This article by Charles Sam of African Hope International, ([log in to unmask]) makes very interesting reading. This article was culled from The Opinion column of The Gambia Daily Observer. I wish to apologise in advance for any grammatical or typographical errors as I had to re-type the entire article myself.

I am also joining others in congratulating the Lions of Teranga and wishing them the best of luck in their next march.

Have a good day, Gassa.

African nations must arise

We all know that Africa needs REFORM and a NEW PATH. I will praise any African leader who puts forward such a reform plan. But collectively so far, they have been doing the matutsi [mind you, there are exceptions, but they are pitifully few]. My beef with the collective leadership comprises the following:

1. They like to grandstand, holding big summits, making big speeches and announcing grandiose plans: African Renaissance, Omega Plan, MAP, etc. Champagne glasses click; booze flows. Then everybody goes home and forgets about what was said. What happened to the African Union idea? What happened?

2. They have not shown the capacity to LEARN from their own history. As a result, they keep repeating their own stupid mistakes again and again and again. General Samuel Doe stole Liberia's presidential elections in 1985. It instigated the civil war that destroyed the country together with him. In October 2000, General Robert Guie stole the elections in Ivory Coast. The country descended into chaos and civil strife. Has Robert Mugabe learnt anything from these?

3. They are not serious about reform because they do not want to relinquish or share power. Ask them to to establish multi-party democracy and they will perform the "Babangida Boogie" -- One step forward, three steps back, a flip and a sidekick to land on a FAT Swiss bank account!! Much ado about nothing. And get this: As long as African leaders are not serious about reform, MORE African countries will implode. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, to name a few, are candidates. Obviously, next time when these leaders meet at Abuja to unveil another "grand plan," I will show up with my "CUTLASS." Out of the 54 African heads of state, name me just 10 of them who are willing to hold free and fair elections and gracefully bow out of office if they lose. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the wind of change swept across Africa, toppling long-term autocrats. In 1990, only 4 African countries were democratic. This tiny number increased to 15 in 1995; now we have slid back to 14 and the democratisation process has STALLED.

THE VAMPIRE AFRICAN STATE

Today, most Africans blame bad and corrupt leadership as the major cause of Africa's woes. The post colonial leadership, with few exceptions, established defective political and economic systems in which enormous power was concentrated in the hands of the state and ultimately one individual. The political systems were characterized by "one-man dictatorships" (or Sultanism) and the economic systems by "statism" or dirigisme -- heavy state participation or direction of economic activity. The rationale for the adoption of  these systems are well-known: the need for national unity, ideological aversion to capitalism, and the need to protect the newly-independent African nation against foreign exploitation.

Over time, these systems metastasized into an ugly monstrosity. where government as it is generally known, ceased to exist. Today, "government," as an entity, is totally divorced from the people and perceived by the ruling elite as a vehicle, not to serve, but to fleece the people. The African State has been reduced to a maffia-like bazaar, where anyone with an official designation can pillage at will. Thus, what exists in many African countries is a "vampire" or "pirate state" -- a government hijacked by aphalanx of gangsters, thugs and crookes who use the instruments of the state to enrich  themselves, theri cronies and tribesmen. All others are excluded (politics of exclusion).

To understand why a rich country is rich and a poor country poor, examine how the rich in both countries make their money. In the Us, the richest person is Bill Gates, with a personal fortune of $68 billion. He generated his wealth in the private sector, producing software, thus, having something to show for his wealth. By contrast in Africa, the richest persons are heads of state and ministers, who accumulated their wealth by raking it off the backs of their suffering peasants. Quite often the chief bandit is the head of state himself.

This form of presidential banditry merely re-distributes wealth and does not result in the net creation of wealth.

Consequently, a peculiar system of governance now pervades Africa, where the primordial instinct of the ruling elite is to loot the national treasury, perpetuate themselves in power and brutally suppress all dissent and opposition. Worse, the booty is not invested in Africa but in foreign banks.

According to a United Nation's estimate, in 1999 alone, more than $200 billion in capital was siphoned out of Africa by the ruling elite (The New York Times, 4 February 1996; page 4). Note that this amount was more than Africa's foreign debt of $320 billion. A Un Report on Global Corruption, released in Vienna in April 13, 2000 observed that "up to $30 billion in aid for Africa, twice the GDP of Ghana, Kenya and Uganda combined, has ended up in foreign bank accounts" (New Vission, April 15, 2000). Furthermore, capital flight out of Africa, on an annual basis, exceeds what comes into Africa as foreign aid.

In Kenya, "Many people in government have the biggest accounts in foreign banks. Critics of the Moi government say there is more money from Kenyans in foreign banks than the entire foreign debt, which is about $8 billion. Kenya's situation is not unique to the country. It is the reality found throughout Africa" (The Washigton Times, 3 August 1995, A18). Nairobi businessman Peter Wamai, charged that, "If they are serious about eradicating poverty, they would start by returning the money that has been stolen" (The Washington Times, June 3, 1999; p A12)

To achieve their nefarious objectives of self-aggrandizement and self-perpetuation in power, the ruling elite take over and subvert every key institution of government: the civil service, judiciary, millitary, media, banking and even various commissions with lofty ideals that are supposed to be non-partisan and neutral -- press/media commission, human rights commission, and commission on civic education.

As a result, state institutions and commissions paralyzed. Laxity, ieptitude, indiscipline and unprofessionalism thus flourish in the public sector. Of sourse, Africa has a police force and judiciary system but the police are themselves highway robbers and many of the judges crooks. When president Olusegun Obasanjo was elected as Nigeria's president in 1999, he launched a highly public campaign against corruption and vowed to recover the loot stashed abroad by Nigeria's former dictator, the late General Sani Abacha. According to the Post Express (July 10, 2000), "The late Abacha is believed to have siphoned more than $8 billion of Nigeria's foreign exchange into fictitious accounts in Europe, Asia, America, Caribbean and Arab countries" (p.26). The government disclosed that, by March 2000, %709 million and another 144 million Pounds Sterling has been recovered from the Abachas and other top officials or the Abacha regime. But this recovered loot was itself quickly re-looted. When the Senate Public Accounts Committee looked more closely, it found only $6.8 million and 2.8 million Pounds Sterling in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Said Uti Akpan, a textiles trader in Lagos, "What baffles me is that even the money recovered from Abacha has been stolen. If you recover money from a thief and you go back and steal the money, it means you are worse than the thief" (New York Times, August 30, 2000; p. 10). Since politics constitutes the gateway to fabulous wealth in Africa, the competition for political power has always ferocious. Political defeat could mean exile, jail or starvation. Those who win power take over the key institutions and proceed to plunder the treasury. Key positions in these institutions are handed over the president's tribesmen, cronies and loyal supporters -- to serve their interests and not those of the people or the nation.

Meritocracy, rule of law, property rights, transparency and administrative capacity vanish. Eventually, however, the "maffia African state" implodes, sucking the country into a votex of savage carnage and heinous destruction: Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire. The process varies but its onset follows two predictable patterns.

First, those ezploited by the vampire state are eventually driven to exercise the "exit option": Leave or reduce their exposure to the formal sector economy by smuggling and taking their activities to the underground economy or the black market. This deprives the state of tax revenue and foreign exchange. Over time, the formal economy progressively sinks and the state finds it increasingly difficult to raise revenue as taxes are massively evaded, leading the ruling vampire elite to resort to printing money and inflate the economy.

Second, those excluded from the spoils of political power eventually rise up in a rebel insurgency or secede (Biafra in 1967). And it takes only a small band of determined rag-tag malcontents to plunge the country into mayhem. Back in 1981, Yoweri Museveni, the current president of Uganda, started out with only 27 men in a guerrilla campaign against Milton Obote. Charles Taylor, now the president of Liberia, set out with 150 rebels; the late Mohamed Farah Aidid of Somalia began with 200 rebels; Paul Kagame of Rwanda set out with less than 250 rebels. And no African government in post-colonial era has been able to crush a rebel insurgency.

Thus, one word, power, explains why Africa is in the grip of a never-ending cycle of wanton chaos, horific carnage, senseless civil wars and collapsing economies: The struggle for power, its monoploization by one individual or group, and subsequent refusal to relinquish or share it. The adamant refusal of African despots and the ruling vampire elites to relinquish or share political power is what triggers insurgency. In fact, the destruction of African country, regardless of the processed ideology of its government, always begins with some dispute over the electoral process. Unwilling to relinquish or share political power, the ruling vampire elite block, sabotage or manipulate the electoral process to keep themselves in power. The blockage of the democratic process or the refusal to hold elections plunged Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan to civil war. The manipulation of the electoral process by hardliners destroyed Rwanda (1993) and Sierra Leone (1992). The subversion of the electoral process in Liberia (1985) eventually set off a civil war in 1989 and instigated civil strife in Cameroon (1991), Congo (1992), Togo (1992) and Kenya (1992). Finally, the annulment of electoral results by the military started the Algeria's civil war (1992) and plunged Nigeria into political turmoil (1993). Witness the current crisis in Kenya or Zimbabwe. More African countries will blow.

----- Folks, I am stopping here for now and would send in the final part when I am less busy.-----

There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve. -Mike- Levitt-