It is troubling that an electoral body that is unanimously declared grossly incompetent for noncompliance of electoral laws by the highest court in the land can still be deemed by the same court to have conducted valid presidential and parliamentary elections. The findings and the conclusions are a contradiction in terms.

If the South African political economy continues to be ‘privatised’ by large business, it will weaken the state through corruption and cronyism and undermine good governance and the rule of law. It will systematically deter new private investment, both foreign and domestic, and create obstacles to small and medium-sized enterprises, the backbone of any competitive economy.

In Rivers State, four undergraduates are lynched for allegedly stealing laptops and cell phones; in Lagos a woman is beaten and sexually assaulted for stealing pepper; in Ondo State, a man is bludgeoned to death for being gay; and somewhere in Kano, a man is set free after more than two decades in prison for stealing a transistor radio. But there is no national outrage against high-profile thieves who have pocketed billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

The destiny of Ethiopia is in the hands and feet of all Ethiopians. They have the power to pick her up or to drop her and shatter her like glass. They can walk with her on the long road to freedom or they can leave her in the wheelchair built for her by the current dictatorship.

Half a decade after the United States led destabilization and bombing of Libya, the attempts by imperialism to establish a stable neo-colonial dominated regime have not materialized.