Tajudeen Abdul Raheem writes on the recent elections and presidential transition in Nigeria, and concurrent popular protests. He notes that it cannot be good for accountability that the resident president is not held accountable, because people are too obsessed with a former president. Instead, he argues that a new alliance and broad coalition for change needs to be built, to exert democratic pressures on the political system.

I was in Nigeria all of last week. It was my first time in the country since the innauguration of President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, following an election that is universally believed to have been flawed in practically all senses. There were threats by very angry politicians and aggrieved activists that 'Yar Adua will not be sworn in', come 29 May.

The first test of that threat was on 1 May, when the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) called for mass protests during its traditional May Day activities. I happened to be in Abuja at the time. Many of the activists thought the May Day events could become a wider protest about the elections, that would make the country ungovernable. It came to pass without the kind of mass support that was expected. However, a more popular protest called by the NLC after Yar Adua had been sworn in was more successful, because it was based on issues (yet another hike in the domestic oil price) that most Nigerians can easily relate to.

Anybody with a less partisan take on the dynamics of the power play should have realised that flawed as the elections were, it was highly unlikely that the new president would not have been sworn in. Even with the electoral challenges in the courts from the candidates of opposition parties, there was no way the state would have allowed a legal lacuna and political vacuum. But I was speaking to an unwilling audience of friends and compatriots. I warned them against making threats that cannot be enforced. Moses had more luck in his exile on the mountains. Part of the problem with the protests had to do with the anomalous situation of there being no credible leader to rally the population and transform their anger into political force that cannot be ignored. The truth is, that all the parties rigged where they could. But the PDP, being the ruling party at the centre, had more powers and better opportunities for robbing people of their mandate, essentially through control of the results declaration by an openly partisan electoral commission. The process by which the leading presidential challengers in other parties, governorship and other candidates emerged in the various parties was mostly imposed by powerful cliques.

In spite of the vast powers of the ruling PDP, in areas that are very strong opposition turfs like Lagos, Kano, Zamfara or Abia states, the incumbent governors used their popularity and advantages of incumbency to successfully checkmate the PDP machinery and retain power. Therefore, when it comes to rigging, most of the politicians, especially those in the three leading parties (PDP, ANPP and AC), cannot thump their chest about who is cleaner. Yes, Nigerians were robbed of their votes. But one does not intimate that the sense of loss at the national level is in terms of whether candidate A or B had been robbed. The fact that the politicians were not calling for the results to be cancelled in the areas where they had won presented other challenges.

How can the election be flawed only where the ruling party had won? Sections of civil society were calling for cancellation of the whole election, and a re-run. But the politicians who had 'won' were certainly not in favour of that, regardless of their parties. There were also those who had called for an interim government, which was also not a realistic option, because of the political interests at stake.

Nigerians may be aggrieved and remain extremely bitter. But not many are willing to die for any politician anymore, since there are no fundamental differences between them, apart from the ‘I want to chop too’, or ‘I want to be this or that’ - without any bother about policies or alternative programmes for the emancipation of the populace from poverty and want amidst plenty.

The situation is further complicated by two important factors. First, there is resignation that Yar’ Adua would probably have defeated the closest two of his many rivals. Second, the personality of Yar Adua himself - as non-confrontational, being unknown and therefore greatly underestimated - focused more attention on Obasanjo who had orchestrated his nomination and presided over his anointment. There was and still is great anger at the former president.

When I returned to the country early in July, I was hoping that by then the dust was settling, and that there would be a more sober atmosphere in the country. How wrong was I?

There are still many grieving democrats who are refusing to accept that Yar Adua, barring an unlikely decision in the tribunal to nullify the election, will be president for the next four years.

Talking to the usual chattering classes of media pundits, NGO activists and opposition-sympathising politicos, one could make the mistake of believing that General Olushegun Obasanjo is still the tenant in Aso Rock. Every decision or non-decision of Yar Adua is analysed through the lenses of Obasanjo still driving from the back seat from his country home in Ota farm.

In part, Yar Adua’s style of stoic silence in the face of public pressure makes him vulnerable to accusations of being a puppet of the former president. Nigerians are so used to militarised leadership, where things are done ‘with immediate effect’, by executive fiat, that they think Yar Adua is indecisive for taking time before nominating his cabinet, and making senior appointments in dribs and drabs.

If we rewind back to 1999, it took Obasanjo quite some time to exert control over his government. In fact, until his second term, he did not have full control of his administration. Unfortunately for Yar Adua, he does not have four years to wait. However, he will not act in the ways critics of Obasanjo would like. They want him to go after Obasanjo openly, which will not be wise, given the current power balance within the ruling PDP. A president who does not know where the cutlery is cannot start inviting people to dinner!

But as happened between Obasanjo and those vested interests that brought him to power: what goes around comes around. Yar Adua will sooner than later enforce his footprints on his administration and the party that brought him to power. The first cabinet will not be his personal 'A' List. The list of special advisers and key para-statal appointments may be more indicative of his policy thrust and political direction. Obasanjo's so-called 'dream team' did not come into cabinet until his second term, but most of them were key advisers or heads of para-statals.

Obasanjo should know better; that government by proxy does not work in Nigeria. However, the elixir of power is difficult to shake off. It is most deadly in its hangover effect on ex-presidents.

It is not just the pathological anti-Obasanjo elements in Nigeria that believe he is the power behind the throne, and look for him under every executive bed. From all available evidence, Obasanjo, too, is suffering from this grand delusion. I call it Executive withdrawal syndrome.

For now, Yar Adua can enjoy the unusual convergence between the two. This will mean that all his bad decisions, failure or inability to make any decision can be blamed on Obasanjo’s pressures. The good ones will be interpreted as evidence of his becoming his own man! I even read paid adverts and news reports in Nigerian newspapers warning Obasanjo to 'leave Yar Adua alone' - as if he had complained to anybody! It is quite unrealistic to expect that the PDP and the former president from the same party will not attempt to influence the president. That's what politics is all about. But to assume that a president is nothing but a creation of his sponsors removes human agency and turn politics into a game of zombies.

If Obasanjo is the only one putting pressure on Yar Adua, that is the only pressure he will respond to. However, if the grieving democrats can come back to earth, exert their own pressure and engage on their own issues, they may be suprised at the kind of potential influence they could wield. Issues around reform of the electoral process, constitutional reform, freedom of information, transparency and accountability, and independence of the judiciary could be important entry points. The pressure for reform cannot be driven by the political class. Most of them have lost all moral and political credibility. A new alliance and broad coalition for change needs to be built, to exert democratic pressures on the political system. It needs CSOs, NGOs, mass labour, youth, student and women's movements, and other popular forces in strategic partnership with democratically minded elements in the system.

My fear is that people are too obsessed with Obasanjo, baying for his blood and daring Yar Adua to wield the sword. This may actually make Yar Adua take it as his mantra that it is good for him to be permanently underestimated by his opponents. As long as they continue to blame Obasanjo, he may have more room to do what he really wants to do. It cannot be good for our accountability that the resident president is not held accountable for his action or inaction, because people are too obsessed with a former president!

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

At midterm point in the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals by 2015, it seems appropriate to ask why is it that Africa looks set to be a failure, writes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem. The main internal and external obstacles to not achieving the MDGs remain the political will of our leaders and the sincerity of the political leaders of the rich world.

July 7, 2007 marked the halfway point in a journey whose destination and time of arrival was set by 189 heads of state and governments from most countries of the world including all the 53 member states of the African Union. It was a large bus garlanded with hope and lofty aspirations. The leaders invited all the peoples of the world but especially the poor, the marginalised, the sick, mothers and young boys and girls, and the weakest in all states to jump on board with promises that come 2015 the bus will deliver them to a better life and give them more concrete reasons to have faith in leaders, states and society.

They made a solemn declaration: The Millennium Declaration. But they did not stop there because the declaration was transformed into concrete, achievable, measurable; time bound commitments known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

A journey of 15 years which began in 2000 should have reached its midway point by July 2007. Are we halfway to all the targets set in the eight goals?

If we are on target there will be no cause for alarm even though the driver and even some of the passengers may demand more effort to safe more time. There is no harm in arriving early as long as we arrive safely. If we are not in the midway town questions have to be asked why. Did the vehicle have a puncture? Or even worse was it involved in a headlong collision or did it crash? Is the driver ok? Or did any of the passengers fall off or became seriously sick needing emergency attention?

If the bus is still on the road but journeying slowly we have to ask what can be done to make the journey smoother and safer, to catch up for lost time.

The MDGs bus is happily not involved in any serious accident. It is still running across different regions of the world but the roadblocks are more in some places than in others. Even within the same region there are varying speeds because in some parts the drivers seem to dose off whereas in others they are on full alert.

It is in Africa that the bus has been facing many roadblocks. Some of these were deliberately constructed by armed robbers of development (such as inept political leadership, corrupt elite and insensitive government and docile population) while others were artificially created by uncooperative other users of the road (such as rich countries that continue to rob poorer countries through unfair trade and super exploitation of global resources) while some of the obstacles could be the result of what in Hausa is termed ‘gudu ba gyara’ (i.e. ‘speeding without repairs’ or reckless driving).

The general global picture from the recently released UN General-Secretary’s MID term Report shows that Africa is the only continent of the world where the MDGs risk not being met. Unfortunately Africa is the region that needs the MDGs and really more than the MDGs than any other region of the world.

The general picture hides the growing success stories that show that it is not all bad news. There are countries that are doing quite well on a number of the Goals even if they may not meet all of them. Across the continent in education most of the countries have seen huge rises in enrolment into primary schools as a result of debt relief and new prioritisation of the education of our children by many governments.

Uganda for instance, has raised the gear from universal primary education to the secondary level; Kenya is considering same; Malawi has proven that where there is a will there is a way; and even Africa’s notoriously sleeping giant, Nigeria, has reintroduced compulsory universal basic education. On maternal death in child birth, infant mortality and education, Mozambique (returning to peace just in a decade) and Rwanda (that ended genocide only 12 years ago) are making steady progress. Uganda’s pioneering leadership in HIV/ Aids awareness, advocacy, prevention and treatment are catching on in many countries and some of them are actually beginning to do better than Uganda. All these are good news and they show that it can be done and more can be achieved.

Although South Africa is the only African country to have made a promise to achieve the MDGs not in 2015 but by 2014 there are countries (like Botswana, Mauritius, etc.) not thumping their chests who will meet and may surpass them. Given the enormous resources of a country like South Africa it cannot be a congratulatory effort for it to meet the MDGs because it can and should do better. Other resource rich African countries and those with big economies like Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, DRC, Egypt, Libya, should not really be judged by the MDGs because they ought to and should do much better than that. Even the poorer countries like Ethiopia can do better if they set their priority right. IF Ethiopia has resources to occupy another country it can certainly do better at home.

The main internal and external obstacles to not achieving the MDGs remain the political will of our leaders and the sincerity of the political leaders of the rich world.

The covenant on the MDGs was a very simple one. If poor countries deliver on goal 1-7, i.e. hunger, poverty, health, education, governance and rights issues and livelihood, the richer countries will also deliver on Goal 8: improved quality and quantity of aid, debt relief and reform of the unjust global trading system that penalizes the poor and impoverish the poorer countries of the world.

We need to hold our governments accountable for our side of the bargain. But even as we are succeeding in that respect our gains will not translate into sustainable development and social progress if the West and other richer countries of the world do not deliver on their own promise. Mutual accountability of the political leaders of the world to their citizens (who are the passengers on the bus) is what will grease the rusty bolts, service the engine and refuel the MDG Bus at mid term so that it can coast home successfully by 2015.

Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is Deputy Director, Africa, United Nation's Millennium Campaign, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

African leaders have again squandered yet another opportunity, an historic one, to lead decisively. Instead they have gone for the least common denominator, the line of least resistance, by deciding not to decide. The all-important issue of a Government of the Union that was billed as The Grand Debate at the recently concluded AU summit, has been referred to yet another committee that will report at the next summit in January in Addis Ababa.

We are all familiar with the saying that the best way to kill an idea is to form a committee about it. How many more committees do we need to make this decision?

The so-called debate itself was the result of a study presented to the heads of state that has taken almost two years to complete. All the arguments for and against were contained in the report and the three options were clear. One, immediate formation of a Union government. Two, a gradual process leading to Union Government by consolidation of regional economic communities and economic convergence. And last, the formation of a Union Government that gives political authority to the AU in specified areas, aligns national policies to continental policies, and rationalises the RECS to become affective building blocs for the Union Government.

Wherever one stands on this debate, deciding on these issues is vital to move forward. Too many decisions, agreements, protocols have been made, agreed or signed at the continental level without any implementation at the national level. The suggestion of a Union Government was meant to give an effective legal and political framework to these agreements and a mandatory enforcement mechanism.

Unfortunately, the huge ego, razzmatazz and showmanship of the brother-leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the champion of the accelerated Union-track, has beclouded the real issues feeding the prejudice of all Gadaffi-phobic and Arab phobic and sub-Saharan obscurantists. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who is leading the anti-Gaddafi and anti-Union Government charge, liberally exploited these sentiments to actually subvert the debate due to the interests of South African capital and its expansion across this continent without any obligation towards our social commune.

The South African manoeuvre also tapped into the deep-seated alienation of many Africans about our governments, their distrust of political leaders, and cynicism that our leaders don't mean what they say or say what they mean.

Unfortunately, Mbeki's neoliberal agenda was unwittingly aided and abetted by the ambiguity displayed by Nigeria's new President, Umar Musa Yar' Adua. Yar' Adua was obviously not properly briefed by his benefactor and the Nigerian foreign policy elite about a third position championed by former President Obasanjo, and supported by Uganda, Senegal and other leaders in the Heads of State committee set up to look into the issue. They were supposed to report to the Summit but with clear timelines and concrete steps about what will be Union issues, further reforms of the charter, strengthening of representational institutions like the Pan-African Parliament and also taking a decision on the RECS.

But when Yar Adua spoke in his maiden Summit address, he sounded like all he was interested in were the RECs, thereby strengthening the Mbeki supporters.

Obasanjo was too busy trying to get Yar' Adua to Aso Rock to update him on Nigeria's position on African and global matters. The enemies of the Union Government are not just neoliberal governments but also must be some of the bureaucrats in the Union and NEPAD. The old OAU bureaucrats were afraid of the Union and fought its restructuring before and after the extraordinary summit in Shirte in 1999. Now they are fighting to defend the Union they opposed because we now want to reform it further to create a viable institution with political authority.

Many of them are incompetent and got their positions due to political barter and horse-trading and want to maintain them at all costs. But all is not lost yet. At least no one dares to argue against the Union and the Union Government in principle any more. What they are arguing about is when and how.

Therefore, the debate in the next six months in all our countries should shift to the streets, seminar halls, parliaments, county halls and at all levels to challenge our leaders and democratise the discussion so that by the January Summit there is a clear and unambiguous message that we are ready for a Union Government with a clear timetable. South Africa is happy for its businesses to be free to exploit the rest of the continent. Their attitude is like that of Britain towards Europe. However, British reluctance did not stop the Germans and the French and other Europeans to move forward.

Those countries that are willing and ready should begin to take the necessary steps that will make unity concrete for our peoples and not wait until everybody agrees.

* 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 http://www.pambazuka.org/

We are all familiar with the saying that the best way to kill an idea is to form a committee about it. How many more committees do we need to make this decision?

The so-called debate itself was the result of a study presented to the Heads of State that has taken almost two years to complete. All the arguments for and against were contained in the report and the three options were clear. One, immediate formation of a Union government. Two, a gradual process leading to Union Government by consolidation of regional economic communities and economic convergence. And last, the formation of a Union Government that gives political authority to the AU in specified areas, aligns national policies to continental policies, and rationalises the RECS to become affective building blocs for the Union Government.

Wherever one stands on this debate, deciding on these issues is vital to move forward. Too many decisions, agreements, protocols have been made, agreed or signed at the continental level without any implementation at the national level. The suggestion of a Union Government was meant to give an effective legal and political framework to these agreements and a mandatory enforcement mechanism.

Unfortunately, the huge ego, razzmatazz and showmanship of the brother-leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the champion of the accelerated Union-track, has beclouded the real issues feeding the prejudice of all Gadaffi-phobic and Arab phobic and sub-Saharan obscurantists. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who is leading the anti-Gaddafi and anti-Union Government charge, liberally exploited these sentiments to actually subvert the debate due to the interests of South African capital and its expansion across this continent without any obligation towards our social commune.

The South African manoeuvre also tapped into the deep-seated alienation of many Africans about our governments, their distrust of political leaders, and cynicism that our leaders don't mean what they say or say what they mean.

Unfortunately, Mbeki's neo- liberal agenda was unwittingly aided and abetted by the ambiguity displayed by Nigeria's new President, Umar Musa Yar' Adua. Yar' Adua was obviously not properly briefed by his benefactor and the Nigerian foreign policy elite about a third position championed by former President Obasanjo, and supported by Uganda, Senegal and other leaders in the Heads of State committee set up to look into the issue. They were supposed to report to the Summit but with clear timelines and concrete steps about what will be Union issues, further reforms of the charter, strengthening of representational institutions like the Pan-African Parliament and also taking a decision on the RECS.

But when Yar Adua spoke in his maiden Summit address, he sounded like all he was interested in were the RECs, thereby strengthening the Mbeki supporters.

Obasanjo was too busy trying to get Yar' Adua to Aso Rock to update him on Nigeria's position on African and global matters. The enemies of the Union Government are not just neo-liberal governments but also must be some of the bureaucrats in the Union and NEPAD. The old OAU bureaucrats were afraid of the Union and fought its restructuring before and after the extraordinary summit in Shirte in 1999. Now they are fighting to defend the Union they opposed because we now want to reform it further to create a viable institution with political authority.

Many of them are incompetent and got their positions due to political barter and horse-trading and want to maintain them at all costs. But all is not lost yet. At least no one dares to argue against the Union and the Union Government in principle any more. What they are arguing about is when and how.

Therefore, the debate in the next six months in all our countries should shift to the streets, seminar halls, parliaments, county halls and at all levels to challenge our leaders and democratise the discussion so that by the January Summit there is a clear and unambiguous message that we are ready for a Union Government with a clear timetable. South Africa is happy for its businesses to be free to exploit the rest of the continent. Their attitude is like that of Britain towards Europe. However, British reluctance did not stop the Germans and the French and other Europeans to move forward.

Those countries that are willing and ready should begin to take the necessary steps that will make unity concrete for our peoples and not wait until everybody agrees.

* 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 http://www.pambazuka.org/

“When my husband died, I did not come out openly and say he was killed because I knew the consequences. At the back of my mind, I knew my husband had been assassinated”

Those were the chilling words of Mrs. Rebecca Garang, the widow of the late Liberation fighter, Dr (Col) John Garang de Mabior, leader of the SPLA/M who was killed on July 30 2005 in a helicopter crash on the borders of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan. The helicopter he was traveling in belonged to President Yoweri Museveni, Dr Garang’s closest ally and comrade.

I was one of many people who refused to accept the immediate conclusion then that it was an accident. Not because we missed Garang too much and found it impossible to let go which we did but because the explanation was too obvious.

If anyone wanted to kill Garang (and there were many forces) there was no better cover for an almost perfect crime than for him to be traveling unofficially in the helicopter of his closest ally. Since Khartoum did not officially know that he was leaving the capital anyone of the many vested interests who felt threatened by Garang’s messianic entry into Khartoum early in July that trip provided your best opportunity.

Mrs. Garang has now thrown open widely what many had been suspecting. All the inquiries so far have ‘concluded’ that it is pilot error, bad weather, and other technical conclusions but the dearth was political.

So who could have done it?

My first suspect was and remains the extremist wing of the government and Northern hegemonists in the security and intelligence of the country. Their heart must have shook and their desperation further heightened by the tumultuous welcome from all Sudanese commitment to creating a New Sudan when he arrived in Khartoum to be sworn in July 9 2005. They must have seen their world collapsing before their eyes. A Black prophet arising from the South must seem like end of the world for them. Garang was not the first Black Sudanese to have been made Vice President. Khartoum has had a succession of Black poodles willing to be tools of misrule against their people and the whole of Sudan. But in John Garang, a formidable personality who had distinguished himself both militarily and politically the hegemonists shook at what would happen to their rule were Garang to have the opportunity to reshape the country because Garang could be no one’s errand boy. For Sudanese democrats he was a bridge of hope with the potential of turning the country into a genuinely democratic environment where Sudanese might, in the Martin Luther King hope , ‘ be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character ‘ . The enemies of hope had to act and act quickly before goodness broke out in a country that has been in conflict for most of its post independence (1956) existence.

Khartoum is not the only suspect in Garang’s death. Chief amongst other suspects could be extremist wing of Southern Nationalists whose agenda was to secede from Sudan and may have great fears that Dr John’s commitment to creating a New Sudan uniting the North and the South was a betrayal. Plausible but not probable. They needed Garang and backed him in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which gave them the option of full independence by referendum in the course of the 6 year term of the agreement.

Mrs. Garang is herself a believer in Southern Sudan Independence, and between her and her husband they agree to disagree on this issue therefore it is highly unlikely that Southern nationalists killed Dr John.

Mrs. Garang made her public disclosure at an award ceremony by the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation (JOOF) in Nairobi, Kenya. The late John Garang had been honored with a posthumous Uhuru Award for his contribution to the liberation struggles of Africa. Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere was the guest speaker on the theme of CONFLICT AS A CATALYST FOR CHANGE.

It was not just about her husband’s death that Mrs. Garang spoke. Her speech also touched on a number of sensitive issues across Africa. One of them is how we treat. Partners of our heroes. Often they are not seen as persons in their own right. They may have been married to heroes but some of them have a place in the struggle in their own rights. Mrs. Garang spoke from the heart but not as a grieving widow rather as a combatant. She disclosed the embarrassing fact that that award by the JOOF was the first time that Dr John was being honored by an African organization. What doe this tells us about the way in which we treat our heroes and heroines. Garang was the recipient of many awards from all kinds of people in Europe ands North America but his first ward from Africa is posthumous and even then from an Independent foundation. Is this yet another case of a prophet having honor but not in his village or not in his life time?

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of 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

July 1-3 African Heads of state and governments will be assembling in Accra for the 9th ordinary session of the African Union. There is only one item on the agenda: the formation of a government for union of Africa, writes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem.

The official title says this is a Grand Debate on a United States of Africa. This is unfortunate because even those of us enthusiastic about the unity of Africa would wish that the leaders are a bit more creative than just wanting to create another USA. Given what one USA is doing to the world and its previous record it would be a disservice to humanity to want to inflict another USA on the world.

Our values is certainly made of better ethics and love for humanity and affirmation of life with dignity than to be copying the United state of America whose unity is based on genocide against indigenous Indians, slavery of people of African origin and continuing plunder of the rest of the world.

The agenda has pitched leaders against leaders and different sectors of our informed and ill- informed publics against one another. But basically there are two broad positions neither of which disagrees about the need for Africa to unite. So if there is no disagreement about the goal what is the debate about?

Calling it a Grand Debate about USA is a misnomer and misleading characterization that has diverted people's attention from the proposal on the table and invited acrimonious 'debates' about form instead of content.

So delegitimised are many governments on this continent, in spite of the fact that an overwhelming majority are now 'elected' that when Africans hear United States of Africa or an African Union government they run. They instinctively think that what is being said is a transferring of the tyrannical, insensitive anti-people state and government that many of us have experienced and in some cases continue to suffer, even in the guise of democracy, to a continental level. What a disaster that would be! However it is a baseless fear.

Even if the leaders all voted for a Union government in Accra it does not mean that it will be formed immediately and all these states as we know them will disappear and many of the presidents may return as ministers or district commissioners or be consigned to the dust bin where they belong. Were this possible I am not sure many Africans will mourn their passing since quite a number of them already willingly act as agents of imperialism and shop keepers for foreign interests against their peoples anyway!

From the inception of Pan Africanism by Africans in the Diaspora in the latter years of the 19 th century but gaining more prominence and political legitimacy in the first half of the 20th century through the first five Pan African Congresses (1900 -1945, all held outside Africa) and subsequently brought home to Africa (through the All African people's conferences of 1958, and much later the 6th and 7th Pan African Congresses held in Africa in Dar 1974 and 1994, Kampala) the destination has always been total unification of Africa under a common government, common citizenship, a common market, from Cape town to Cairo and full participation for Africans in the Diaspora.

This ambition inspired the anti colonial movement in Africa and got expression in the formation of the OAU. Even though the OAU compromise was to respect the colonially imposed borders they were not meant to be permanent detention centers or garrisons on our way to total liberation and unification. But this is what they became under the multiple pressures of neocolonialism, cold war authoritarianism, militarism and opportunistic elites. The formation of the AU was meant to correct some of the weaknesses of the OAU especially in the areas of state sovereignty that operated as 'sovereignty of dictators that induced official indifference to the suffering of other Africans including Genocide; collective security instead of regime security; people-driven or at least people friendly union instead of a leader-centric OAU; and finally coordination of African responses to global developments and building of African consensus instead of allowing ourselves to be picked up individually to the slaughter house.

But after five years of the AU we have made progress in some areas but ARE STILL STRUGGLING IN MANY AREAS AND THE FULL POSITIVE AND DEMOCRATIC IMPACT OF THE UNUION are still not being felt.

The Grand Debate is therefore about what more needs to be done to accelerate the process of unity which we have all agreed on. It is not a debate about the desirability of a Union government because by signing up to the ideals of Pan Africanism, the OAU and AU all our states already agreed to that goal.

The reason why the Au may not have performed to the highest expectation has to do with the lack of political authority, enforcement powers and adequate resources to discharge its responsibility. IF unity is our goal therefore the leaders have to decide on a few key areas. One, the Study group on Union government for Africa identified 16 strategic areas (including aspects of foreign policy, defense, security, finance, global negotiations, etc) in which the leaders have to agree to cede some powers to the Au to effectively act in our collective interest. There is no point in us having a Union while many states still deal with the world individually. It undermines the AU and undermines the states themselves. Two, for too long the Au has talked about rationalizing regional economic communities but they keep proliferating even if most of them are struggling. Yet they are supposed to be '; the building blocks' of the AU. How many blocs do we need for the foundation? In Banjul they put a moratorium on forming new ones but the existing or limping ones are still too many. The suggestion is to cut them down to the five regions recognized by the AU charter (the Diaspora is Sixth region but has not regional Economic Community). Africa of five main blocks will be better coordinated. Three, many decisions are made at the Au level but there is no proper mechanism for implementation at the local and national level and do not even have enforcement capacities. If there is agreement on the 16 priority areas then the confusion at the national level; can be eliminated and AU decisions become mandatory. Four, the big issue of funding, the overall budget of the AU is not more than 1 billion Dollars annual. It is an insult that 53 states in a continent so rich in human and material resources cannot raise this money and more. Just imagine if JUST 5% of all our national budgets automatically go into the Union budget. That can only come with political authority being given to the union through an accountable government.

Which leads me to my final point about the cynicism of many Africans about the political will and commitment of Africa's current leaders. A genuine worry but these leaders are produced from amongst us therefore we can and should change them where necessary . In addition we need to make sure that the potentially democratic and democratic institutions of the AU like the ECOSOCC and the Pan African Parliament have real power to over see the work of the executive. It means actively taking part in the ECOSOCC at your national level AND ALSO CAMPAIGNING FOR the Pap to be elected on a universal African suffrage and the parliament to have full legislative powers. That way we will become active African citizens instead of the vocal or passive cynics that many are turning to.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of 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

Any serious talk of building a United States of Africa must begin with the need to guarantee full citizenship rights to all Africans, and the complimentary freedoms to move, settle, work and participate in the political processes anywhere they may be, argues Tajudeen Abdul Raheem. This is the only thing that would convince us that our leaders are serious.

I want to begin this in a personal way because the issues we are dealing with are not theoretical or rhetorical. They are about our rights and dignity as a people. They are too important for us not to recognise them as validating ‘the personal is political’ dictum made famous by the women’s movement.

I am blessed with two daughters who are growing up in the United Kingdom. They became British citizens at birth, in spite of the fact that their mother and myself were only British residents when they were born. Both girls enjoy all the rights and entitlements of British children in terms of free and compulsory education from nursery through to secondary education and up to university, if they so choose. They are also entitled to prescription free medicine until they are 16. In some sense the sky may be their limit in terms of individual ambitions. Of course, like every other British child, they will have to deal with racial, religious, class and other prejudices as they grow up, and deal with them as and when necessary, especially racial discrimination.

If they had been born in a majority of our countries the fact of being children of residents does not automatically mean that they qualify for the citizenship of the country in which they were born. The circumstances of their birth, which they did not choose, becomes a disadvantage from which they will never be able to escape for all their lives. At the height of the state sponsored Anti Ban Yarwanda (in practice Anti Tutsi) during the Obote 2 regime in Uganda, one of his xenophobic ministers reportedly declared: 'does the fact that a Sheep was born in a Kraal make it a cow?', continuing that 'a Muyarwanda born in Uganda even if he or she dies and is buried in Uganda remains a Muyarwanda'. In this type of mindset and the legal and political regime constructed on it, identity becomes a prison, from which a person will never escape. There is nothing wrong in a Muyarwanda remaining a Muyarwanda all their lives, but if that identity is now used to justify discrimination against the person, marginalise them and deny the right to full participation in the economic, social and political affairs of the country then it is no longer a question of origin but politics and power.

This is the common practice across this continent. In order to disclaim and disempower people, we first deny them their right to citizenship. It is an affirmation of the negative: 'not belonging' or 'not one of us'. Even those to whom we can not deny those rights, because we cannot prove that their parents or grandparents come from another country, we proceed to the second default position: 'settlers' , i.e. not indigenous/ancestrally to that area, even if they are from other parts of the same country. So the same Ugandans will argue that a Muchiga from Kabale born and brought up in Kabarole or Hoima are settlers, because their ancestors do not originate from Toro or Bunyoro.

Nigerians have perfected this type of discrimination by requiring on official forms declaration of STATE OF RESIDENCE and STATE OF ORIGIN. The former may, given the decades, and in some cases, centuries, of internal migration, not reveal the ethnicity of the person, but the latter certainly will. Origin requires stating your ancestry where your parents or grandparents or even great grandparents come from. It means that third generation or more of Igbo, Kalabari, Hausa, Itsekiri and other non Yoruba Nigerians in Lagos may still be regarded as 'foreigners’, just as several generations of Yorubas or Igbos in northern Nigeria will be branded 'non indigenes' with serious implications for their citizenship rights, access to state resources and political participation.

There is no worse time for these denials of rights to come to the fore than during elections. All British residents from the Commonwealth, including temporary residents like students could vote in British elections, yet Africans born and brought up in different African countries, many of them with no knowledge or experience of the other country, can neither vote nor be voted for in many countries of birth. Elections are supposed to be exclusively 'for indigenes' but even among the so called 'indigenes' the right to participate is often limited to voting for those Nigerians called 'sons of the soil' (and they are always 'sons' because patriachy disempowers women in land and other property). So somebody of Igbo ancestry may vote in Lagos, but he or she will face enormous prejudice if he or she decides to stand for public office because, despite being a melting pot of all kinds of peoples including other West Africans and descendants of freed slaves from Brazil, somehow Lagos is still believed to be a Yoruba place, and has to be represented by 'proper Yoruba' . The ridiculous thing about this narrow indigeneity is that an overwhelming majority of the Yorubas who now claim Lagos as theirs were migrants from other parts of the Yoruba inter-land! Similarly if someone of Yoruba or Igbo origin, no matter how distant, decides to become governor or legislator in Kano (another city built out of free flow of peoples from all corners of the Sahel and Nigeria, and also Arabia due to the trans-Saharan trade), he or she will be reminded that he/she does not belong.

In Kenya, where I now reside, there is by far greater excitement, speculation and confidence among Kenyans about the chances of Barrack Obama winning the Democratic nomination and proceeding to becoming the first Black President of the USA than you will find among American voters themselves. All because his late father was a Kenyan. But ask the same Kenyans about the chances of Raila Odinga, a frontrunner for the presidential candidature of the opposition ODM-Kenya, many of them will declare bluntly: no way, he can't make it, he is Luo. But so was Obama's father, therefore Barrack is, by our immutable patriarchal genealogy, a Luo. Why are we enthusiastic about a Luo man becoming the president of the USA, but give no chance to a fellow Luo who wants to be president of Kenya where majority Luo people reside? It is alright in America, but somehow not kosher here in Kenya. If Obama does not get the nomination many Africans will put it down to racism. So what is it when we discriminate against fellow Africans in countries where the bulk of the population are Africans?

Part of the excuses (not explanations, mark you) you get when discussing the Raila presidential ambitions is that he comes from a minority ethnic group and that there was no way the majority Kikuyu will allow it. In the same breath you will be assured that whoever Raila supports may win. So you get this contradictory position of Raila (and Luos) forever playing the role of kingmakers, never to be kings themselves.

A situation whereby whole groups of fellow citizens are reduced to playing second class roles cannot lead to a viable democratic society. If you ask many Nigerians about the chances of someone from the oil-producing Niger Delta becoming president of the country they will give you all kinds of evasive answers. But behind it all is the unwritten law that the presidency of the country belongs to a certain dominant group, almost in perpetuity, despite the fact that these majority groups are parasites on resources that come predominantly from minority areas.

It is only when talking about oil that many Nigerians become very nationalistic, and accuse anyone who asks for sensitivity towards the people, from whose shores the Black Gold flows, of wanting to break up Nigeria. Some Nigerians even argue that the oil producing states already get more than enough share of the oil resources from the central government and challenged them to show what they have done with it.

The wider question is: what have the governments of Nigeria done with the resources of the country? If the leaders hah used the resources for the benefit of the great majority of the citizens, the issue will not have become as politicised and polarised as it has become. Of what value is being a Nigerian to most of the peoples in the Niger Delta who have continued to harvest death and destruction from the oil resources in their areas. It is dodging the question to accuse them of separatism. No country should be a catholic marriage, in which there cannot be the possibility of divorce.

The possibility of divorce does not mean that all marriages will end in one. What will make people voluntarily show their loyalty and commitment to any political community is their level of security, confidence and identification with it as stakeholders who know that the state will be there for them to protect them and defend their interests.

It is the absence of these that has made many of our states illegitimate in the eyes and practice of many Africans. And that is why every little thing threatens these states.

What can be done? We can not run away from the problems of citizenship on this continent anymore. As we discussed during the launch of the Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI) in Kampala recently, millions of Africans are today victims of the arbitrary denial of citizenship and consequent statelessness.

A situation in which Africans with non-African citizenship can feel more secure and exercise full rights of political participation in their adopted countries than in many of our countries has to be reversed immediately.

To return to the case of my daughters, the prejudices and discrimination they will face In many African countries may not just be because their parents were residents, or settlers. The fact of both of their parents coming from different countries will not be a bonus, but another disadvantage. They may not have automatic right to their mother's citizenship. In fact in some countries their mum may not take them to her home country without their father's 'permission' because the father 'owns' the children!

Many African women married to other Africans from different countries suffer discrimination both ways: punished for not marrying wisely! At home they will foreignise them, and in the country of their husbands, they remain foreigners. Show me any country in Africa where a Sonia Ghandi could be leading even a minor political party, no matter who her husband may have been.

The first thing we need to do is to reconcile our states to the diversity of our peoples by giving African citizenship to all Africans wherever they may be.

I know that a number of questions will be posed, the principal one being 'who is an African?' A simple answer will be any citizen of any African country no matter how that citizenship was acquired including ancestry, indigeneity, settlement, marriage, naturalisation and any other legally recognised means. Another question will be 'where does the African diaspora come in?' They will qualify under ancestry but also voluntary naturalisation.

Some countries have adjusted to granting dual or multiple citizenship, but only for remittance purposes in most cases. Because of the growing role that remittances from Africans abroad play in holding families and communities together, many countries now recognise the right of their citizens to have other citizenship, therefore abandoning the previous ‘either’ ‘or’ exclusion. But even here, there is a catch: dual citizenship is often assumed to be one of African citizenship and a European or north American one. For someone like me who was born Nigerian and have had a Ugandan passport for more than ten years, there were always suspicions among immigration and security officials. Somehow it is alright for an African to hold Western passports but deemed 'odd' to be a dual African citizen. This further goes to prove that we continue to treat ourselves as foreigners.

The granting of African citizenship will not automatically solve all the problems of ethnicity, racism, exclusionism and intolerance. What it will set is a new and more inclusive legal and political framework for us to deal with these problems as equal members of a shared political community without anyone of us feeling superior or inferior, or at the mercy of other citizens. It will be like being members of the same family. No matter how much you may dislike your brother or sister, cousin or uncle, when it comes to family affairs you all have equal right of participation. There is an African saying that no matter how close a friend may be, the day we want to worship our ancestors he or she has to excuse himself or herself.

Whatever problems there may be, we can then resolve them among ourselves. And if we cannot, we will learn to understand and manage them without the threat of opponents being foreignised and declared stateless.

Any serious talk of building a United States of Africa that does not begin from this fundamental reconfiguration of our legal and political status within such a state will be doomed from the start. The continuing challenges to regional and continental integration for the past 50 years since independence from colonialism largely stem from the anomaly of seeking to unite our artificial states while keeping our peoples apart.

In West Africa, which has had free movement for three decades, it is still common to find citizens of other West African countries 'deported' and routinely harassed and victims of extortions by various security, intelligence and immigration officials at various border points and inside West African countries.

The problem is not with the right to move freely but the lack of political will to take further complementary steps to make regional citizenship real for the peoples of the region. These will include faster progress on regional liberalisation and harmonisation of trade, financial and commercial transactions within the region. In spite of free movement market traders, the famous West African market women, who keep their families, communities and the whole region going through their micro enterprises are still subjected to all kinds of extortion at border points in a way that criminalises intra-regional trade. Instead of saluting and encouraging these 'cross border' traders as the Pan Africanist entrepreneurs that they are, we criminalise them as 'smugglers' and euphemistically call their exchanges 'informal sector' , 'second sector' or 'parallel market'.

Yet the truth is that the majority of our peoples survive directly or indirectly in these sectors. Any Pan Africanist economist who is not allowing theory to confuse him or her can easily see that this is the real African economy. It is the state sector that needs to give way to the real thing and find ways of collecting the taxes that are currently going into private pockets at our various corruption extortion posts called borders.

The East Africa Community in its steady march towards the creation of a federation seem to be unlearning some of its own previous effort and learning well from the challenges in the ECOWAS region. It is merging freedom of movement with complimentary whittling down of barriers to trade, finance and commerce and removing all kinds of unnecessary bureaucratic bottle necks. For instance, a visa for non community citizens and residents to one of the countries is now valid for re-entry from all the three countries and very soon Rwanda and Burundi too. It also has a legislative Assembly and regional court that are potentially more powerful than what is available in the ECOWAS and also the Pan African Parliament.

If the leaders of Africa want to be taken seriously and silence the cynicism that has continued to dominate any discussion about the African Union, they need to demonstrate they have the required political will and are ready to use them to deliver a truly people-driven union.

One major area that will affect everybody immediately and transform people's perception is guaranteeing full citizenship rights to all Africans with its complimentary freedom to move, settle, work and participate in the political processes anywhere they may be. This will mean that we cease to require dehumanising visa regimes that make it almost impossible to travel legally across the continent. Pan African trade will no longer be criminalised as 'smuggling'.

It means the Pan African Parliament should be given full legislative powers and its elections can be held on a Pan African adult suffrage. Pan African Affairs will no longer be in Foreign Affairs but become part of the domestic political contestations. Africans will no longer be undesirable 'aliens' across Africa. The humiliation of beings 'others' in Europe and treated as 'others' at home will be ended. And we can all arrive at border posts with pride at the welcoming notices proclaiming 'Africans this way' and 'Others...this way'!

This will put African people at the centre of the 'Grand Debate', instead of them being cynical observers, as many are at the moment, or, worse still, completely unconcerned.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is also General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

As someone who believes in ‘African solution to African problems’ I should be excited as everyone seem to be about the so called break through between the African Union and the UN on the one hand and the Government of Sudan on the other, on ending the genocidal war in Darfur. But I am not excited at all. I am not excited because we have been down this road several times before.

Khartoum has been taking everyone for a ride for so long that we take every sign of compromise as a breakthrough even if it will lead to yet another road bloc.

Khartoum has perfected the art of talking while continuing to kill its own citizens either directly or indirectly through its Janjaweed militia.

The timing of this latest breakthrough is very significant. An African Union summit is only three weeks away. The UN human Rights Council is sitting in Geneva and the Bush Administration has recently announced a raft of ineffectual sanctions.

Khartoum has played the Pan Africanist card very well, insisting on an ‘African only’ troops which satisfies our Pan Africanist instincts but knowing fully well that logistical, political and other technical challenges may make it ineffectual. It believes that an African force is more amenable to its delay tactics than a force that included other armies and with a UN command. It has exploited the understandable anti–American sentiments across the world and in Africa especially to hoodwink people into believing that any UN involvement will mean a proxy American war in yet another ‘Muslim’ , ‘Arab’ or ‘poor Third world’ country. It needs the shield Africa and the AU in order for it continue to fend off a more effective international involvement. It can also count on other shields in the Arab League and Muslim countries and in diplomacy with other Third world countries.

In proclaiming African solutions Khartoum has been counting on African incapacities as evidenced from the various challenges that the AU Force has been facing since its deployment. It has a very restricted mandate that limits it to ‘protecting civilians’ many of whom it can only reach after the Janjaweed and Khartoum forces have done their worst. Even on occasions when it had had early warning about impending attacks on innocent civilians it had been slow in responding or unable to do so.

The situation has not been helped by many of the rebels who seem to be more interested in their own egos and exaggerated political importance than the suffering of their own people. Their clamor for ‘international’ force (which in their colonial mindset means US or other western intervention) has consistently played into the hands of Khartoum. It helps Khartoum’s image laundering as an African country standing up for African solutions and sovereignty portraying the rebels as ‘agents’ of extra continental powers. The rebels have not learnt from the bitter lessons of the MDC in Zimbabwe whose struggles have been made difficult among many Africans because of the West’s support for them.

Just check your diary and see how many times Khartoum has looked very reasonable before an AU summit and only to return to its belligerency soon after. I am not sure this is not yet another of such deliberate rising of false hopes of a peaceful settlement.

Khartoum has been talking to any body that cares to talk about Darfur. That is why it has been involved concurrently in half a dozen of peace initiatives!

The problem with these talks is that they do not stop Khartoum and its allied killers in Darfur from continuing their violence against the people of Darfur but they hold those involved in the talks in check. You cannot be advocating tougher measures against a government that you are negotiating with. In the face of a fractious and faction –ridden opposition and rebel movements the government become reasonable and many peace brokers become more sympathetic to it as their frustration against the rebels grow.

However there is a wider issue relating to the mandate of the peace keeping force itself on which the Khartoum government has been giving the whole world a merry-go round. AU forces on the ground are not delivering not just for technical and logistical reasons or lack of numbers alone. There is no peace to keep since neither the government Janjaweed and the rebel factions have in practice committed themselves to ceasefire for any length of time.

You can increase the numbers of troops but without enlarging the mandate the butchering of Darfurians will continue. What everyone is now calling a breakthrough has been on the cards right from the start. Even the limited AU mandate envisaged an African leadership but did not exclude collaboration with the UN and contribution of troops from outside Africa. But Khartoum bogged everyone down in logistical issues for several months. Everyone is feeling so guilty at the horrible pictures from Darfur that we become desperate for any sign, no matter how vague that Khartoum is about to relent. Hence we are now supposed to jump that the government of Omar Al Bashir has agreed to a ‘hybrid force’. What is inherently good in a hybrid force? What is so new about it anyway? Any Peace keeping force is by definition ‘hybrid’. The people of Darfur have been under the attack of a hybrid of Sudan’s regular forces and their Janjaweed killers. Africa and the UN must really stand up to Khartoum and say : enough is enough, we will do everything possible to stop you from further killing your own citizens. It is peace making, peace enforcement before talking of peace keeping.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of 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

The widow of Kwame Nkrumah, Madam Fatiha, passed away last week in Cairo, her home town, where she had been living for most of the years since Nkrumah’s over throw in February 1966.

As to be expected all kinds of tributes have been pouring out from all kinds of corners including people and institutions who have never really cared what became of her and her three children (Gamal, Sekou and Samia) since Nkrumah died. Many of these conspicuous mourners did not even realize that Madam Fatiha was still alive all these years.

The worst of these hypocrites is always government. Those in power have the power, if the will was there to have honoured Madam Fatima, recognized her and provided for her and her family. But shamelessly successive Ghanaian governments, at best pursued a policy of benign neglect or even outright hostility or opportunistic association and gestures towards the family. This is not because Madam Fatiha has lived outside of Ghana because the same treatment was experienced by the oldest of the children,, Dr Francis Nkrumah (the first son of Nkrumah , from his Ghanaian first wife) or Sekou (Fatiha’s second son) who both live in Accra. This shameful conduct included governments and regimes that claim to be political heirs of Nkrumah.

The government of Ghana immediately announced that it will provide a state funeral befitting a former first lady of Ghana (indeed the very first!) but of what benefit is this post humus honour when she was neglected while she was alive? It is part of that African hypocrisy that suddenly transforms a dead person into the friend of everyone around with no body willing to say anything negative about the departed. Some of this is actually due to guilt. We tend to over compensate by making all kinds of commitments and all manner of gestures immediately after the death of someone close or public figures. However the guilt soon subsides and life continues very much as before with the loved ones left behind to pick up the pieces, as they must. Tears of some of the politically correct mourners go dry as soon as the TV cameras are turned off.

The way we treat the family of our national and Pan Africanist heroes cannot inspire commitment and confidence that devotion to Africa meant anything. As with all committed, genuinely committed (not the convenient foot lose opportunists that are so common these days), their families suffer: absent fathers and husbands. The children grow up feeling victimized by ‘struggle’ and after the hero have gone or is no longer in power the family might as well have been dead.

Nkrumah, even his worst critics, will agree, was completely devoted to the cause of liberating Africa. It was not for him building of personal mansions or having secret accounts all over the world. The struggle was everything. Madam Fatiha was much younger than the Osagyefo when he married her in a matrimonial union that typified Nkrumah’s refusal to accept the Saharan divide of Africa. The three children they had together were all toddlers when Nkrumah was overthrown, and they were only young teenagers when Nkrumah passed away in 1972. Fatiha herself was barely in her mid 30s. No husband, no father and no state provisions the family had to survive on good will sometimes of kind strangers who never met Nkrumah but treasured his contribution to our liberation. They could not leave in Ghana but thanks to President Gamal Abdul Nasser (after whom Fatiha’s first son, Gamal Gorkeh, was named) the family had been given a befitting home by the banks of the Nile. That house progressively became damaged due to lack of maintenance support since the family could not afford to maintain such a modest stately building.

The Ghana for which Nkrumah laboured and the Africa he toiled for simply ignored his family.

It is an insult to now be shedding crocodile tears at the passing of his widow. It is an insult to the family to be offering state funeral to a person that was largely ignored in her life by the same state that is now leading the mourning. The same Ghanaian state showed similar hypocrisy when Nkrumah passed way in exile in Conakry and demanded and later brought Nkrumah’s body to Ghana for State reburial! The embalmed body was for many years left to deteriorate in his village of Nkroful before shame and political expediency and influence of Nkrumahists in his administration forced Rawlings to accept a Mausoleum for Nkrumah in central Accra. Even then most of the money came from Gaddafi!

The spirit of Nkrumah continues to wonder and I hope it continues to haunt all the opportunists, ideological parasites and political saprophytes who continue to use Nkrumah’s name in vain. It should shame us into honouring our heroes and heroines both in life and in death especially the widow and children they leave behind. Ask yourself how many more widows like Madam Fatiha are abandoned to penury across Africa? This bitter experience is even making many of our corrupt leaders to believe that whatever the volume of our assets they are looting now is a kind of insurance for their family against an uncertain future.

In this fiftieth year of Ghana’s independence and the inspiration for the independence of the rest of Africa we should assuage Nkrumah’s wondering spirit by doing right by his family, not by state burial to his widow but by Ghana’s government first repaying back all the entitlements die to them by way of gratuity to their father, refurbishing and handing over their family home in Accra and setting up a proper trustee body to look after, maintain and supervise the Nkrumah Musoleum in Accra. Then the rest of us can honour Nkrumah the best way we can. But Ghana has to lead in atoning for these wrongs.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of 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

Maybe Yar Adua will become a Robin Hood in exchange for the PDP robbery of votes.

The innaugural speech, on Tuesday, by Nigeria’s newly sworn in President, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’ Adua, was not a speech that will make it to the list of even ‘1000 great speeches’ one has ever heard.

But with following words he defined his Presidency:

‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.

‘No matter what obstacles confront us, I have confidence and faith in our ability to overcome them. After all, we are Nigerians! We are a resourceful and enterprising people, and we have it within us to make our country a better place. To that end I offer myself as a servant-leader. I will be a listener and doer, and serve with humility.

‘To fulfill our ambitions, all our leaders at all levels whether a local government councilor or state governor, senator or cabinet minister must change our style and our attitude. We must act at all times with humility, courage, and forthrightness. I ask you, fellow citizens, to join me in rebuilding our Nigerian family, one that defines the success of one by the happiness of many.

‘I ask you to set aside negative attitudes, and concentrate all our energies on getting to our common destination. All hands must be on deck.

‘Let us join together to ease the pains of today while working for the gains of tomorrow. Let us set aside cynicism and strive for the good society that we know is within our reach. Let us discard the habit of low expectations of ourselves as well as of our leaders.

‘Let us stop justifying every shortcoming with that unacceptable phrase 'the Nigerian Factor' as if to be a Nigerian is to settle for less. Let us recapture the mood of optimism that defined us at the dawn of independence, that legendary can-do spirit that marked our Nigerianess. Let us join together, now, to build a society worthy of our children. We have the talent. We have the intelligence. We have the ability.

‘The challenge is great. The goal is clear. The time is now.’

No one who knows Umar Yar’ Adua would have been surprised that the speech was not earth shattering. The man’s personality is not given to any speeches, small or big let alone flamboyance or dramatic gestures.

If a Man who has been a Governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states for the past 8 years could still remain anonymous to the public in a country where even Local councillors not to talk of State governors and Ministers, will never let you forget ‘who I am’ it should tell us something about the man. It is not just that many people did not know him he appears unwilling to allow many people into his inner recesses, hence not many can say this is what makes him thick. This quality has made many to underestimate him. Instead too much attention is placed on his main sponsor, General Olushegun Obasanjo and how he imposed Yar Adua as a candidate and used ‘do or die’ machinations to ensure his election.

There is a democratic need to continue to challenge the credibility of the process but as at 72 hours ago Umar Musa Yar’ Adua is the President of Nigeria, de facto and de jure. We cannot be blaming any problems on Obasanjo anymore . As the Americans say : the buck stops at Yar’ Adua’s desk now.

Whatever role Obasanjo played in getting him to Aso Rock people in power are not known for showing too much gratitude. Look at Chiluba and Mwanawasa in Zambia or Muluzi and his successor in Malawi and long before that Ahmadu Ahidjo and Paul Biya in Cameroun.

Or reflect on the role the English Noble wannabe, Charles Njonjo, played in facilitating President Arap Moi’s takeover in 1978 and how they dramatically fell out with ‘little known’ and supposedly ‘unremarkable Moi’ who out-manoeuvred not just Njonjo, but also those within and outside KANU who thought they were better than him.

Even Obasanjo was ‘imposed’ on Nigerians by the generals and in particular the so-called Hausa-Fulani power elite. Although he is a Yoruba but was not the choice of his kinsmen and women, but it suited the interests of the ruling elites of Nigeria.

Obasanjo soon declared himself against both the political and military cliques that engineered his transition from ‘prisoner to president’ who in their arrogance (typified by IBB and Atiku) thought he would just be a pawn in their hands. Yar’ Adua therefore is not the first ‘unknown’ to become president of Nigeria. Even the first Prime Minster of the federation, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was a reluctant leader. Obasanjo in both his first regime as a military Head of state (1976-1979) and rebirth as a born again civilianised general (1999-2003) was a leader ‘against my personal wishes and desire’.

It was his second term (2003) and the sad attempt at a third term that he wanted the crown directly for himself. The worst of all the underestimated heads of state in Nigeria was General Sani ‘Viagra’ Abacha whom everyone believed could not ‘rule Nigeria for one day’. For over 5 years he remained in power through share indifference and mendacity.

If Obasanjo could use state power to transform himself from a political nonentity into a political gladiator that cornered and wasted his sponsors so can Yar’ Adua. In order for Yar’ Adua to gain any credibility he has to show himself as his own man. And all indications are that he will do that because the few glimpses into the man’s past being shared by the very few people who had been close enough suggest that he is that type of Man.

However he is unlikely to show his independence in any confrontational way. He will just ease Obasanjo into the sidelines while still publicly paying handsome tributes to his legacy, much the same way that Moi institutionalised his personal rule while claiming he was following in the full steps of Mzee Kenyatta (Nyayo!). There is nothing in the speech that will indicate any significant policy shift from Obasanjo’s market–driven neo-liberal reform agenda, stabilising the system, controlling corruption and rebuilding the deplorable infrastructure of the country and transforming economic growth into development that may deliver on the bread and butter issues to Nigeria’s overwhelming ‘poverty amongst plenty’ population. That is what the official mantra has been.

What Yar’ Adua brings to the table is contained in the first line in the concluding sections of his very brief speech that I quoted above: ‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.’ He has set himself to succeed or fail through his own example. He has a record of being relatively above board which was one of the factors that favoured him above his more flamboyant rivals. He delivered a competent welfare administration in Katsina state.

He will need to do more than that as president before he succeeds in turning the huge debits on credibility that he is starting with and begin to build up political capital that may gain the grudging respect of disillusioned Nigerians who have always yearned for credible leadership under whom they could all feel proud again to be Nigerians.

The ‘election’ was certainly not the democratic expression of Nigerians. The paradox though is that I believe very strongly that Yar’ Adua could have won. I do not think many Nigerians believe that either Buhari or Atiku ‘won’. Therefore both could not have been denied what they did not win. The PDP denied Nigerians including PDP supporters the opportunity to vote. Instead of a democratic mandate Yar’ Adua is now saddled with Stolen goods. The only reparation that may redeem him now is to deliver on the bread and butter issues and launder the electoral robbery into a Robin Hood turn around!

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of 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

I was travelling in Germany all of last week, 13-20 May 2007, like a politician on a whistle stop campaign. My journey had begun in Nairobi. I went via Amstadam to Hamburg. From Hamburg, I travelled by road to Rostock then off by train to the beautiful Gothe town of Weimar, from where we again got on the train to Bonn via Frankfurt.

This is not election year in Germany. Even if it were, I could not be campaigning for a seat in the Bundestag, or the European parliament, since I am neither a German nor a European citizen.

But it was a campaign of a sort. I was participating in various pre-G8 summit activities and events organised by the UN Millennium Campaign in Germany, in partnership with other civil society and NGO groups, including the Catholic church, and even elements of the private sector who support the global campaign against poverty.

Many of my colleagues had doubts and wondered if it was a good use of my time and energy. One cynical colleague even suggested that I was perhaps just going just for the trip. Another who knew that this could not be the case, and that I definitely could not be going there for the weather, consoled the others with a more philosophical doubt: 'Tajudeen is a servant of lost causes who believes that he can make stones hear!'

Their cynicism is not without foundation. It is not that they do not know the significance of the most important club of the richest countries in the world. They are very much aware that G8 countries dominate global trade, commerce, finance, global institutions, corporations and disproportionately use, misuse and abuse global resources; and that against this stark reality, the rest of us look like poor tenants living on the fringes of the real estate of the G8 countries.

Rather their scepticism is based on painful lessons from previous G8 summits. Their expectation now is 'not to expect anything at all'. That way, they protect themselves against disappointment. It is not that they do not believe that there are many things this club of the world’s most powerful countries could do about the world’s problems, from poverty to pollution; but that they no longer hold their breath that they will.

I call these non-expectations the post-Gleneagles downward spiral. The G8 summit in that Scottish town in 2005 raised so much hope that the richer countries of the world were able, ready and willing to stop treating the overwhelming majority of the poorer peoples of the world as illegal tenants; rather as fellow human beings in a shared estate that respects our common humanity with dignity.

At Gleneagles, old commitments such as those contained in the Millennium Declaration, as translated into the MDGs, were renewed, while additional promises were made to fast track the end of the extreme poverty and hunger, reform global financial and trading regimes to facilitate fairer trade, write of the odious debts of poor countries, improve both the quantity and the quality and effectiveness of aid.

2005 was even declared ‘the year of Africa’ - thanks to the discredited, soon to be ex-prime minister, Tony Blair - amidst optimism that the world would stop doing wrong to Africa and start playing fair; while African leaders would also stop doing wrong by their peoples by improving governance and increasing accountability to their own citizens.

Initially there was a buzz of activities to potentially shut up the critics and cynics. Debt relief was provided for 14 African countries that were already in the HIPC initiative. Non-HIPC African countries - Nigeria for example - had some of their debt cancelled while they paid off the rest. (Nigeria paid back more to Britain in 2005/2006 than the global total of British aid – therefore raising the question: who is aiding whom?)

But the majority of the African countries, unable to pay their debts, are still waiting on bended knees at the G8 doors. The volume of aid also increased in quantity. But the old habits of tied aid, rewarding current favoured leaders, and withholding from those out of favour, lack of coordination, non-delivery and not meeting promises are still the practice.

With hindsight, even the aid increase was soon revealed to be paper money because it was mostly debt relief. And Nigeria and Iraq swallowed a larger proportion of it.

However 2005 represented a high point in both public awareness in the G8 countries and globally about these issues, forcing political leaders to take note and recommit themselves to doing something.

Today, that something is lagging behind all expectations. Aid levels are now falling because G8 leaders are backsliding and retreating from their commitments.

And yet in the troika of trade, debt and aid, aid is the weakest link, though the most visible politically.

Aid can be doubled, tripled or quadrupled. But without further significant movement on trade and universal debt relief, the poorer countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America will continue to be trapped in the vicious cycle of structural poverty, induced and reproduced by the unequal terms of global trading regimes, imposed by the richer countries through the IMF, World Bank, EU and WTO.

Poor countries can trade their way fairly from poverty to prosperity. Aid is like emergency treatment at the scene of accident. It is well appreciated, and often timely. But it does not mean that the wounded should not go for proper medical examination. For long term development, it is not aid that these African need, but a fairer trading system and opportunity to choose their own development model.

Most African countries produce what they do not consume and largely consume what they do not produce. But the price of both what they produce and consume are determined from outside, namely the EU, G8 and now increasingly China.

Therefore Africa cannot be aided out of poverty without a fundamental reform of the unequal trade that is rigged against our producers, workers, professionals and domestic companies. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprising, this is the one area where the G8 countries, the EU and the US have continued to conspire against the poorest peoples of the world in the stagnated so called development round – the Doha negotiations in the WTO.

If the G8 wants to renew the faith of its own citizens in their leadership of the world, and convince poor countries that they actually mean what they say, the answer is very simple: honour your own commitments.

Africa does not need new promises, but the fulfilment of old ones. Both the ones we made to ourselves through the African Union, Nepad and the MDGs, and those promised by the G8.

Everywhere I spoke, I told my German friends and other activists who care about international development, many of whom are as frustrated with their leaders’ broken promises that we are doubly disappointed with ours and the G8.

The next G8 summit in the East German town of Heiligendamm should not be business as usual, but business in the most unusual way. And that means two things: No more new promises, but the honouring of all the old ones. That would be a truly welcome surprise.