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Culled from The Free Africa Foundation
http://www.freeafrica.org/elites5.html

Regards
Manneh
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NO TEARS FOR AFRICA’S INTELLECTUALS

An FAF Publication in New African (October 1996).

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The most painful and treacherous aspect of Africa's collapse was the wilful and
active collaboration by Africa's own intellectuals, many of whom were
highly "educated" with Ph. D.s, and who should have known better. Yet a
multitude of them have prostituted themselves, selling off their principles and
integrity to partake of the plunder, misrule and repression of the African
people. In fact, according to Colonel. Yohanna A. Madaki (rtd), when General
Gowon drew up plans to return Nigeria to civil rule in 1970, "academicians
began to present well researched papers pointing to the fact that military rule
was the better preferred since the civilians had not learned any lessons
sufficient enough to be entrusted with the governance of the country" (Post
Express, 12 November 1998, 5).

The Prostitutes

One such prostitute was Kokou Koffigoh who joined President Gnassingbe Eyadema
as Togo's Prime Minister in 1992. New African (January 1993) wrote that "the
opposition thinks Koffigoh has sold out the gains of the Togo National
Conference by not carrying out its decisions and by allowing President Eyadema
to return to power" (19).

Another was Gwanda Chakuamba of Malawi, who was appointed the chairman of
the "presidential council" by former Life-President Hastings Banda in 1993. As
The Economist (20 November 1993) reported: "Chakuamba was an old Malawi
Congress Party (MCP) and ex-minister, who was jailed in 1980 for sedition and
released in July 1993. He then flirted briefly with the opposition United
Democratic Front, but, while Dr. Banda was in hospital, suddenly emerged as
secretary-general of ruling party and acting head of state" (47). Chakaumba's
move was roundly denounced "as a betrayal to the opposition, who had tirelessly
campaigned for his release following local and international pressure on the
MCP government's poor human rights record. "Reliable sources reported that
whilst he was in prison, Chakuamba was subjected to immersion in water and was
chained hand-and-foot for months on end" (African Business, December 1993, 29).
How could an educated man, whose basic human rights were viciously violated in
detention, suddenly decide to join his oppressor?

When Captain Yahya Jammeh overthrew the democratically elected government of
Sir Dawda Jawara on July 24, 1994, the only minister from the Jawara
administration enticed to serve the military regime was the finance minister,
Bakary Darbo, a very well respected economist -- even in international circles.
He was instrumental in getting the World Bank to resume aid to The Gambia. On
10 October 1994, he was fired by the military junta: He was no longer useful to
them. Then on 15 November, he was accused of complicity in the 11 November
abortive coup attempt. He fled to neighboring Senegal with his family.

Next to assume the finance ministry portfolio was Ousman Koro Ceesay. When he
became no longer useful to the military junta, "they smashed his head with a
baseball bat," said Captain Ebou Jallow, the number-2 man in the ruling council
who defected to the United States on 15 October (The Washington Times, 20
October 1995, A15).

Time and time again, despite repeated warnings, highly "educated" African
intellectuals throw caution and common sense to the winds and fiercely jostle
one another for the chance to hop into bed with military brutes. The allure of
a luxury car, a diplomatic or ministerial post and a government mansion often
proves too irresistible. Nigeria's Senator Arthur Nzeribe once declared that
General Babangida was good enough to rule Nigeria. When pressed, he
confessed: "I was promised prime ministerial appointment. There is no living
politician as hungry for power as I was who would not be seduced in the manner
I was to invest in the ABN, with the possibility and promise of being Executive
Prime Minister to a military president" (The Guardian, 13 November 1998, 3).

So hordes of politicians, lecturers, professionals, lawyers, and doctors sell
themselves off into prostitution and voluntary bondage to serve the dictates of
military vagabonds with half their intelligence. And time and time again, after
being raped, abused, and defiled, they are tossed out like rubbish --- or
worse. Yet more intellectual prostitutes stampede to take their places.

African countries that have imploded in recent years were all ruined by the
military: Algeria, Burundi, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia,
Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire, among others. In country after country in Africa,
where military rule was entrenched, educational institutions (of the tertiary
level - universities, and colleges) have all decayed --- starved of funds by
the military. Although the official excuse is always lack of funds, the
military predators always find the money to purchase shiny new pieces of
bazookas for their thugs. But the real reason? "It is not in the best interest
of these military governments to educate their people," says Wale Deyemi, a
doctoral student at the University of Lagos. "They do not want people to be
able to challenge them" (The Washington Post, 6 October 1995, A30).

In Nigeria, the sciences have been hardest hit. Science teachers have been
vanishing with such alarming frequency that Professor Peter Okebukola, the
president of the National Science Teachers Association of Nigeria, lamented at
the association's thirty-sixth annual conference at Maiduguri that "good
science teachers are increasingly becoming an endangered species" (African News
Weekly, 13 October 1995, 17).

In spite of all this evidence, some African intellectuals still vociferously
defend military regimes while their own institutions --- the very places where
they teach or obtained their education --- deteriorate right under their very
noses. One would have thought that these professors and intellectuals would
protect their own institutions, just as the soldiers jealously protect their
barracks and keep them in top shape. But no! For small change, the
intellectuals have been willing to help and supervise the destruction of their
very own university system.

Another expendable intellectual prostitute was Abass Bundu of Sierra Leone ---
the former secretary-general of ECOWAS --- though his fate was less horrible.
When he was appointed by the 29-year-old illiterate Captain Valentine Strasser
to be Sierra Leone's foreign minister in early 1995, he left home to grab the
post in a cloud of dust. In August 1995 he was tossed into a garbage bin in a
radio announcement. He claimed in a Voice of America radio interview that "he
never applied to join the junta" (African News Weekly, 8 September 1995, 12).

"We just discovered that he's an opportunist and one cannot trust such people.
So we kicked him out," said spokesman of the Strasser's National Provisional
Ruling Council. "When we appointed Abass Bundu through a radio announcement, he
didn't complain but when we fired him though another radio announcement, he
wants to make noise" he added (The African Observer, 8-21 August 1995, 5).

Another case was that of Sierra Leone's fearless human rights lawyer, Sulaiman
Banja Tejan-Sie. He was a vociferous critic of the ruling NPRC over human
rights abuses and was reported to have a personal dislike for the military. He
was hailed on student campuses as a young radical barrister and was invited to
student conventions, giving lectures on human rights and negative consequences
of military rule. On several occasions he called for a national conference to
prepare the way for civilian rule. Then suddenly in April 1995 he joined Sierra
Leone's military-led government as secretary of state in the Department of
Youth, Sport and Social Mobilization. His detractors never forgave him.

Then there was Paul Kamara of Sierra Leone --- a fearless crusader for human
rights and ardent advocate of democracy. He published and edited the widely
respected For Di People, whose circulation exceeded 30,000 copies a week. In
January 1996, he joined the military government of Brigadier-General Maada Bio -
-- a decision that by his own admission, "disappointed many people" (New
African, May 1996, 14). On election night, Feberuary 26, five men dressed in
military fatigues with guns waited for him at his newspaper offices. When he
left his office and got into his official four-wheel-drive car, the soldiers
chased him and opened fire. "We've got the bastard at last," one of them
shouted. But luckily, the "bastard" escaped death and was flown to London for
treatment. His troubles did not end there. On August 20, 1999, he was assaulted
by three Revolutionary United Front (RUF) commanders following an article
alleging laziness and corruption by RUF commanders based in Freetown. “An
ECOMOG officer declined to intervene while the attack took place” (Index on
Censorship, Nov/Dec 1999; p.249).

In Burkina Faso, Clement Oumarou Ouedraogo was not so lucky. He was the number-
two man in the barbarous military dictatorship of Blaise Compaore. He later
resigned and launched his own Burkina Labor Party. On 9 December 1992, he was
killed "when unidentified attackers threw a grenade into his car as he was
returning from a meeting of the opposition Coalition of Democratic Forces"
(West Africa, 16-22 December 1991, 2116).

In neighboring Niger, when Lieutenant-Colonel Ibrahim Barre Mainassara seized
power in the January 1996 coup, overthrowing the civilian regime of President
Mahamane Ousmane, the first civilian to join the new military regime as prime
minister was Boukary Adji, who was deputy governor at the Central Bank of West
African States in Dakar (The Washington Times, 1 Feberuary 1996, A14). Do
Africa's intellectuals learn?

In Nigeria, Baba Gana Kingibe, a career diplomat, was the vice-presidential
candidate of Moshood K. O. Abiola in the 12 June 1993 presidential elections .
Abiola won the election fair and square, but the result was annulled by the
military government of Geneneral Ibrahim Babangida. Baba Kingibe then accepted
the post of foreign minister from that same military regime. Nor did he raise a
whiff of protest or resign when his running mate, Abiola, was thrown into jail.
Neither did Chief Tony Anenih, the chairman of the defunct Social Democratic
Party, on whose ticket Abiola contested the 12 June election. In fact, Chief
Anenih was part of a five-man delegation, sent by General Abacha to the United
States in October 1995 to "educate and seek the support of Nigerians about the
transition program." At an 22 October 1995 forum organized by the Schiller
Institute in Washington, "Chief Anenih and Colonel (rtd) Emeka O. Ojukwu took
turns ripping apart the reputation of Abiola. Anenih took pains to discredit
Chief Abiola, whom he said was being presented by the Western media as the
victimized President-elect. Some of the Nigerians in the audience denounced the
delegation as `paid stooges' of Abacha" (African News Weekly, 3 November 1995,
3).

More pathetic was the case of Alex Ibru, the publisher of The Guardian Group of
newspapers in Lagos who became the internal affairs minister. On 14 August
1994, his own newspaper was raided and shut down by the same military
government under which he was serving. He did not protest or resign. After six
months as interior minister, he too was tossed aside. In October 1995, his two
newspapers, shut down by the military government for more than a year, were
allowed to reopen after Ibru apologized to the authorities for any offensive
reports they may have carried. Then on 2 February 1996, unidentified gunmen in
a deep-blue Peugeot 504 trailed him and sprayed his car with machine-gun fire.
The editor-in-chief, Femi Kusa, said that the car was bullet-ridden and Ibru
was injured. He too was flown to Britain for treatment.

After the annulment of Nigeria's 12 June elections, General Babangida was eased
aside by the military top brass and Ernest Shonekan became the 89-day interim
civilian president until he too was removed by the military despot, General
Sani Abacha. On 19 September, Shonekan accompanied Nigeria's foreign minister,
Tom Ikimi, to London to deliver a "confidential message" to British Prime
Minister John Major. Nigeria's military junta told Westminster that it would
pardon the 40 convicted coup plotters if British would help with the
rescheduling Nigeria's $35 billion debt, and support its transition program to
democratic rule, its bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, and
its attempt to gain U.S. recognition of its effort to fight drug trafficking.

First of all, how could Ernest Shonekan act as an emissary for the same
barbarous military regime that overthrew him? Not only that, he accepted an
appointment from Abacha to a committee of experts to plan for "Vision 2010."
According to African News Weekly (7-13 October 1996), "Vision 2010 will focus
on Nigeria's growth into the next century. Details of the plan are to be set
out by a non-political committee which will sit for between 9 and 12 months,
targeting gross domestic product, inflation, agriculture, industrialization,
literacy, health and employment" (2).

Second, who thought that 35 years after "independence" from British colonial
rule, Nigeria's government would be holding its own citizens as hostages,
demanding ransom from the former colonial power? It did not occur to any of
the "educated" emissaries that their mission sank the concept of "independence
from colonial rule" to new depths of depravity. Mercifully, the British refused
to capitulate to these terroristic demands.

Dr. Tom Ikimi was the activist, who, in 1989, formed the Liberal Convention
party to campaign for democracy in Nigeria. In June 1989 he launched a branch
in the United Kingdom, where he made glorious speeches about participatory
democracy and denouncing military regimes. In 1994 he became Nigeria's Foreign
minister under the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. He even
appeared on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, on 3 August 1995, and strenuously
defended Nigerian military government's record on democratization, calling
General Abacha "humane."

Then there was the case of Phillips David Sesay, with various academic degrees
including a doctorate in philosophy. He was the head of Sierra Leone's chancery
in Washington. For three years, he was not paid; yet he remained at the post.
In 1996, he left his wife and son in Washington and returned to Sierra Leone in
a hurry to accept promotion as Acting Chief Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs by the country's ruling military regime. That the former protocol at
the ministry had worked with the junta for only 4 days and had fled the country
did not bother Sesay, who took that post. Following a coup on 23 May 1997,
Sesay fled the country. "When his plane landed in New York on 20 December 1997,
Sesay's diplomatic passport with a multiple-entry permit to the U.S. was found
to be insufficient. His visa was canceled at the behest of the State Department
and he was placed in detention by the Immigration and Naturalization Service"
(The Washington Post, 2 January 1998, A30).

Ghanaians would point to a swarm of intellectual prostitutes who sold out to
join the military regime of Fte./Lte. Jerry Rawlings: Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, the
former minister of finance; Totobi Kwakye, minister of communication, who as a
student leader battled the former military head of state, Col. I.K. Acheampong;
Dr. Tony Aidoo, a presidential adviser; Dr. Vincent Assisseh, a press
secretary; and Kow Arkaah, the Vice-President who was beaten up by President
Rawlings in December 1995.

Vile opportunism, unflappable sycophancy, and trenchant collaboration on the
part of Africa's intellectuals allowed tyranny to become entrenched in Africa.
Doe, Mengistu, Mobutu, and other military dictators legitimized and perpetuated
their rule by buying off and co-opting Africa's academics for a pittance. And
when they fall out of favor, they are beaten up, tossed aside or worse. And yet
more offer themselves up. The moon shines so brightly but it is still dark in
some places.

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