Last Of The BIG Men

I have always been surprised that Robert Mugabe has managed to cling onto power in Zimbabwe for so long (The 92 year old has governed the country since independence in 1980). But perhaps 'cling on' is the wrong simile ... he has actually retained an iron grip on the country for decades. One of my earliest posts on this blog, was on his then position, and I was very wrong in assuming that he would have fallen long ago.

Bread And Circuses have Worked For Centuries .....

Now finally perhaps his grip may be slipping .... any tyrant has to think about 'bread and circuses' .... the two key elements to keeping the mob, err population, happy. Despite his total economic incompetence and corruption, Robert Mugabe has always found money for his key support base, the Army and Public Officials. He has always managed to make sure these two groups are paid, and therefore have a feel good factor, even while the rest of the country, particularly in rural areas, suffered great poverty.

Starting Your Own Country

It used to be the that first things that an emergent nation did were:

50 Billion Zimbabwe Dollars -
Bought Nothing As It Was Withdrawn.

• Get rid of its Democratically Elected Government in a military coup - usually by a sergeant or corporal (or occasionally a lieutenant).
• Get an airline - mostly run-down Aeroflot planes from the Soviet Union.
• Get its own currency.

African Aid Model

As is usual, the sub Saharan states of Africa are debating what having a black American as US president has meant .... and the conclusion seems to be .. not a lot. They seem to have been expecting either a lot of US attention in the form of money or possibly in political settlements .... in fact they got much the same as under a white US president. Total Indifference.

Obama Not A Saviour For Africa

The question as to whether China is a better bedfellow and aid model to the Africans, is the one currently being asked ..... I would argue yes.

 

Another Day, Another Dollar ....... Stolen

Corruption is the biggest handicap to development in the third world  ...... the scale of it is mind blowing, and I have touched on it before, but occasionally I am still reminded of how massive it can be.

 

The Face of Corruption


Equatorial Guinea President, Teodor Obiang Nguema is as bad as any dictator on the continent .... in fact he may well be the most corrupt of them all, and that's some claim considering the opposition. 

Nigerians Do What They Are World Beaters At .....

By some strange quirk of fate, immediately after I blogged on the countries 50yrs of achievements, Nigerians excelled in their national pastimes of corruption, cheating, and drug dealing .....



Would You Buy A World Cup from This Man?

 ..... and all in connection to sports events.

 

Fifty Years Of Independance?

Apparently, its fifty years since the independence of Nigeria. According to some, its been a very good thing, and Nigeria has boomed in those fifty years.

Fifty Years Since Nigerian Independence



• Average life expectancy up a whopping 10 years from 38 to 48 ...(wow! .... I'd be dead in Nigeria).
• Infant Mortality down from 165 to 98 per 1000 births.
• Average births per female down from 6, to 5.
• Number of doctors per 1,000 up from  0.017148 to 0.40.

However looked at another way, Nigeria remains one of the worst performing countries in the world even on these measures of 'success'. I might add that outside of these official measures of success, Nigeria is also renowned for its total corruption, Internet scams, and racial and religious genocides (Remember Biafra?).

I blame us British for some of this failure. We should have split Nigeria into two countries for independence: A Muslim Northern state (which could retreated into ignorance and backwardness by itself - widespread suspicions over Western morals in schools, mean that girls in northern Nigeria rarely go to school), and a Christian / Animist Southern one, which might have made some progress.

Instead, we hitched separate tribes, languages, and religions together, and hoped to 'make a country'  out of this hodgepodge. Instead we got, well a mess. But there our blame ends, the incompetence and corruption they created all for themselves ....  It's estimated that in Nigeria, more than $400 billion was stolen from the state treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.

It is interesting to note that Indonesia is also celebrating fifty years of independence ..... they started from around the same base level of measurements, but look at the figures now.

Nigeria and Indonesia compared:

Life expectancy

• Nigeria: Men, 47. Women, 48
• Indonesia: Men, 69. Women, 73

Gross national income, per capita

• Nigeria: $1,160
• Indonesia: $2,010

Gross domestic product

• Nigeria: $207.12 billion (mostly oil revenue)
• Indonesia: $510.73 billion

Population below poverty line

• Nigeria: 70%
• Indonesia: 17.8% 

Tells you everything about both Africa and Africans ......    

Switzerlands Banks, Africa's Stolen Wealth

The practise of rulers like Robert Mugabe stealing everything from their country in Africa was illustrated sharply this week, when the son of one of these criminals, challenged attempts to repatriate some of the money to the country it was stolen from. 

Yes, one of the sons of Nigeria's ex-ruler General Sani Abacha has tried to stop $350m (£236m) in illegally gained assets being returned by a Swiss court. 

If its Thursday, then its just another coup ........

Some African countries are so 'coup' ridden that you can almost set your watch (well your calendar) by them. So this story of the nnnnth coup in impoverished (aren't they all) Guinea-Bissau's short history, and the apparent indifference of the locals to it, made me shake my head, but not in surprise.

On 1 April, army officers captured the prime minister and the army chief of staff, the soldiers later released Prime Minister Gomes, but Gen Jose Zamora Induta is still being held.

However on the streets of the capital Bissau, where people euphemistically refer to the situation as "the incident", life apparently goes on as normal despite the threats from the coup leaders to kill the prime minister and shoot civilians if there was resistance.....

Guinea-Bissau - Coup and Counter Coup

Zuma Loves All His Wives Equally

In South Africa, President Zuma's personal policy of mass marriage is keeping him in the spotlight. Unfortunately this 'father of the nation' is not too old to have anymore children, because he doesn't seem to be in the mood to stop, with news that on top of his official 19 children, he has fathered a "love child" last year to another woman.

Zuma And A Few Of His Kids ...

When challenged at the World Economic Forum in Davos (a freebie that third world leaders appear unable to resist) about whether it was a backward step for Africa that he was practising tribal polygamy, Mr Zuma dismissed the criticism.

"That's my culture. It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs, including the belief in the equality of women," AFP news agency quoted the president as saying. "Some think that their culture is superior to others, that's a problem we have in the world."

He's also said "There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide so as to pretend they're monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I'm proud of my children."

Its a pity that Mr Zuma lives up to every bad stereotype for African males, with countless children, a rape allegation, and now an alleged illegitimate child as well, because South Africa needed a progressive leader, not yet another 'Big Man' politician.

Old Africa, Same Old Politics

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is not getting with the program.

This week he insulted Johnnie Carson, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs with the terms "an idiot".

Mr Mugabe told the state-owned Herald newspaper in Zimbabwe that his first meeting with a US government official for many years had angered him. "You would not speak to an idiot of that nature," he said. "I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what to do and what not to do."

"We have the whole of SADC working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like Carson, you see, wanting to say: 'You do this, you do that. Who is he? I hope he was not speaking for Obama. I told him he was a shame, a great shame, being an African American."

Mr Mugabe apparently also took exception to Mr Carson's predecessor, Jendayi Frazer. In May last year he described her as "a little American girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute" after she suggested that the then-opposition Movement for Democratic Change had won the disputed presidential election.

President Obama has got his work cut out in Africa ..... colour only goes so far with the African "Big Man".

South African Slide Begins

And so it starts ..... Helen Zille the duly elected and "English" (aka white) premier of Western Cape Province in South Africa, has been subjected to increasingly racist attacks by President Zumas supporters, because she pointed out that Mr Zuma had put his wives at risk of contracting HIV by having sex (allegedly forced) with a HIV positive 'family friend'.

A fact that should cause no problem as that's exactly what Mr Zuma did by cheating on his three wives in the "Rape" case, as well as the fact that he took no precautions, and had a shower to 'stop catching AIDS'. However to the 'veterans' (doesn't this sound oh so familiar already?) this was a part of a 'racist' attack that had upset their delicate sensibilities.

They have also racially abused Ms Zille because she chose a male only cabinet of the talents, by saying that this was to 'service the white woman' or that one of them was her 'boyfriend' ...... the irony of blacks accusing whites of being too sexually active, is all the more funny because, these are illiterate black men (the rapists of South African society).

Kebby Maphatsoe, chairman of the Military Veterans Association, and leader of President Zuma's shock troops, gave an ominous warning for the Democratic Alliance.

"Should Zille not immediately cease her racist tendencies that bring pain to all military veterans of South Africa... the association will not hesitate to implement a militant programme of action to take back the streets and our communities," he said.

Ah, the sniff of Zimbabwe is in the air, "Umshini wami" (Bring Me My Machine-Gun)!!

The merry wives of KwaZulu Natal

President Zuma of South Africa is setting something of a first in “modern” sub-Saharan Africa by currently being the possessor of three wives, as well having and ex-wife in the cabinet as a ‘political advisor and minister.

Although this trend for polygamy is dying out amongst educated black Africans (in Southern Africa) according to political analyst Protas Madlala, it is still popular amongst, the poor & uneducated in rural areas (such as where Mr Zuma was brought up).

Is this therefore a backward step for a south Africa already displaying many symptoms of post independence Africa … Corruption is now largely unchecked with the closure of the scorpion police anti corruption unit. And there appears to be political interference of the judicial system, with the dropping of Mr Zuma’s ‘trial’ for alleged corruption.

Are we seeing a movement towards ‘traditional’ African politics where the ‘Big Man’ sets the laws and his whim become ‘policy’?

Who knows? And only time will tell.

But for sure, the election of a man with so much political and ethical baggage doesn’t appear on the face of it to be a forward step for a country whose future is in the balance.