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Nigeria in the eyes of other Africans
This post is long i must warn but it is so objective that reading it through would give you insight on the feelings of other Africans about Nigeria's feeble leadership status.
Obasanjo: Only Zimbabwe Needs Free And Fair Elections
The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
April 28, 2007
Posted to the web April 28, 2007
Harare
Eduardo Galeano, that fiery Chilean activist historian who gave us Open Veins of Latin America, recorded an English sugar planter in Jamaica as saying: "It's easier to buy niggers than to breed them."
This was way back in the dark days of slave trade when every English gentleman knew his worth to rest on the number of slaves his money could fetch on an open slave market. And they were many reckless planters who would always push up the market value of slaves, if only to make a small pecuniary point.
In due course William Wilberforce would come to abolish slavery, in the process gathering greater fame than the sum pity the numberless victims of that western infamy were ever able to garner from the human heart. Or from the generous God of pariahs.
Blacks should always remember that their scars from thongs of slavery are badges emblazon the "greats" of the West. The scars were both necessary and vital.
Otherwise, how would the world have got a rich English planter and a compassionate William Wilberforce? Or that great English Bank called Llyods whose historic profits came from insuring slaves, slave ships and plantations? Or the world-famed English blacksmiths who cut their canines by turning intransigent metal into "silver padlocks and collars for niggers and dogs"? Or the Great Western Railway, itself financed from proceeds of the slave trade, but now Blair's showcase of "modernity with no discontents"? How would we have got aimless and costless apologies from both Clinton and Blair had we not suffered grievous harm yesterday? How, tell me?
Great betrayal
I go back to Galeano's English planter in Jamaica and of course his percipient remark of yore. It was easier, he maintained, to buy niggers than to breed them. When I listen to these words against the history we have lived as Zimbabweans, indeed against the life and challenges of today, I ascribe great genius to this English planter whose name history forgot to record.
As conscious Zimbabweans we know how easy and cheap it has been for white power to win for itself black minions. The other day I was looking at the list of Africans who testified against the heroes of the First Chimurenga, Nehanda in particular.
These names are there in the Archives, names of shameless natives who worked with the British South Africa Company to bring to book the nationalists who had neutralized Pollard, the cruel native commissioner.
You are struck by certain surnames which our long and tortuous history continue to remember for great acts of betrayal. You go to the Rhodesian war websites, you meet the same surnames on the racists' roll of honour.
Smiting "reds" from the metropolis
But you are also struck by surnames which elsewhere would have become synonyms for valiant patriotism. You feel angry. You feel proud. You also wonder.
Wonder whether or not our naming culture is an undiscovered science. Certain surnames embody destinies and tendencies for those who bear them.
You look through our liberation history and you meet similar cheap purchases of white power. Same surnames! You go to the contemporary struggle, again you meet the same surnames, including that of an old journalists who now pretends to be a London-based publisher, and whose family tree intersects repeatedly with that of white Rhodesia, all the time playing good, loyal servant to the white cause. The father was a well-known colonial policeman, one well known to every nationalist detainee. The brother was a notorious collaborator and minion of Internal Settlement.
He himself has kept up that family tradition and is smiting Zanu (PF) "reds" from the metropolis. He cannot help himself, can he? Yet, when the lives and roles of such people take such a trajectory of betrayal, we express surprise as if history has not warned us repeatedly. I mean those little false starts and moves, little explosions of superficial patriotism, should never fool those who are alert. Should they?
Imperfect poll, imperfect world
"No elections in the world will ever be regarded as perfect... You cannot use European standards to judge the situation in a developing country." Mugabe? Wrong! This is none other than the outgoing Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, speaking last week soon after the monumental debacle that polls in his country became! It was a poll which broke all western standards and norms on elections.
Of course the correct phrase is "international standards". In one region we are told, ballot papers were delivered a good two days after the poll, when results were already known. The poll managers would not be detracted by time and commonsense; they still diligently delivered the papers, thereby fulfilling their constitutional mandate.
In another region, we are again told, thugs famed to be associated with the winning party (or ruling party, whichever is easier to spell), simply chased away opposition would-be-voters. Or when under a giant seizure of compassion, the same thugs simply marched these contra-voters into the booth, before helping them to stick the X where it had to be, namely against the party which had to win.
Or simply nothing happened in your village on the voting days, although on the morrow, you were expected to associate with the outcome. Of course I do not need to refer to fecund ballot boxes that were in the habit of hatching more papers than could ever be delivered at the start of any poll.
And all these democratic aberrations well under western eyes, including that of our good lady Madeline Albright and a whole battery of American Foundations and Institutes. And again all these aberrations exclude the last minute -- literally -- clearance of Atiku to participate in the poll.
Obasanjo had enormous faith in this man's capacities. Atiku did not need much time to campaign, as was needed by poor candidates like Umaru Yar'Adua and Buhari. Atiku would come in just a day before and, well... win, sorry, participate!
No European standards, we are Nigerians
I suppose my readers are troubled by all this. I am not. Indeed, no elections in the world will ever be regarded as perfect. More important, you the reader cannot use European standards to judge the situation in a developing country! Okay? Of course that is not quite the same as saying both Obasanjo and the white Commonwealth should not hold expectations of perfection in respect of Zimbabwe's poll.
No, after all, is Zimbabwe "in the world"? Surely it is an honour to all Zimbabweans to know that Big Brother considers us creatures of the stratosphere? Proud to know that Zimbabwe is not part of "the situation in a developing country" which populous Nigeria is! How can Zimbabwe ever be a developing country? It only got its uhuru in 1980, many moons after big Nigeria was free.
And as history would have it, the man who had just left office when this great perturbation happened was none other than Obasanjo, then a full general. And he made a major contribution to Zimbabwe's great struggle.
He nationalized BP Shell, to show the western world he was not kidding on the Rhodesian question.
In between that great act and his great second coming much later, Obasanjo has been many things, including being Nigeria's head of Transparent International, including being in Sony Abacha's jail, including seeking to revive agriculture in his country under the aegis of Jimmy Carter.
Oga's second coming
After his second coming, you had the legendary Abuja Agreement which restated the centrality of land in shaping Zimbabwe's politics. We all jubilated, singing hallelluja to this man Mugabe and Museveni had rescued from Abacha's noose.
He had done it again, done it for us Zimbabweans in our fight against colonial Britain. He came here soon after and I tore my precious shirt trying to reach and kiss his toe, this great Messiah of the landless. We were happy, very happy until a good friend whispered to me: "The arms of the white man have a long reach. Beware of them. Not yet Uhuru!" I took him for the proverbial spoiler who breaks the drum at that moment when the beat and dance are lifting.
We did not have to wait for long for tell-tale signs. Obasanjo began by dropping his foreign minister then -- the Pan-Africanist Lamido -- to make way for a surly bow-like creature whose outlook hardly hovered beyond the great queen's robes. Then came the 2002 Presidential poll. General Abubakar -- from the same barracks that gave us Obasanjo -- came as head of the Commonwealth Observer team.
Like Atiku, the white Commonwealth made sure he was not in Zimbabwe until when it was too late, indeed made sure he made no input to a verdict which had been written well before the poll.
It is said he collapsed right in front of President Mugabe, too overcome by shame of betrayal to look President Mugabe in the eye. "I could not help it my brother," he sobbed. "These whites were determined to have it their way." He left, with the Commonwealth verdict in his satchel.
Zimbabwe had failed to give the world a perfect election. Zimbabwe had failed to meet the standards of a "developed world" to which it belonged, unlike Obasanjo's Nigeria. Ironically, Obasanjo of the imperfect world of imperfect polls would sit in judgment, come the October CHOGM held in Abuja.
Ironically, a president of "a developing country" would sit in judgment of an electoral process of a superhighway country called Zimbabwe. In one process and from one country, the English sugar planter had again shown and proved it much easier to "buy niggers than to breed them".
"Non" to African Union
But there is another anomaly. The African Union was not there to observe the Nigerian poll. Slothfulness? I am not sure. The AU, I am told, insists that it must be given a month's notice so it adequately prepares for the process. Big brother is said to have left it until too late, and one presumes it took quite a bit of time to get all those invitations out to Europe and America, which continents were thoroughly well represented at the poll. Zimbabwe does not appear to have been invited, again presumably for want of time. As I write, only South Africa has endorsed the poll which Europe and America have condemned. Maybe a good gesture of defiance on the part of Mbeki, but one using an embarrassing pretext.
The real tragedy of Nigeria
I should now make my big point. The tragedy is not that Nigeria failed to run a decent poll. Who expected it anyway, given Nigeria's chequered history? From day one of Independence, the ballot box has never sat comfortably on that clime.
The X has always been a difficult mark for the Nigerians, and that they are at least mimicking it, is a great leap forward for Africa.
We have a lot to cheer, and I do so genuinely, heartily. What breaks my heart and soul is Nigeria's (through its government) great betrayal of its role as a continental leader. That, that really breaks my heart. Did Zimbabwe have to be humiliated on Nigerian soil, under Obasanjo's presidency, and over a matter which Nigeria itself has not been able to resolve for its people throughout its buffeted longer history of independence?
A matter which Nigeria still cannot handle to this day? And Obasanjo knows here we run elections better, run a clean poll? Abuja was less about the Zimbabwean poll and more about the price the English sugar planter was going to pay for the "******".
And when he eyed our eldest brother, he soon discovered he needed a little less than a farthing to get Africa's choicest. Where did that leave the rest of us, mere dross?
More stumbles from big Brother
Nigeria stumbled badly for Africa. And she continues to stumble.
Why all those western election monitors? To please who? And why overlook the African Union? To spite who? We badly need and crave for western endorsement? Good gracious! From the best of our continent? Now that gold rusts, what will iron do? I do not need to refer to western hypocrisy over this whole affair. It is expected.
Neither the BBC nor CNN was going to waste precious viewer time over election rigging in Nigeria, for as long as Obasanjo's ballot would reproduce him, would reproduce policies allowing free play to western oil barons in Nigerian oilfields. Reproduce policies of keeping Nigeria an exporter of crude oil, which means keeping Nigeria an importer of diesel and petrol.
That domain, not that to do with voting rights of bad-toothed natives, is what galvanizes the West. Indeed, unlike in the Zimbabwean case, CNN and BBC have been inducing world amnesia over this poll, while daily refreshing memories over the 2002 Zimbabwe poll the West allege to have been rigged.
The West is quick to forgive the outrages of a poll it monitored; it is not about to let live with a poll held five years ago, which it did not monitor but over which it is still happy to pass a verdict. No big deal.
Cheap niggers at the Independent?
How did our American-funded "independent press" fare here? Well, like the master! The Independent was too busy advising its the MDC, to spare a thought for this "stolen poll".
Nigeria was not news, absolutely! The Financial Gazette roamed the whole world - from South Africa to Somalia - before coming back to Nigeria for perfunctory commiseration.
It preferred to focus on the huge challenges facing the "new Nigerian president". So much about the "independent press" which Dell is so happy to fund both directly and via the so-called "special features", all invariably on Zimbabwe and against Zanu (PF). Again, the English sugar planter has found it more entrepreneurial to buy niggers than to breed them.
Inadvertent goodness
Except not all is lost. Obasanjo has done us infinite good. Inadvertently of course, but does that matter if the result is just as good? Just as he moved Zimbabwe's history by nationalizing BP's investments, today he has given Zimbabwe good material with which to defend the Third Chimurenga.
Western hypocrisy rings very loud and I dare both Blair and Bush to open their vacuous mouth on any poll in Zimbabwe. He has prepossessed next CHOGM, to be held in Uganda. What will the aboriginal McKinnon say? Thank you Cde Obasanjo. R.I.P.
The great patriotic shine
Secondly, if you devour the blog like I do, you would have been struck by the vivacious debate on the poll by Nigerians at home and abroad. I stress: by Nigerians.
They made sure the debate was theirs. The subject was, after all, Nigeria, their country. It takes a great people and a great country not to cede space on its own affairs. As Zimbabweans, we have failed dismally to do this.
We allow outsiders to define events here, label and name them, while we are happy to echo their judgments. It is a terrible legacy which the MDC and its captive media have spawned on this land.
The MDC-media scours the world for any statement made by westerners that damns this country, to faithfully reproduce it here! This they call "independent journalism", never megaphone journalism.
What a shame! One was also struck by fiery Nigerian nationalism which still shone above the shame of the poll. And one Nigerian clinched it all. He wrote: "Damn the media. Whose media? Whose interests? Whose poll? Whose Nigeria?" It is a great lesson to our "purchased people".
Even when they mess up, Nigerians are uncompromising proud, ever asserting their right to make a sovereign mess of their country. Here, we run to Blair and Bush, nay, even invite invasion -- not over mistakes -- but over recovering our long denied and occupied heritage! Which takes me to my last point. Whatever the serious shortcomings of the Nigerian leaders, Zimbabwe should never underestimate the Pan-African temperament of the Nigerian people.
Our policies, our overtures, should dock at that level. Not at the level of its often treacherous leadership. Nigerians are a great people, a people most likely to understand what the fight here is all about. I wait to hear what that great turncoat -- Wole Soyinka -- is going to say. Or has the man again died? Icho!
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