AFRICA NEEDS BETTER

By Gershom Ndhlovu

 

“African solutions for African problems.”

This is one refrain that has surely lost meaning in as much as it has been sung repeatedly by the likes of former South African president Thabo Mbeki who was given the task of mediating the Zimbabwe political crisis which has been brewing for close to ten years now.

Mbeki, one of the architects of the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its offshoot, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), has not been successful let alone been candid enough regarding the resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis.

He has the support of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and by extension, the African Union.

From his recent letter to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), he was always for resolving the crisis in favour of Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU-PF). Today Zimbabwe is teetering on the brink of being a failed state, joining the ranks of the text book example, Somalia which has not had formal state institutions of governance for close to 20 years now.

Not at all strange, the Zimbabwe crisis has also exposed serious chasms between members such as Botswana which has out-rightly labelled the Mugabe regime illegitimate while others have closed ranks with the octogenarian ruler who led the violent struggle for independence and took over the reins of power three decades ago.

A cholera epidemic spreading along the length and breadth of Zimbabwe is the last straw that has unravelled all that has previously held the country together. Apart from the economy which is in its death throes with inflation galloping in hundreds of millions percentages, the education system crumbling with universities, colleges and boarding schools all but closed; a non-functioning health sector which is faced with a raging cholera epidemic that has claimed hundreds of lives while hospitals have no staff, drugs or equipment.

The Darfur crisis in Zimbabwe has also proved the futility of the Mbekian refrain of African solutions for African problems. This crisis has been going on for a long time now and the African Union efforts are as useful as an amputated limb. Darfurians continue dying at the hands of Sudanese government-supported Janjaweed militia.

No solution is in sight to this problem and today, Sudanese president Omar Bashir stands wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for crimes against humanity. This move by the international tribunal has not gone down well with the rest of Africa which still wants to protect villainous leaders who commit crimes against the very people they are supposed to serve.

Problems in the eastern Congo where militias from surrounding countries such as Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have been battling for control of resources there have been raging for over a decade now.

The world is yet to see if the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region’s recent mediation effort in Burundi is successful considering that the ink on the recent agreement is not yet dry. The past agreements in that part of the world have failed to hold and this latest one may not be any different.

As much as Africa does not shy away from getting aid from western countries, it must also not shy away from criticism over the manner it handles its problems. It is outrageous for people like Mbeki to accuse groups like the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai of being western stooges. An African tyrant who brutalises his fellow Africans is worse.

It is in fact strange that Mbeki and other African leaders do not see anything wrong with those who loot their countries’ treasuries and exhibit bad governance tendencies.

It may appear that only global solutions will work for African problems because those charged with the task of solving African problem with African solutions equally have soiled hands.

 

Last week, someone signing himself as Nigerian Entrepreneur responded to my column as follows:

Every country has her own black sheep. While it is true that scammers who are Nigerian by citizenship are notorious in the international business world, it should be noted that there are many SINCERE, HONEST and INDUSTRIOUS Nigerians who earn their living by doing legitimate business. 

If such decides to invest in Zambia, they should be welcomed and not classified as "crooks" just because they are Nigerian by birth.

By the way, I do receive a lot of SCAM letters too because of my activities online. Here is a sample SCAM LETTER (reproduced below). However, many of them are from outside Nigeria (Asians to be specific).

Nice post. You may wish to educate your readers to investigate would-be Nigerian investors by reading this article How To Protect Yourself From Fraudsters (I will reproduce it next  week). It gives hints of what steps could be taken by an entrepreneur to prevent being defrauded.

I got here from Afrigator. Nice job you are doing here. Proudly African. Cheers.

 

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