Pambazuka News 300: Zimbabwe: Time for civil society to seize the space?
Pambazuka News 300: Zimbabwe: Time for civil society to seize the space?
Nigeria holds a presidential election on Saturday that is widely seen as a democratic watershed for this country and the whole of Africa. But two days before the vote there are serious doubts over whether it will be seen as a valid, democratic election. The vote in Africa's most populous state should usher in the first handover from one civilian president to another in a nation deeply scarred by three decades of military rule.
An opposition boycott threat and bloody clashes with Islamic militants on Wednesday raised tensions ahead of Nigeria's presidential election -- the most closely watched poll since independence. A group of 18 opposition parties said the national election commission should be disbanded and Saturday's presidential ballot postponed until "transparency and fairness" can be guaranteed.
Zimbabwe is reeling under a legacy of a racially skewed pattern of land ownership and access. The injustice harks back to Cecil John Rhodes, whose British South African Company "successfully" shut blacks in "native reserves" and placed three-quarters of the land in the hands of white farmers. At independence in 1980, 42% of the territory was owned by 6 000 white commercial farmers -- less than 1% of the population. As Mugabe later remarked: "The land question was at the centre of the factors that propelled us to launch our war of national liberation."
Mozambican peasants have reiterated their demand for incentives for family sector agriculture in order to render their activity more profitable, following the example of other countries in the region and around the world. In practice they are asking for bank credit at preferential interest rates, improved agricultural technologies, and better access roads for marketing their produce.
Despite a multi-faceted awareness campaign involving the media focusing on AIDS, the campaign appears to have fallen on deaf ears as HIV prevalence ratio among pregnant women in Namibia has increased slightly, a new report has revealed. The 2006 National Sentinel Survey among pregnant women reveals that the overal HIV prevalence from the 2006 survey was 19.9 percent representing an increase of 0.02 percent compared to 2004, which recorded a prevalence rate of 19.7 percent.
There is growing frustration among people who applied for Government resettlement farms in Namibia about the lack of transparency and generally vague criteria used in the selection of candidates for resettlement. Explanations given by Government and Regional Settlement officials often result in more questions than answers, complicating efforts to seek clarity on the issue.
Education delivery in Zimbabwe's rural communities has all but disintegrated and experts warn that any gains made after independence are rapidly being reversed in the continuing economic meltdown. "Evidence on the ground shows that the standards of education among rural communities are falling sharply, and one does not rule out the possibility of a collapse if there is no active campaign to revitalise schools in these areas," Gordon Chavhunduka, former vice-chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN.
More strikes among primary and secondary school teachers have been met with violent protests in Niamey by their disgruntled students, and as separate protests erupt on university campuses, some observers are warning that the whole academic year is in jeopardy. Basic education, which is only provided to 30 percent of Nigerien children, is widely viewed as one of the main pillars to reducing mortality in the desperately poor country.
The Kenya government has with immediate effect suspended the controversial land allocations at the troubled Chepyuk settlement scheme in Mt Elgon district, in an effort to end land clashes. At the same time, a committee of 60 elders drawn from the two warring clans of the Soy and the Dorobo (Mosop) was appointed to help vet all squatters before new allocation exercise was put in place.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has admitted that last Saturday’s elections were not perfect “because no human arrangement or undertaking can be so regarded.” He, therefore, wants Nigerians to improve on the process of elections. He spoke in a nationwide broadcast ahead of the presidential election, and against the backdrop of a warning by Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, that the presidential elections might witness worse irregularities.
Kenyans are now faced with the fact that ‘tomorrow’ is bleak, writes Alex Owiti. They no longer want to think about the so called ‘leaders of tomorrow’. But are at the same time confronted with the urgency to elect leaders who will relieve them from the bondage of corruption, tribalism and other injustices.
British aid agency Oxfam says urgent funding is needed to address water shortages being experienced by some 140,000 Chadian internally displaced persons. "We need more funding to enable us to adequately intervene in the provision of water and sanitation facilities in the IDP camps which are inadequate." Michel Anglade, campaign and policy advisor at Oxfam's West Africa regional office in Dakar told IRIN.
The World Bank will work with the United Nations and other agencies in a global drive to help developing countries recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders, the Bank has said, estimating that the extent of graft in poor states could reach $800 billion a year.
President Yoweri Museveni has blamed the Police for allowing the anti-Mabira demonstration that led to the death of an Indian national and two Ugandans last week. The President has also re-assured the Asian community that such incidents will not happen again. Addressing over 500 Asians at Hotel Africana in Kampala yesterday, Museveni castigated the rioters for the racist sentiments.
The recently concluded International Conference on Women and Law issued a declaration dubbed "Tripoli Declaration to Ensure the Women's Rights". The document stresses the role of women as essential in societies of today since women represent "half the world and a mother of the second half."
Troops have intercepted a truck-load of already completed ballots the day before Nigeria's presidential election, the opposition said on Friday, heightening fears the vote will be rigged. The accusation followed widespread abuses and violence in regional elections last week which handed the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) a landslide and prompted opposition parties to declare no confidence in the electoral commission.
The University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with KEMRI has an on-going research study at the Siaya District Hospital and the surrounding community that is investigating severe malarial anaemia and malaria/HIV co-infections in infants and young children. Due to its continued growth in research, a vacancy has arisen for the position of Data Specialist II. Deadline for applications is 18 May 2007.
Monitor Publications Limited is a Ugandan subsidiary of the Nation Media Group, the leading multimedia house in East and Central Africa. It publishes the Daily Monitor and Sunday Monitor as well as MonitorOnline, and wish to recruit a suitably qualified candidate to fill the vacant position of Executive Editor. Deadline for applications is May 15 2007.
Merlin IEC seeks to recruit a field officer who will design and organise IEC/BCC materials including newsletter publication. S/he will also be responsible for Merlin IEC material stock in addition to supporting IEC campaigns in the field, focusing on malaria. Closing date: 20th April 2007.
CARE Kenya is looking for an ideal candidate to fill the position of Programme Coordinator for its North Eastern Province Programme (NEP-P) based in Dadaab, Garissa District. Application deadline: 27th April 2007.
The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) invites applications for the position as Programme Manager (PM) for its program dealing with population displacement in Mogadishu, Somalia. Interviews are expected to take place in Nairobi during the last 2 weeks of May 2007.
PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) is an internationally recognized non-profit NGO involved in the development, implementation and transfer of health technologies. PATH seeks to recruit a mature, proactive and self motivated person to fill the Office Operations Manager position for the APHIA II Western project in Kakamega, western Kenya. Deadline for applications is 30 April 2007.
ILRI seeks to recruit a Project Leader to lead its multi-disciplinary project on Livestock Systems Evolution within Targeting Research & Developing Opportunities Theme. This research area examines socio-economic and natural resource drivers of livestock system evolution as a basis for setting priorities and targeting livestock-based interventions to alleviate poverty while protecting the environment. The application deadline is 11th May 2007.
Pambazuka News 299: Nigerian elections: danger signs on the road to democracy
Pambazuka News 299: Nigerian elections: danger signs on the road to democracy
If Nigeria successfully holds local and federal elections on 14 and 21 April, it will be the first time that an elected civilian government will hand power over to another. Will the elections hold? Will clear winners emerge? Will alleged losers accept their defeat with good grace, actuated by the larger national interest? Ike Okonta places Nigeria’s forthcoming elections in historical and political context.
Given the country’s turbulent political history, the choice confronting Nigerians in these difficult times is between democracy and national disintegration. Some analysts would like to add a third into the mix: a military coup d’etat. But I have firmly ruled this out. Ambitious officers might well attempt a takeover, but Nigerians’ current deep aversion to military rule will see to it that they will not last in office.
In times past the army always stepped into the breach when the politicians failed to abide by the rules of the game, using the coup to truncate the party-political process, abolish the constitution, and govern the country from their barracks. The armed forces had a modicum of respectability in the 1970s, fresh from a bitter civil war. They were viewed – at least in the western and northern parts of the country – as the nation’s saviour.
But the Babangida and Abacha regimes (1985-1998) exploded the myth of the Nigerian military as guarantors of peace and drivers of national progress. The campaign for democratic rule that seeded in the late 1980s was deeply-rooted, popular and enduring for the simple reason that ordinary Nigerians had by this time seen through the mask of the soldiers. Now they clearly recognised that their very survival depended on them winning back the right to govern themselves or elect their representatives as they saw fit.
Ordinary Nigerians are still struggling to consolidate the democratic government they won at such high cost in 1999 when their protests finally forced the General Abubakar-led junta to hold elections. It is not likely that they will tolerate another military adventurer, no matter how well-meaning, in the corridors of power.
If the mass of Nigerians prefer to live in a united country rather than go their separate ways – and all available research points to the former – and if they are firmly set against renewed military rule – as indeed they have – then it stands to reason to argue that they will work strenuously to ensure that the elections are duly held.
After all, multi-ethnic nations are best held together by dialogue and consensus. They will also likely engage the electoral process with great care knowing as they do now that inconclusive or chaotic elections could throw Nigeria on to the path of disintegration along the ever present fault-lines of religion and narrow ethnic nationalism.
They will want the elections to be peaceful, transparent and the results fair and credible. They will want the victors to demonstrate humility in their triumph, and the losers to accept that democratic elections are not a one-off event but an on-going process, holding out the hope of their own triumph in the next electoral round. Above all, Nigerians will want the out-going Obasanjo government to display statesmanship; and with an eye on history, to ensure that all conceivable obstacles to a smooth transfer of power to its successor are removed.
All evidence supports the contention that the majority of Nigerians are working hard to achieve this outcome. But there are also worrying signs on democracy’s road, as the country approaches the elections. Some of these danger signals are born of residual structural problems in the polity; the rest are largely attitudinal, driven by the personal quirks of certain political actors. It is important that we highlight these danger signs, separate those that can be remedied from the intractable, and urge well-meaning Nigerian political actors to channel their energies towards those that can be remedied. The point of political diagnosis is to identify and remove elements that impede the healthy functioning of the polity.
Three danger signs
Nigeria’s current political regime is a very young electoral system struggling to achieve democratic consolidation. Thirty years of military rule foisted a culture of impunity, authoritarianism, and disempowered citizenship on the people. The vital institutions that support representative government – a free and robust press, an independent and impartial judiciary, and political parties driven by policy issues and buoyed up by a freely associating and enlightened citizenry – that began to emerge in the 1940s when the struggle for independence really commenced, were stifled following the first military coup in January 1966.
Efforts of progressive politicians and civil society leaders since the end of the civil war in January 1970 have been directed largely towards winning back the open civic space in which these crucial institutions can thrive and prosper again. The Second Republic of 1979-1983 was too short a period for these supportive institutions of representative rule to re-embed in the wider society. Generals Babangida and Abacha’s unrelenting and all-encompassing attacks on the civic-political space killed off the tender shoots that began to bud during that brief spring. In a real sense therefore, the advent of the Third Republic in 1999, for all its imperfections, offered the first real opportunity, after the demise of the First Republic in 1966 and the bloody civil war which followed in its wake eighteen months later, for the institutional ramparts of democratic government to take root again.
This is the reason why Nigerians will go into the April 2007 elections without the benefit of real political parties and politicians to represent their views and interests. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party, has since 1998 when it came into being, transformed into a bloated, vote-rigging machine intolerant of opposition within or from rival parties. Run along highly authoritarian lines and dependent on the president for funds and policy, the PDP has been reduced to a branch of the government. The latter is also subject to the whims and commands of President Obasanjo.
The leading opposition parties – All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Action Congress (AC) - are run along more consensual lines. But they are hampered by a lack of experienced and trained personnel; a narrow and opportunistic membership base; perennial shortage of funds; and a domineering presidency which has not hesitated to use government largesse and paid agents provocateurs to undermine them.
The judiciary, after the battering it endured at the hands of the soldiers, is still struggling to find a credible role for itself in the new civilian dispensation. The Nigerian press is fiercely combative and fearless, but journalists are yet to make the transition from being guerrillas fighting off military dictatorship to cool-headed analysts nudging politicians and public discourse towards policy issues.
To correct these structural problems will require time and a great deal of political skill. Because they will endure into the coming 2007 electoral cycle, the gaps they will open up in the political system could be exploited by a ruling party anxious to retain power at the centre and in the states. Having rigged the 1999 and 2003 elections with impunity, the PDP will be sorely tempted to enact a repeat performance this April, taking advantage of the weakened opposition, a cowed judiciary, and a still tactically-challenged press. This is the first danger sign on the road to the elections.
Whilst Olusegun Obasanjo is still the head of the federal government, he is no longer in power. This might sound paradoxical; but the architecture of power in Nigeria is as multilayered as it is complex. Obasanjo rose to prominence in the Nigerian armed forces in the late 1960s riding on the coat tails of the northern coup-makers of July 1966, most notably General Yakubu Danjuma.
Burdened with his close friendship with Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, leader of the abortive January 1966 putsch in the north, and with his own role in that event still shrouded in mystery, Obasanjo had necessarily to demonstrate his loyalty to the new power elite – led by Col. Yakubu Gowon, Col. Murtala Muhammed, and Major Danjuma. It was on the rump of this group that he relied when Muhammed was assassinated in February 1976, after he had replaced Gowon as head of state the previous year and he (Obasanjo) was asked to step into the breach. He reigned; but real power lay with chief of army staff General Danjuma and chief of staff, supreme headquarters, General Shehu Yar’Adua. Obasanjo’s pay-back was his strident defence of ‘Nigerian unity’; and along with this, a pro-northern political stance when the time came to hand over power to politicians in 1979.
This pact, forged in the turbulent period of military rule in the 1970s, was to be replayed in 1999 when the northern military and political elite, reeling from attacks from pro-democracy elements in the wake of General Babangida and Abacha’s excesses, looked for a safe pair of hands to cede power. This was meant to be a tactical manoeuvre, designed to placate frayed nerves in the progressive camp in southern Nigeria. Babangida, acting on behalf of a loose coalition of northern elites, though by no means all northern interests, again sought out Obasanjo and finessed the politics that took him to Abuja as President in May 1999.
Throughout his military and later political career, Obasanjo never took any risks that could put his life or career on the line. He was content to let others take the risks, including dangerous military putsch. He would emerge from the shadow when the gun smoke had cleared and scout for rich pickings. Obasanjo’s sole attempt to make a bid for real power on his own behalf was the ill-fated attempt to get his minions in the PDP to tinker with the constitution that he might stay on as President beyond the two terms stipulated by the constitution. The powerful coalition of Babangida, Danjuma, and Vice President Atiku Abubakar – all northerners - united with pro-democracy elements in the press and civil society and promptly slapped down Obasanjo in May 2006.
That episode, more than anything else, demonstrated where real power in Nigeria lay. It also pointed to Obasanjo’s fragile position in the country’s nascent democratic game. He would, ideally, like to retire as a king-maker now that he can no longer extend his stay in office. But he has never had a secure power base to call his own: neither in the armed forces; nor in his Yoruba region home where he is distrusted by a populace who still see him as a northern ‘stooge’; nor in civil society; nor amongst the intelligentsia who regard him with a mix of loathing and disdain.
Nevertheless, Obasanjo has made it clear that come April he is determined to steamroll his chosen presidential candidate, Umar Yar’Adua, younger brother of the late Shehu Yar’Adua, into State House. The northern political elite is equally determined to demonstrate that Obasanjo has neither the right nor the political clout to appoint a new political leader for them. They see the April polls as the proving ground.
Obasanjo and his unpopular party will go into the elections with the full backing of the PDP state governors who are anxious to ensure continuity and thus shield themselves from later prosecution for corrupt enrichment and a supine police force with armed elements drawn from the army and paid thugs that Nigerian cities now have in abundance. This group will have to confront a vengeful Northern elite and their allies in the south, grouped around General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the ANPP, and Atiku Abubakar, Obasanjo’s vice president, whose bid for the top job under the Action Congress is still under a cloud.
Were the supporting institutions of Nigeria’s young democracy autonomous and functioning, all eyes would have turned to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the courts to ensure free and credible polls; thus removing the prospect of a free for all between these two bitterly opposed political factions. But INEC, following its recent pronouncement banning Vice President Abubakar, a noted critic of Obasanjo, from contesting the presidential election even though the electoral act does not accord it such power, has demonstrated that it is an interested party, on the side of President Obasanjo and the PDP government.
The Buhari and Atiku groups have stated that they view INEC as a partial entity that will work on Obasanjo’s behalf during the elections. This means that they will put into place their own independent machinery to police the electoral process and ensure that neither the INEC nor PDP’s agents rig the polls. Obasanjo, who was recently quoted in the press as saying that the election would be a ‘do or die’ affair for him will be expected to use the machinery and financial resources of the government to ensure that his will prevails. The inevitable clash between these juggernauts will reverberate in wider Nigerian political and civil society, already stretched to breaking point. This is the second danger sign on Nigeria’s democracy road.
Then there is a third danger sign, as ominous as the first two. This is the international politics of oil and the extent to which the major oil-consuming nations in Western Europe and North America seeking to secure their strategic interests will attempt to shape the political outcome in Nigeria to their advantage. At the heart of this realpolitik is the growing armed insurrection in the Niger Delta, fed and sustained by five decades of economic exploitation and political marginalisation that the local communities have suffered at such terrible cost.
The United States and the European Union backed the Obasanjo government in 1999 and again in 2003 even though there was abundant evidence that those elections had been marked by rigging and violence. Obasanjo was seen as friendly to their interests. He was also seen as a competent general who could be counted on to rein in the youth activists in the Delta region and ensure that Western oil companies continue to extract oil undisturbed.
Local democracy and corporate social responsibility were thus sacrificed for cheap oil. This democratic deficit is at the heart of the present crisis in the Niger Delta. Continued backing for Obasanjo’s political agenda in April will certainly escalate this crisis, which in turn could spill out into other regions of the country igniting a political cyclone.
These then are the three major danger signs on the road to the April general elections. So far, ordinary Nigerians in their millions have remained spectators in this great game, even as their economic and social condition continues to deteriorate. They are waiting anxiously for the April elections to settle accounts with those whom they see as having betrayed them, leaving them worse off than they were in 1999. If they are denied their day in the voting booth, the three danger signs will meld with popular anger and frustration. There is no knowing whether Nigeria will still be there on the map when the storm settles.
Alternatively, Nigeria’s ruling elites can elect to head off this storm by insisting on fair elections. But how might the end game play out?
Endgame of a defeated General
President Olusegun Obasanjo will quit power in May. There is no getting around it. The current power constellation is firmly against him despite his strenuous efforts since he assumed office in 1999 to build an independent power base of his own. The question now is the manner of Obasanjo’s going, and how to ensure that Nigeria as a corporate entity remains after the storm has quietened.
Forecasting the ramifications of Nigeria’s coming general elections is now a booming industry in the United States and Western Europe. These forecasts and analyses run the gamut from the sober to the downright loony. Most centre on the rising armed conflict in the oil-bearing Niger Delta, and how the elections might likely impact the flow of oil to the Western countries.
But for Nigerians and other Africans, the stakes are higher. A conflict-ridden Nigeria in the wake of inconclusive or rigged elections will trigger powerful waves of chaos and anarchy throughout West Africa, suspend the ambitions of ECOWAS to transform the region into a belt of economic prosperity, and open up west and central Africa to natural resource hunters intent on fomenting war and pave the way for easy pickings.
It is therefore important that Nigerian political thinkers step out to combat the muddled, self-serving analyses of those who have put themselves forward as ‘interpreters’ of political trends in their country. Indeed, they are challenged to articulate a clear road map to fair, peaceful and conclusive elections: to an electoral outcome that will provide a framework in which the task of repairing the damage Obasanjo and his lieutenants have wrought these past eight years can commence.
The Washington based Eurasia Group had this to say about the coming elections: ‘An election delay and the constitutional crisis which will likely follow could tempt the country’s military and influential ex-military establishment – which ruled Nigeria for four decades – to consider re-entering politics...Obasanjo’s relationship with key figures within the ex-military establishment, such as former head of state General Ibrahim Babangida, former long-time National Security Adviser Mohammed Gusau and former Defense Minister Theophilus Danjuma, is currently strained. In any political crisis it is not clear that these powerful figures, and many others within the ex-military establishment, would back Obasanjo rather than someone else to replace him.’
Underpinning this controversial analysis is nostalgia for a return to military rule in Nigeria. This nostalgia is to be found mainly in neoconservative political and business circles in Europe and the United States whose favourite business model in Africa is using corrupt dictators to repress the ordinary people, thus paving the way for them to pillage the continent’s natural resources undisturbed. General Ibrahim Babangida, Mobutu Sese Seko and others of their ilk were feted in London and Paris and Washington for precisely this reason. There are many in the power corridors of these three cities that still yearn for the return of the ‘good old days’ of Babangida in Nigeria.
While it is true that the likes of Babangida and Danjuma are still powerful, due to the stupendous wealth they illegally amassed following the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970, it would be a mistake to see power as influence in the country today. The generals have virtually no political influence in a country where the ordinary people view soldiers with a mix of contempt and loathing, and are determined to protect the right to vote they won back in 1999. Obasanjo was able to deny Babangida and Gusau the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party not because he himself is powerful, but because he was canny enough to recognise that Nigerians would not shed a tear for Babangida and Gusau when they were fed with a dose of their own medicine.
Likewise, Babangida, working in partnership with Vice President Atiku Abubakar, was able to frustrate Obasanjo’s plot to remain in office. Not because Babangida himself is overwhelmingly politically influential, but because he too recognised that the majority of Nigerians detest the President’s authoritarian pretensions and want to see the back of him in May 2007. Babangida tapped into this powerful current and Obasanjo’s third term ambitions bit the dust.
What the foregoing tells us clearly is that ordinary Nigerians and their desire for representative and accountable government are now firmly in the saddle and will ultimately determine the direction in which the country will go in May – democratic rule or a return to dictatorship. The wind, I hazard to say, is blowing in the direction of democratic consolidation.
The prospects of a successful military coup in the wake of chaotic elections this April are not very bright. It does not even register on the political radar of the Nigerian street. Nor are there signs among the rank and file in the armed forces that they are yet again beginning to see themselves as the nation’s saviour. The army’s sense of self-worth took a battering in the 1990s as Babangida and his successor General Sani Abacha systematically destroyed all hopes of social and economic progress in the country. Ordinary soldiers, who were deployed in the cities to shoot and maim democracy activists, and students have since those tragic events been lumped together with their commanders as destroyers of the nation. This unflattering image, still powerful and enduring, is one which officers and the other ranks are yet to live down.
We are thus left with a charged political arena in which the ex-military gladiators will have to slug it out among themselves, while an impoverished populace look on from the sideline, waiting for yet another breach in the rampart to claw back more of their purloined freedom. Olusegun Obasanjo had an easy ride in 1979 when, as military head of state, he worked in concert with his fellow generals to shape the general elections and handed power to their preferred candidate. Indeed, Obasanjo had declared a few months before those elections that victory would not necessarily go to the most qualified candidate, a clear indication that the likes of Malam Aminu Kanu, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, still widely venerated in the country, would not be allowed to take power.
Shehu Shagari, presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria, was the least qualified in a field bristling with intellectual and political giants, tempered and burnished in the furnace of the independence struggles of the 1940s and 1950s. Obasanjo, notorious for his envy of intellectuals and political figures more accomplished than himself, chose to put personal interest above the national imperative of supporting a politician and statesman able to guide Nigeria seamlessly from unaccountable military rule to a democracy delivering the essentials of life to a still hopeful and expectant populace.
The depredations of the Shagari years and punitive IMF-sanctioned structural adjustment, shortly after the return of military dictatorship, were Obasanjo’s parting gift to Nigerians in September 1979. The present challenge, insist Nigerian democratic activists, is to ensure that he will not have the opportunity to give the people a similar gift this coming May.
‘Popular’ political analysis led by the BBC presents Umar Yar’Adua, presidential candidate of the PDP, as the favourite to win the election. The argument is that a candidate has to have an enormous war chest and a powerful election-rigging machine – which the Obasanjo government has in abundance - to win. This analysis not only forecloses the democratic option - i.e. the choice of the majority of ordinary Nigerians freely expressed in the polling booth - it also subtly encourages the belief that there will be no credible challenge to the PDP machine this April.
This, then, is the area in which Nigerian democrats have been channelling their energies: to prove that free elections, without which any talk of democratic government is just much hot air, are possible in Nigeria. They are also looking ahead. In the eventuality that they are unable to ensure free elections, they plan to make the cost of rigging so expensive that the perpetrators will be forced into an untenable position, making it impossible for them to form a government.
Obasanjo’s critics say the PDP government can only point to an abysmal record in office these eight years. The fundamental challenges that confronted Nigerian state and society in May 1999 are still staring Nigerians in the face: a new constitution that addresses the terms of association between the federating units and thus ensures political order; a home-grown economic strategy capable of tackling the scourge of mass unemployment and deepening poverty; and a social compact led by a visionary political elite restoring hope and love of country in a battered and increasingly cynical populace.
PDP candidates cannot therefore rely on their ‘performance’ in office to win the argument on the campaign ground. True, the campaign strategies of the other presidential candidates have been rather short on concrete alternative policies – the exception being Prof. Pat Utomi, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Party (ADP), and to a lesser extent, General Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP. But these two candidates are in a powerful position to reap bountifully from the widespread distrust of the PDP and its politics of plunder and incompetence. In a free and fair context, Buhari and Utomi could easily emerge as hot favourites for president. The task, say those desirous of easing the PDP out of office, is to build a nation-wide coalition of vote-watchers capable of counting the vote and making the vote count.
Power at all costs?
The Obasanjo government has fired the first salvo in its ‘war’ to retain power at all costs. All manner of obstacles, including police harassment, were put in the path of Buhari’s campaign team as they went about canvassing votes in the northern part of the country in March. Desperate PDP officials, faced with the awful prospect of a long Harmattan out of government, and being made to account for the billions of dollars they frittered away on the altar of corruption and indolence, are likely to resort to even worse tactics as the electoral battle is joined.
Advocates of political liberty and fair play at the polls are preparing themselves for the bruising context ahead. They argue that given past performance, it would be foolhardy, even suicidal, to look to the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct fair elections, and the police to maintain order. Recent actions and pronouncements of ranking INEC officials have made it clear that they are riding on Obasanjo’s PDP wagon. The use of the police to prevent rival politicians from campaigning is also a signpost pointing to close PDP-police collaboration during the elections.
Political parties working to replace the PDP government are increasingly looking elsewhere for countervailing civic machinery able to secure peaceful and orderly elections. Faith leaders, the independent media, labour unions, women’s organisations, ethnic associations and town unions, progressive student groups and democracy activists, among other non-violent civic organisations, are being actively courted, mobilised, and empowered to perform this function.
But they also recognise that it is not enough to focus only on policing the vote on election day. Leaders of these political parties and their allies in civil society say they are already thinking ahead and have factored in the possibility that their forces could be overwhelmed by the PDP juggernaut, as the vote tally stacks up against them. If that day comes, they could borrow a leaf from the recent elections in Mexico and peacefully mobilise their followers and sundry Nigerians desirous of fair elections to demand a recount or another round of elections.
They have also put the National Assembly and the judiciary on notice, for these institutions to stand ready to do their duty if the government in power proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is no longer capable of governing a fair and orderly transfer of power. There are strong speculations in the media that pressure could be brought to bear on Ken Nnamani, President of the Senate and third in line as President, to commence impeachment proceedings against Obasanjo and Vice President Abubakar, using a recent Senate report indicting both of fraud.
Continuing speculations concerning the health of PDP presidential candidate Umaru Yar’Adua, and Obasanjo’s strident assurances that all is well with him only point up the vulnerable position of both, even as ordinary Nigerians continue to yearn for a paradigm shift in the politics of the country. A recent meeting between Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the influential Christian Association of Nigeria during which the ANPP candidate gave firm assurances that he would not tamper with secular provisions of the constitution and favour his fellow Muslims unduly indicate that inter-ethnic and inter-faith coalition-building in pursuit of a broad-based response to the PDP is emerging. Likewise, the positive nation-wide response to Prof. Utomi’s visit to Oloibiri, the Niger Delta village where oil was first struck in 1956, points to burgeoning civic support for political leaders with a record of service and integrity.
It is these powerful supporting pillars of the dawning democratic moment that Obasanjo’s desperate end game is up against. The resort to election rigging and strong-arm tactics will not be an effective response to this moment. To rig the vote is one thing; to form a government based on rigged polls is quite a different ball game.
Presently Nigeria stands at a crossroads – to follow the path of democratic consolidation and its attendant fruits of stable, orderly and accountable government and prosperity; or to return to authoritarian rule and its diet of poverty, corruption, and ethnic conflict.
This drama is unfolding in a new international arena in which the peaceful rise of China and India as major economic powers are changing the balance of power, re-ordering the traditional flow of raw materials from Africa to the Western industrialised countries, and reshaping the way in which powerful corporations think about and do business on the continent. The present presents threats. But it also presents opportunities for resource-rich but technology and capital-poor countries such as Nigeria.
The proliferation of international terror networks, the resurgent scramble for nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction, and rising ethnic wars on a mass scale make a compelling case for arenas of stable and peaceful government in resource-rich areas such as Africa.
Nigeria is one of the most important players on the continent, perhaps the most important. A peaceful, stable and democratic Nigeria can function as an agent of world peace, in a continent that has come up on the foreign policy radar of established and rising powers as crucial to their future economic health.
But a Nigeria in thrall to an incompetent and authoritarian government will open up this vast country to vendors of terror and pillage, further pushing the global order towards cataclysm. Fair elections are therefore as important to ordinary Nigerians as they are to those among the global powers anxious to navigate the new order into calmer waters.
* Ike Okonta is currently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, UK. His book, When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil, and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-determination (Africa World Press, Trenton, 2007) is forthcoming.
* Please send comments to
As we approach the 13th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide we should not only remember the horrors that took place, but focus our attention on the failure to halt the developing genocide in Darfur.
April marks the 13th anniversary of the start of the genocide in Rwanda during which approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days. When celebrating the anniversary of this horrific tragedy let us take a moment to remember those who were slaughtered so unmercifully. More attention should be focused on how to prevent future heinous crimes to occur in Africa and elsewhere.
‘Never again’ – an international commitment or a rhetorical sound bite?
After the horrors of the holocaust, the international community drafted the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and pledged 'never again' to such evil. The United Nations was founded with the objective that humanity should be spared the scourge of war forever. The pledge proved empty as numerous heinous crimes followed. In fact, civilians in Africa bear the heaviest brunt of acts of terror, civil wars, violent suppression of political opponents and criminal violence.
The most glaring and heinous examples of the failure of civilian protection in Africa are the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the war in the DRC between 1998 and 2003, which resulted in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over 3,400,000 persons displaced from their homes and an estimated 4 million killed and, the Darfur conflict that started in 2003, with estimates of deaths ranging from 180,000 to 400,000. At least 2,000,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes and are displaced in Sudan or in camps in neighbouring countries. These cases are particularly relevant: they happened in our lifetimes and continue to happen now.
Never say never again?
They are a tragic part of Africa’s contemporary history. One may easily say that 'never again' has lost its meaning. While Rwanda was supposedly the scar on our conscience that would be the last incident of mass atrocities allowed to occur, it provided a foreshadowing of things to come. That is true especially in Africa where, despite leaders’ pledge to never let another Rwanda happen again, they have not demonstrated the will to exercise the African Union’s right to intervene to stem gross human rights violations in a concerted or consistent manner.
Even if there is controversy about the definition of genocide in Darfur, there is little doubt that despite the hair-splitting of the proper description of the unfolding tragedy, there is a developing genocide in Darfur which is being met by a similar reaction or lack of action from the world community. Equally, the current situation in Zimbabwe - where the state is oppressing its own people - is another case for the agenda of actions to end this cycle, and move us to finally realise the call of 'never again'.
As 7 April has been designated by the UN as 'international day of reflection on the genocide in Rwanda', the profound sense of 'never again' should be reflected in the prevention or action in the event of of heinous crimes and other violations of human rights. Prevention of such crimes through swift and effective action will send us a clear message. Maybe, thus inspired, we can someday make 'never again' more than a mere slogan.
In so doing, responses to protect civilians would immensely benefit from President Paul Kagame’s sagacious words:
'Never again should the international community’s response to these crimes be found wanting. Let us resolve to take collective actions in a timely and decisive manner. Let us also commit to put in place early warning mechanisms and ensure that preventive interventions are the rule rather and the exception.'
To achieve the broad goal here expressed will certainly take more than rhetoric. Political commitment must be expressed, not only in establishing the required mechanisms but also in triggering them to act when action is required.
The case of Darfur aptly demonstrates the futility of establishing legal regimes which cannot be effectively utilised. In providing for intervention in internal affairs of member states when massive human rights violations are perpetrated without action from the government concerned, or when the government itself is involved in such atrocities, the Constitutive Act of the African Union has codified an important principle of international law. This principle as holds that while states have the responsibility to protect their citizens in recognition of their sovereignty, the default responsibility falls upon the international community, in this case the AU, which can intervene to forestall atrocities.
The cases of Darfur and Zimbabwe are the latest in a string of similar situations to pose unanswered questions to our rhetorical commitments. It is one thing for the silence to be ruptured for lack of preventive mechanisms. But our deafening silence in the face of continuing atrocities is quite another. Empty diplomatic gestures without concrete action in places like Darfur long recognised as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is a damning indictment of the international community, in particular the leading nations at global and continental levels.
As the world commemorates the commencement of the tragic events of 1994 in Rwanda, our leadership and those who shape opinion and policy must rethink our commitment to a world and continent free of human suffering, a continent committed to furthering the aspiration of a peaceful world, a world in which human life and dignity are embedded in state policy and interactions between nations. This would allow us, when necessary, to discard parochial notions of sovereignty and to act accordingly when another Rwanda or Darfur threaten.
To achieve this, we must bring together the institutions and collective powers we have established to construct a world in which ‘never again’ means what it should.
* Joseph Yav is a lecture at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. He is also the executive director of the Centre d’etudes et de recherche en droits de l’homme, democratie et justice transitionnelle/Centre for Human Rights, Democracy and Transitional Justice Studies. Email: [email][email protected]
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Grace Kwinje’s personal experiences under the blows and batons of Robert Mugabe’s men.
'I will go before the King, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.'
Esther 4:16 HARARE - 'What sort of woman are you Grace Kwinjeh?' 'Who do you think you are?' 'What are you trying to prove?' Questions asked by more than five baton stick wielding riot police officers as they beat me up on that fateful day at Machipisa Police Station in Harare on 11 March.
This was round one out of many.
Yet it was about the woman in me. It was about me as a woman and what I stand for or represent.
Each blow epitomised what they feared and hated in my defiance against them. This translated into the most brutal assault or dare I say attempted murder on me, on my person, my being; that woman in me.
I did not respond I stood still and took each blow as it came. I did not cry. I did not beg for mercy. None of the comrades present on that day cried or begged for mercy, none denounced the party or tried to negotiate themselves out of this horror of horrors that will never be erased from our memories.
Neither will the physical or emotional scars ever heal. No amount of therapy can heal what we went through on that day.
Sekai Holland a 64 year old grandmother was called a 'whore', 'Blair's whore' to be precise. 'No I cannot be Blair's whore he is my son' she said. How dare she respond thus?
Associate herself with the defiled Tony Blair? And so Sekai was danced on, interestingly by another woman. 'Iri hure raBlair rinoda varungu,' translates to 'this Blair whore loves white men'.
Sekai married for 40 years to an Australian was severely assaulted several times. She broke a leg an arm and three ribs. Why because as a journalist she made the double 'choices' of marrying a white man and belonging to the opposition; for that she had to suffer.
She had to be punished for going against the 'norm', the 'expected' by ZANU PF.
That woman in her was under attack verbally and physically. Her age? Not an issue.
The two young women we were with were not spared. The young 'whores' according to the officers had to be taught a lesson.
Together with Sekai and myself we were beaten on the buttocks. 'Rovai mazigaro' 'beat up the big bums' they shouted.
My black beret fell off and I got a beating for my blond hair. 'Hure rekuHoliday Inn rovai.' 'A Holiday Inn prostitute beat her up.' 'Look at the color of her hair.' The 'sins' were many. I colored my hair blond in protest after Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede denied me a travel document on the basis that it was a 'state security document' and not a 'right.' I was slowly being rendered stateless in my own country.
And so as is the case too in opposition politics the attack on us women was more on our sexuality, we were assaulted, humiliated, demeaned in whatever way they could think of.
Comically again, amongst us victims were some of the worst male philanderers, but the issue with them remained political, exposing the misogynistic character of our society.
We were treated this way because we are women and nothing else.
As I reflect on, I do not regret the woman I am and the hard choices I have to make.
It is for these that in my life I have often been persecuted, socially, sexually or mentally and this time I have paid an insufferably heavy price that has left deep scars on my body and soul.
I challenge oppressive systems in all their forms not just to do away with Robert Mugabe's injustice, but also primitive actions by those in our midst that still place us women in the odd position, of being underdogs even in the struggle for a democratic and just society.
It is a double battle for both our political freedom and emancipation, none of which can be achieved without the other, otherwise it's a half-baked revolution, similar to the one we got at independence.
Zimbabwean women in politics have stories to tell. Opposition politics?
More stories.
Over the past months I have seen myself in and out of jail on various dubious charges mostly to do with organising and leading illegal demonstrations.
Once I was placed in solitary confinement at Rhodesville Police station for 48 hours. The aim here I suppose was just to traumatise me. As I sat there in that cell on my own I was afraid.
Afraid of many things to do with being tortured, raped or even being killed. By the grace of God I came out not touched.
A female freedom fighter can be killed at any time. In the wee hours of 12 March the military police came for me at Braeside Police Station, where I had been dumped half dead already, the night before.
A search for me by family and friends was in full scale at this time.
I was in a cell with two other women. One of them was actually nursing and praying for me as I was in great pain and bleeding. We heard the sound of cars outside. Foot steps then the jail door opened.
The officer in charge, Makore pointed at me and said 'uyu Kwinjeh' to four military intelligence officials. I held on to the two women I knew I was in danger.
Once again in the fence of Braeside police station, I was tortured by the officers. They said they had been given orders to kill and not negotiate with civilians. This was not a joke because by this time comrade Gift Tandare's body lay cold somewhere.
May his soul rest in peace. I did not know this. The rest I leave to God and his mercy for me on that night.
They asked me all sorts of questions as they beat me with short 30 centimetre really painful baton sticks. I fainted several times but each time they got me up and tortured me.
Until in the end I could not stand that is when they asked me to remain seated and stretch out my legs and they beat the soles of my feet. How I got back in the cell I do not know. All I know is my life was spared.
They stayed on vigil outside the fence waiting for further 'instructions'. Thank God some officials from the Lawyers for Human Rights found me before the 'instructions' came the next day.
And then it was drama after drama. Released to hospital under riot police guard; then no charges; re arrested while trying to leave the country then back to hospital under riot police guard.
Eventually with Sekai Holland we made it for medical treatment here in South Africa.
I thank the sisters and brothers for the solidarity that came in the form of prayers, demonstrations, night dresses, cake, books, fruit and water.
Above all for taking the risk of being associated with this kind of woman, by visiting us at the Avenues Clinic in full view of the police and CIO operatives.
I will end with a quote from Paolo Coelho's The Zahir, 'I don't regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.' And so the woman in me will fight on. Aluta Continua!
* Grace Kwinje is the deputy secretary for international relations in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
This journal will be the first part of a trilogy on New Technologies (part two – reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS; part three – intellectual property rights), to be published in September 2007.
The broken garden
The ash moon like a hole
siphoned all flowers
to adorn the other side.
Every plant of every seed
all gone for the sole
glory of hyper-powers;
gone forever is the star’s
confession, where we stood
in lineage a little while,
God’s hope, the life of soil,
the need that feeds my hours
in the night, muddied blood
let for gain. Look at the sons
of slavery among the saints!
© Rethabile Masilo
The April issue of Words Without Borders focuses on African literature, with work by Marguerite Abouet, Alain Mabanckou, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Yasmina Khadra, Amina Saïd, Ondjaki, and the late, great Ahmadou Kourouma. What a relief to see that, unlike many other literary editors, those at WWB understand that Africa also includes North Africa.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_ghanageek.gif reports on an ICT project for secondary school children in Ghana called the I2CAP competition.
'The I2CAP program is a secondary school level programming competition. We train the teachers who go back and train the students. Then we have regional competitions and finally the nationals. At the moment their tutors are taught in the Ruby programming language…They are given a bunch of problems of varying difficulty and graded on how well they can create a working solution…Its only been going on for almost 2 years and we finally got teachers in every region trained. The first nationals will be in september. The plan is to eventually be able to assemble a national team for the International Programming Olympiad'
100 kids took part in the project however Geek has some criticisms such as the age of the computers – its about time Africa stopped being the dumping ground of ancient computers – a 5 year old computer is about 30 years old in reality if not more.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_naija.gifMusings of a Naijaman comments on his adventures in London seeking out Nigerian food and newspapers and ends up at the Bukka in Kilburn High Road. And on the continuing drama that is the Nigerian elections he points to a piece in This Day on how to prevent Rigging.
'Over in Naija, the drama continues as the elections draw nearer with court cases and counter suits and sudden deaths and the rearing of violence - Simon Kolawole of Thisday had some useful pointers on how to prevent rigging (or at least stop PDP from rigging too much)'
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_subzero.gifSubzero Blue comments on an article on the “so called “Seven Pillars of Middle East Reality” that stand in the way of peace with Israel. Subzero takes each “pillar” which he generally describes as [un]reality apart such as placing the onus of peace on Arab leaders
'This can't be more wrong; the Arab leaders wouldn't want anything more than to have the whole Israel-Palestine problem solved, a peace established, the ability to move on and leave the whole thing behind them. In fact, a number of the Arab regimes, if not most of them, already have secret ties with Israel, and are just waiting for the chance to make them public and announce normalization and all minorities living in the Arab world are under siege.'
'This is very very wrong, and a trip to any country in the Arab world where a religious minority exists can show that; Jews in countries like Tunisia and Morocco, Christians in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and the list continues; These people enjoy all their rights and freedoms, and live in peace alongside Muslims.'
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_matubamurphy.gifMy Haven a blog by South African gay couple, Matuba and Murphy comment on an editorial in Behind the Mask (South African LHBT news site) titled “The Only Gay Jesus Christ” stating that Jesus was in fact bi-sexual. Haven’s response to the piece is that it is completely unfounded and baseless statement.
'Conduct your research or perhaps use acceptable quotes that shows insight and initiative! Behind the Mask should know better than everyone else not publish such bigotry. They advocate for the existence of homosexuals. They fight for the rights of those who are violated - yet they bash Christianity with unfounded lies! As far as I am concerned it is all lies because there is no basis!'
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_eshun.gifeshuneutics continues with the Easter theme and Jesus Christ in his post on Indulgence – chocolate crucifixes and Easter eggs – the 80 million sold and the sheer waste of the packaging – 4,500 tonnes altogether!
'It was Ezra Pound who once said “We have the press for wafer”. And sadly, we do: and its views are about as intellectually chewy as a chocolate box. Nowhere has the press tied all perspectives together and suggested that it is the continual commercialisation of religion that has caused this wastage of natural resources. Probably, that would be a crusade too far.'
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_model.gifBella Naija is one of Nigeria’s most popular blogs. Bella blogs on Nigeria popular culture: fashion, celebrities and Nollywood. This week the focus is on “Nigeria’s Next Top Model”…which is an event that will take place in London this month. Apparently there are “Top Model” events worldwide but this is a first for Nigeria
'I think it’s a good idea although I really wish this would have been more like the American Top Model reality show format with the whole thing taking place in Nigeria but I guess this is a start. I understand that subsequent ‘seasons/cycles’ will attempt to follow US Top Model format.'
There are rich pickings to be had for the winners – TV, advertising deals and the chance to become the 'face of Nigeria' – what better reward could any woman wish for!
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_thinker.gifSudanese Thinker goes on yet another anti-gay rant with the proviso that “he doesn’t mean to offend anyone”. Of course ST is entitled to his own opinion but the whole piece is full of misinformation and plain bigotry. He ends up telling us of an encounter with “2 gay dues and a transsexual” and concludes that you cant judge people on the basis of their sexuality. And he even has some friends who are atheist as well! God what a relief on both counts.
'I was extremely uncomfortable in the beginning and felt like cursing my friend but I convinced myself to remain respectful since I was a guest. At first, I conversed with everyone except the transsexual. After a while, the party got going when the host started blasting some really good old school hip hop music. Eventually we all conversed, laughed and joked around until I completely forgot the fact that 2 of the guys were gay and one was a transsexual. It didn’t bother me much anymore. Unlike previous cases, they didn’t try to hit on me and they didn’t make any flirtatious moves which was obviously a very good thing. As a result, I learned three new fashion words. Cetour, retro and bohemian (did I spell them right?). Moreover I started thinking and I gained a new perspective.'
Length of poetry contributions: Poems to fit a full page of the Agenda Journal. Deadline: 28 June 2007. All submissions must be emailed to [email][email protected] For more information contact [email][email protected]
The media literacy course is part of GMDC activities that seek to promote dialogue and debate around gender and media.
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme has issued a strong statement condemning profit hungry companies that came to Africa to reap profits from our natural resources such as water.
I woke up this morning
After a week of hibernation
I decided I had been hiding long enough
So I blasted myself in to her heart
Pumping the blood through her veins
You think you can turn your eyes, close your ears,
Shut your mind to me who has the name of
Pain?
In sub-Saharan Africa, by 2010 it is estimated that 25 million children will be orphaned or will be considered vulnerable because of HIV. For the past five years in Uganda, World Education has been at the forefront of efforts to help families and local organizations raise these children in the communities where they live.
In Africa, local communities had well-developed traditional indigenous knowledge systems for environmental management and coping strategies, making them more resilient to environmental change. This knowledge had, and still has, a high degree of acceptability amongst the majority of populations in which it has been preserved.
The Government of Spain has committed new funding of US$592,000 for UN-HABITAT's Rapid Urban Sector Profiling for Sustainability (RUSPS) programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Senegal. The Rapid Urban Sector Profiling for Sustainability (RUSPS) programme undertakes assessments of urban conditions in selected cities
Based on the 2004 e-Access & Usage Household survey that was completed during the course of 2004 and 2005, this report is the result of a demand study of individuals and households and how ICT's are used across 10 African countries.
UNESCO's Community Multimedia Centres initiative is in its fifth year of operation, with 39 pilot CMCs established in communities across Latin America/Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. UNESCO has also provided networking opportunities and support tools for management, multimedia training, offline access to Internet content, and action research and evaluation.
International bandwidth is what connects Africa’s telephone and internet users to neighbouring countries and the rest of the world. It is delivered either by fibre optic cable (like the existing SAT3 cable) or via satellite. For higher volumes use, fibre provides a significantly cheaper way of carrying traffic than satellite, although the latter remains essential for connecting rural areas.
As a contribution to this year’s commemoration, African Rights is publishing a book dedicated to Murambi. “Go. If You Die, Perhaps I Will Live”: A Collective Account of Genocide and Survival in Murambi, Gikongoro, April-July 1994 weaves together the testimonies of 91 survivors, witnesses and perpetrators to create an intricate and nuanced narrative.
Issa Shivji continues the debate on the creation of a 'United States of Africa'. Drawing on past experience and present initiatives of regional cooperation in East Africa, he suggests that the economic focus should be at the level of production – capital and labour, rather than on trade. Politically, it should be people-centred rather than state-oriented.
The African Union has set the stage for a critical debate on pan-African unity. This has deep resonance with the nationalist struggles that ushered in Africa’s independence. At that time, the defining theme and rallying cry of the nationalists - from Nkrumah, Nyerere, Banda to Babu - was pan-Africanism. African nationalism by definition, they argued, could not be anything other than pan-Africanism.
The current pan-Africa debate presents an opportune moment for the continent to confront some of the key challenges facing it, among which is imperialism. African nationalism was born in the struggle against imperialism. It could only be sustained as long as it remained anti-imperialist.
Today, few of our countries can claim to be truly independent. We have no power to make the most basic of our own decisions. Our sovereignty is sold to the highest bidder. Our foreign policy is aligned with the super-power. Our laws - ‘made in the IMF’ - are thrust on our parliamentarians. The multinationals wring out of us outrageous concessions in agreements, which are ‘top secret’, even from the elected representatives of the people.
The current quest for pan-African unity must acknowledge the threat, and not shy away from the challenge posed by imperialism. As globalisation, an even more vicious form of imperialism, engulfs us we need to return to the roots of our independence: the great post-war nationalist movement which resulted in the independence of more than 50 African countries.
Today, as we sink deep into the uncharted seas of globalisation, and let the shylocks and sharks of the global market devour our resources and dictate our policies, our societies are being torn asunder along various parochial fault lines of ethnicity, race, region and clan. If ever there were a time to rekindle the dream and vision of pan-Africanism, then that time is now.
Even as Africa trails its focus on pan-African unity, one sees reason for hope and promise in continuing efforts towards regional integration. There are deep historical underpinnings behind the quest towards regional unity. Pan-Africanist visionaries such as Nkrumah and Nyerere foresaw the dangers of becoming independent alone.
Mwalimu was for instance prepared to delay the independence of Tanganyika if the four East African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar) could do it as a federal unit. The ongoing efforts towards regional integration must therefore be weighed in the context of pan-Africanism.
In East Africa, the heads of state have already decided to revive the East African Co-operation and a treaty has already been agreed. Consultations have now been initiated seeking the people's views on the creation of an East African federation.
The East African Community, the predecessor of the East African Co-operation, collapsed in the 1970s under the strain of state differences and bitter rivalry among vested interests.
This time round, one hopes that the lessons have been learnt and that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated. The objective must be to place cooperation on a firmer foundation by adopting better and durable approaches to the issue of unity.
As Africa moves towards consolidating pan-African unity, there are lessons that can be drawn both from past experience and present initiative towards consolidating regional cooperation in East Africa.
The old cooperation was characterised by two major thrusts. On the economic plane, it was trade centred. While on the political plane, it was state driven. Its overall approach was economic rather than political.
A useful lesson to the pan-African vision is that economic unity needs to be based on a complementarity of structures. Countries can only cooperate when the issue of economic unity is approached politically. For instance, a common approach to fixing the prices of agricultural exports or repayment of debts can be a genuine basis for cooperation. This requires political decisions.
In the case of East Africa, the structures of production in the three countries were competitive rather than complimentary. Being export oriented economies, the three entities exported almost similar agricultural crops. They competed in wooing the same investors to invest in import-substitution industrialisation. The three countries were thus rivals in the international market rather than cooperators, which rendered their unity fragile.
The pan-Africa enterprise can draw three vital lessons from the East African experience. First, the approach should be explicitly political. Second, on the economic plane, the foundation of unity should be at the level of production – capital and labour; rather than trade. Thirdly, on the political level, it should be people-centred rather than state-oriented.
Another region where forging genuine cooperation can greatly support the pan-Africa vision is in the Great Lakes region. Within a larger political grouping, it is perhaps easier and more feasible to control civil wars which have spilled over into border wars between countries in this region. A project resulting in peace in this region would dramatically boost genuine pan-Africanism and bring the dream of African unity closer.
Pan-Africa unity can provide space for increased interaction especially in areas such as human resource development to benefit countries in need. Countries in re-orientation such as Rwanda for instance could benefit from the talent pool available in other countries in much the same way as happened in the 1960s when Nigeria sent many of its magistrates to support Tanzania’s judiciary.
The same could be applied in higher education. Rwanda is in the process of rebuilding its university. UK universities are fast bidding for donor funds to send their teams of experts, advisors, professors and so on. Such opportunities should be consciously used to create practical ways of cooperation rather than being left to be manipulated by big powers. Such cooperation and assistance among ourselves would be mutually beneficial and in the interest of the ideal of African unity.
Cooperation at every level – regional or continental – must provide an enabling framework for the involvement of civil society and other stakeholders. The rationale is simple. Cooperation at all these levels is too important to be left to heads of state alone. The immediate area heads of state identify for cooperation is defence and security, mostly their own of course.
Left to their devices, states can break unity either owing to pressure from international powers or narrow visions of local vested interests. Africa’s people must therefore not leave the pursuit of pan-African unity to their states and politicians. Only when Africa’s people are united can pan-African unity be sustained. They must widen their horizons to take into account new conditions and possibilities.
While, indeed, we must have sufficient will and sentiment to promote African unity, we must at the same time be prudent to protect and enhance our national interests. However, both these – pan-Africanism and nationalism – should be placed in the larger interests of the majority, and not succumb to narrow factional motives, or the greed of groups and classes. The interest of the large majority – the popular classes – should be the litmus test.
African unity as an expression of pan-Africanism is not only a desirable vision for Africa at this stage of our development, but a necessity. It is a necessity because left on our own, we are likely to become - and are increasingly becoming - pawns on the geopolitical and military chessboard of the imperial powers, under the hegemony of the most militarised and ruthless superpower in the history of mankind.
• Issa G. Shivji was, until his recent retirement, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam where he has been teaching since 1970. He has authored over a dozen books and numerous articles. His books include Class Struggles in Tanzania (1976), The Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989) and Not Yet Democracy: Reforming Land Tenure in Tanzania (1998).
• Please send comments to
On November 3, 20 unions from around the world met to create the Alliance for Justice at Group 4 Securicor. G4S is the biggest employer in the security industry and one of the biggest employers in the world with around 400,000 workers in more than 100 countries. The Alliance aims to win a global agreement to ensure workers' rights to join the union of their choice and receive decent treatment, including a living wage and social protection.
CHILD TRAFFICKING - ECPAT UK (Child protection agency) is recruiting four positions as part of an expanding programme on safeguarding child victims of trafficking. All positions are based in central London. All successful applicants will be required to have a Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure (police check).
1) PROGRAMME CO-ORDINATOR – TRAINER (Full Time); 2)TRAINER – COMMUNITY (0.6 Part Time)3) CAMPAIGNS OFFICER (Full Time)4)SENIOR OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR (Full Time) Applications packs will be available online from 16th April at: For further information contact: [email][email protected]
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Fahamu bids farewell to Patrick
FEATURES: Ike Okonta assesses Nigeria’s forthcoming elections
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Grace Kwinge on her experience of Mugabe’s security forces
- Joseph Yav – Lessons from Rwanda
- Issa Shivji on building the pan-African vision
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen assesses the role of local factors in the Nigeria elections
BLOGGING AFRICA: ICTs for kids in Ghana, Middle East realities, Nigerian models and chocolate crucifixes
BOOKS & ARTS: Poems by Sokari Ekine and Rethabile Masilo
WOMEN AND GENDER: Blogs begin new conversation for Egyptian women
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Algerian bomb death-toll rises
HUMAN RIGHTS: Ethiopian genocide suspects released
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Asylum seekers left homeless in South Africa
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: New Ivorian government announced
AFRICA AND CHINA: Namibia and China sign 13 agreements
CORRUPTION: World Bank staff seeks Wolfowitz’s ouster
DEVELOPMENT: Opposition to more say for developing nations in IMF
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: What the papers aren’t saying about TB and HIV
EDUCATION: India offers Tanzania 100 scholarships a year
LGBTI: Making Herstory
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: Uganda forest protest sparks racial violence
ENVIRONMENT: Will the poor be flooded out?
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: The politics of land clashes
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Nigerian Radio and TV stations shut down
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Report on ICT access across Africa
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Zimbabwean women with HIV/AIDS who present with AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma (AIDS-KS) are younger than male counterparts of similar AIDS-KS status and have a more severe course of KS, according to the findings of a cross-sectional study published in the March 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
A complex community-based intervention implemented in Zimbabwe has failed to reduce the incidence of new HIV infections in the population. Researchers from the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa studied the impact of an integrated community and clinic-based intervention programme, one strategy thought to have potential to promote behaviour change.
We are sad to bring you news about the impending departure of Patrick Burnett from Pambazuka News and Fahamu.
Patrick joined Fahamu in 2002 as a part-time research assistant for Pambazuka News. The impact of his presence on the Pambazuka News team was felt immediately. The quality of news and information appearing in what was to become later the Links and Resources section changed radically. Pambazuka News began providing a space to many of those who were engaged in social justice struggles in Africa whose voices were rarely heard.
A broader range of editorials and essays from activists and analysts began to appear in Pambazuka News as a result of Patrick’s work. And at the same time, he helped to manage a sister newsletter, Equinet News.
In January 2004, Patrick was appointed News and Information coordinator and took on primary responsibility for expanding Pambazuka News and involving a team of volunteers across the continent. The structure and quality of Pambazuka News began to develop in ways that we had hardly foreseen, matched by the steady and rapid growth in the number of subscribers and contributors.
A year later, in 2005, Patrick became the Online News Editor of Pambazuka News. Under his leadership, Pambazuka News was to win a range of international awards as the newsletter gained recognition as the principal forum for analysis, debate, discussion and information about the struggles for social justice in Africa.
There is little doubt that we owe much of the success of Pambazuka News to Patrick. Few people realise how much hard work is done by so few people to produce Pambazuka News. Gathering information across the continent, commissioning and reviewing articles, chasing recalcitrant authors to keep their promises, writing articles, undertaking research on multiple and complex issues - these are just some of the tasks that are involved. Combine that with the tyranny of the weekly deadlines, it is surprising that anyone is able to keep going.
Patrick has wanted, for some time now, to move on and develop his own work in journalism. He has been amazingly generous in agreeing to postpone his departure by several months pending our appointment of an online news editor and a researcher for the Links and Resources section of Pambazuka News. With these tasks completed, Patrick will be leaving on April 20, once the 300th issue of Pambazuka News has been put to bed. That we have reached this age is a testimony to Patrick's contributions.
As we celebrate the birthday of our 300th issue next week, please join us also in celebrating Patrick’s contribution to Pambazuka News. Patrick – thank you for all you have done. Go well. And keep in touch.
Firoze Manji
Editor Pambazuka News
Chronic or recent infection with the genital herpes virus (HSV-2) increases the risk of acquiring HIV more than four- and five-fold, respectively, according to research undertaken amongst high-risk women in Tanzania and published online ahead of print in the May 1st issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
If Tony Blair’s Government is as concerned as it claims to be about the people of Darfur, then it should at the very least abide by its international obligation to protect these Darfuri asylum seekers and issue an immediate moratorium on the further removal of non-Arab Darfuri asylum seekers to Sudan.
The 17th of April is the International Peasant's Struggle Day, established after the massacre of 19 landless peasants belonging to the Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil on the 17th of April 1996 during the second conference of La Via Campesina in Tlaxcala, Mexico. In commemoration of that day, La Via Campesina and its allies are organizing activities and actions all over the world.
The U.N. Security Council, whose primary mandate is to prevent wars and preserve world peace, will once again break tradition next week when it debates the newest threat to international security: climate change.
Johannesburg's inner city regeneration programme has led to the eviction of more than 100 refugees and asylum seekers. Some fear a flurry of evictions in coming months could see 70,000 people, including refugees and asylum seekers, expelled from 235 buildings.
The UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme will later this month open an exhibition in London of powerful images of displaced people and returnees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).The exhibition, "Exposed and Hungry: Life in eastern Congo," will feature pictures by American freelance photographer Susan Schulman focusing on the issues of bringing shelter, protection and food to people in the volatile eastern regions of the DRC.
Some 9,000 Chadians have arrived in UN refugee agency trucks and on their own at the Habile site for internally displaced persons after brutal attacks on two villages left houses torched and the ground strewn with dead. A United Nations team headed by UNHCR reached the burnt out villages of Tiero and Marena on Sunday, a week after the March 31 attacks.
UNHCR's repatriation programme for South Sudan topped the 50,000 mark this week when a group of 84 Sudanese refugees flew to the town of Yambio from Central African Republic (CAR).
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/systemcele.jpgSystem Cele from shack dweller association Abahlali in Durban speaks to Pambazuka News about the struggle for rights to land and housing in new South Africa. Five members of her group are now on hunger strike after being arrested in what Abahlali sees as a politically motivated murder charge. In this interview System speaks about why the community is struggling to stay in their area, and the obstacles they face in daily life and political organising. For more on shack dwellers issues and updates on the hunger strike see the .
Kabissa has submitted a project proposal idea to NetSquared - an organization that is working to spur the adoption of new “social web” tools among organizations working for social change. Kabissa has entered the competition which is very steep with 150 projects participating.
Nigerians go to the polls this Saturday in a historic, highly contentious election. Tadjudeen contests the election may be determined more by local factors than powers of incumbency. It may also spur the opposition to unite behind a candidate against the ruling PDP at next weekend’s presidential election.
Nigerians go to the polls this Saturday in a historic, highly contentious election.
It is historic because it is the first time that an elected government will be handing over to another elected government through universal adult suffrage.
It has been highly contentious. It will leave people with negative forebodings because of the violence, generalised insecurity and uncertainties that elections continue to generate across this continent; as we try to deepen democracy beyond ‘voting without choosing’; and make a difference to the way in which we are governed politically, economically and socially.
As with any challenge faced by other African countries, the challenge facing Nigeria, by virtue of its size, is multiplied several times.
This weekend’s election is the first in a two week marathon to choose public officials for both state and federal governments of Nigeria. This Saturday, voters are choosing members for 36 state parliaments and 36 state governors. There are at least two dozen contestants for every available post. There are over 30 political parties contesting.
The resources at the disposal of many of the states are bigger than the national budgets of a majority of the member states of the African Union.
Therefore a lot at stake at these 'local' elections. It is not surprising that most of the electoral violence tends to occur at these elections, because the local elite is most visible at this level.
At this level, they can legitimately access a bigger share, second only to that of the federal government, of the nationally allocated oil revenues.
So if you do not control power at the centre, doing so at state levels is second choice. Local government is a very distant, and relatively poor third option.
At the federal level the contest is narrowed to two main parties: usually the ruling part and whatever coalition of ‘eaters’ and other foot lose opportunists on the one hand; and a coalition of opposition parties on the other.
At the state level things, are complicated by specific local conditions: personalities, historical memories and local rivalries.
The party in power at the centre always has the advantage of ‘changing political facts’ locally through all kinds of uses and abuses of the powers of incumbency.
Thus in 2003, the ruling PDP went on a rampage claiming victory in more than two thirds of the states across the country, mostly through blatant rigging, including massive votes in most of the oil-producing southern states where there were successful boycotts of the polls.
In Obasanjo’s home state, where he even lost his deposit in his own family ward in 1999, an election in which his own Yoruba people did not endorse his candidature, he was seen as sponsored by the Hausa–Fulani north.
The PDP reversed the course by giving Obasanjo more votes than there were registered voters! An election petition later nullified the result, but with no effect on the presidency.
However in at least one state, e.g. Imo, the rigged results were overturned, and the legitimate winning opposition party regained the governorship.
In two other states, Lagos and Kano - the two most populous, metropolitan states with very conscious civic populations, the leading opposition parties, AD and ANPP respectively, were sufficiently vigilant and organised in a balance of terror against the PDP, so as to ensure that there victories were not stolen.
At Saturday’s elections, the PDP may attempt to sweep everything again. But the party is no longer as formidable as it appears, in spite of its control of the state machinery.
First, its umbrella symbol is now so tattered that it no longer holds its various factions together. It is bitterly divided between Obasanjo loyalists, Atiku supporters and all kinds of anti-Baba PDP grandees. Those who did not defect with Atiku have gone to other parties.
Secondly, Atiku’s group had control over most of the party's financial machinery which was used to rig the PDP to power, notably in 2003. Therefore Obasanjo’s people do not have monopoly over the manipulations. Hence the mortal fear of having Atiku on the ballot, and risk having to content with his counter-rigging infrastructure.
Thirdly, Obasanjo does not know how to make friends, although he is field-marshal in manufacturing enemies by the seconds. He has caused more disenchantment in his ranks through the whimsical way he imposed governorship candidates in many states.
In one state Obasanjo imposed the fourth-placed candidate, while in other states, the names of winning candidates were substituted with Aso Rock favorites. Two of those went to court to have the decision quashed, and were successful.
But rather than reinstate them, Obasanjo’s party declared that they will not be contesting in the states. They expelled the victorious candidates in order to deny them the PDP platform. All these will militate against PDP at state level.
By no means are the other parties any more democratic than the PDP: most of them will rig where they can, and are able to.
What this all means is that this Saturday’s elections may be determined more by local factors than the powers of incumbency, whether at local or federal levels. The opposition parties may do better than feared. They may also spur the opposition to unite against the PDP at next weekend’s presidential election behind a candidate best placed to challenge the PDP candidate, Umar Musa Yar Adua, who remains the front runner.
* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
People in Africa are now increasingly competing to get access to arable land and pastures. Open land conflicts are becoming more and more common across the continent. This paper by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) is based on experiences gained by the three authors through previous research activities and assignments in different parts of Africa and reading of existing literature.
This Center for Global Development (CGD) report by senior fellow David Wheeler shows that while there is no indication that floods are more common in poor countries, when it does flood, poor country citizens are much more likely than the residents of rich countries to suffer severe consequences: homelessness, injury, death.
In spite of the previous protests and the international pressure exerted upon the Nigerian government since the infamous Anti-gay bill, all efforts now seem to have come to a standstill pending the federal elections on 21 April this year.
The case against 14 gay men arrested last year and charged with public indecency at Camp David Bar in Pretoria, South Africa, has been thrown out of court. The charge of operating a brothel laid against the owner of the club was also dropped because of lack of evidence.
Lack of archived material on lesbians in South Africa has prompted photographers Jean Brundrit and Zanele Muholi to conduct a workshop entitled "Making Herstory". The project trains participants to acquire basic photography skills that will enable them to document their past, present and future.
Like many people living in countries where expressing unorthodox views can be difficult, Egyptians have turned to the Internet. The recent surge in blogging has given many Egyptians the opportunity to voice opinions about a range of subjects. Women in particular have tapped into the blogosphere.
The Web2ForDev International Conference will promote the adoption and dissemination of appropriate, low-cost and replicable Internet-based applications by actors in agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management. It aims to inspire participants to use and develop their own information management and communication systems based on these applications. The Deadline for submission of proposals is 30 April 2007.
Morocco has delivered a proposal for autonomous control over the disputed Western Sahara region to the UN secretary-general, according to a report by Al-Jazeera. The North African country's proposal came a day after a rival movement working for the separation of Western Sahara from Morocco called for a referendum on independence.
The Nigerian president's declaration of a public holiday has delayed a supreme court hearing into whether the vice-president may stand in next week's election.
Olusegun Obasanjo has designated Thursday and Friday, 12 and 13 April as a holiday, directly threatening the electoral campaign of Atiku Abubakar.
A coalition led by Thomas Boni Yayi, Benin's president, has taken control of parliament, according to election results announced by the country's constitutional court. According to a report by Al-Jazeera, Yayi said wresting control of parliament from traditional elites was key to pushing through anti-corruption reforms, which he claims prompted an attempt on his life last month.
One of the Democratic Republic of Congo's key opposition leaders has left the country, ending three weeks of living under the protection of the South African embassy in Kinshasa. According to one witness, Jean-Pierre Bemba boarded a private jet bound for Portugal on Wednesday, where he is due to have medical treatment.
Gift Phiri, a contributor to the London-based weekly The Zimbabwean, has been released on bail and immediately hospitalized for treatment to injuries resulting from the beatings he received during four days in police custody.
Abdulkadir Ashir "Nadara," head of the privately-owned TV station Universal TV, journalist Bashir Dirie Nalei and cameraman Hamud Mohammed Osman were arrested on 8 April at Mogadishu airport and have been held since then. The three journalists had covered a press conference by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, during which "Nadara" had asked him about favouritism in his choice of officials.
Two new Lagos-based broadcast media, Link FM and GTV, were abruptly shut down by the security forces on Wednesday 11 April, three days before elections for state governors and state parliaments. Eight members of the security forces burst into the Link FM and GTV studios in the Lagos district of Ketu, ordering all the employees to leave and placing seals over the entrances.
Forget statistics on literacy, child mortality and access to clean piped water: In Angola, the shopping-mall is the key indicator of social and economic development. As OpenDemocracy's Lara Pawson reports, Luanda’s poor are paying a heavy price for the gleaming condominiums and shopping-malls arising around them.
Self-education in positive masculinity is at the core of efforts to contain the spread of HIV/Aids, writes Patricia Daniel for OpenDemocracy.
The International Monetary Fund ( IMF) said on Thursday it would give Kenya 56.8 million U.S. dollars after waivering five requirements including declaration of assets by ministers and senior civil servants, according to a report by Xinhua. A statement from the IMF Country Office in Kenya said the east African nation's macroeconomic performance had improved markedly since 2004, resulting in increased financial reserves.
The Indian government has increased its annual quota for scholarships offered to Tanzanians to 100 to help with vocational training in the east African country. The increase was announced by the Dar es Salaam-based Indian High Commission in a press statement available on Thursday.
A shortage of over 1 million health workers has put Africa, still grappling with huge health challenges, into a catastrophic situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. With a shortfall of 4.3 million health workers worldwide, the deficit in Africa alone is more than 1 million, according to Francis Omaswa, executive director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) under the WHO.
Cote d'Ivoire's President Laurent Gbagbo on Saturday announced the formation of a new government which will be in charge of getting the country out of the crisis which it has been experienced for more than four years. The new government of Prime Minister Guillaume Soro consists of 33 ministerial portfolios, and the entry of six new ministers.
Sexual and reproductive health services are vital in preventing unnecessary deaths, of both men and women. Yet - as World Health Day highlighted - governments and health organisations are still failing to prioritise spending on these services, according to this PANOS report.