“Yes We Can!” What a brilliant slogan this is. The US presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, certainly has a winner on this one. It denotes so many possibilities. It says we can change the world, we can change our way of life, we can strive towards a better tomorrow for all, and dare I say, we can consolidate democracy in Africa. Yes we can!
It is an irony that these inspirational words come from the United States, a country that for the last eight years of the Bush-Cheney adminis...read more
“Yes We Can!” What a brilliant slogan this is. The US presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, certainly has a winner on this one. It denotes so many possibilities. It says we can change the world, we can change our way of life, we can strive towards a better tomorrow for all, and dare I say, we can consolidate democracy in Africa. Yes we can!
It is an irony that these inspirational words come from the United States, a country that for the last eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration has made it possible for African leaders to boldly say “No We Won’t!” or “No We Don’t Give A Damn!” when it comes to doing all they can to promote the culture of openness and transparency in structures of governance and public administration. It was the Bush-Cheney administration that first argued for, and entrenched, the notion that openness and transparency were the enemies of national security.
When the Bush-Cheney administration waged war on terror its enemies were not just Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein; this list also included the civil liberties of American citizens, most especially Freedom of Information rights. The Bush-Cheney administration’s religious zeal in passing draconian anti-terrorism laws was only equaled by the administration’s resolve to weaken the Freedom of Information Act and other government-in-the-sunshine laws. African leaders took note.
Small wonder therefore that the government of Mr. Festus Mogae, the former President of Botswana, caused controversy in 2003 when it publicly stated that FOI was not a priority for Botswana. Two years later Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, the former president of Tanzania, is reported to have told a press conference that Tanzania would never have an FOI law as long as he ran the show. Mkapa’s Namibian counterpart took the cue and expressed the same sentiment. Further north in 2007 the former military ruler of Nigeria and born-again democrat, Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, scuppered the impressive efforts by Nigerian civil society to have an FOI law passed when, for the most inane of reasons, he refused to sign in to law the FOI bill that had been approved and adopted by both houses of parliament. The least said about Robert Mugabe’s Access to Information And Protection of Privacy Act the better. “No We Won’t”, the African leaders have declared.