The first time I heard of Rwanda it was not as a separate country. It was as hyphenation: Ruanda-Urundi. That knowledge came from a Sociology class taught by a German Lecturer, in a pre-degree class at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria’. In those days Sociology was heavily dominated by Anthropology and its preoccupations with ‘the tribe’, ‘the clan’ and ‘the native’. Sociology was a discipline introduced out of protest at the uses and abuses of anthropology.

Anthropology has always had a bad name because of its close association with the colonial enterprise. European colonialists captured Africa through an unholy trinity: Christianity, the Maxim Guns and the Trade. The Anthropologists acted as the civilian contingent of the imperialist enterprise by providing what intelligence officers today provide for the modern state.

This is the same kind of far-reaching specialized local knowledge that ubiquitous Western NGOs can still provide (though a lot of information and knowledge are easily available today) to their sponsors today. The anthropologists were not necessarily ( like many of the missionaries) conscious agents but their knowledge, studies, ‘participatory research’ and activities among ‘the native’ directly and indirectly helped the colonialist project.

For Ruanda-Urundi what we know was that these were countries divided between ‘two tribes’, Hutu and Tutsi. The former looked more like us: Negroid, broad nose, short and stocky while the latter does not look like us: they are lighter skinned, taller, with long noses. With that, our racist focus on Rwanda and Burundi was constructed and the template put in place.

When you then consider the colonial imprint of indirect Tutsi rule in cahoots with the colonial rulers as the traditional aristocratic overlords, the anti-Tutsi prejudice became complete and got given a kind of respectable ideological justification.

Later in Political Science classes one was presented with another set of truisms that did not square with the tribal angle. Rwanda and Burundi, this time joined together with Somalia, we were taught, were the only countries in Africa where ‘tribalism’ was not an issue as in many post colonial African states, because the people of those countries were the same ‘tribe’, same faith. In the case of Rwanda and Burundi they did not even have significant dialect differences.

So if the people of those countries are not of different tribes how come they are killing each other? The answer lies in politics and power, not in ‘tribe’.

It took me moving to Uganda in the early 1990s to complete my education about Rwanda. Most Africans’ understanding or misunderstanding of Rwanda and Burundi was shaped by racist anthropological understandings. The ambiguities of some of the most radial scholars on this continent about the 1994 Genocide, and in understanding Rwanda since then, are rooted in this.

Many Africans believe themselves to be Hutus and by definition are apologetic about Hutu extremism. People who are usually critical of colonial constructs of ‘tribalism’ and ‘ethnicity’ in Africa, lose their critical faculties when it comes to Rwanda and Burundi. Because Genocide was carried out in the name of the majority, against a minority, does not make it ‘democratic’ or excusable. One’s opposition to minority rule should not condone genocide or atrocities against ethnic or racial minorities or minorities’ of any kinds.

The role of past colonial and neocolonial powers, especially Belgium and later France, in manufacturing these tribes and playing them against each other in order to perpetrate foreign domination in that part of Africa, cannot be separated from the successive Genocide that has engulfed the two countries (though with different victims and villains) since the late 1950s.

Without France and Belgium, the Genocidiare regime of Habyarimana and MRND could not have held on to power for so long. Without France and its ‘operation turquoise’ after the defeat of genocide in 1994 the Genocidiare regime, its army and clergy could not have forced genuine refugees behind fugitives in camps in Goma and other parts of Eastern Congo that eventually led to forceful closure of those camps, prolonged wars in the Congo and instability that continues until today.

It is therefore very rich, insulting and most mischievous and mendacious that a French judge sitting in some obscure province, and an even more obscure kangaroo court, can start issuing indictments against the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame and nine of his officers.

Was the Genocide really caused by the shooting down of the plane of Habyarimana? If it had not been planned well in advance, with weapons being put into place how could it have been carried out and executed so swiftly and with such clinical precision?

Africans too readily accept Westerners sitting in judgment over us, without us doing the same for their many atrocities against us. Very often we allow our disagreements or opposition to particular regimes or leaders to cloud our better judgment and this gets non-Africans off the hook and even inflates their pomposity towards us. For many of us, as long as we are opposed to the person, people or governments being attacked, we think it is alright regardless of the principles that may be at stake.

How many African judges have issued indictments against Western leaders for their complicities in the many tragedies that continue to take place on this continent? Why can’t our judges, governments or institutions and even our human rights organizations who are quick to accept donor funds to campaign (rightly in many cases) against abuses by our governments also put some energy into prosecuting and campaigning against non-African excesses against Africa?

France and Belgium in particular and their successive leaders, ministers, corporations, diplomats, bureaucrats are guilty of aiding and abetting Genocide and should hang their heads in shame instead of looking for Africans -leaders or the led - to prosecute. They are only trying to ease the burden on their own consciences about their moral, political and legal complicity in murdering the innocent in Rwanda. 1994 may be the worst expression of these excesses but there are too many similar cases across this continent. Where do we even start when counting these cases? Is it Genocide by the Germans against the Hereros in Namibia? Or King Leopold’s Genocide in the Congo? Is it the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, coordinated by the Belgians and the CIA? Is it the overthrow of patriotic regimes including that of Nkrumah, Ben Bella, and so many more by agents of the West? Or do we cite the testing of nuclear weapons on innocent people of the Cameroon by the British in the 1960s?

We do not have to look far back in history to find evidence of Western conspiracies and wrongs against Africa. Most western countries will stand indicted without too much research. France will be in a special class of its own as both a brutal colonial power and neocolonialist on this continent.

There is more than enough for many western countries, and their leaders - political, religious and corporate -to be hauled before the ICC. That they are not is because they are the ones making the rules and then breaking them. That they get away with it is because we let them. International law should not only be for the poorer countries to obey, used to threaten current leaders, or enforce on leaders who have fallen out of favour (like Taylor, Milosevic, and others). It should apply equally. In a just world, how many western leaders, current and past, would be sitting comfortably in their mansions?

The responsibility for Genocide is not about who shot Habyarimana, it is about those who aided and abetted Genocide in that country ending with the delivery of their final script in April 1994. That responsibility, Monsieur Judge, is on France and their Belgian cousins.

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Friday (ranar Jumaa in Hausa) is supposed to be the holiest of holies and the most blessed of all the blessed days for all believers in the Muslim faith. But last Friday 10th of November has given us cause to rethink this belief. For members of my family and me it has become a day of infamy. Instead of being a day of strengthening faith it is a day during which our faith in Allah was tested and some of us may have momentarily failed. It was the day we were robbed of one of the more gregarious siblings in our family of 10 brothers and 8 sisters from four mothers. Our dad passed away at a very mature age of 90 in 2000 but my mum, the youngest of the four wives from whom all 18 of us came died very young, at less than 60 years old when she died in 1997. We thought then and still do now that death was most cruel taking my mum at such a young age, in a life that was full of sacrifice for all her surviving 9 children. I said surviving because we could have been 12 (to the best of my knowledge). The girl before me died before she was one month old and at least twice when I was old enough to know what was happening my mum had lost one baby through still birth at full term and another child at slightly more than one year, a brother, Suleiman, after whom our last born boy, Sule, was later renamed. It is possible my mum had more than the 12 I could recollect but never bothered to tell me, her first surviving child because these things are not talked about both culturally and religiously.

However if my mother had been alive the death of my second brother, Sikiru (popularly known as Parrot) last Friday, would have killed her instantly. And I am not sure I could cope with losing both of them at the same time given how rotten I still feel 9 years since my mum passed away and how bad I am feeling at the moment for Sikiru’s death. Even though my mum had many children and had been luckier than all the other wives(most of us survived and made her a posthumous 50 % stakeholder in my Dad’s estate, her children being exactly 50% of all surviving children of my Dad) . Other wives always believed that we survived in that huge numbers because the Old man loved our mum most as the youngest wife but really my educated guess is that we survived because both the material situation of the family and access to medical facilities when my Mum joined the Harem was much better than when the older siblings were born, many of whom died when they were under 3 years old. Sikiru was her favorite. It is difficult for mothers to choose between their children but emotionally they tend to be more attached to the weaker ones. Sikiru was a very sickly child as a toddler. I could recollect his having concussions almost every week and my mum screaming to the whole neighborhood and everyone bringing one concoction or the other to ‘wake him up’. The hawkish eyes of a loving mother became so focused on this sickly boy and remained so throughout my mother’s life, something that Sikiru got accustomed to and used to good effect in all kinds of sibling rivalries as we grew up. As the first child my tasks and obligations were cut out for me. I had to be the responsible one and look after all those who followed me. . Between Sikiru and I there was a special bond because he looked like me and together with Amina , our last born, the number 9 for my mum and the 18th of the whole family, the three of us were the ones who looked most alike. When he came to Kampala for the 7th PAC he caused so many breaches of protocol and security as many (including our Chairman then Colonel Kahinda Otafiiremi and our then Chief of Staff one young Lt. Mayombo) misstook him for me! Through choices that he made consciously and those made for him by accident of birth by being my brother Sikiru became like a clone to his older brother following in my footsteps to go and study Political science at Bayero University Kano after secondary education at the notoriously harsh, seniority-obsessed Rimi College in Kaduna and A levels at Kwara State College of Technology, Ilorin. It was in Ilorin that the mustard seeds for his Student Union activism and political activism were planted and came to gregarious fruition at BUK where he was elected Publicity Secretary of the Student Union. By this time I had left home for further studies in the UK and had become a political exile against successive military dictatorships in Nigeria from Buhari/Idiagnon dual autocracy through IBB’s corrupt patrimony and Abacha’s sadistic regime. Sikiru was vocal, very eloquent and gifted writer who had no problem committing his views to paper. I have always thought he could have been a more successful journalist than anything else but he was too energetic and spread himself in different directions as though he had foreboding that he would not live long. He packed many things into his restless life: politics, PR, education, entrepreneurship, sponsorship of sports, promotion of theatre, Cinema, music promotion, journalism and more. And he did all of them with gusto. If God had a fixed address Sikiru would have found him and He would be impressed. But no sooner HE makes his acquaintance Sikiru will disappear! He would have moved on to other hobbies and challenges. When my mum passed away in 1997 he was in Funtua managing a private secondary school. It was on his advice and persuasion that we bought out the previous owners of the School and renamed it after our late MUM: Hauwa Community College. It was through his creativity, diligence and ways and means that we were able to buy the school change the name and he nurtured it to become the first ever private College to have been given full College Status and registration for both NECO and WAEC in Katsina state. He was a trail blazer but a restless spirit.

We were to later fall out on his management of the College leading to his exit. Unfortunately this is what everyone will remember. Whatever our disagreements though I never stopped loving him as a brother. I was very happy that he bounced back (yet again , as anyone who knew Sikiru knows, ba kasawa, i.e. no surrender) in one of his abiding loves, journalism, representing first , The Independent Group of Newspapers as Katsina State Correspondent and later till he died THE VANGUARD. . I followed his progress on the net but we never met or talked much in the past two years. I regret this because now it is too late for us to make any amends. But we are thankful to Allah that he is survived by Three Children from two wives. May Allah rest his soul, forgive his sins and bless the children to continue the good works that he had started. I would have wished to hold him, shake his hands and tell him how sorry I am about what happened between us but it is too late now. If you have any member of your family or friend with whom you may have fallen out please make amends because there is no guarantee that you or them will be here later today or tomorrow.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

What makes the voters of one country, electing none other than those who govern them in a legally recognised political community, superior or inferior? Any normal person will ask why am I asking such a funny Question, the answer to which should be clear. I agree. But I am talking about two elections held in the same week. Many will know one of them: the US election in which Bush, to the relief of billions of people across the world, is finally being shown the door. The other election is the one in Nicaragua where the Sandanistas, who had liberated the country but were defeated in elections in 1989, were returned to power.

In spite of the suspense of the closely fought race for the US Senate. The mid-term elections in the US have returned control of the American legislature to the opposition Democrats. They now control both chambers for the first time since 1994. The voters have shown a red card to Bush and his lunatic neo-cons that enough is enough.

Much as it is claimed that all politics is local, this election was fought on Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The loss of credibility internationally is finally hitting home even in the heartlands of conservatism across America.

There is hope both in America and outside that the changing political landscape in America symbolized in this election may lead to a post Bush regime change that may have more positive impacts on the people of the world. Even orchestrating Saddam Hussein's guilt and death sentence during the campaign did not divert people's attention from the tragic mess long foretold but denied by Bush and his hawks.

One thing that is clear is that Americans are no longer willing to be prisoners of an administration that governs them with fear. They are willing to re-engage with other Americans and the rest of the world. Politically Americans are saying good bye to a one party government.

It is not only Americans who my be feeling a bit safer with a weakening Bush. Even the rest of the world should feel safer. Bush is finally suffering what his allies suffered at the hands of their electorate.

But US elections are not the only ones taking place. Another significant election was decided among one of its smaller and poorer neighbours this week. It may not have the same impact on the world but it is of no less significance both for Americans and the ret of us.

Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandanistas, was reelected President of Nicaragua more than 16 years after losing to a right wing coalition of parties funded and supported by successive US administrations. The Sandinistas remained the largest single party but others (mostly pro US politicians) conspire to keep it out of power. But it remained focused, renewing itself among the masses in elections and working on. Within Latin American politics Nicaraguans have shown again as we saw in Brazil and Venezuela that resurgent left parties and governments have the right to imagine a different world from that dictated by Washington.

What unites both elections for me is the right of people to choose those who govern them. All people have the right and duty to elect their own leaders without the interference of other governments. It is an insult to democracy that the Bush administration that is being chased out by its own electorate should be interfering in the electoral process of other countries. They made their preference clear in the Nicaragua vote and issued not so disguised threats to Nicaraguans not to vote for the Sandinistas.

Even as the results of the electoral meltdown of the Republicans in the Congress was being broadcast on CNN the Bush administration still had time to issue a statement on the Nicaraguan elections 'with cautious welcome'. Who do they think they are? If they need any caution it is to be applied to their own electorate which has punished them for their arrogance and irresponsible leadership of America. Incompetent at home and running wild abroad the Bush administration should just keep quiet about other peoples' elections and face the consequences of its own policies.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

I have been writing obituaries so frequently in the past year that I am beginning to feel there are no more adjectives left to appreciate the lives of fallen comrades. But somehow one has to find the words, both as part of grieving and also in defiance of death, to remind us that the thief of all thieves, while it may rob us of loved ones, will not be able to rob us of their memories too.

On Saturday, 26 October, 2006 they buried a very dear comrade and friend: Dr Wanjiru Kihoro. Unfortunately I could not be at the funeral but did attend two public testimonials (one an evening of political tributes and the other a funral service on Heroe’s day, both in Nairobi) as part of the farewell to Wanjiru. She was buried in the land of her ancestors in the picturesque Kikiyu District of Nyeri, Kenya. Wanjiru had been in a coma for over three years and nine months since she suffered severe injuries in a plane crash early 2003. A number of prominent politicians, including MPs in the newly triumphant NARC-Kenya government, died in the accident.

For all these years, friends and relatives, but especially her incredibly optimistic husband and comrade, Wanyiri Kihoro, and her father took turns by her side at the National Hospital in Nairobi. They all hoped against hope and prayed for her recovery. Any small sign of attentiveness no matter how dim was interpreted as a sign of her ‘coming back to us’. Friends and relatives were encouraged to visit her and talk to her normally with the hope that one voice, or a cacophony of recognizable voices, might jolt her sensory nerves back to life.

I was one of those fearful friends who dreaded going to see Wanjiru while she lay in bed. A few times, I had synchronized my contact with Wanyiri to coincide with the closing hours for hospital visits so that I could be disallowed but could wait for Wanyiri to get out so that we could sit and chat. One such night on my way from Kla we ended up sitting up till after 2.00am. Instead of me giving him words of encouragement it was Wanyiri who was cheering me up, insisting that I must go and see Wanjiru, talk to her , even syndicate our political arguments, jokes, saying that maybe it would help.

About eight weeks ago, a mutual friend and comrade, Micheline, who had worked with Wanjiru at the Africa Centre, Akina Mama Wa Africa and Abantu, who is now
Africa Director of UNFIFEM in New York, came to Nairobi. She dragged me and her husband, James Oparo, who was as squeamish as me, to go and see Wanjiru instead of meeting up with Wanyiri after the closing hours.

And I am now glad I went again. We spent quite a long time with her, Mzee and Wanyiri chatting, being nostalgic and generally doing the usual exchange of hot political gossip that political activists are known for. Of course the Wanjiru on the bed was not the Wanjiru we had known. She was much smaller but the machines monitoring her heart beat became very agitated and Wanyiri explained to us that it meant she could hear us and was trying to respond.

After looking after a terminally ill person for a long time carers tend to become both medical doctors and believers in miracles. Wanyiri’s father in law and Wanyiri were virtually part of the hospital establishment. It was an act of spousal and parental devotion that is rarely seen these days.

Any African who was in the UK from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s would have known or heard about Wanjiru. She was very active in the Kenyan and Pan African struggles of those years. She was a pioneer African feminist working both for the liberation of Africa and the emancipation of African Women. At a time when many progressive groups paper over the gender dimension of struggles by declaring the revolution the only target, she and her fellow pioneering sisters formed AMWA and were insistent that the liberation of the African Woman should not be delayed until victory came. She was also an early mobilizer and organizer for what we called disdainfully in those days, ‘bourgeois democracy’. She believed in and worked for a democratic Kenya at a time when many of us thought we could use AK47 to shoot our way to State Lodges and rain down Socialism from above! She built solidarity with all kinds of progressive groups be they African, Latin American, Asian or European, believing and putting into practice the unity of progressive humanity in the face of national oppression and imperialism.

She was a mobiliser, organizer, agitator but also very enterprising. While she was ideologically and intellectually on the Nkrumah and WEB du Bois side of Pan Africanism, she was organizationally in the Garveyite tradition of creating independent economic bases for political struggle. She would organize Whip rounds, Harambe, individual taxation, fee paying get-togethers, sales of publications, auctions, and others all to support the struggle.

Most of the famous and not so famous Kenyan politicians that I know today were influenced by Wanjiru. The Kihoro’s little flat in Union Street, Clapham North, became both a haven and transit lounge for Kenyan activists running away from the authoritarian killer government of Moi and KANU. Wanjiru would organize for them to meet other Kenyans and Africans, members of the British establishment (Conservative or Labor), human rights groups, Diaspora lobbies, and others. She was capable of remaining in solidarity with comrades who had fallen out and even those fighting against governments like Jerry’s Ghana or the NRM in Uganda, with whom she had close personal and political associates.

When her husband, Wanyiri, was arrested in Kenya and detained without trial in the infamous Nyayo detention centre (a place built in the basement of a huge shopping complex without people suspecting for a long time that human beings were being tortured under their feet as they do their shopping) Wanjiru did not become a grieving exile widow but used his incarceration and torture to focus international attention on the deplorable human rights situation in Kenya. At that time Kenya was darling of the West. Moi was regarded as ‘moderate African leader’, provided military bases for the West and throughout the Cold War was on the right side of Washington and London. In return, his masters rewarded him with aid and loans. Western tourists and INGOs trooped to Kenya.

So close was the relationship with the British that throughout the 1980s the Thatcher government and later the Major government never allowed any big peaceful demonstration in front of the Kenyan High Commission. They used to allow only 12 demonstrators at a time. We used to organize 12 hour non-stop demos and the Kenyan security would film the 12 of us for those 12 hours! So complete was the hold of Moi/KANUon Kenyans that Wanjiru and her comrades could not raise 12 Kenyans for the demonstrations. The Kenyan regulars were usually Wanjiru and her comrades in the UKENYA and UMOJA external groupings for the Kenyan pro-Democracy Movement including Mwakenya. They included Yusuf Hassan, Wangui Wa Goro, Shiraz Duraini and Adulatif Abdallah. Ngugi wa Thiongo, after his release from detention without trial, became the titular leader of these groups. People like Irungu Houghton provided the back-stopping secretariat. Of course there were numerous other Africans, especially Nigerians and Ghanaians, allied to the Africa Research and Information Bureau (ARIB) and the journal, Africa World Review (AWR) and also those in the Solidarity movement on Kenya the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya ably led by the Trinidadian writer and publisher, John La Rose of New Beacon Books who, also sadly passed away early this year.

As Wanjiru is laid to rest I salute her courage in staying the course of the struggle and living to see a Kenya free of Moi and KANU rule. But I regret that she did not live long enough to enjoy the benefits of democracy for which she fought and sacrificed so much - ultimately her life, and am sadder still that many of the political leaders in Kenya today have forgotten so soon the pains and groans of the masses that brought them to power, and are behaving in a way that may make KANU seem electable again.

Since she died, there have been so many eulogies and praises from all kinds of people (many well meaning and deserving) but there are many from people shedding crocodile tears - especially politicians who betrayed the struggle – as well as those she helped bring to power who forgot about her as she lay wasting on the hospital bed I am sure Wanjiru would not have been surprised about this since she did not engage in the struggle because she wanted to be acknowledged. She was not without her own contradictions and weaknesses like all of us mortals. And for anyone engaged in struggle there were bound to be mistakes and misjudgments because the only person who does not make mistakes is the person who does nothing.

Sleep well Wanjiru, You did your best and your best was more than enough in one lifetime. Adieux Mama Pambana!

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Adbul-Raheem explores the reaction from the lovers and haters of Fidel Castro to news of his recent illness.

This week, Tajudeen Adbul-Raheem explains his many reasons for giving up smoking. This is a podcast of Tajudeen's popular article published in Pambazuka News.

Have you ever wondered if there is anything you can do to contribute to solving global poverty? Did you sometimes ever get that sinking feeling that you are just one person who is too insignificant in the face of the forces of global domination and systematic oppression to make any difference? How many times has helplessness at the things happening around you or in the wider world forced you to conclude that you cannot beat the system, and that, at best, your only choice is to either join them or drop out?

If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions do not be embarrassed at all. You are one among billions of us (actually 6.5 billion) who inhabit this earth. Most of us feel helpless, often disapproving of many things happening around us and in the world but feeling we lack any power to change them. There is frustration that no matter what we think or do, the world will always remain skewed against the poor and powerless, the little men and women, who constitute the majority. Whether it is the environment, the economy, education or health, many have to come to accept that the rich classes amongst us, and the richer nations of the world will always squeeze the poor and get their way all the time.

We all know that Mahatma Gandhi’s famous words: ‘there is enough in the world to satisfy our needs but not enough to satisfy our greed’ uttered so many decades ago are as true today as ever. The vast wealth from improved technology, science and genetic engineering in the last five decades is more than enough for all of us. However, the structures of power within and between nations continue to reward those at the very top, while penalizing the majority poor at the bottom of the pile.

Poor people in poorer countries of the world cry out against their rich who also groan at the richer countries. Within richer countries the poor feel no better. Yet the system that is producing this fabulous wealth in one pole, and desperate poverty in another is created by human beings. Therefore it can only be changed through their individual and collective efforts, sometimes cooperatively, but often in confrontations and through contradictions.

The United Nations ushered in the third millennium (and its 55th anniversary) at the Millennium Summit in 2000 with a declaration that recognized that the world could be made better and that we all deserved to treat each other and our shared environment better. This was encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was an attempt to create a new social contract between the peoples and governments of the world. It committed to eight goals ranging from ending hunger through universal access to basic education, women empowerment, health, and environment to reforming the unequal global trade, increasing quality aid and cancelling debt of poor countries.

Since the MDGs became the ‘new’ language of development discourse, there continues a debate as to whether they are achievable or not.

The UN itself realized that neither the declaration alone nor the official adoption of the MDGs will guarantee their fulfilment both in the north and the south. That is why the UN Millennium Campaign was established to work with citizens to hold their governments accountable for the fulfillment of the MDGs. The campaign works with and through national coalitions in various countries allied to the Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP) but also with faith based groups, local councils, national, sub regional and regional legislatures, youth, students, women and trade unions, to ensure political accountability of all leaders to their peoples at various levels. The MDGs can only be achieved at the local and community level. That is where their impact will be directly felt.

Over the recent years of neo-liberal economic hegemony, economic policies have become even more undemocratic. The policies are dominated by technicians, all kinds of latter day voodoo experts from the Bretton Woods institutions, to the total exclusion of citizens who are the producers of their national and global wealth. The majority of citizens become victims of these policies. The MDGs have tremendous potential for opening up democratic spaces for political accountability of leaders. Through MDGs it is possible to begin to reverse this arrogant trend of making economic issues the sole preserve of economic egg-heads, and judge economic policies not just in terms of macroeconomic growth but development, how they impact on the general welfare of the majority of the peoples of the world who are poor.

As part of efforts to popularize the MDGs and focus global attention on poverty, the UN Millennium Campaign in partnership with GCAP allies and others including OXFAM, Action Aid International, NOVIB, and Micah Challenge, has been participating in a one month campaign of activities. This began on the 16th of September and will culminate in the International Day for Poverty Eradication on Tuesday 17 October.

If you have not been involved it is not too late. You could still join the activities this weekend. On Sunday, October 15 and Monday, October 16 there is a ‘Stand Up Against Poverty Challenge’ in which anybody who cares can be a full participant.

Can you imagine a world in which the MDGs are a political priority for all our governments and other governments in the world? A world without poverty where every child is guaranteed education, where many women do not die in labour and people living with HIV/Aids have universal access to free treatment based on need not cash. A world where malaria, TB and other preventable diseases no longer kill us in the vast numbers they currently do. A world in which the environment is fully protected and the vast creativity of human mind and scientific discovery will be used for sustainable development that guarantees that this earth that we are loaning from the future generation is handed on safely.

There is a small chance to put your imagination into action. The goals sound like dreams but even the creation of this world must have begun with a dream. It needs not remain so. It is a world that we can bring about by first making people aware of the MDGs and working with them to demand their fulfilment from their leaders. Holding leaders to their promises is all that it takes. If the richer countries deliver on goal 8 the poorer countries can also deliver on goals 1-7. It is a complementary process which must run concurrently from goal 1 to 8. You can contribute to making it happen wherever you maybe. Together we can all make the difference between fulfilment and indifference.

This weekend you can add your voice to that of millions of other citizens of the world by joining the campaign against hunger amidst plenty: ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s. It will take not more than five minutes.‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ is an innovative Challenge in which we are attempting to set an official Guinness world record for the highest number of people ever to ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s.

We have just 24 hours to set this record. Be one in a Million!

Check for details of campaigns near you this Sunday 15 October (from 10.00 am GMT)to (10.00 am GMT) Monday 16 October and also how you can organize your own stand up moment and register it to be counted: and [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

I have maintained an unusual silence over the past few weeks about the exposures and counter exposures between the President of Nigeria, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo and his estranged Deputy, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. My initial reaction was dismissive because it is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. However, while I was neither fazed nor dazed by the gutter level to which their internecine warfare had descended, I must confess that I did not know that they could sink even lower and do so openly.

But like many concerned Nigerians I had recoiled into an embarrassed indifference, consequently feigning lack of interest and convincing myself that I could not care less. Dog eats dog or vulture ogling vulture - why should I care? But that was just a defensive front. What the President and Vice President of any country do affects the citizens. Government machinery is virtually paralyzed by the war between the two who seem locked in a loveless cohabitation from which they are unable to disengage.

Neither of them is catholic therefore divorce should have been easier! But Atiku has refused to jump and Obasanjo's people have been inept at pushing him. So the cohabitation falters on.

The tragic death of many Senior Army Officers in yet another air crash a few weeks ago forced a temporary truce between the two warring factions in Aso Rock, but they have now resumed public hostilities. One gets a feeling that this is some kind of Nigerian bastardized form of truth without justice. We have heard, and will hear more gory details of officials looting, squandering, comprador activities, and betrayal of public trust, but may not see the perpetrators punished or even showing any remorse.

The general public discussions seem to suggest that many people believe that the revelations are prompted not by any wish for corruption to be rooted out but by a political vendetta against political opponents. While this may be true and has a bearing on how the public perceives the official war against corruption, it smacks of public complacency.

All looters may not be caught but it is baffling to suggest that those exposed, who can be proven guilty should not be tried. Even if Obasanjo is trying only his real and imagined enemies I have no problem with their trial if they actually are guilty. However, when another administration comes to power, Obasanjo and his cronies can and should be tried too.

It is very strange that the supporters of his Deputy are not actively pleading the innocence of their Godfather but rather saying he is not alone and that his boss, the President, is also guilty. It is an unprincipled defence based on a warped logic suggesting that unless all thieves are caught, the few should not be tried. This cannot be a plea for discharge, though it could be a plea bargain in some cases if the accused fully cooperates with the court.
We need to separate the hypocrisy of those prosecuting and pointing fingers at corrupt politicians from the possible guilt of those being targeted.

If all Obasanjo’s enemies happen to be thieves they should pay for their crimes. It does not excuse Obasanjo, but since he may not be tried while he is still in power his day in court may be postponed. If we look at Latin America (in the 70s) the Generals initially got away with impunity but more than twenty years later some of them faced justice.

The other argument in support of Atiku is that he is supposed to be a very popular politician. This similar argument is used in favour of Jacob Zuma, who has populist appeal in South Africa. But should popularity be a reason for the law not to take its course? Readers may ask how these questions relate to my article (which a few critics believe to be too ‘understanding’ or even ‘adulatory’) on Winnie Mandela last week? My support of Winnie was not an endorsement of the acts for which she was convicted but rather pointing out the disproportionate attention paid to her while others were left to go scot-free. If she had not been Winnie Mandela it is doubtful she would have been treated this way. However because she is Winnie it is reasonable to expect higher standards from her. Understanding how things went ‘horribly wrong’ is not the same as conferring impunity on her. One could still admire her, not because, but despite these convictions.

Atiku is in no way a Winnie Mandela but closer to a Zuma. But if he is as popular as his supporters claim why should his conviction make a difference? Zuma has remained a serious challenger to the South African presidency in spite all kinds of acrimonious litigations and despite being fired from his post. He has survived rape charges and only had his corruption case struck off the court roll.

Atiku’s supporters are not so sure about the legal process in Nigeria. They are even more uncertain about their own party. This says a lot about the rule of law and democracy in the country. They fear that the timing of his corruption trials may prevent him from contesting for nomination for the presidency and contesting the election itself next year.

Obasanjo can try Atiku, but Atiku cannot put Obasanjo on trial, at least not in any court other than that of public opinion. Obasanjo’s crude tactics against his deputy have certainly made Atiku more popular and created a false hero for democracy to some people. His supporters are milking the goodwill claiming that his travails happened because he was opposed to Obasanjo’s third term. So great is the public disenchantment with Obasanjo’s lacklustre, arrogant government that not many people are asking what his opponents really stand for.

Obasanjo may get his pound of flesh by denying Atiku the chance to run but as he himself knows too painfully well: no condition is permanent. He has travelled full circle from presidency to prison to presidency. And he could restart the journey all over again in the near future.

The revelations have also exposed the Nigerian ruling elite as not only rotten to the core, but rotten from the core. For Obasanjo and his apologists his holier-than-thou, I- know-best messianic politics have been exposed for what they are: empty. In days gone by these revelations would have triggered a coup. But coups are out of fashion not only because of the fundamental shift in international opinion but also because internal power dynamics (unlike those recently seen in Thailand) have changed.

In any case the generals control the levers of the economy and political machineries (including even important sections of the traditional aristocracies) undisguised across Nigeria. They are able to use their looted monies to buy criminal infrastructures and therefore do not need the traditional military coup anymore. They have elected to resolve their secondary contradictions through the current democracy without democrats, a civilian regime, only in name with the generals imposing their will on the society. Welcome to the Latin Americanisation of Nigerian politics. All power to the generals!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

On September 26, a gorgeous African woman, about whom no one is indifferent, turned 70. She has lived more lives than the proverbial Cat of nine lives. But she still manages to retain her poise, grace and popular appeal through what we can all agree is more than a fair share of personal and political trials and tribulations. She was born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela in the Village of Bizana, Pondoland, South Africa,in 1936. She became more famously known world wide as Winnie Mandela after marrying (in 1960) a divorced upwardly mobile Black Lawyer, Nelson Mandela, who later became world famous for his political activities and incarceration. It was not a ‘normal’ marriage because politics interfered with any attempt by the couple to settle down. By 1962 the apartheid state had sentenced Mandela along with his comrades to either life or long term imprisonments. Mandela remained in prison for the next 28 years becoming the symbol of the yearnings of the oppressed Black people for freedom.

He was not to see the outside of the prison walls till 1990. Two years after his release their unusual marriage ended in separation in 1992 and divorce by 1996.

Many of us grew up on Hugh Masekela’s famous tune “Bring back Nelson Mandela, bring him back home to Soweto, I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela……no more war”. It was never to be for long. We constructed a romantic canvass on the lives of these two people regardless of the empirical fact that they have lived apart for such a long time. At a human level it is daunting enough to catch up on almost four decades of separation let a lone such extraordinary lives lived in very public glare. Public and private disolves when it came to Winnie and Nelson.

There were those who had somehow expected that after those defiant fists that walked hand in hand with Mandela out of the Prison gates in 1990, Winnie was going to step aside, even go back to the kitchen and be ‘the good wife’. In the very public disagreements that visited their separation and divorce, Bishop Tutu famously chided her for not living up to this expectation suggesting in an unfortunate pre feminist choice of words that Mandela needed someone to bring his slippers.

It was a relationship in which everyone had an opinion and even more than a decade after the divorce opinions are still divided. Some people think it is an act of betrayal to admire Mandela and like Winnie and vice versa. But the issue cannot be that clear cut. Many struggle with admiring both and the inevitable contradictory emotions. The ambiguities are made more complicated by Mandela marrying, Graca Machel, the widow of another iconic man, Samora Machel.

Both Winnie and Graca share the double burden of being prominent in their own right but also for the men they married. It is a case of the chicken and the egg. There is an endless debate about whether these women would have been as prominent as they are if they had not married these great men. It is an argument from a reactionary ideology of patriarchy that does not value women in their own right but see them only in the shadows of men whether their fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands (or lovers) or even sons! But looking at the lives of both women they would have been prominent politically. Graca married Samora after his first wife Josina died and she was already active in the struggle for the liberation of Mozambique through FRELIMO. They married as comrades who met in the struggle.

The fact that most women married to, or in a relationship with famous men do not end up being famous should caution those who believe that Women can only be something under a man’s umbrella. Ironically those who argue this way do not argue the opposite as true. Why are Men married to famous women not famous by virtue of their sleeping arrangement too?

In the case of Winnie I doubt if anyone below the age of 50 years today would have known Nelson Mandela but for Winnie. She is the Mandela that kept Nelson in our consciousness. She did marry him young but she grew up politically mostly outside of his tentacles. By the time he came out of prison she was a political figure with a huge following in her own right. Men in general, even the greatest amongst us, consciously or unconsciously, find it difficult to adjust to famous partners. Things were not helped by the brutal battles for power within the liberation movements and the maneuvers around the transition. It was not just personal distance of many years that had to be faced but also salient political differences between a more reconciliatory Mandela and the more radical Mandela whose whole life had been shaped by confrontation with the apartheid state and also factional struggles within the movement and control of township militias.

The crux of the matter is that Winnie is generally judged by many people as a woman, wife and mother, not as a politician. How many men we greatly respect and admire and at the risk of heresy, Madiba himself, will still be standing if we apply the same gendered judgments? If the situation had been reversed and Winnie was inside and Mandela was outside would anyone had been surprised that he took interest in other Women? There is no doubt Winnie made many mistakes and made personal and political choices that are questionable. As she admitted at the prompting of Bishop Tutu in the famous encounter at the TRC: ‘Things went horribly wrong’. But who among the other liberation leaders has not made any mistake? She has been charged with everything imaginable both by the apartheid state and sadly even under the ANC government. The persecution complex is futher sttrenghtened by the ease with which previous pillars of apartheid slipped into post apartheid respectability without remorse, all in the name of National reconciliation! Without excusing Winnie’s serial lapse of judgment, it is difficult for many of her admirers including this writer not to conclude that she is being persecuted. But somehow she emerges triumphant, head unbowed. Even at 70 Winnie is neither down nor out. Perhaps her parents saw the future when they named her, Nomzano, which means ‘Trial’ in the Xhosa language. Happy birthday Mama Afrika!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The ongoing controversy about the Pope’s ill-judged statement on Islam and violence may not abate easily, as different Muslim populations across the world continue to react in different ways. One hopes that the spate of violent attacks on Christian places of worship end immediately. Governments must assume responsibility for stopping these attacks. It is not the Pope that is hurting, but fellow citizens and neighbours.

All citizens, whether Christian or Muslim or the majority who are neither, deserve and should enjoy the full rights to the protection of their lives, place of worship, and freedom of their consciences along with other rights.

The Pope’s statement may do long lasting damage to inter–faith dialogue and religious tolerance, something that his predecessor, Pope John Paul 11, was closely associated with.

Both the violent reactions from a minority of Muslims and the biased reporting from the dominant Western media suggesting that ‘Muslims are violent’ are not surprising. They fit a template only too familiar.

Not too long ago there were the Danish cartoons and the reactions to them. It is a rather simple ‘audience and cue’ circus: a western person or institution says or does something that is offensive to good taste but specifically offensive to the Muslim faith or Muslims. Then there is a spate of militant and sometimes violent reaction from people in virtually the same countries. The western media then turns on the reactions, suggesting that the Muslims are immature, unable to take criticism and unable to engage in rational debate. Some proceed to conclude that the reactions prove how violent Muslims are.

It is a case of someone slapping you and also dictating that you should not cry. It is not correct that every offended group in the world should be burning places down and killing people. However, those on global platforms must also learn to say and act in ways that do not inflame emotions.

The same pattern repeated itself after the Pope’s statement. The attention soon shifted away from what the Holy Father said, to the reaction of some of those he offended. It is true that the Pope gave an unprecedented apology and is taking very public steps to atone for the misjudgment.

Hopefully with time this may cool things down, but the bad blood generated may not easily subside. It is neither the worst statement ever nor would it be the last time such a statement will be made about Islam, however, it must be pointed out that the Pope is not just any other person. He is the closest the world has to a religious head.

Neither Islam nor other religions like Confucianism or Hinduism that have more adherents to their faith than Christianity (let alone just Catholics) have a head that is as globally influential as the Pope. There are no two Popes in the world. He is also a head of state with diplomatic relations with virtually all governments of the world. With this influence surely comes huge responsibilities.

What he says in private and public will be scrutinized; therefore, he has to weigh up his statements carefully. They carry both moral and political weight well beyond his tiny papacy and faith.

It was a rather evasive reaction to say that the Pope was only quoting an obscure writer. He has made that writer known to everybody now. Would the Pope have quoted many of the more obscure writers that wrote and are writing about Christianity, Hinduism, or the Jewish faith?

Could the Western Media be that understanding if the Pope had quoted a Nazi writer famous or infamous writing about Jews or the Jewish faith? Historians who question the holocaust are taken to court and convicted because Holocaust denial is deemed beyond the limits of academic debate and freedom of expression.

There is so much violence in the name of God that no religion, especially a monotheistic one, has a monopoly over violence and violent methods. That the Pope enjoys the political visibility that he does today is not because Catholics are the majority of the world’s population or that his city–state empire is of any indispensable strategic importance, but the result of historical powers of Rome and the Church.

These powers were built by conquest and pillage. The Roman Empire and the Roman Church were involved in slavery, colonialism, wars, and other forms of non-Christian activities.

More recently in Rwanda, the Church (even if it was not convicted of genocide) bears responsibility for keeping quiet while God’s children were butchered with the connivance of some of its clergy and even Bishops. If anyone is to condemn Christianity for all these crimes such a person will be descended upon. If the Church and all Christians cannot be held responsible why are Muslims always maligned as a group?

Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic religions with shared roots, built by evangelism, through empires that utilized peaceful and non-peaceful means to establish their hegemony. Once hegemonic they declared peace of the victorious!

Even though it is Muslims that gave vent to the offence caused by the Pope’s statement, Dr Jibo Ibrahim (one of very few people, including those reacting violently, who have bothered to read the full text of the paper) the Director of the CDD, a leading researcher on religion and interfaith relations based in Abuja, Nigeria noted that the Pope’s statement should be even more offensive to non-European Christians (the majority of all Christians) because of its Euro-centrist understanding of God, the church and Christianity.

It is not about which religious group(s) are offended but rather the responsibility of a political and religious leader like the Pope in these trying times. Why did the Pope say those things? If he wanted to promote dialogue, he chose a very strange way to do it.

In a world in which Muslims and the Islamic faith replaced Communism in the pantheons of Western phobias, the Pope’s statement is at best mischievous, and at worst deliberately provocative. Whether one is a Muslim or not, both reasons should be unacceptable. I am not sure whether it was a goof or a papal declaration of intent to line up behind Bush in his modern crusade.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement,
Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The African Union has given notice that it is not going to continue its Peace Mission beyond the end of this month when the mandate expires. Khartoum's initial response was more or less: “Good riddance” though it has now 'modified' its position to include impossible conditions under which it may 'allow' the African Union troops to remain.

The Sudanese government wants the Mission to be financed by itself and the Arab League. This is obviously a condition that the AU cannot accept and has rightly refused to countenance. In addition, the Sudanese government has categorically rejected the UN Security Council Resolution 1706.

The African Union Peace Keeping Mission in Darfur has been faced with many challenges. One, the experience is new and consequently there were lots of obstacles to be dealt with. Two, the mandate was too limited, and, therefore, it has been unable to embark on peace enforcement that could have saved more lives. In a sense, it is an AU mission based on the old OAU fudge. Three, it never had enough resources to carry out its limited mission effectively.

But by far the biggest challenge is the bad faith of the Sudanese government. Also, too many external interests have been impacting on the conflict.

These challenges have contributed to the misconception that Africans cannot resolve their problems themselves. The fact that the Mission was put together was a positive step towards confirming that Africans and our political leaders were no longer prepared to be indifferent to the suffering of other Africans.

That Rwanda and Nigeria both immediately offered troops was also an expression of this Pan African Solidarity. Rwanda knows only too well the consequences of apathy and indifference. On the other hand, the Nigerians have always regarded Africa as the “centre piece” of the country’s Foreign Policy and have always sought to put their money where their mouth is.

I am not enamoured by Obasanjo at all but I must concede that he has remained consistent on Pan African Issues. In the case of Sudan, Nigeria has been engaged from time immemorial largely because both countries are superficially similar but also because there is a long association between the peoples.

The North-South ethno-regional - racialist and religious fault lines in Sudan are very familiar to Nigeria. Therefore successive Nigerian governments have tried to be peace-makers in Sudan. There is also the fact that there are a significant number of Sudanese people who may be of Nigerian origin.

One of the most difficult challenges that the AU had to confront was the limited nature of their mandate. Due to this weakness, the Sudanese government was able to outmanoeuvre the AU. It played the AU against the UN / USA and got a weakened intervention force.

The Sudanese government also exploited the United States of America’s low credibility and the anti-Americanism that Bush’s war without end continues to generate among many Africans and peoples of the world. The US is the only government that has officially declared that what is happening in Darfur is nothing short of genocide.

This should have put an obligation on both the US government and the rest of the member states of the UN to abide by the Geneva Convention. Neither the US nor the other states have discharged that responsibility. The US cannot do so because nobody will believe it, especially after it waged a unilateral war on Afghanistan and Iraq.

In practice, the AU force has been toothless because of the limited mandate. This should be enough reason to review the way in which the Peace and Security Council (PSC) operates. It is not a case for abolition - rather it is a case for wider reform so that it is able to intervene effectively.

The issue of resources have to be dealt with seriously. Almost all organs of the Union are handicapped by lack of money, not just the PSC operations. It is simply unacceptable and should be indefensible that we cannot fund the AU on our own given the enormous resources wasted by governments across this continent.

Why are we able, ready and willing to spend money on Presidential vanities and unjust wars but have no resources for peace and development? Why should anybody take us seriously if we do not take ourselves seriously?

However, whatever internal resources we generate, should not mean that Africa cannot and should not avail itself of global resources both material and immaterial. We are part and parcel of the international community. Any threat to our peace and security is a threat to the rest of the international community.

Africans have been helping to make, keep and maintain peace across the world from Bosnia to Lebanon, and, therefore there is nothing wrong in asking others to help us too.

It is clear that extremist elements are now in control of policy in Khartoum. Whether President Bashir is a willing or unwilling prisoner is difficult to say categorically. Sometimes politicians prefer to be seen as ‘powerless’ even as they may be in full support of the unpopular direction their government may be embarking.

These extremists see peace negotiations as weakness. They fear that Darfur may be on the road to some form of independence, like the South. In that way of thinking they are willing to disorganise any peace negotiation.

It is telling that the key moderate voices of past negotiations are very quiet now. The most important of these voices is that of the second Vice President, Ali Osman Taha. As evidence to show that Bashir is firmly ensconced with his extremist hegemonists, he reportedly swore he will never allow the UN into Sudan and instead was prepared to go to Darfur and fight himself.

But the government is not the only villain. Some of the rebel leaders themselves do not want any peace resolution, and still others suffer from inflated opinions of themselves. Right from the start, many of the rebel leaders never wanted an AU force.

That ruse has now been exposed for what it is: bad faith by a government bent on killing its own peoples. There is a need for both the AU and the UN to call Khartoum's bluff.

By stating its exit date, the AU has already taken a clear position. The ball is now in the court of the UN whose July 31 resolution was made under the enforcement chapter of the UN Charter. AU members are also members of the UN and part of that decision. Therefore we may leave as the AU but return to protect fellow Africans as part of the UN Force.

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement,
Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Early in July I was in Banjul, the capital of the country that dubs itself ‘the smiling coast of Africa’, for the AU Summit. A year had elapsed since I last saw many of the political elite who make it a point to attend these gatherings. I am referring to the media professionals and the NGO types.

Many of my friends, especially those in the AU whom I had branded as ‘bureaucrats of our Union’ ‘AUcrats’, and ‘AUrats’ were already waiting to confirm if it was indeed true that I had recently joined the UN Millennium campaign.

I had to keep reminding myself that it was in fact the truth. I couldn’t help thinking that either there was something wrong with me or them. Of all possible employers, it had to be the UN! Crowds of people wanted to exchange business cards with me. They did not want my new business card to correspond with me. Believe it or not, they wanted to keep my card as a souvenir. For them, the card represented ‘Taju joining the system’ or ‘Tajudeen selling out’.

The AUcrats had a field day taunting me as a latter day ‘UNOcrat’ and ‘UNORat’. All my attempts to convince them that I am still within the CSO community, for the UN Millenium Campaign is meant to empower citizens of the world, went unheeded. One of them even boasted to me that I would be saying ALUTA STOPEE instead of ALUTA CONTINUA soon! Time will definitely tell.

I was barely two months in the Campaign but somehow people were looking for evidence that I have mellowed or been bought over. Those who have not received my weekly column now believe that it must be because the UN has put an end to my writing career. Many now look for evidence in my writing that I have had a paradigm shift in my political worldview.

I had arrived in Banjul with an even bigger change in my public persona. After two decades of serious Piping I had given up smoking. The obligatory pipe dangling from my mouth was no longer there.

It was the second day of the Summit when one of the sisters observed that ‘something has changed about you’. Those present chorused: ‘He has joined the UN’ but she disappointed them by saying that my detour into what many of them regarded as ‘behind enemy lines’ was not it. Someone also observed that I had lost a few pounds. Thanks to the craze for losing weight these days, it could have been misinterpreted as evidence that ‘the man is going’ as we euphemistically refer to people suspected of living with AIDS in Uganda. But my weight loss was not due to any dietary change but the result of a serious bout of Malaria.

The sister asked people to guess what could be amiss about my physical appearance. It was not like I was wearing a three-piece suit and a tie in tropical conditions. So what were they supposed to be looking for?

I was in my “Acting Big Man” full Nigerian National Regal Attire. That did not come as a surprise to many, for an enduring popular aspect of the AU razzmatazz is the orchestrated display of colourful African dresses with the West Africans, invariably leading the pack. However, there seems to be increasing competition for the lead role from other regions, especially Southern African women.

So if there was nothing amiss with clothes, what then was the problem? Finally, with the smugness of the only one who knows and the sense of discovery comparable to Newton discovering the Laws of Gravity, she shouted: “Look at him! The pipe is missing.”

Everybody started demanding to know where the pipe was. Instead of congratulating me, they wanted to know why I had stopped smoking.

I had stopped smoking over a year earlier. I must emphasise that I had not stopped because I had realised that smoking was dangerous and bad for my health. Every smoker knows that (and does not care about the legal warning) just as alcoholics know that liquor is not good for their health.

When it comes to alcohol there is still a half hearted debate about whether alcohol is good when drunk in moderation. There is no such debate about smoking. Those who smoke pipes delude themselves that they smoke less. But the truth is that it is the same nicotine.

So, the message should not be ‘smoke less’ but ‘do not smoke at all’. Even now that I have stopped the impact of my previous smoking will be with me till the grave. And what is frightening is that my second-hand smoke might have affected someone else’s health.

It is often said that smokers are the only true Socialists left because they share their smoke with you whether you like it or not. This is why smoking ceases to be a matter of personal choice.

Suppose I had designs to poison my family or circle of friends or whole community, wouldn’t the State be compelled to put me behind bars? Yet smokers are doing this every time they smoke.

I am no latter day convert to ‘no smoking evangelism’. I do not wish to preach to people. I still miss the buzz and elation of bonding with complete strangers, the cancer friendships, the emotional release and other feelings that go with smoking. I am still very tolerant towards my former comrades. But I hope for those still in the Club that the puff they are now blowing is their last one.

What prompted the change was a plea from my older daughter, Aida, 10.

On a wintry morning, I was taking her and her younger sister, Ayesha, 6, to their school in North London. I rolled down my window for my first puff of the day (which any smoker cherishes. I must add that at the time our house had become a Talibanesque no smoking, no drinking Sharia Zone!).

Out of the blue, Aida said: “Baba do you know that you will not see me graduate?” I was shocked and asked why she was talking death at 8.00am. She said: “Because you are smoking.” And proceeded to reel out all the medical, social and environmental reasons befitting kids brought up on ICTs. Gone were our days of ‘do as you are told’, ‘do not speak unless you are spoken to’ and grandfather of all indiscipline, to correct the Mzee!

I was happy and saddened at the same time. I was happy that my 10 year old daughter was confident that she was going to graduate, but sad that my lifestyle was making her feel that her father might not be there. The buzz, the urge and everything that goes with that puff drained out of me that morning and ever since I have not filled up the pipe again.

Africa is far away from the litigations nightmare of the US that makes long-term smokers go to court to prosecute tobacco makers for not warning them that smoking is bad for their health!

Be that as it may, it is a scandal that tobacco companies just like oil companies and other corporations get away with serial murders in Africa and other Third World countries. It is not just their exploitation of the environment and people, but that most of their adverts would not have been broadcast or published in the West.

Tobacco and alcohol advertising are still booming in the poorer countries, where both political corruption and weak regulatory capacities allow big corporations to do what they like. They also present themselves as “partners- in-development” because of the economic contributions they make to tobacco growing countries. They have loads of money to advertise, and the media is financially dependent on this.

Governments may be compromised, and media owners reluctant to act but as individuals there are little things we can do. For me the least of the actions I can take begins with the picture editors at New Vision newspapers in Uganda, the original publishers of this column.

With this article I am making a public break with the tolerated poison industry that the tobacco industry represents. I am no longer active in the fraternity. I may not be able to stop the British American Tobacco and other tobacco companies but at least I can demand that The New Vision no longer uses a picture of me with a pipe.

I hope my good friends Owori Charles, Kevin and Sue O’Connor in the East African branches of the anti-smoking lobby ‘Tobacco or Health’ and others who have written to me take this as a public atonement and a determination to affirm life instead of being an accessory to my own death and that of others. There should be nothing glamorous about smoking. The tobacco corporations have too much money to convince and confuse the public about their merchandise. So, it would be an act of making the rich even richer on my part were I to appear with a pipe every week in my newspaper column.

From now on I say: not in my name.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement,
Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Irish know a lot about colonialism and oppression. They know what it means to be occupied, humiliated and oppressed, denied dignity and humanity on your own God –given soil. They are the first and last colony of the British. They have rebelled, sabotaged rose up in arms, and fought many wars, against the British in order to secure their liberation. Thus one of their famous nationalists, Connolly, knew what he was talking about when he stated: ” A nation that holds another in bondage cannot itself be free”.

Ireland did win its independence from Britain but not as a united country because the British gerrymandered the borders of the Irish counties and manipulated the Independence referendum in a way that ensured that a pro colonialist (otherwise called Unionist) majority was guaranteed in six of the counties which became Northern Ireland’ within the United Kingdom. The Irish Nationalist never accepted the division of their homeland and this gave rise to armed resistance by the Irish republicans through the IRA (Irish Republican Army). After decades of armed struggle, despite protestations to the contrary, it was no less a conservative ‘Queen and Country’ party than a Margaret Thatcher led Conservative government, that began negotiations with the terrorists’ that finally led to the Good Friday agreement and ended major active hostilities between the British and the IRA in Northern Ireland.

The history of British colonial domination across is full of repeats of this pattern of public declarations that ‘we won’t talk to terrorists’ but making deals behind closed doors usually after realizing that they cannot defeat the ‘terrorists’ militarily. Former British terrorists included many Israeli Zionists like former Prime Ministers Begun, Rabin, Sharon and others who were leading members of ‘terrorist’ cells that waged a campaign of terror, murders and assassinations to chase the British out of Palestine and establish the Zionist state of Israel. Many people regarded as national heroes in Israel were at one time or the other under ‘terrorist watch’ by the British. But today all that is forgotten with Britain as the most pro –Zionist state in Europe supporting anything that the Americans are doing in their uncritical support for anything that Israel does.

The history of Israel as a Zionist state and the collective memory of pain, suffering, oppression and humiliation as a people, either in Biblical Egypt or fascist and genocidal ‘modern’ Europe, should have taught them that no matter how unequal the power balance, oppressed peoples will always rise. Even if all the powers in this world combine to hold them down they will always find a way to affirm their humanity.

Its current unjust war of destruction and campaign of annihilation in Lebanon is a glaring example of how it might be able to be right. The attacks on Lebanon are ostensibly justified as ‘retaliation ‘for the capture of two Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese resistance group, Hizbollah whom they regard as terrorists. But three weeks into the this unequal tragedy it is clear to anybody that even if the two soldiers were not abducted Israel would have found another reason for ‘reinvading’ Lebanon, a country from which they were expelled by the same Hizbollah and other patriotic Lebanese forces.

How much is the life of an Israeli worth? On the principle of a-life-for-a-life how many more Lebanese children, women and innocent men have to be killed, orphaned or widowed before Israeli lust for blood is satiated? Lebanon has been bombed continuously for three weeks, its infrastructure destroyed in a vengeance spree of collective punishment by the Israeli Army. Those that have the power to moderate Israeli militarism, principally, its biggest backer, the USA, have egged it on against all pleas by the UN and other members of the international community, for a ceasefire. Instead the US and its loyal poodle, the British Prime Minister, have speciously insisted that Lebanon somehow brought this unto itself. They have not learnt their lessons from Palestine. They humiliated Yasser Arafat in life and death, orchestrated the succession of Abbas but still gave nothing in return to show that ‘moderation’ can deliver, and were later surprised that Hamas won a democratic election. No sooner than Hamas was elected they began a campaign of blockade and sanctions that punishes the Palestinians for voting democratically!

In Lebanon only two years ago, we are made to believe a popular uprising of Lebanese democrats, eschewing foreign intervention consequent to the assassination of the popular PM, Hariri, led to the exit of Syrian forces. It is this same democratic government that is being ‘supported’ by invasion. Israel like its Anglo-American backers has a weird way of ‘bombing people for freedom’ despite trying it in Iraq and Afghanistan without evident success. Instead of securing their illegitimate occupation of Iraq through divide and rule of the population, what their occupation has done is to unite Iraqis in a patriotic resistance against foreign domination.

No fewer outcomes will come out of the current attacks and occupation of Lebanon by Israel no matter how long it takes. I saw a young woman interviewed the other day who summed up both the mixture of hopelessness and defiance when she said: “Lebanon has seen war before and we survived………… we will survive this one too and the Israelis will leave our country...”

Does this mean that there is nothing that anyone of us can do? There is a sense of powerlessness and anger by many that given the power balance even if you do not support the Israelis you have nothing but moral outrage to help the Lebanese or the Palestinians. We should not underestimate the power of moral outrage. The ANC and other Liberation Movements in South Africa like the Mau Mau fighters in Kenya before them or the Algerian Resistant Movement before that, and the Madiba, who is now venerated by everybody, used to be regarded as terrorists.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement,
Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Governments, research and policy centres, NGOs and the private sector are abuzz with speculation over China’s influence in Africa. The tone of much Western discourse has been to warn Africa about China, with much emphasis placed on China’s poor human rights record, its disregard for the environment and its tendency to act only in its own interests. But aren’t these the very attributes of Western engagement with Africa? Who is the West to lecture Africa on the dangers represented by China? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem addresses the challenge of how to engage the Chinese.

Who is Afraid of China? It is difficult to read western papers these days or watch their televisions and listen to their radios without some Chinese feature, news, information, disinformation and mis information. Western policy makers are training future generations to learn Mandarin. Chinese studies is booming. Intelligence services are in a frenzy recruiting anyone who can help decipher the Chinese mind. Even retired old China hands are being recalled from their retirement back into active service.

China is being discussed in the West as a threat. A threat to Western hegemony across the world mostly in economic terms. Nowhere is this threat more orchestrated than in Africa. If China is a threat to the West, should we worry when the West has always been a threat to our very existence for centuries?

I was at one of those conferences on China in the United Kingdom a few weeks ago. It was organised by the highbrow New Labour policy think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The theme of the Conference was 'China and Africa'. I went to the conference with mixed feelings. I would have had no problem if the theme had been ' Britain and China'. But why would a British institution be concerned about China in Africa?

Should we not be having such meetings in Africa under the auspices of our own governments, research centres, NGOs and even the private sector?

Of course this question is very rhetorical on my part. I cannot plead naivety in these matters but still I cannot help asking the question even if I know the answers. Such is the ideological incapacitation (both structurally induced and by complacency and irresponsible leadership) of Africa these days that even the poverty that the majority of our peoples suffer from have their experts in the West and advocates in Western NGOs and other Western Do-Gooders who put our pictures in the background of their appeals. So bad is the situation that some African countries even have Western donor advisers to help them negotiate in forums like the WTO, where our countries 'negotiate' with Western governments. It is like the person whacking you also offering you a handkerchief to wipe your tears! Oh Africa! Can turkeys really vote for an early Christmas?

That puts the IPPR conference in context. The West has arrogated to itself the right to act, talk, interpret and define African realities. Slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism / cold war and the current recolonisation via globalisation provide the historical template from which these attitudes are drawn. They even define for us who are our enemies and who are our friends!

But at every stage they have had willing collaborators, apologists and active agents not only at the highest level of our political society but also civil society. Without African agency these inequities could not have lasted this long. China is an example of a country and peoples who have refused to give up shaping their own destiny. Not that various imperialist forces have not tried several times. But China has remained Chinese.

The current discourse in the West about China is very much reminiscent of the Cold war days where the West thought, acted and behaved as though Africa was its exclusive preserve for exploitation and domination. It's like a vulture scaring off other vultures from its perch.

So the West is now warning Africa to be wary of China. The alarm bells are sounded about many issues on which China is vulnerable. One, China is after Africa's energy and other resources needed for its vastly growing economy. Two, It does not respect human rights at home and therefore will not give a damn about it in Africa. Just check the list of China's new best friends in Africa! Three, it does not care about the cost to the environment of its energy and growth needs. Four, in international affairs China only seeks the protection of Chinese interests no matter whose ox is gored. For instance, China continuously either abstains from or prevents any vote of censure in the UN Security Council and General Assembly against governments it is doing business with, whether it is the killer regime in Khartoum killing its own peoples in Darfur or the illegitimate government of Idris Deby in neighbouring Chad.

There are many other reasons why the West thinks Africa should be wary of China. The interesting thing is that all of these charges and many more are true of China's foreign policy. But the bigger question is this: Are they not also true of Africa's relations with the West? Do we need Westerners to tell us about these when our physical body and body politic are still suffering from similar forced encounters with the West? How can the blackened Western pot really call the Chinese porcelain kettle black?

Does this mean that there are no legitimate issues that should concern Africans about China's deepening engagement with Africa? There are many but we do not need our former and current colonisers to give us lectures on them. They are serial re- offenders when it comes to exploiting Africa.

Africa can and should choose its own friends and enemies, though some enemies and friends may decide to choose you.

There are many concerns that we must address. The first one is China's bilateralism in relation to Africa. While this may suit the short-term needs of individual leaders, it undermines our sub regional and Pan African institutions and commitments. It replays the colonialist divide and conquer tactics. Most of our countries have no chance negotiating with China alone. They will be gobbled up one by one. Two, the influx of Chinese goods, services (including criminal gangs) and migrants, is undermining our local economies and attempts at regional integration. While the goods are much cheaper than those from the West they are also killing our nascent industries. Even areas where we have had much progress in the past like textiles are being killed off from the dumping of cheaper Chinese products. As a Funtua man I should know about this because the Chinese have taken over our biggest industry, Funtua Textiles. Three, in the cold war days China, like other Socialist states, used to have three principles governing their international relations. These were: People to People, Party-to-Party and Government-to-Government. These days China does only Business to Government and Government to Government. Where it has any links with parties they are not necessarily communist parties (since China is also any thing but communist in name only) but ruling parties that can facilitate access for their businesses.

This is where the biggest challenge is, both for African CSOs, NGOs, other pro-people forces and China itself: How do we engage with the Chinese and how can the Chinese engage with us outside of the framework of Government and Business, given the lack of institutional and historical knowledge on both sides on that type of engagement?

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Attending a memoriam for Ghana's Dr Busia, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem describes his reactions to the speech made by Akwais Aidoo, Director of the newly founded TrustAfrica Foundation. There is a need, he suggests, for us to engage - and engage seriously - with our political opponents, rather than merely reacting to them - we may find we are holding both ends of the same stick. Sectarianism has caused too much division in the Pan African movement, and much of it based more on prejudice than a clear understanding of the actual differences - which is needed if we are to influence others holding different political positions to our own.

Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is my favourite city on the west coast of Africa. It is peaceful, fairly well-planned, though it is rapidly growing into a mega city with all the attendant problems of pollution, insufficient infrastructure, extreme poverty amidst riches, slums, etc. It is also badly copying Lagos in ‘go slow’ (traffic hold-ups) on the major roads but thankfully not up to the manic levels yet.

There is also the general friendliness of Ghanaians and Pan Africanist awareness. To many people the obvious pull of Ghana as a whole is because it gave us Kwame Nkrumah. You cannot walk around Accra without feeling the proud heritage of Pan Africanism and the high hopes and dreams that once bestrode this country that blazed the trail of popular struggles for independence. Not only Pan Africanist heroes /heroines and cities are so honoured other icons of Third World struggles like Gandhi, Nehru, Sukano, Ho chi Mi, Castro, etc have streets named after them. Civil rights figures like WEB Du Bois, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Junior, are all represented in this city of Circles and Statutes.

For those of us who are unashamedly Nkrumahist, Ghana will always mean Nkrumah and vice versa. It also means that, either consciously or unconsciously, we make political choices either for or against political figures and parties in Ghana based upon our loyalty to the Osagyefo. In the pantheons of our hate figures in Ghanaian politics Dr Kofi Busia, a political rival and opponent of Kwame Nkrumah is probably top of the infamous club. The mere mention of his name to many Pan Africanists of the Nkrumahist tradition invites many unprintable reactions. The death of both men many years ago has not diminished the political hostility between their supporters.

Fifty years since Ghana’s independence and more than 6 decades since the political lines were drawn in the epic struggles for independence, several regimes down the line including two failed revolutionary attempts, prolonged military rule and now an increasingly confident democratizing environment, Ghana politics is still very much polarised between the BUSIA-DANQUA group and the ever fractious and sectarian broad Nkrumahist tradition. Not even 20 years of JJ Rawlings’ rule both in its brutal first ten years and authoritarian reluctant democrat of the second decade has changed this division. Broadly even his regime is seen (at least by the Busia-Danquah people) as part of the Left/Nkrumah family not withstanding the fact that at a personal level the Man either hated or is hostile to Nkrumah.

Nowhere is the saying: 'never say never' more applicable than in politics. I could not imagine myself attending a political memoriam for Dr Busia despite my tenuous link to him academically through St Peter’s College Oxford of which he remains the most famous Alumni. It became stranger still that I should be attending such an event under the auspices of the Busia Foundation. Yet on Monday 10 July at the British Council Auditorium in Accra I went to listen to the 3rd Annual Memorial Lecture in honoor of Dr Busia organized by The Busia Foundation set up by his aged widow. I have nothing against the family personally. Prof Abena Busia, who is co-chair of the foundation, is a sister I know and respect hugely and her cousin, Nana Busia, is a fellow Pan Africanist soldier. The problem is just inherited political prejudice. What really persuaded me to go was the Guest Lecturer, a senior comrade (even if his perpetual youthful face does not indicate he has become a Mzee too) and Pan Africanist of the same Nkrumahist orientation, Dr Akwasi Aidoo, the Director of the newly launched TRUST AFRICA Foundation. I had to take a second look at the advert when I first saw it in the papers on the morning of the event. Like other Nkrumahists (admittedly few), I later met at the talk I wondered what Akwasi will say about Busia in such a public space that is so tied up to a man we grew to loathe politically? Indeed I felt like a gate crasher at the event.

However I was glad I went. The Lecture was very measured, carefully crafted and calibrated. He began by identifying why we needed to hear about Busia and other leaders who made great contribution to cause of liberating our peoples. One, we did not know the man beyond the prism of those who opposed him because he was a political opponent of Nkrumah and those who lionized him because of that. Two, there is a benign if not a calculated political and intellectual neglect of the man. Three, reaction to Busia was often based on political prejudices without due recognition given to him first and foremost as a credible intellectual who took himself seriously, researched and wrote voraciously addressing what he considered challenges of his time. In particular the man regarded education as key to ending poverty, bringing prosperity and modernizing the society. Finally Akwasi, for the first time, even to the Busia family with whom he has been close for many years, acknowledged his personal debt to Busia who had paid part of his school fees purely out of a chance meeting with the Young Akwasi in his home village. The family was to discover later at his funeral the many people whom Dr Busia had personally helped on the ladder of self-reliance and achievements through education.

Akwasi then sought and succeeded in many ways to take the audience on a journey to meet and get to know Dr Busia. He did not hide his political position and did not shy away from mentioning Busia's controversialist politics be it the aliens compliance act or the devaluation of the Cede, and mother of all, promotion of dialogue with apartheid South Africa, etc. But they were done in measured tones. There was a stage I felt he was being too accommodating but I stayed much longer than I thought I would and learnt to unlearn some of my prejudices about the man. The lecture did begin a necessary interrogation and engagement with our lived political experience that is not just about Busia or Ghana. It goes to the heart of the biggest challenge facing Africa today as we struggle to create a society in which the majority of our peoples are not victims but agents of change and a leadership that is organically linked to serve them and not just rule over them. When we look at the nationalist elite regardless of where they were politically whether as presidents or opposition leaders they took themselves seriously, tried to understand their society, study it and proffer solutions. They were both intellectually and politically much more in charge then than now.

How many of our leaders today, whether holed up in State houses or hankering after same in opposition, can we say are applying themselves both intellectually and politically to the challenges we face? It is not just that they are not thinking but they actively discourage original thinking. Thinking has been contracted out to 'experts' often meaning non-Africans while development is delegated to humanitarian agencies whose stocks rise with every disaster we suffer.

The other lesson I took away from Akwasi’s lecture is the need to engage and engage seriously with even our political opponents, read them and understand why and what we disagree about. Sometimes we may just be holding different ends of the same stick. You will be surprised how much you share with your opponents if you only learn to listen, persuade instead of trying to convert but above all have the humility and the intellectual and political integrity to accept that your opponent may sometimes be right. Politics should be an art of the possible and the possibilities include those who may not agree with us.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reports on the pomp and ceremony at the 7th AU Summit in Banjul, wondering how a poor country like Gambia can afford to host such a grand occasion. There were notable absences including of Uganda's Museveni, but newcomers included the Chinese, Indianns, the Iranians, and Venezuela's Chavez. Civil Society Organisations held a number of initiatives including a Question Time Africa where Liberia's President Sirleaf and Rwanda's Kagame were interrogated by activists. With the main theme of the Summit being regional integration, Tajudeen returns to his bugbear about the impediments to free movement of Africans who need visas to visit African countries, while non-African foreigners fly around with ease.

The African Union ended its 7th Ordinary Session of the General Assembly of heads of State and Governments in Banjul, Gambia on monday 3rd of July. The razzmatazz of state events , that surrounds these events may sometime make people dismissive of them as the most expensive celebrity watch on the continent. Yes, They do not come cheap and it is obvious that many of the states cannot afford to host these summits yet the allure of publicitry and the political and diplomatic prestige that comes with hosting it make many of them to even go into debt to host it.

The big question on everyone's lips in Banjul was how a poor country like the Gambia found the money to host such a grand occasion. A brand new Executive estate of Presidential Villas were builft for the Summit in addition to a new International Conference centre. This is not talk of the brand new Four Wheel vehicles, loads of Mercedes Benzes smelling of fresh factory paint and other expoensive vehicles conveying the different delegations in blazing heat and entourage of motor cades and outriders on new monster machines. I do not think that the people of this peacful country officially titled 'The Smiling coast of Africa' had ever seen any thing that big before and may not see such in the near future. Eklections are also close therefore the Government and ruling party (APRC) of President Yayah Jammeh milked the occassion for what it was worth. It was like the whole of Africa has endorsed Jammeh why would Gambians not do the same?

One of the changes that has happened in the new AU is the amendment to the old practice of host nations becoming chair of the organisation. This is no longer the case. That was why Sudan could not assume the chair even as it hosted the last Summit. And Yayaha Jameh thankfully will not become the chair otherwise he could even milk it more in domestic politics as Africa having voted for him.

The AU Summits also provide an opportunity to monitor, study and observe intra African politics and the power play between our Leaders but also between Africa and the rest of the world.

For instance a noticiable absentee from the Summit was President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. He used to be a heat with media and other heads of state throughout the 1990s but in recent years as he clung to power in Uganda his pan Africanist stocks have fallen. In the past any host wanted Museveni to confirm fist, because that was going to make others to attend. But these days even his absences are not felt!

The other interesting power monitor is the presence of foreign dignitaries. The Chinese and the Indians, historical allies of Africa but increasingly acknowledged as Global powers feared by the West, were in Banjul in full force. Ofcourse the various western powers who have traditional considered Africa as their excllusive areas of domination were there with the Americans muscling in on everybody in their familiar arrogant ways.

But their current bad guys were also their gamely spirit. Ahmedtijane, the President of Iran and President Hugo Chavez were both there. Chavez was in his element, defiant, resisting and anti imperialist. Ahmed Tijane came with a motor cade of awesome Hommer vehicles as long as those holywood Chevrolets or streched Limos! There was mild drama when the technical equipment failed in the middle of his now very familatr speeches that keep Washington and tel Aviv awake. Many suspected sabotage by, you know whom. The meeting had to be suspended for a few hours.

That little drama for me shows the lack of capacity of some of our states. How can a government that spent so much money on the pomp and pageantry of the Summit not have prepared itself for possible technical sabotage? There walk outs by some western Observers at the meeting coorniating their activities thru SMS texts. Again this exposes our vulnerability. It riases the perennial issue of why we should have so many Westerners whether government or NGOS always having access to our activities at the highest level while we do not have same in their forum but more importantly we limit access by our own people.

It is easy to get lost in these power plays and forget other important events that surround the Summit including the Summit agenda itself. There were a number of CSO/NGO parallel activities before and during the Summit which built upon the spaces that have been opening up since the innauguration of the AU. A number of African CSOs have been raising concerns about CSO participation in the Union which has so far been limited to invited spaces that are too much under the control of the bureaucrats of the Union whether it is through ECOSOCC or the Commission. The tendency is also to allow CSO activities to hold before the Summit and literally drive them out of town by the time the big guys come save for the few who may have secured 'observer' 'special Guest' or other access badges. While the invited spaces are useful it is also important the CSO and other stakew holders have independent spaces whose agenda, content and programmes are determined by them and they can invite the AU and the leaders to them. A meeting of CSO was held in Nairobi earlier this year before the Khartoum summit to build consensus around emerging issues in CSO-AU engagement.

In Banjul we made some progress through a forum organised by the UN millennium Campaign, Africa Office; Africa Regional Policy department of Action Aid Internationa; and the Pan Africa Policy Programme of Oxfam with the suppoort of Action Aid Gambia, Gambian and Pan African CSOs. It was a first at an AU summit. Prtesident Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, both participated in the Forum which is broadcast by SABC whose anchor man, Moses moderated the Panel. It is called QUESTION TIME AFRICA. The Presidents were asked questions by an audince of laregely CSO/NGO activists. Issues covered included the state of the Union, political commitment of leaders to make it work, aid, trade, debt relief, fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals and Yes, issues of juystice, governance, impunity, and many others. It was a good start and both sides see the forum as developing in future summits.

The main theme of the Summit was rationalisation of the regional Economic communities in order to strenghten integration. It is an issue that has been on the agenda for many years. It is simply unworkable that we should have competing instead of complimentary regional blocs and still claim that we want to unite the whole continent Now the decision is that new ones will be recognised while the various regions will work out modalities for rationalising those existing. It is still a work in progress but necessary if the Union is to fulfil its mission of uniting the peoples of this continent. On the whole the problem of uniting Africa is really a contradiction between two opposaing view points. Do we want to unite states or unite peoples? So far all efforts have been directed at uniting states that are probaby not unifiable given the ahistorical and inorganic nature of most of them. but peoples are and can be united. One first step is to set our people free for them to move, live and settle across this continent. A sad reminder of the indignities we suffer as Africans was the experience of many people who had to langush in Dakar airport on theiur way to AU summit because they did not have 'Transit visas'. It is in the poweer of all our states and leaders to remove the visa requirement for all Africans and if they cannot do it we cannot trust them when they proclaim Pan Africanism. We should embark on a consistent advcacy of naming and shamning those governments and states that put impediments to free movement of Africans but welcomne non African foreigners. A gallery of these Pan Africanist rogue states may be launched from summit to summit while we also create awards for those opening up other Africans. So leaders can choose to be Villains or Defenders of Unity of our peoples.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The presence of people of African origin in most of the teams guarantees that which ever team or country finally wins, it is very likely that we are going to have Pan Africanist contribution to it, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. So whatever the outcome, Pan Africanists can still celebrate. But many still wonder why African teams have not made the desired impact, and transformed individual promise and potential into success in the World Cup? Why are we so good at serving others but do not have the same enthusiasm when it comes to serving ourselves? Or framed differently: do we expend so much energy serving others that when it comes to serving ourselves we are too exhausted?

Tuesday 27 June was a very disappointing evening for many of us. The disappointment was felt not just on the street of Accra but across the continent and outside also. We were all hoping against hope that the Black Stars will fly in the face of all that experience and instinct dictated. It was a game of David and Goliath. But as in the biblical story, in football unfancied Davids have been known to literally floor many a Goliath. Just look at how many over rated country teams have been humbled in this World Cup. Both Czechoslovakia and Ghana humiliated a USA team, strangely ranked No 2 by FIFA! Maybe FIFA was rating American football, a game in which the last thing they use is their feet and they have to wear helmets!

Last Tuesday was not the Black Stars night. They performed creditably well, held their grounds in spite of being wrong-footed early in the game, fought back spiritedly but could not convert their chances against a Brazilian side that still has lingering doubts whether it is the Brazil that we all take to our hearts. However, it is not the case that Brazil was playing badly; credit must be given to Ghana for playing well.

Now that the last of Africa's hopes in the championship has been extinguished, to fight another day, the tribal character of 'the beautiful game' witnesses a dramatic change of sides by many Africans. There will be no guessing who most Africans will be rooting for now. It's Brazil all the way, failing which, many will root for Argentina. There is a historical, racialist and Third Worldist sentimentality in this transferable adulation. By point of fact, Brazil is a top dog anyday, in poor or bad shape. It is the only team for which nothing short of victory will be considered inglorious defeat. It is the only team that even when it wins (as in the current campaign) there is criticism that it is not doing so in its usual entertaining and robust style! The game may have been invented by the Scots. but the gold-standard bearers in football are not Scots (who can hardly qualify these days) or any of their European cousins. Brazil and the South Americans in general are the teams to beat. So in supporting them, Africans are simply going for the best. But it goes beyond that. Football has meant Pele, and Pele means Brazil to so many generations of Africans. Therefore, regardless of the colour (officially there are over 17 variations of blackness in Brazil), many Africans just believe them to be 'one of us'. But this racial aspect of the game is the most amusing to me. On the strengthof race, just look at most of the teams. It is no longer which team has black players, but which one does not?

Football, and sports in general, is one place where all notions of racial superiority or purity have been exposed as bogus. It is also the place where globalisation expresses its farthest reach. Players are like stocks and shares belonging to no country but the highest bidder, whether club or country! When France won the World cup in 1998 the racist bigot Jean-Marie Le Pen (leader of France's extreme right-wing Nationalist Party) and his supporters could not celebrate because they did not think that the magnificent players led by Zidane (who is still dazzling us in the current campaign) were French enough because of their ancestral origins. It was tough luck to him because the rest of France celebrated Vive la France regardless of the colour ofthe players. They did it for France. In one English League game in recent years, the current League Champions, Chelsea, managed to field a full team with reserve, without a single English man! Just look at the teams and you see Africans or players of African origin playing for all kinds of countries. This is yet another prove that when the rules are clear black people can excel. Open the doors of equality, of access and opportunity,and may the best candidate win. But we have to enter first!

The presence of people of African origin in most of the teams guarantees that which ever team or country finally wins, it is very likely that we are going to have Pan Africanist contribution to it. So whatever the outcome, Pan Africanists can still celebrate. But many still wonder why African teams have not made the desired impact, and transformed individual promise and potential into success in the World Cup?

Why are we so good at serving others but do not have the same enthusiasm when it comes to serving ourselves? Or framed differently: do we expend so much energy serving others that when it comes to serving ourselves we are too exhausted?

In this, the various teams have become metaphors for our countries. They are full of individual stars, with fantastic records at club levels in various non-African countries (mostly European but increasingly the Middle East); but when brought together, they do not perform the same wonders for their countries. There are technical, resource and organisational reasons why this is so, but I see a more fundamental reason: political and ideological orientation of both the players and those who administer sports in our countries. No matter how talented a player is, in football, you are part of a team. We are big on big players and short on team spirit. The success of Ghana so far has been because it has begun building a team, not assemble one in a permanent state of emergency like their Nigerian neighbours who were dispatched from the qualifying series by a less fancied Angola. What is the Pan-Africanist point in all these? One, individualism will not take us to the Promised Land. We need to build winning teams. Two, if Europeans can buy and sell African players, what is stopping an African country, government or entrepreneurs from investing similar resources to build a winning African team? The preparation for the next World Cup should have started four years ago, but it is not too late to begin now.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeed Abdul Raheem asks who the real terrorists are in Mogadishu: Those who have held the people to ransom for two decades or those who have chased them away?

When a people have suffered for a long time under a dictatorship the tendency is to declare that nothing could be worse than what they were experiencing. Lived experience does teach a different lesson. No matter how bad the situation is it could always be worse. But the opposite is also true. No matter how good it is it can always be better.

Who would have thought that the jubilations at the exit of Somalia's long term dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre, in 1991 would quickly turn into a prolonged nightmare for his compatriots who have not known peace or even enjoyed the protection of a legitimate government since then. Siad Barre lies reburied in Mogadishu after his body was returned from Nigeria where his life ended peacefully after being given a 'safe haven' by the Nigerian government. The country he led with 'iron fists' and 'velvet tongue' for more than two decades is wasted and wasting between different pretenders to Barre's crown, who are all warlords well-equipped to destroy states but possess no skills for building a nation.

Somalia also tragically epitomises a number of contradictions for those of us who proclaim 'African solutions to African problems' and Pan Africanism, rightly eschewing external meddling by imperialist powers in African affairs but sometimes ambiguous about the sub imperialist meddling of fellow African states. One, is our loyalty to a state or to peoples? The state of Somalia has collapsed and probably may never be one state again, but somehow the international system has kept it existing because it remains the unit of discussion whether at the AU or UN. Somali peoples, like all victims of colonialism, are divided among many countries: Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti in addition to Somalia itself. In Somalia itself the south is claiming to be Somaliland while Puntland is also claiming to be independent of both Somalia and Djibouti. Though the Somali state has collapsed the Somali people continue to exist.

Two, it is not about fixing the Somali state but actually looking at it beyond the colonial borders and finding a regional solution to it. It points to federal and con-federal arrangements of the East and Horn of African states. But this logical political conclusion challenges the basis of all our states. That is why even the laudable work of the IGAD states backed by the AU and supported by genuine friends of Africa internationally is falling short of achieving peace and stability in Somalia and the region. They are looking at it as a Somali problem (and a hard dose of prejudice of them being 'difficult' Muslims prone to clan violence) instead of being a Pan African problem.

If we respond to it boldly it will not be limited to Somalis. It will address the historical problems of being part of but not belonging, of many arbitrarily nationalities across this continent: Banyarwanda, Banyamulenge, Bafumbira, Ewes, Ja luos, Ba samia, Hausa, Yoruba, Tswana, Basuto, Tigre, to mention just a few. But it will also change the map of Africa. It is the lack of political will to face the inevitable that is making our leaders engage in half-measures that often give disproportionate influence to war lords at our negotiating tables. IGAD states did a great job in patiently facilitating and negotiating for peace in Somalia, leading to the formation of the transitional government two years ago. However the reality now is that that government has been overtaken by major political developments. To insist on it and deal with it as though it is a normal government risks making not just the TFG but also the IGADD and the AU irrelevant in resolving the Somali issue.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, though the TFG is the result of tortuous and complex negotiations that seemed all-inclusive, the warlords had more power and influence in the shape of it. Their crimes, many of them qualifying as 'crimes against humanity' were rewarded with impunity.

Two, precisely because they were rewarded instead of them changing their old ways they continued business as usual in Mogadishu, trying to gain advantage over each other. That's why the TFG has metamorphosed from a refugee government based in Kenya into an internally displaced government first hosted by the warlord, Mohammed Dheere, in Jowhar, but now relocated to Baidoa, and why the interim president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is being hosted by yet another war lord.

Three, while the TFG enjoys the diplomatic and political recognition of the AU and internationally, it does not seem to enjoy popular legitimacy and it is unable to impose its legal authority at home. Can the world force Somalis to accept a government that is ineffective and doomed to remain ineffectual? This is the context which some of the neighbours of Somalia and global geo-political power mongers are exploiting. While officially publicly offering support for the TFG their actions have helped to undermine and erode its fragile legitimacy. Chief among these are the US and Ethiopia.

The militias in Mogadishu have used both countries' unprincipled alliances in Somali politics and their obsession with 'Islamic fundamentalism' to gain support. Meanwhile Somalis fed up with the militias and wanting a 'law and order' environment and a guarantee of personal and group security for their lives and property turn to their culture, traditional structures and religion. The Union of Islamic Courts led by an ordinary teacher Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed, is the umbrella under which ordinary Somalis have united to get rid of militias and warlords backed by various foreign interests. The ease with which they have moved from Mogadishu to other areas of the country should caution us from joining the sponsors of defeated and fleeing warlords who call them yet another 'Muslim fundamentalist' group. They are giving indications of being a popular movement . As yet they are unclear of their purpose as a government and probably ill-equipped to govern a modern state but they are able to bring security and peace based on notions of Islamic rule of Law and social justice. They have rendered the TFG a dead horse. For how long are we going to be insisting that Somalis ride this dead horse?

What is now happening in Mogadishu, Beledweyne and other cities is quite similar to what has happened in Somaliland, where a coalition of similar Islamist forces (up to now not recognised by any other state in the world) have managed to maintain peace and security based on a mixture of cultural order and conservative Islamic values. Neighbours and other foreigners should not be allowed to hide their sub imperialist and imperialist interests behind support for the TFG . There are reports (denied by Addis Ababa) that Ethiopia has sent troops to Baidoa and is arming the TFG, while the Americans have also denied supporting the defeated and fleeing warlords. Two of them, Bashir Rage and Sudi Yallaow, were allegedly rescued by American marines off the coast of Somalia while they were fleeing. Another war lord, Mohamed Abdi Qanyare is reported to have fled to El-Dheere while his name sake Mohammed Dheere is reported to have fled to Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile the other warlords in Mogadishu, Hussein Aideed and Ali Ato, have willingly surrended themselves to the Union of Islamic courts, hoping to join 'the storm' thy could not stop. Ato reportedly compared the highly successful routing of all the warlords by the Islamists to being 'hit by hurricane'.

As the AU meets in Banjul, Gambia next week our leaders have to reflect very seriously on the admittedly difficult challenges posed by the latest twist in the tragedy of Somalia. The IGADD states and the AU need to be sufficiently flexible and nuanced in handling this new situation. It is possible that the Union of Islamic courts may cooperate with the TFG but as long as the TFG does not insist on formal legalism. The TFG could also use the Union to build a popular legitimacy if they are seen to be cooperating. So far the Union has not been imposing leaders - rather they ask all the residents to choose their leaders to work with the new order. In some cases, significantly in Mogadishu itself, where people have opted for the leader put there by the TFG, the Union has not refused to honor that choice, hence the mayor of Mogadishu remains the same.

There needs to be clarity as to who will have sanctions imposed on them. Is it those who are now restoring order or the fleeing former warlords? If the AU encourages Ethiopia, the USA and other meddlers to continue to arm the TFG in the name of being the legitimate government it will be fueling more death and destruction and giving the fleeing warlords a new lease of life. For decades, the Somali state has been formed and reformed and deformed around the interests of various militarised local elites and various external geo-political interests. Now the voice of the people of Somalia seem to be coming out loud and clear. So the fundamental question is: Are you for the state or the people? Who are the terrorists in Somalia? Those who have held the people to ransom for two decades or those who have chased them away?

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

African teams in the World Cup have not been performing too badly, but their valiant efforts are not reflected on the scoreboards of the various groups so far. Therefore many of us have been watching the games with a mixture of affirmation that ‘African football has arrived and improved consistently to world class professional standards' and doubts that maybe we are not quite there yet or still lacking in the killer focus.

But we take comfort in the universal fact that ‘the boys are playing well’ although we are not quite resigned to the English consolation psychology of ‘it’s not the wining that counts but participating’ which makes them turn ‘glorious losers’ into celebrities. Africans want victories and are hoping that one of our teams will just move beyond the ‘nearly’ club. So we keep vigil in all kinds of public and private places, glued to the box watching every match. If all fail we have the automatic transfer of loyalties to Brazil or any other team (almost all he major ones) with Black players in them!

Like other people across the world, for the next month work can only be partial unless you are in a football related industry. FIFA is our employer for now! When people are not watching the matches they are discussing those that have happened and making all kinds of spirited predictions about those still to take place. Even those who do not like football are forced to participate in the frenzy because those of us who do will never stop talking about it. Media is saturated with stories about ‘the beautiful game’.

Hence it was with a great sense of sacrifice, personal and political loyalty, that I found myself abandoning Togo's match against South Korea Tuesday evening to go and listen to Professor Okello Oculi, speak at the Unfungomano Hall at Nairobi University. It was part of the Public Debate Series of the African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) for 2006.

Two reasons forced my hand. One, Okello was one of the radical Pan Africanist scholars who had influenced my intellectual and political outlook as an undergraduate student. He was one of those refugee scholars from Idi Amin's Uganda who were lost to Uganda but gained to many generations of African students in other countries.

Unlike the SAP refugees of the '80s and '90s and the current 'kyeyo' academics in the face of globalisation whose destination are mostly in Europe and North America, many of the Ugandans headed for other African countries and rebuilt their lives, some of them becoming adopted citizens of those countries. They were brains lost temporarily or permanently to Uganda but they were not lost to Africa.

Two other Ugandans had a direct impact on me. Firstly, Prof Yolamu Barongo, who was both a mentor and intellectual father to me. Without him I could have joined the army instead of graduate studies. Another one was the literary icon, Okot p'itek, who did not teach me directly but was an intellectual and political influence through writings and an electrifying presence at seminars, workshops and conferences across Nigeria while he was teaching at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University).

Okello never returned to Uganda and he is more Nigerian than many of us whose only claim is that we were born there. Our lives later became interchanged when I became permanently resident in Uganda as General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement. So whenever we meet we have to talk shop, with him sharing with me what is going on in the rough and tumble of Nigerian politics and I feeding him on my take on the up and downs, the zigzags and sometimes motions without movement in Uganda's politics!

So I could not refuse to go and listen to Okello. The other reason was the topic of discussion: ‘Interrogating the Conditions of The African Universities’. It is a topic that should interest anyone concerned about not just the survival of Africa and Africans but in us controlling our destiny. If we cannot own the thinking process of our society we cannot control or exercise autonomy over those societies. And our universities are very central to this. They are much neglected, abused, maligned and marginalized but we cannot use other universities as the engine of our development.

So many sins have been committed against our universities but they have also been perpetrating many sins against themselves. The mad rush for private universities mushrooming across the continent in the name of privatisation and liberalisation in education may produce more people with degrees but cannot produce more educated citizens. Even within the public sector universities, a two-tier system is in place offering apartheid discrimination based on financial resources. Okello called this FTDs (Financially Transmitted Degrees). He also looked at some of the internal weaknesses in the university systems including the process of recruitment, philosophical values underpinning the establishment of the universities during colonial and post colonial societies, the pressures of SAP, the ideological hegemony of elitism and reactionary values. He used his vast experience in East and West Africa and in Britain and North America to identify what the central problems for our universities are. And this is basically ideological: what is the purpose of a university? He identified lack of creativity and creative thinking and creative interaction between our technicians of knowledge and the society. We study as if our societies do not exist and our societies and governments, businesses, make policies as if we do not have local thinkers and qualified professionals. In plain language: our universities are not organically linked to our societies. There were places of excellence in the past like Dar Es Salaam and Ahmadu Bello university, and even the conservative bent older universities like Makerere, Ibadan and Legon. South African Universities have always been more integrated into the power structure, thinking and shaping the future of their societies.

The discussions, especially the robust interventions by the students (a modest turn out given that Togo was playing) were both nostalgic and sad for me. Inspiring because I felt that the tradition of debate is not dead, though sadly not fashionable anymore. I was also sad that though many of them are angry and believe they deserve better, they are no longer reading or having access to books that could make them turn their anger into a positive force for creativity and social transformation. They also reveal a very crude way in which the university has become integrated into the vulgarity that is dominating our societies.

I kept wondering if all present in a church become possessed by the holy spirit, who will shout hallelujah when and if we get to the promised land? When universities merely reflect the vulgar side of society instead of providing original refection on the society they cease to be a universe of ideas and are doomed to become irrelevant. Hence the current attitude in many countries: If you say you are a graduate, people retort: ‘And so what?’

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Has Olusegun Obasanjo finally run out luck? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem charts the career of the Nigerian president.

Anybody who believes that treachery does not pay has not studied the life history of Nigeria's recently humbled aspirant-maximum-ruler, retired General, Chief Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A combination of capacity to speak to the left while going right - and extraordinary luck - has propelled him far beyond what his childhood dreams could have been from his very humble beginnings in Owu, Abeokuta. For a man of no exceptional ability to have risen from pauper to president is a worthy mythic story in itself, but Obasanjo even managed to do the journey in reverse also: from prisoner to president. It will require extr ordinary humility not to begin to believe that the Almighty God specifically created you to deliver Nigerians. His acolytes convinced themselves that Obasanjo was Nigeria's chosen messiah and with time Obasanjo himself began to believe that he is Nigeria's Mandela, Napoleon, and Jesus Christ rolled into one.

Given where he started from and how far he has travelled the temptation was almost irresistible but as a self –confessed born again evangelical Christian one would have expected his faith to counsel him and make him grateful to the Good Lord for all the bounties showered on him. Instead Obasanjo began to believe he is the Lord redeemer himself. I hope in these sober days he reflects on those very Christian words: Pride goes before a fall.

After all this was a man who according to his own biographer, as a boy, wanted to be a motor mechanic! His life's ambition would have been satisfied if he had ended up owning a shared workshop in some run down area of Abeokuta. But he ended up training as a technician (though he keeps claming he is an engineer) in the Nigerian army.

He was a junior officer during the Nigerian civil war and an average performer until lady luck shined on him in two distinct ways. Towards the end the war, he took over the command of the third marine commando (TMC), from one of the most authentic heroes (or villains) of the civil war, Benjamin Adekunle, The Black Scorpion. But good fortune smiled on Obasanjo and TMC troops fell on the radio station of the Biafrans, a few days after which General Effiong surrendered to the federal troops. And who was the officer he surrendered to? Yes, your guess is right: Major Olusegun Obasanjo.

How kinder can faith be? Like other young officers (Murtala Muhammad, TY Danjuma, Mohammed Shuwa, Alani Akinrinade etc etc) propelled to command posts by the exigencies of the civil war, Obasanjo finished the war and went into obscurity to continue a steady rise in the army. Towards the end of the Gowon regime he was made a federal commissioner (minister) but not many people would remember that until Gowon was overthrown in July 1975. The coup was essentially by young officers who had served in the war and were disgruntled by the lack of direction of the Gowon regime, especially as it became clear that he was unwilling to handover power to civilians, but bent on civilianising himself. Murtala became the preferred leader for the coup plotters. Obasanjo became his deputy. Six months down the line Murtala was assassinated (February 1976) and a reluctant Obasanjo became head of state.

From then onwards more accidents have conspired to keep Obasanjo ahead of his many enemies, but also his serial betrayal at the highest levels became a guiding principle. He changed course from the dynamism of the Murtala regime in relations with the West, but kept the Africa-centred focus. He invited Jimmy Carter to Nigeria on the first ever official trip by a sitting US president to an African country. From then onwards he thought himself friend of the US. Domestically he endeared himself to everyone by handing power to an elected civilian government in 1979 in an imperfect transition. He thus became the first military leader to peacefully hand over power without a coup to an elected civilian leader.

Nigerians forgave the excesses of his authoritarian rule, including killing of a university student during demonstrations, detentions without trials, introduction of fees in universities, etc because he handed over power. Internationally Obasanjo's stocks rose rapidly, courted by the many friends of Africa looking for signs of good news from the much abused continent. Contrary to his domestic authoritarianism Obasanjo became part of a global progressive coalition, claiming friendship of Carter, the former British Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, Willy Brandt, etc. He was to become one of the eminent persons of the Commonwealth that tried to broker a reconciliation between the liberation movements of South Africa and the apartheid regime in the 1980s. He was even at some stage considered a likely candidate from Africa for the post of UN Secretary-General. Nigerians could not understand why a man with at most a dubious internal record could become an international hero. The only comparable global experience is former President Carter, who became more popular after leaving office in very dismal circumstances.

Under the military dictatorships of General Babangida and Abacha, Obasanjo became a reluctant pro democracy advocate but was never loved or trusted by the real democrats. This was a man who used to cane people, especially press representatives who dared to trespass on his Otta farm. He even reportedly had signposts at his gates specifically naming categories of undesirables, including journalists.

His opposition to both IBB (Babangida) and Abacha were based on military reasons rather than democratic considerations. He did not want the military to be 'disgraced out of office'. He connived in IBB's annulment of Nigeria's only free and fair popular election won by Abiola. In spite of coming from the same historical city as Abiola, Obasanjo was very public in his criticism and opposition to Abiola being president.

It were these anti-democratic credentials that recommended him to the power blocs that conspired to impose him as Nigeria's leader after the exit of Abacha. His betrayal of June 12 made him a beneficiary of the democratic dispensation. Who says betrayal does not pay?

No sooner was the man released from jail than did other generals hurry to him asking: Oga abi you wan go back Aso Rock (i.e. Boss would you like to go back to Aso Rock). The man had famously criticized General Gowon for wanting to contest presidential elections in one of IBB's many aborted primaries. Obasanjo asked the former general: “What did you forget in Dodan Barracks (the former seat of power in Lagos) that you want to go and pick?” Obasanjo did not tell us what he had hidden in Aso rock that he needed to go and dig up.

But the generals were in charge and hence their choice became 'the choice of the people'. A man who could have been killed in Abacha's prison without much protest from many quarters metamorphosed into the presidency and began to behave as though he was a messiah. At a personal level one cannot begrudge him his feelings of triumph but after sometime people got fed up, especially as the initial promise of 'good days are back' was undermined by the president's arrogance and I-know-all mentality.

Obasanjo sees himself as the only person who believes in the so-called Nigeria Project. Like all dictators he thought the nation must forever be grateful to him for ruling us. His grown up bootlickers who prefer to call themselves Baba's boys and girls did not help matters by making themselves so loyal that they could not even tell their boss if he had bags of saliva on his nose! Many former advisers and even current ones have been known to complain bitterly that their boss never listens to anyone What the hell were/are they doing in his government then?

But luck and chicanery have gone full cycle on Obasanjo.

His sad term bid has ended sadly with the rejection of his cocktail of amendments in which the constitutional limitations on terms would have been removed. Most reasonable Nigerians did not think that the bill would pass but Obasanjo listened to the echoes of his own voice through his hired hands. Threats, intimidation, bribery and all kinds of measures were deployed but at the end of the day, he lost it. Unfortunately for him all the good he has done (and there are quite a few) may not now be remembered. It is this defeat, which has undermined him both locally and internationally, that history will remember him for. Maybe treachery, in the end, does not pay.

For a man who has been lucky enough to be at every great historical moment (right place right time) in Nigeria's history, Obasanjo has finally run out of luck. He is now highly weakened, a lame duck president who may not be able to influence his succession as the country faces a certain or uncertain period of electioneering to replace him in less than one year. The look I saw on the face of the president when I was attending a conference in Abuja recently was not the usual boisterousness that he usually displays at official Pan African forums. He looked tired, off-minded and somehow not all there. He is probably, finally, thinking of life after Aso Rock. There are a few fellow presidents who need to begin to do the same before history sweeps them into oblivion. Those who cannot embrace change will ultimately be swept aside in this unforgiven game of politics. No President can preside in perpetuity.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org