaced by other candidates who enjoyed the support of state and party executives. Studies of 15 female political aspirants reveal the following means of marginalizing women.2

Labelling as a strategy of exclusion: subverting affirmative action

In general, party officials refused to take the candidacies of female aspirants seriously. Ironically, one of their main reasons was the affirmative action policy adopted by some parties, which waived nomination fees for female aspirants. In most constituencies, party executives set out to portray women as having insufficient commitment to the party. Local party barons repeatedly argued that by convincing the national executives to waive nomination fees, women had demonstrated a lack of commitment to party development. It was said that male candidates are more committed because they made their financial contributions willingly.

Labelling women aspirants as cultural deviants

A second labelling strategy to exclude women concerns ‘cultural deviancy’. The argument is that Nigerian culture does not accept assertive, or public, or leadership roles for women. Concerted campaigns portraying female aspirants as acting in contravention of their culture were designed to marginalize them. Many party officials made overt or covert statements that some female aspirants are too assertive and independent, and therefore cannot be team players.

The politics of invective: undermining the moral standing of female aspirants

Closely associated with negative labelling is the use of invective—that is, abusive language to demoralize and delegitimize female aspirants. Many of them were subject to smear campaigns centred on their alleged loose moral standing, and some were insulted directly.

The indigeneity ploy

The 1979 constitution introduced the concept of ‘indigeneity’ into Nigerian public law to guarantee a fair regional distribution of power. Over the years, the principle has been subverted to discriminate against Nigerian citizens who are not indigenous to the places where they live and work. Women married to men who are non-indigenes of their local governments suffer discrimination. In their own constituencies, they are told that by marrying out, they have lost their indigeneity. In their husband’s constituency, they are told they do not really belong because indigeneity is based on the consanguinity principle.

Challenges and opportunities

Nigerian political parties were conceived to be cohesive, national bourgeois parties. Nonetheless, the aim or political project of most Nigerian parties has been the development of a national system for sharing out the ‘national cake’ as a system of patronage. This is why the parties are established as coalitions of various factions of regional and economic rent-seekers. Most party leaders see their political party activity as a means to further their business interests.

In his analysis of the American political system, Max Weber showed that the emergence of the party machine led to the development of a spoils system, whereby politics became a business in which entrepreneurs invest so as to obtain material profit by distributing patronage, while clients also vote for state resources. In a sense, Nigerian political parties are the highest form of development of this process.

Nigerian political parties face two challenges. First, an extremely high level of corruption has made politics a competitive business. Second, the regulatory framework for the establishment of parties should to be changed so that new parties do not have to forge coalitions of the wealthy as a basis for their registration.


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About International IDEA

Founded in 1995, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote and develop sustainable democracy world-wide. For information about IDEA, its work and publications, please visit www.idea.int

International IDEA
Strömsborg SE-103 34 Stockholm Sweden
Tel: +46-8-698 37 00 Fax: +46-8-20 24 22 E-mail: info@idea.int Website: www.idea.int

About CDD

The Centre for Democracy and Development is a non-governmental organisation which aims to promote the values of democracy, peace & human rights in Africa and especially in the West African sub-region.

CDD
West Africa Regional Office 30 Lingu Crescent off Aminu Kano Crescent Wuse II, Abuja Nigeria Tel: +234 (0)9 523 1270 Tel: +234 (0)9 671 6454 Fax: +234 (0)9 523 1266 E-mail: cddabv@cddnig.org

Notes

1 Declaration at the National Summit for All Women Politicians held in Abuja on 28 June 2002 by Global Rights, in collaboration with Centre for Population and Development Activities (CEDPA) and Gender and Development Action (GADA).

2 For details, see Ibrahim and Salihu (2004).

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The Failure of East Timor: what to avoid in Ivory Coast

2006-07-10

Juan Federer

Ivory Coast, a failing state in West Africa, is a formerly wealthy country is in urgent need of increased attention by the international community. The state is collapsing under the weight of a protracted rebellion that controls half its territory, sharpening ethnic differences, and leading to a dramatic decay in the quality of life of the population. The insufficient international peacekeeping presence prevents a full-scale civil war erupting, without however allowing a return to peace. This no-war no-peace situation also threatens the stability of the whole West African region. But there are lessons to be learned from the experience of East Timor.


East Timor, where the UN created the fragile state of Timor Leste barely four years ago, has once again made tragic media headlines. Despite its smallness, it is once more illustrating an important shortcoming in international politics, and as such captures top world media attention. The current chaos and the collapse of government authority clearly prove that the past nation-building efforts of the international community were insufficient to create a viable independent state in East Timor. The granting of independence after a brief 30 months of UN temporary administration, meant to create a modern state, was premature. The country had suffered too much under the 25 year brutal Indonesian occupation that followed its colonial experience under Portugal, a master that had done little to prepare it for independence. The fragility of the UN state building job has been clearly revealed by the tragic events of recent days, as the country fractures along several lines. The dramatic appeal of its governing authorities for international assistance to restore basic law and order shows that the Timor Leste state has failed and that its ‘sovereignty’ is illusory. The costs of this failure in terms of human suffering for the Timorese population and of instability for its geographic region in South East Asia and the South Pacific are considerable. The expenses that countries contributing to the restoration of order in Timor Leste have, and will have, to bear are also significant.

Despite the past intense publicity aimed at portraying the UN state building efforts in East Timor as successful, we now see that this was not so. It may be tempting to blame “the UN” for this failure, as it has become fashionable to do when the organisation is unable to do magic in the field of peace keeping. Or it may be tempting to blame the Timor Leste authorities for their poor governance capabilities. In my view, none of these would be just. Instead, I feel that we should use the East Timor example to examine some underlying principles that govern our contemporary world affairs, and draw lessons that would be helpful to deal properly with other failing state situations. There are, after all, several such cases at present. They represent still unresolved and burdensome legacies of 20th century colonialism which continue having a serious negative impact on world peace.

As follows from the argument of my book on the subject, the failure of Timor Leste is no surprise. Together with many others, I anticipated it. The East Timorese people suffered from the unwillingness of key UN member states to commit the necessary resources to the lengthy process of state building to prepare the country - over which the UN held sovereignty- for viable independent statehood. Instead, to cut expenses, they pressed for a speedy withdrawal and the granting of a premature independence. Those locals in East Timor keen to become the new power elite eagerly encouraged this irresponsibility.

Having been so strongly geared to the dismantling of colonial empires in the past, the UN members never made the organisation pay much attention to developing a capacity to prepare colonial territories or failing post-colonial weak states for successful independent statehood. It is encouraging to note that now, may be partly as a result of the recent East Timor experience, the UN is setting up a Peace Building Commission (PBC), aimed at strengthening weak states so as to become viable in post-conflict phases. Hopefully key UN member states will muster the necessary political will to endow the PBC with adequate resources to handle this difficult and lengthy task properly instead of just cosmetically. Strengthening of fragile states is crucial for peace, to advance democracy and prosperity. But it is a long process which requires a significant investment. The returns of this outlay are well-worth it. As Timor Leste has just shown us, skimping on state building is not.

Timor Leste would benefit from a strong state building support through the PBC or by some other competent international agency. This will be the only way to ensure that a viable state is eventually put in place in East Timor. The benefits for its population and for the stability of its entire geographic region would be significant. Even if they have to pay for such state building, the longer term savings for its neighbours are considerable. Being called in to keep the peace, as Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia are doing at present is, after all, very expensive.

But Timor Leste is not an isolated case. There are many failing post-colonial state examples crying out for strong international support to restore peace and strengthen state institutions. The PBC will not be short of work if its principals among the UN membership allow it to take on these needy clients.

Ivory Coast, a failing state in West Africa, is one particular example which I mention since I am currently involved with it. This formerly wealthy country is in urgent need of increased attention by the international community. The state is collapsing under the weight of a protracted rebellion that controls half its territory, sharpening ethnic differences, and leading to a dramatic decay in the quality of life of the population. The insufficient international peacekeeping presence prevents a full-scale civil war erupting, without however allowing a return to peace. This no-war no-peace situation also threatens the stability of the whole West African region.

In the view of many of its people, including that of the Ivorian civil society organisations I am currently advising, what Ivory Coast urgently needs is a stronger commitment by the international community to empower the UN to undertake a peace-enforcement action to end the rebellion and restore government authority. Once this is achieved, a strong peace building and state strengthening program, possibly through the UN Peace Building Commission, would be appropriate. During this time, an UN-supported transitional government should conduct intensive reconciliation and civic education activities to restore national unity. The severely damaged state institutions would need to be repaired and their administrative and professional capacity strengthened. Only after the accomplishment of all this would the holding of elections for a new government be meaningful and lead to sustainable peace.

Our big question at present, which is in urgent need of an answer, is whether lessons such as those that have been provided to us by the tragic East Timor experiences have been learned by the international community? Is the political will to empower the UN to do a proper state building job in failing post colonial states going to emerge at last? This negative legacy of 20th century colonialism will not be resolved by continuing to pretend that the UN can perform magic in this field without being provided the means to strengthen fragile states. It is high time for the international community to face this reality and to master the political will to act. The birth of the UN Peace Building Commission is the perfect time to do so. The Ivory Coast is an excellent field in which to apply the lessons that East Timor has taught us. Will it be done this time around?

* Dr. Juan Federer had a long involvement in the liberation process of East Timor. He now is Projects Director of the Center for War/Peace Studies of New York (www.cwps.org). His book The UN in East Timor: building Timor Leste a fragile state (Charles Darwin University Press, 2005) decries the lack of sufficient commitment by the international community for proper state building in East Timor, anticipating the recent crisis.

The French version of this article first appeared in Pambazuka News French Edition No 9 (http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/comment/35730)

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

What's a Nkrumahist doing at a Busia memoriam?

2006-07-13

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

Attending a memoriam for Ghana's Dr Busia, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem describes his reactions to the speech made by Akwais Aidoo, Director of the newly founded TrustAfrica Foundation. There is a need, he suggests, for us to engage - and engage seriously - with our political opponents, rather than merely reacting to them - we may find we are holding both ends of the same stick. Sectarianism has caused too much division in the Pan African movement, and much of it based more on prejudice than a clear understanding of the actual differences - which is needed if we are to influence others holding different political positions to our own.


Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is my favourite city on the west coast of Africa. It is peaceful, fairly well-planned, though it is rapidly growing into a mega city with all the attendant problems of pollution, insufficient infrastructure, extreme poverty amidst riches, slums, etc. It is also badly copying Lagos in ‘go slow’ (traffic hold-ups) on the major roads but thankfully not up to the manic levels yet.

There is also the general friendliness of Ghanaians and Pan Africanist awareness. To many people the obvious pull of Ghana as a whole is because it gave us Kwame Nkrumah. You cannot walk around Accra without feeling the proud heritage of Pan Africanism and the high hopes and dreams that once bestrode this country that blazed the trail of popular struggles for independence. Not only Pan Africanist heroes /heroines and cities are so honoured other icons of Third World struggles like Gandhi, Nehru, Sukano, Ho chi Mi, Castro, etc have streets named after them. Civil rights figures like WEB Du Bois, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Junior, are all represented in this city of Circles and Statutes.

For those of us who are unashamedly Nkrumahist, Ghana will always mean Nkrumah and vice versa. It also means that, either consciously or unconsciously, we make political choices either for or against political figures and parties in Ghana based upon our loyalty to the Osagyefo. In the pantheons of our hate figures in Ghanaian politics Dr Kofi Busia, a political rival and opponent of Kwame Nkrumah is probably top of the infamous club. The mere mention of his name to many Pan Africanists of the Nkrumahist tradition invites many unprintable reactions. The death of both men many years ago has not diminished the political hostility between their supporters.

Fifty years since Ghana’s independence and more than 6 decades since the political lines were drawn in the epic struggles for independence, several regimes down the line including two failed revolutionary attempts, prolonged military rule and now an increasingly confident democratizing environment, Ghana politics is still very much polarised between the BUSIA-DANQUA group and the ever fractious and sectarian broad Nkrumahist tradition. Not even 20 years of JJ Rawlings’ rule both in its brutal first ten years and authoritarian reluctant democrat of the second decade has changed this division. Broadly even his regime is seen (at least by the Busia-Danquah people) as part of the Left/Nkrumah family not withstanding the fact that at a personal level the Man either hated or is hostile to Nkrumah.

Nowhere is the saying: 'never say never' more applicable than in politics. I could not imagine myself attending a political memoriam for Dr Busia despite my tenuous link to him academically through St Peter’s College Oxford of which he remains the most famous Alumni. It became stranger still that I should be attending such an event under the auspices of the Busia Foundation. Yet on Monday 10 July at the British Council Auditorium in Accra I went to listen to the 3rd Annual Memorial Lecture in honoor of Dr Busia organized by The Busia Foundation set up by his aged widow. I have nothing against the family personally. Prof Abena Busia, who is co-chair of the foundation, is a sister I know and respect hugely and her cousin, Nana Busia, is a fellow Pan Africanist soldier. The problem is just inherited political prejudice. What really persuaded me to go was the Guest Lecturer, a senior comrade (even if his perpetual youthful face does not indicate he has become a Mzee too) and Pan Africanist of the same Nkrumahist orientation, Dr Akwasi Aidoo, the Director of the newly launched TRUST AFRICA Foundation. I had to take a second look at the advert when I first saw it in the papers on the morning of the event. Like other Nkrumahists (admittedly few), I later met at the talk I wondered what Akwasi will say about Busia in such a public space that is so tied up to a man we grew to loathe politically? Indeed I felt like a gate crasher at the event.

However I was glad I went. The Lecture was very measured, carefully crafted and calibrated. He began by identifying why we needed to hear about Busia and other leaders who made great contribution to cause of liberating our peoples. One, we did not know the man beyond the prism of those who opposed him because he was a political opponent of Nkrumah and those who lionized him because of that. Two, there is a benign if not a calculated political and intellectual neglect of the man. Three, reaction to Busia was often based on political prejudices without due recognition given to him first and foremost as a credible intellectual who took himself seriously, researched and wrote voraciously addressing what he considered challenges of his time. In particular the man regarded education as key to ending poverty, bringing prosperity and modernizing the society. Finally Akwasi, for the first time, even to the Busia family with whom he has been close for many years, acknowledged his personal debt to Busia who had paid part of his school fees purely out of a chance meeting with the Young Akwasi in his home village. The family was to discover later at his funeral the many people whom Dr Busia had personally helped on the ladder of self-reliance and achievements through education.

Akwasi then sought and succeeded in many ways to take the audience on a journey to meet and get to know Dr Busia. He did not hide his political position and did not shy away from mentioning Busia's controversialist politics be it the aliens compliance act or the devaluation of the Cede, and mother of all, promotion of dialogue with apartheid South Africa, etc. But they were done in measured tones. There was a stage I felt he was being too accommodating but I stayed much longer than I thought I would and learnt to unlearn some of my prejudices about the man. The lecture did begin a necessary interrogation and engagement with our lived political experience that is not just about Busia or Ghana. It goes to the heart of the biggest challenge facing Africa today as we struggle to create a society in which the majority of our peoples are not victims but agents of change and a leadership that is organically linked to serve them and not just rule over them. When we look at the nationalist elite regardless of where they were politically whether as presidents or opposition leaders they took themselves seriously, tried to understand their society, study it and proffer solutions. They were both intellectually and politically much more in charge then than now.

How many of our leaders today, whether holed up in State houses or hankering after same in opposition, can we say are applying themselves both intellectually and politically to the challenges we face? It is not just that they are not thinking but they actively discourage original thinking. Thinking has been contracted out to 'experts' often meaning non-Africans while development is delegated to humanitarian agencies whose stocks rise with every disaster we suffer.

The other lesson I took away from Akwasi’s lecture is the need to engage and engage seriously with even our political opponents, read them and understand why and what we disagree about. Sometimes we may just be holding different ends of the same stick. You will be surprised how much you share with your opponents if you only learn to listen, persuade instead of trying to convert but above all have the humility and the intellectual and political integrity to accept that your opponent may sometimes be right. Politics should be an art of the possible and the possibilities include those who may not agree with us.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tribute to Issa Shivji on his retirement from University of Dar es Salaam (1)

2006-07-12

Willy Mutunga

I can write a book on Issa's contributions in various fields he has undertaken. For now, I need to remind all movements that seek to liberate Africa of two of his contributions that are, perhaps, not so obvious: 1) I do not know of any other African revolutionary who, after the so-called collapse of socialism and communism, unwaveringly gave intellectual leadership in support of the revolutionary paradigms that imperialism, through its ideological, intellectual, economic, social, cultural and political engines, sought to bury with the rubble of the Berlin wall; 2) As a Tanzanian, East African and African, Issa has defended Mwalimu's great legacy courageously and consistently.

Tribute to Issa Shivji on his retirement from University of Dar es Salaam (2)

2006-07-12

Kaori Izumi

My first meeting with Issa Shivji was his book “Silent Class Struggle in Tanzania!, when I was a student of Africa studies in Tokyo, studying African Socialism. I later met him at the University of Dar es Salaam for several occasions during my Ph.D study on the economic liberalisation and the land question in Tanzania. Prof. Shivji was then appointed as the Chairman of the Land Commission in Tanzania. Many of us wondered why him? I remember that I had stimulating discussions on land issues with him at his office in the Land Commission and at his home. I had closely followed the work of the Land Commission, and then a surprise came that a new land policy drafted by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land Policy was released.

Recently, it was a happy surprise for me to meet Issa Shivji in Pumbazuka news in my office in Harare. His articles on globalisation and liberalisation reminded me of him from old days. This does not mean that Shivji’s thoughts have been stagnating without progress since 1970s. The world surrounding us has greatly changed and so did many of our colleagues around us and ourselves. But Shivji is the Shivji I know. His writings are refreshing than ever. It was as if he was fighting a lonely struggle, but the fact that many people will be celebrating the publication of his new book means that this is not the case.

I congratulate for his past work and his new book, and I will be waiting for his next work.

Chachage Seithy Loth Chachage

2006-07-12

Firoze Manji

Pambazuka News is deeply saddened to learn of the untimely death of Chachage S.L. Chachage. Africa has lost a comrade and fighter for freedom, someone who has not only contributed to the struggle for justice and emancipation, but has also been a major influence on the development of critical and creative thinking of generations of African intellectuals and activisits. Below is a selection of voices that speak to his extraordinary contribution.

Chachage Seithy Loth Chachage Lives On in Our Daily Struggles

2006-07-13

Adebayo Olukoshi

The news of the sudden death on Sunday of our esteemed colleague and comrade-in-arms, Professor Chachage Seithy Loth Chachage came to us in the CODESRIA Secretariat as a rude shock that will take us a while to come to terms with. During the last two weeks of his life, he had numerous telephone exchanges with us in the CODESRIA Secretariat both concerning the on-going struggle for academic freedom he was helping to coordinate at the University of Dar-Es-Salaam and CODESRIA programmatic matters centring on medium-to-long-term institutional personnel strategy. During those exchanges, we had a full glimpse into the full agenda which he was running and the usual selfless commitment with which he was attending to his assignments. We also noted that he was, in spite of his time pressure, his usual witty self, delivering his critique of all that was wrong with contemporary African higher education with his uncommon, trademark punchlines that sent us both thinking and cracking with laughter at the same time. What we did not see, nor even had a possibility of guessing was that we were witnessing the last moments of his sojourn with us. And when the news of his death reached from his mentor, colleague and friend, Professor Issa Shivji, a numbing sense of disbelief prevailed among us. And now, we have the onerous duty of informing all members of CODESRIA, on behalf of the Council´s Executive Committee, of the loss of a titan of African social scientists.

CSL Chachage, a completely self-educated and self-made person was unique among his peers. An original thinker who had no time for intellectual fads, he contributed some of the most interesting insights into the roots of the crises of post-colonial development in Africa. He left no one in any doubt as to where his commitment lay: with the working people of Africa whose toils he identified with as defining the purpose for his scholarship. His versatility was also unmatched. Apart from bestriding the social sciences in his writings, at once addressing historical, philosophical sociological, political and economic issues, he was also a keen novelist who combined his passion for creative writing with an equal commitment to supporting African scholarly publishing. The last five years of his life were easily among his most prolific; it was as if he knew, somehow, that time was no longer on his side. But the stream of works that flowed from his pen did not prevent him from maintaining his love for teaching. He was elected head of the Department of Sociology and a member of the deanage at the University of Dar-es-Salaam during this period. He also resumed a frontline leadership role in the University of Dar-Es-Salaam Academic Staff Assembly. Furthermore, after a period of time as the Chair of the CODESRIA Scientific Committee, he was elected into the Council´s Executive Committee at the 1General Assembly held in Maputo, Mozambique, in December 2005.

To say we shall miss Chachage will be an understatement. But as our comrade transits to join other frontline CODESRIA militants such Claude Ake and Guy Mhone, we must, as a community, seize the moment to rededicate our commitment to Africa and humanity. For, when the epitaph of our Chachage is written, it will surely be highlighted that he was a foremost gentleman driven by the greatest humanitarian principles of all: social justice and freedom.

Members of the African social research community wishing to send messages of condolence to the late CSL Chachage´s family may do so through this e-mail address: Executive.Secretary@codesria.sn

Buriani Kamaradi

Farewell, Comrade Chachage

2006-07-13

Issa G Shivji

Ndugu yangu
Rafiki yangu
Kamaradi Chachage:

Nani kasema umetuacha?
Eti umefariki!

Kwani mwili ndiyo maisha?

Maisha ni fikra.
Maisha ni vitendo.
Maisha ni ubinadamu.

Fikra zako,
Vitendo vyako,
Ubinadamu wako,
Utadumu.
Leo, kesho, keshokutwa na milele.

Vitendo vyako tutavienzi,
Ubinadamu wako tutauiga,
Fikra zako tutazieneza.

Msomi wa afrika,
Mtetezi wa wanyonge,
Mshabiki wa fikra za kitabaka,
Tabaka la wavujajasho.

Nimetumwa.

Nimetumwa na wasomi wenzako wa afrika kupitia codesria nikuletee salaamu zao.

Wameniambia, nikuage.
Nimekataa.
Sikuagi.

Nitakusindikiza tu.
(Follow link to view the complete poem)
Buriani Kamaradi [Issa Shivji, 12 Julai 2006]

Ndugu yangu
Rafiki yangu
Kamaradi Chachage:

Nani kasema umetuacha?
Eti umefariki!

Kwani mwili ndiyo maisha?

Maisha ni fikra.
Maisha ni vitendo.
Maisha ni ubinadamu.

Fikra zako,
Vitendo vyako,
Ubinadamu wako,
Utadumu.
Leo, kesho, keshokutwa na milele.

Vitendo vyako tutavienzi,
Ubinadamu wako tutauiga,
Fikra zako tutazieneza.

Msomi wa afrika,
Mtetezi wa wanyonge,
Mshabiki wa fikra za kitabaka,
Tabaka la wavujajasho.

Nimetumwa.

Nimetumwa na wasomi wenzako wa afrika kupitia CODESRIA nikuletee salaamu zao.

Wameniambia, nikuage.
Nimekataa.
Sikuagi.

Nitakusindikiza tu.

Uwaone wazee wako,
Majirani zako,
Watu wema wa njombe.


Uchanganyike na viumbe wa ardhi na bahari,
Viumbe visivyo na ubaguzi,
Mipaka,
Unyonyaji,
Ukandamizaji.

Uwashawishi, wafundishe wanadamu maana ya ukombozi. kama ulivyokuwa Unatufundisha sisi daima.

‘ewe Isssa, kwani, Shivji siyo mwana wa adamu?’,
Ukanitania,
Ukichota kutoka hazina ya ucheshi wako bila uchoyo.

‘umejipachikia majina haya yote ya miungu!
Mlimbikazi, we issa!’

‘mungu wa waislamu na mungu wa wakristo,
Mungu wa wahindu na mungu wa wasambaa.

Unataka wapigane?
Wachinjane.
Eti moja ni –a,
Mwingine ni –ji!’

‘futilieni mbali ushenzi wenu wa kubaguabagua!’, ukakasirika.
‘unganeni kujikomboa’, umetusihi,
‘kutoka kwa makucha ya ubeberu na ubepari, unyonge na udhalilishaji.’

Buriani ndugu yangu,
Buriani rafiki yangu,
Buriani kamaradi chachage.

Ufikesalama.
Upumzike na viumbe visivyonyumbishwa na vituko vya wanaadamu.

Nakuahidi.
Nitaufikisha ujumbe wa maisha yako.
Kwa wanaudasa,
Kwa wanaCodersia.

Kwa wana wa Tanzania,
Kwa wana wa afrika………………….buriani………..

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The meek shall also inherit the mineral rights!

For CSL Chachage

2006-07-13

Michael Neocosmos

I lost a brother today,
a friend, ndugu, comrade,
a human being.
I always thought I would see him again...
Sadness overwhelms me.
He walked through life his head held high
speaking up against injustice
and laughing at the stupidity of oppression.
His giggles still resound in my head
tho’ his seriousness never wavered
to fight for a better world
where ‘the meek would inherit
not only the earth, but also the mineral rights’...
Go well comrade and brother
you made us laugh, you showed u