The triumph of ending political apartheid in South Africa is at the doorstep of the Rt. Honourable Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. When the racist and murderous apartheid regimes in South Africa and Namibia forced many freedom fighters into exile, and/or otherwise silenced them, they could not succeed in getting Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to compromise her principles, even in the face of death threats, bullying and coercion.

The widow of Kwame Nkrumah, Madam Fatiha, passed away last week in Cairo, her home town, where she had been living for most of the years since Nkrumah’s over throw in February 1966.

As to be expected all kinds of tributes have been pouring out from all kinds of corners including people and institutions who have never really cared what became of her and her three children (Gamal, Sekou and Samia) since Nkrumah died. Many of these conspicuous mourners did not even realize that Madam Fatiha was still alive all these years.

The worst of these hypocrites is always government. Those in power have the power, if the will was there to have honoured Madam Fatima, recognized her and provided for her and her family. But shamelessly successive Ghanaian governments, at best pursued a policy of benign neglect or even outright hostility or opportunistic association and gestures towards the family. This is not because Madam Fatiha has lived outside of Ghana because the same treatment was experienced by the oldest of the children,, Dr Francis Nkrumah (the first son of Nkrumah , from his Ghanaian first wife) or Sekou (Fatiha’s second son) who both live in Accra. This shameful conduct included governments and regimes that claim to be political heirs of Nkrumah.

The government of Ghana immediately announced that it will provide a state funeral befitting a former first lady of Ghana (indeed the very first!) but of what benefit is this post humus honour when she was neglected while she was alive? It is part of that African hypocrisy that suddenly transforms a dead person into the friend of everyone around with no body willing to say anything negative about the departed. Some of this is actually due to guilt. We tend to over compensate by making all kinds of commitments and all manner of gestures immediately after the death of someone close or public figures. However the guilt soon subsides and life continues very much as before with the loved ones left behind to pick up the pieces, as they must. Tears of some of the politically correct mourners go dry as soon as the TV cameras are turned off.

The way we treat the family of our national and Pan Africanist heroes cannot inspire commitment and confidence that devotion to Africa meant anything. As with all committed, genuinely committed (not the convenient foot lose opportunists that are so common these days), their families suffer: absent fathers and husbands. The children grow up feeling victimized by ‘struggle’ and after the hero have gone or is no longer in power the family might as well have been dead.

Nkrumah, even his worst critics, will agree, was completely devoted to the cause of liberating Africa. It was not for him building of personal mansions or having secret accounts all over the world. The struggle was everything. Madam Fatiha was much younger than the Osagyefo when he married her in a matrimonial union that typified Nkrumah’s refusal to accept the Saharan divide of Africa. The three children they had together were all toddlers when Nkrumah was overthrown, and they were only young teenagers when Nkrumah passed away in 1972. Fatiha herself was barely in her mid 30s. No husband, no father and no state provisions the family had to survive on good will sometimes of kind strangers who never met Nkrumah but treasured his contribution to our liberation. They could not leave in Ghana but thanks to President Gamal Abdul Nasser (after whom Fatiha’s first son, Gamal Gorkeh, was named) the family had been given a befitting home by the banks of the Nile. That house progressively became damaged due to lack of maintenance support since the family could not afford to maintain such a modest stately building.

The Ghana for which Nkrumah laboured and the Africa he toiled for simply ignored his family.

It is an insult to now be shedding crocodile tears at the passing of his widow. It is an insult to the family to be offering state funeral to a person that was largely ignored in her life by the same state that is now leading the mourning. The same Ghanaian state showed similar hypocrisy when Nkrumah passed way in exile in Conakry and demanded and later brought Nkrumah’s body to Ghana for State reburial! The embalmed body was for many years left to deteriorate in his village of Nkroful before shame and political expediency and influence of Nkrumahists in his administration forced Rawlings to accept a Mausoleum for Nkrumah in central Accra. Even then most of the money came from Gaddafi!

The spirit of Nkrumah continues to wonder and I hope it continues to haunt all the opportunists, ideological parasites and political saprophytes who continue to use Nkrumah’s name in vain. It should shame us into honouring our heroes and heroines both in life and in death especially the widow and children they leave behind. Ask yourself how many more widows like Madam Fatiha are abandoned to penury across Africa? This bitter experience is even making many of our corrupt leaders to believe that whatever the volume of our assets they are looting now is a kind of insurance for their family against an uncertain future.

In this fiftieth year of Ghana’s independence and the inspiration for the independence of the rest of Africa we should assuage Nkrumah’s wondering spirit by doing right by his family, not by state burial to his widow but by Ghana’s government first repaying back all the entitlements die to them by way of gratuity to their father, refurbishing and handing over their family home in Accra and setting up a proper trustee body to look after, maintain and supervise the Nkrumah Musoleum in Accra. Then the rest of us can honour Nkrumah the best way we can. But Ghana has to lead in atoning for these wrongs.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

After a prolonged illness, Fathia Nkrumah, widow of Kwame Nkrumah, died in hospital in Cairo, Egypt

Africa's robust diaspora in Europe will soon have an investment facility to help people make direct investments to better develop their home countries thanks to a new study by the Brussels-based Africa Caribbean Pacific (ACP) Business Climate (BizClim) facility.

The Conference of Rectors, Vice-Chancellors and Presidents of African Universities (COREVIP) is an assembly of the chief executive officers of member institutions or their representatives. The theme for the Conference is: "The African Brain Drain - Managing the Drain: Working with the Diaspora". The conference will take place from 21-25th of October, 2007. The deadline for registration is June 30, 2007.

Maybe Yar Adua will become a Robin Hood in exchange for the PDP robbery of votes.

The innaugural speech, on Tuesday, by Nigeria’s newly sworn in President, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’ Adua, was not a speech that will make it to the list of even ‘1000 great speeches’ one has ever heard.

But with following words he defined his Presidency:

‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.

‘No matter what obstacles confront us, I have confidence and faith in our ability to overcome them. After all, we are Nigerians! We are a resourceful and enterprising people, and we have it within us to make our country a better place. To that end I offer myself as a servant-leader. I will be a listener and doer, and serve with humility.

‘To fulfill our ambitions, all our leaders at all levels whether a local government councilor or state governor, senator or cabinet minister must change our style and our attitude. We must act at all times with humility, courage, and forthrightness. I ask you, fellow citizens, to join me in rebuilding our Nigerian family, one that defines the success of one by the happiness of many.

‘I ask you to set aside negative attitudes, and concentrate all our energies on getting to our common destination. All hands must be on deck.

‘Let us join together to ease the pains of today while working for the gains of tomorrow. Let us set aside cynicism and strive for the good society that we know is within our reach. Let us discard the habit of low expectations of ourselves as well as of our leaders.

‘Let us stop justifying every shortcoming with that unacceptable phrase 'the Nigerian Factor' as if to be a Nigerian is to settle for less. Let us recapture the mood of optimism that defined us at the dawn of independence, that legendary can-do spirit that marked our Nigerianess. Let us join together, now, to build a society worthy of our children. We have the talent. We have the intelligence. We have the ability.

‘The challenge is great. The goal is clear. The time is now.’

No one who knows Umar Yar’ Adua would have been surprised that the speech was not earth shattering. The man’s personality is not given to any speeches, small or big let alone flamboyance or dramatic gestures.

If a Man who has been a Governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states for the past 8 years could still remain anonymous to the public in a country where even Local councillors not to talk of State governors and Ministers, will never let you forget ‘who I am’ it should tell us something about the man. It is not just that many people did not know him he appears unwilling to allow many people into his inner recesses, hence not many can say this is what makes him thick. This quality has made many to underestimate him. Instead too much attention is placed on his main sponsor, General Olushegun Obasanjo and how he imposed Yar Adua as a candidate and used ‘do or die’ machinations to ensure his election.

There is a democratic need to continue to challenge the credibility of the process but as at 72 hours ago Umar Musa Yar’ Adua is the President of Nigeria, de facto and de jure. We cannot be blaming any problems on Obasanjo anymore . As the Americans say : the buck stops at Yar’ Adua’s desk now.

Whatever role Obasanjo played in getting him to Aso Rock people in power are not known for showing too much gratitude. Look at Chiluba and Mwanawasa in Zambia or Muluzi and his successor in Malawi and long before that Ahmadu Ahidjo and Paul Biya in Cameroun.

Or reflect on the role the English Noble wannabe, Charles Njonjo, played in facilitating President Arap Moi’s takeover in 1978 and how they dramatically fell out with ‘little known’ and supposedly ‘unremarkable Moi’ who out-manoeuvred not just Njonjo, but also those within and outside KANU who thought they were better than him.

Even Obasanjo was ‘imposed’ on Nigerians by the generals and in particular the so-called Hausa-Fulani power elite. Although he is a Yoruba but was not the choice of his kinsmen and women, but it suited the interests of the ruling elites of Nigeria.

Obasanjo soon declared himself against both the political and military cliques that engineered his transition from ‘prisoner to president’ who in their arrogance (typified by IBB and Atiku) thought he would just be a pawn in their hands. Yar’ Adua therefore is not the first ‘unknown’ to become president of Nigeria. Even the first Prime Minster of the federation, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was a reluctant leader. Obasanjo in both his first regime as a military Head of state (1976-1979) and rebirth as a born again civilianised general (1999-2003) was a leader ‘against my personal wishes and desire’.

It was his second term (2003) and the sad attempt at a third term that he wanted the crown directly for himself. The worst of all the underestimated heads of state in Nigeria was General Sani ‘Viagra’ Abacha whom everyone believed could not ‘rule Nigeria for one day’. For over 5 years he remained in power through share indifference and mendacity.

If Obasanjo could use state power to transform himself from a political nonentity into a political gladiator that cornered and wasted his sponsors so can Yar’ Adua. In order for Yar’ Adua to gain any credibility he has to show himself as his own man. And all indications are that he will do that because the few glimpses into the man’s past being shared by the very few people who had been close enough suggest that he is that type of Man.

However he is unlikely to show his independence in any confrontational way. He will just ease Obasanjo into the sidelines while still publicly paying handsome tributes to his legacy, much the same way that Moi institutionalised his personal rule while claiming he was following in the full steps of Mzee Kenyatta (Nyayo!). There is nothing in the speech that will indicate any significant policy shift from Obasanjo’s market–driven neo-liberal reform agenda, stabilising the system, controlling corruption and rebuilding the deplorable infrastructure of the country and transforming economic growth into development that may deliver on the bread and butter issues to Nigeria’s overwhelming ‘poverty amongst plenty’ population. That is what the official mantra has been.

What Yar’ Adua brings to the table is contained in the first line in the concluding sections of his very brief speech that I quoted above: ‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.’ He has set himself to succeed or fail through his own example. He has a record of being relatively above board which was one of the factors that favoured him above his more flamboyant rivals. He delivered a competent welfare administration in Katsina state.

He will need to do more than that as president before he succeeds in turning the huge debits on credibility that he is starting with and begin to build up political capital that may gain the grudging respect of disillusioned Nigerians who have always yearned for credible leadership under whom they could all feel proud again to be Nigerians.

The ‘election’ was certainly not the democratic expression of Nigerians. The paradox though is that I believe very strongly that Yar’ Adua could have won. I do not think many Nigerians believe that either Buhari or Atiku ‘won’. Therefore both could not have been denied what they did not win. The PDP denied Nigerians including PDP supporters the opportunity to vote. Instead of a democratic mandate Yar’ Adua is now saddled with Stolen goods. The only reparation that may redeem him now is to deliver on the bread and butter issues and launder the electoral robbery into a Robin Hood turn around!

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

I was travelling in Germany all of last week, 13-20 May 2007, like a politician on a whistle stop campaign. My journey had begun in Nairobi. I went via Amstadam to Hamburg. From Hamburg, I travelled by road to Rostock then off by train to the beautiful Gothe town of Weimar, from where we again got on the train to Bonn via Frankfurt.

This is not election year in Germany. Even if it were, I could not be campaigning for a seat in the Bundestag, or the European parliament, since I am neither a German nor a European citizen.

But it was a campaign of a sort. I was participating in various pre-G8 summit activities and events organised by the UN Millennium Campaign in Germany, in partnership with other civil society and NGO groups, including the Catholic church, and even elements of the private sector who support the global campaign against poverty.

Many of my colleagues had doubts and wondered if it was a good use of my time and energy. One cynical colleague even suggested that I was perhaps just going just for the trip. Another who knew that this could not be the case, and that I definitely could not be going there for the weather, consoled the others with a more philosophical doubt: 'Tajudeen is a servant of lost causes who believes that he can make stones hear!'

Their cynicism is not without foundation. It is not that they do not know the significance of the most important club of the richest countries in the world. They are very much aware that G8 countries dominate global trade, commerce, finance, global institutions, corporations and disproportionately use, misuse and abuse global resources; and that against this stark reality, the rest of us look like poor tenants living on the fringes of the real estate of the G8 countries.

Rather their scepticism is based on painful lessons from previous G8 summits. Their expectation now is 'not to expect anything at all'. That way, they protect themselves against disappointment. It is not that they do not believe that there are many things this club of the world’s most powerful countries could do about the world’s problems, from poverty to pollution; but that they no longer hold their breath that they will.

I call these non-expectations the post-Gleneagles downward spiral. The G8 summit in that Scottish town in 2005 raised so much hope that the richer countries of the world were able, ready and willing to stop treating the overwhelming majority of the poorer peoples of the world as illegal tenants; rather as fellow human beings in a shared estate that respects our common humanity with dignity.

At Gleneagles, old commitments such as those contained in the Millennium Declaration, as translated into the MDGs, were renewed, while additional promises were made to fast track the end of the extreme poverty and hunger, reform global financial and trading regimes to facilitate fairer trade, write of the odious debts of poor countries, improve both the quantity and the quality and effectiveness of aid.

2005 was even declared ‘the year of Africa’ - thanks to the discredited, soon to be ex-prime minister, Tony Blair - amidst optimism that the world would stop doing wrong to Africa and start playing fair; while African leaders would also stop doing wrong by their peoples by improving governance and increasing accountability to their own citizens.

Initially there was a buzz of activities to potentially shut up the critics and cynics. Debt relief was provided for 14 African countries that were already in the HIPC initiative. Non-HIPC African countries - Nigeria for example - had some of their debt cancelled while they paid off the rest. (Nigeria paid back more to Britain in 2005/2006 than the global total of British aid – therefore raising the question: who is aiding whom?)

But the majority of the African countries, unable to pay their debts, are still waiting on bended knees at the G8 doors. The volume of aid also increased in quantity. But the old habits of tied aid, rewarding current favoured leaders, and withholding from those out of favour, lack of coordination, non-delivery and not meeting promises are still the practice.

With hindsight, even the aid increase was soon revealed to be paper money because it was mostly debt relief. And Nigeria and Iraq swallowed a larger proportion of it.

However 2005 represented a high point in both public awareness in the G8 countries and globally about these issues, forcing political leaders to take note and recommit themselves to doing something.

Today, that something is lagging behind all expectations. Aid levels are now falling because G8 leaders are backsliding and retreating from their commitments.

And yet in the troika of trade, debt and aid, aid is the weakest link, though the most visible politically.

Aid can be doubled, tripled or quadrupled. But without further significant movement on trade and universal debt relief, the poorer countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America will continue to be trapped in the vicious cycle of structural poverty, induced and reproduced by the unequal terms of global trading regimes, imposed by the richer countries through the IMF, World Bank, EU and WTO.

Poor countries can trade their way fairly from poverty to prosperity. Aid is like emergency treatment at the scene of accident. It is well appreciated, and often timely. But it does not mean that the wounded should not go for proper medical examination. For long term development, it is not aid that these African need, but a fairer trading system and opportunity to choose their own development model.

Most African countries produce what they do not consume and largely consume what they do not produce. But the price of both what they produce and consume are determined from outside, namely the EU, G8 and now increasingly China.

Therefore Africa cannot be aided out of poverty without a fundamental reform of the unequal trade that is rigged against our producers, workers, professionals and domestic companies. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprising, this is the one area where the G8 countries, the EU and the US have continued to conspire against the poorest peoples of the world in the stagnated so called development round – the Doha negotiations in the WTO.

If the G8 wants to renew the faith of its own citizens in their leadership of the world, and convince poor countries that they actually mean what they say, the answer is very simple: honour your own commitments.

Africa does not need new promises, but the fulfilment of old ones. Both the ones we made to ourselves through the African Union, Nepad and the MDGs, and those promised by the G8.

Everywhere I spoke, I told my German friends and other activists who care about international development, many of whom are as frustrated with their leaders’ broken promises that we are doubly disappointed with ours and the G8.

The next G8 summit in the East German town of Heiligendamm should not be business as usual, but business in the most unusual way. And that means two things: No more new promises, but the honouring of all the old ones. That would be a truly welcome surprise.

The second pan-African conference on ICT for development, education and training is scheduled to take place in the Kenyan capital Nairobi from 28 to 30 May year. It is expected to be graced by over 1,200 delegates from 81 countries around the world. Organised by ICWE GmbH and Hoffmann & Reif in collaboration with the Kenyan government, the annual conference focuses on ICT for development, education and training in Africa.

Fifty years after Ghana's independence, it is now clear that Kwame Nkrumah was 'a black star'. Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah seized opportunities to lead the countries of sub-Saharan Africa away from from colonialism. In 1957, he became the first Prime Minister of Ghana. By the time, he was overthrown in a coup in 1966 most African countries, outside the settler-dominated South, had also achieved independence.
ISBN: 9781847010100, 236pp. publ. June 2007, £14.95

Two very important meetings that will fundamentally affect the lives of all Africans, alive and those yet to be born, took place this week. Both meetings took place in South Africa. One in Durban and the other in the affluent suburb of Midrand, near Pretoria.

The first is a meeting of the Executive Council of the African Union, which consists of all the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the 53 Member states. The other is the 7th Session of the Pan African Parliament.

What is most significant about the two meetings is the agenda before them. Foreign Affairs Ministers met for final deliberations on the agenda for the forthcoming Summit of Heads of State and Governments of the Union in the first week of July in Accra, Ghana. The Summit has a one-item agenda: the United States of Africa.

In addition to other items on the agenda of the Pan African Parliament was the only chance it would have to discuss and pronounce itself on the matter before the Summit – namely, the United States of Africa.

But how many Africans know about these meetings? Of those who know how, many care? And among those who care, how many can influence the process?

It is not too late to inform yourself and also to influence the process because, whether we like it or not, their decision or non-decisions will impact on our lives and the future of our children.

There is no longer a debate about the desirability of full integration of Africa. The powerlessness of most of our states, our marginalization in global trade, finance, the shame of our states competing for who is lowest at the bottom of most human development indexes have won the argument in favour of unity.

However, as in the anti-colonial and immediate independence struggles leading to the formation of the OAU, there are disagreements about how far and how fast we should move on the road to unity. One would have thought that these debates were settled in the process leading to the restructuring of the OAU and its transformation into the African Union. But these divisions have continued to rear their heads and undermine the capacity of the states to fast track unity.

What are these positions? The first group is led by Libya and Brother Leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has been the driving force behind the fast tracking of the United States Of Africa project since 1999. This group wants the immediate union of the states with one government, common citizenship, common defence, a standing Army, Foreign Minister and a president for Africa, etc.

The Second group consists of states opposed to what they consider to be Libya’s haste and argue for gradual integration through consolidation of existing regional economic communities as the key building blocs of the Union. Initially they did not have a clear leader (since most of them could not withstand the roller coaster diplomatic, political and economic pressures from Tripoli) but carried out their anti-Libya manoeuvres through bureaucrats, ambassadors, foreign ministers and the committee systems at which Libya’s proposals are watered down and bogged down in procedural politics. And since the Libyans are not known for paying attention to details they often lose out but take consolation in all kinds of phyrhic victories.

A third group consists of those states who share many of the concerns of the cautious path of the second group, but now say that the AU is there and has enough in its Act of Union, enough authority and consensus to fast track therefore let us consolidate it before going further. This ‘AU is enough’ group is now led effectively by President Thabo Mbeki and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Other important key players like Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria are basically either standing on the fence or trying to hold a dubious half-way house between Gaddafi’s enthusiasm and Mbeki’s cynicism. Other countries are hiding their indecision, ambiguities, hostilities or biases behind the protagonists. But this is an issue that cannot be fudged anymore.

The Durban meeting of Foreign Ministers is basically Thabo Mbeki’s fight back on the road to Accra, juxtaposing his vision directly to Gaddafi’s. The ways in which the South Africans have tabled the matter has already made this clear. Instead of the official UNITED STATES OF AFRICA they are saying AFRICAN UNION GOVERNMENT.

Personally I think we should be more original than just copying USA. But re-branding as Union Government also is neither here nor there. What is it that we expect the government, whether as a Union Government or as a United States of Africa to do?

In spite of the intrigues and manoeuvres by the various camps they share a basic weakness: they are state led and are projecting this vision without the involvement of the broad masses of their own peoples. They do not even involve their own parliaments let alone ordinary citizens. In many cases it is only the Presidency that is involved with Foreign Affairs Ministers playing guessing games.

There are already enough agreements, protocols and statutory instruments to fast track the unity project. What has been lacking is the political will by the leaders to put their money where their mouth is; and what has also been lacking is fully involving the masses. Without both of these, the grand debate will only be another sham executive posturing, which drive our peoples into inertia and cynicism.

It is not too late to reverse this wagon-less executive train threatening to run into each other from Tripoli to Pretoria. The business of Unity is too important to be left to Thabo and Gaddafi, even too important to be left to the 53 heads of state and government the peoples of Africa must have full say in it.

It is not a privilege to demand to be consulted. Rather, it is their democratic right. Otherwise the leaders are engaged in yet another futile attempt to try and shave our heads behind our backs.

In many countries people are organising to have discussions on this matter on Africa day this year: MAY 25. Join one or start one where ever you may be and demand of your president or Foreign affairs minister to debate the options and which side of the debate they are on.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

According to Eric Masinde Aseka, the precariousness of contemporary politics of identity in Kenya seems to affirm the philosophical insights of Frantz Fanon when he states in "Black Skin, White Masks" that the colonized subject cannot make a meaning for himself.

30 African and international civil society organisations working in over 25 African countries participated in the first consultative dialogue with the pan-Africa parliament with the theme 'Building Effective Mechanisms for Civil Society Engagement with Pan-African and Regional Institutions'.

Aware of the 7th ordinary session of the pan-African parliament being held under the theme of 'African Union Government', the consultative dialogue provided an opportunity for civil society organisations to reflect on the proposal of the union government in preparation for the African Union Summit in June 2007 in Accra, Ghana.

After carefully studying the Study for the Proposal for Continental Government and the Study into the Modalities for Continental Government, it is clear that without the full involvement and participation of African women and men, the vision of a people's union will not be realised. In this regard, the pan-African parliament could play a pivotal role in catalysing informed dialogue at both continental and national levels.

Consequently, we hereby recommend to honorary members of the pan-African parliament that they undertake to:

1. Fully embrace the vision of deeper political and economic integration.
2. To inform their national assemblies and convene public consultations before the July summit.
3. Propose to the heads of states in July, clear consultation mechanisms for African citizens prior to all of the decision-making stages of the continental government.
4. Prioritise in the work of the pan-African parliament committees, the national implementation of continental legal instruments and policies.
5. Anchor the vision of a peoples union by urging the heads of states to immediately abolish visas for Africans travelling in Africa, as a precursor to the lifting of all restrictions on African men and women to reside, work and trade throughout Africa.
6. Call for rationalisation of the regional economic communities to take place at an accelerated rate so that they can become effective building blocs for continental integration.
7. Call for a clear domestic financing strategy for the proposed new functions, which may include the options of taxing air flights and other creative ways of raising revenue for the union government.

While institutional renewal and consultation within the African Union and its specialised organs is important, the immense political will needed to realise political and economic integration will only be sustained if our peoples are informed and supportive of such efforts. A public mandate is necessary for continental government to succeed.

We urge members of the pan-African parliament, in true recognition of their representative role, to champion this process. Lastly, we assure the pan-African parliament of our commitment to sustain the dialogue through regular submissions and interaction.

To sign this submission, please [email][email protected] by 09.00 GMT on Thursday May 10 2007.

Haiti’s overcrowded, understaffed and insecure prisons are powder kegs awaiting a spark. Any explosion of violence or mass prisoner escape could undermine recent steps by the government and UN peacekeepers (MINUSTAH) to combat urban gangs and organised crime, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group.

Founded in 1960, the Michigan State University (MSU) African Studies Center (ASC) is one of nine Title VI National Resource Centers on Africa designated by the US Department of Education. MSU can offer instruction in 30 African languages, with 9-12 languages taught each year. Two PhD African studies librarians staff the third largest Africana library in the nation. African Studies at MSU has been distinguished by its focus on Africa’s human needs - poverty alleviation, food security, education for development, environment and development, tropical disease, ethics of development, and gender equity.

What sense can one make of the ‘result’ of the Presidential election in Nigeria?

Local and most foreign observers are united that the elections were ‘fundamentally flawed’. The Coalition of Domestic NGOs, CSOs and Think Tanks, under The Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, that deployed 50, 000 monitors across the country has not only condemned the widespread irregularities variously reported about the election it has gone further than any other group of monitors by categorically calling for a cancellation of the results and a rerun of the vote.

The two leading Opposition candidates, retired General Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP) and embattled Vice President Abubakar Atiku (AC) and other presidential candidates (there were 24 of them!) immediately rejected the results and have declared that a new president cannot be sworn in on May 29 based on the result announced on Monday because they believed the elections were massively rigged in favour of the ruling party’s and President Obasanjo’s anointed Successor, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar ‘Adua.

The losing candidates have left open their options for taking on the PDP and addressing their grievances including using the courts, public pressure, protests and international opinion.

On its part the PDP and President Obasanjo and the Electoral Commission have reacted not triumphantly but by conceding that there were ‘problems’ (understatement indeed!)with the conduct of the vote but they insist that the shortcomings were not sufficient to nullify the officially declared outcome.

So far there has not been much surprise in the reaction of the various interested parties including the sporadic violent reactions in opposition strongholds where voters felt that the declared result was not in accordance with their wishes. They burnt down houses, offices and other property belonging to members of the ruling party or suspected electoral officers or members of the public just caught up on the wrong side. Soon after the security forces move in and some calmness is restored. It is almost like the authorities were planning for a short period during which the frustrated voters can vent their spleen.

So what next? How long will these controversies last? And what long term impacts will they have on the body politic of the country?

In a game that will mostly be based on ‘wait and see’ the government has more time on its hand and can afford to wait. If the Opposition chooses to go to the courts the matter will definitely be bogged down in procedural issues that may not be decided by the 29th of May when the new President will be sworn in. As it happened after the last, also very controversial election in 2003, a final verdict on the election may drag on to the Supreme Court and probably take the next three years or more and it will not have any political impact or even a legal difference.

Should they choose to go on the streets it may not yield any immediate political benefits too but definitely create more chaos, destruction and even more deaths for their supporters and innocent members of the public?

They also have to consider the reality of the power relations. Opposition will only be able to get away with public disorder and impunity in areas where they are most popular. Why make ungovernable places that are already sympathetic to you like Lagos, Kano for example.

Would you not be inviting the government to declare state of emergency and Direct PDP rule in those pockets of places where the opposition is actually in power? How will that play out with elected opposition candidates from those `areas? The critical Niger Delta has been disenfranchised for a long time that stealing their mandate again is just routine. And now they can even claim one of them is finally in Aso Rock since the new Vice President is from the Niger Delta.

The last time Nigeria had a free and fair election was June 12 1993 and the Military dictator, the Gap-toothed fiendish General I.B. Babangida and his regime annulled the result. National protests and international isolation followed forcing IBB out of power but the winner, Chief MKO Abiola, never regained his victory. Instead another military regime even more brutal than IBBs followed and Abiola died in prison. When Abacha was aided to his death in leisure the same Generals organized Abiola’s`death in prison by choking on tea served to him in the presence of a ‘visiting’ (or was it supervising?) delegation of Senior US officials including Susan Rice`, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for Africa., Susan Rice!

The June 12 struggle that was a national campaign became isolated as a Yoruba affair in spite of the fact that Abiola would have won even without votes from Yoruba Land. Obasanjo was one of the scheming Generals who denied Abiola his mandate. Other Generals rewarded his betrayal of democracy by making him President after Abacha. And they are all now complaining about him.

The situation is different now. Neither Buhari nor Atiku can claim the same National mandate and popularity as was claimed for Abiola. They are also unable to transform the frustration of the voters into a sustainable popular struggle. A military coup is more or less out of the picture. They cannot accuse Obasanjo of favoring his ethnic group or his religious faith. So all the fault lines of Nigeria's politics are safe.

Just as the Generals gave Nigeria a President who was Yoruba in 1999 but not necessarily the preferred candidate of the Yoruba people Obasanjo has given us a President who is Hausa-Fulani Muslim but cannot be Hausa-Fulani President.

The sadness of it all is that I believe that Yar’ Adua could still have won, may be not in such ridiculous margins. But the PDP has made it look like there were no good `reasons why many Nigerians would have voted for him given the limited choice they had of really effectively choosing between three candidates. One a former General and the other a former Custom Officer and Yar ‘Adua, the only civil civilian who also had a reputation for running a decent administration in his state and also one of only a handful of the 36 state governors not known or believed not to be corrupt.

Obasanjo has `helped` Yar Adua to the gate of Aso Rock he cannot cohabit with him in it. It will now depend on him how he shoulders on. It will take more than his initial reconciliatory statements to his ``worthy opponents`` for the controversies and the credibility deficit with which he was anointed to settle.

Obasanjo turned against those who facilitated his entrance into that bastion of power therefore he cannot expect that he would be driving Yar Adua from behind. Proxy politics like opposition ganging up have both never really worked in Nigeria. One of the first things Yar Adua has to do with immediate effect is to unlearn some of his benefactor’s worst ways of doing things. Politics is about persuasion not conquering your opponents.

The International Election tourists otherwise known as Observers or Monitors will already be on their way to the next election in some other country by now, cutting and pasting, on their high powered laptops, as they go. Democracy in any country can only be guaranteed by the peoples of that country not any group of outsiders no matter how well-meaning. EU, NDI, Madeline Albright, Common wealth and whoever can say all they will their governments are not about to impose sanctions on Nigeria (not while the oil is still flowing) and their businesses are not going to withdraw under Yar Adua (they bdid not under Abacha) so it is really up to Nigerians to fight to make their interests relevant to their political dispensation as they confront an undemocratic civilian government and equally non democratic opposition political parties whose only ideology is `its our turn to chop`

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana 1 Jul 2007 - 6 Jul 2007. The conference aims "To provide an intellectual forum to debate Nkrumah's socio-political philosophy and action that changed the political landscape of Africa , as his geo-political paradigm altered the balance of power in global diplomacy."

Africa has had a troubled relationship with global migrations rooted in the horrific memories of the Atlantic slave trade, which set the foundations of the asymmetrical relations between the continent and Euroamerica subsequently reproduced and reinforced by colonialism and neocolonialism. Today, many worry about the brain drain, how Africa is apparently losing its best and brightest to the global North, a phenomenon that has accelerated since the lost developmental decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Pan-African Youth Leadership Forum will be a one-week program to be held in Accra, Ghana from 18–25 June 2007. Participation will be limited to 106 delegates drawn from as many as Africa’s 53 countries as possible.

I was going to write this week about which of the numerous Presidential candidates in Nigeria's Presidential elections this weekend. But so grotesque and tragic have been the monumental irregularities in the elections of last weekend that the less about them the better because they were too blatant. They do not inspire any confidence that this weekend's ones will be any better.

The sad thing is that I believe that the candidate I would have voted for if I had the vote, Umar Musa Yar Adua, would still win but the credibility deficit is so highly debited that no one will concede that he has won fairly. PDP has finally succeeded in giving 'rigging' a bad name. So political scientists in Nigeria will either have to close shop or admit that they are now ghost social scientists!

Unfortunately for me this week there is no respite from embarrassments. I have been getting many embarrassing questions these days about a number of African leaders with whom many of the mostly hostile questioners and even curious friendly critics believe I enjoy close association. The questions are embarrassing because I am supposed to have answers or insights about them but my knowledge may not be more than that of an average observer.

On top of the list of these leaders is President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni followed by a whole club of leaders generally referred to as ‘New Generation of African Leaders’ that include Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Issias Afworki, President Paul Kagame and others. In a class of his own among leaders about whom I get embarrassing questions is Uncle Robert Mugabe. He is not so much a New Generation leader as a now pathetic relic of a glorious liberation epoch.

I am not complaining about these questions because they are based on concrete political realities of my personal ideological and political positions. I supported all of these leaders, wrote and spoke positively about many of them for many years. Therefore those asking me about what is happening to these leaders now even when their intentions are hostile what they are demanding of people like me is to tell them what has happened to our Dear Leaders? For instance while the same people may ask me about what is happening in Nigeria they will never try to embarrass me by asking: What has happened to General Olushegun Obasanjo since they do not think that both he and I have any shared ideological perspectives.

I have received more questions recently about two of these leaders: Museveni and Meles. How I wish I had inside knowledge to explain to these questioners Why President Museveni who came to power promising fundamental change has now raised to the status of theory the reactionary slogan of ‘No change’! How can I explain that a president who opened up the political space in the country, introduced so many political reforms that arrested the country’s political and economic decline and historically sectarian politics is now accused by many of his former comrades of being guilty of political infanticide, killing institutions which he created because they no longer serve his political purposes? Is it the same President who refused to allow any streets to be named after him that is now inaugurating his Saddam-like Statues? How can one explain the recent attacks on the judiciary and threats to liberty and the rule of Law that is even turning sedate judges into judicial militants? And even more what about the current controversy about the Mabira forest which has pitched even many loyalists of the President and a broad section of the populace including the Buganda royalty against the President and his dwindling band of hack men and women?

As for Premier Meles he has in recent years bungled his way from one unpopular decision and action to the other. He locked up people who defeated his ruling party in the 2005 elections charging them with treason and genocide! Only two weeks ago did he start releasing some of them but a majority (including two CSO activists, Daniel and Natsenat) are still detained because they allegedly stil have case to answer after two years in detention! Those who were detained were luckier than the many demonstrators protesting the irregularities of the elections who were murdered by Security forces. How can one explain how a leader and ruling party that overthrew the Stalinist murderous regime of the Dergue / Mengistu is today as totalitarian as the regime they threw out? Unlike the NRM (which had ideological people but was never a doctrinaire group) the TPLF/ EPRDF were very ideological in the old Stalinist ways but like the NRM they have become more free market than Adam Smith!

Both Meles and Museveni are happy to be Bush's allies without any shame.

Why do leaders who promise National rebirth and inspire their compatriots to believe in them end up disappointing them?

The one answer I can give to all these and many other questions about these leaders is: STAYING TOO LONG in power. No matter how great they may be they are ordinary mortals even if their propagandists deify them. They wither, become tired but their wear and tear have serious impact on the body politic. As they say ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. When leaders become tired they tire the nation with them. It is not just in Africa, look at Britain, rudderless under Blair who is finished but refusing to go but sinking lower and lower.

But at least in Britain it is not a question of if Blair leaves, it is when and there is certainty that it may be soon after the local elections in May but definitely before the October conference of the Labour Party. Imagine if he was an African Leader, he would have dissolved the party by now and Gordon Brown (his putative successor) will either be in Jail or facing all kinds of charges, or in exile or even dead!

But one thing is clear: afrika will survive these leaders but more than that we shall overcome these obstacles. We just have to keep hope alive and continue with the struggles.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

Part of a wider initiative to re-connect the countries of the African Union (AU) with the Caribbean countries, along with African people throughout the world, this conference aims to explore the mutual benefits of closer co-operation in all aspects of life, to share the experience of overcoming slavery, colonialism and apartheid, and to maximise on the positive gains and contributions to the totality of human existence. The conference will be held at The Brit Oval, London on 24-25 April 2007.