Kaye Whiteman

Kaye Whiteman

An African Journey Essays 2011–2014

Design and Typesetting Marc Peter www.on-idle.com

Published By Business Council for Africa with the help of Kaye’s many friends and admirers 5 Lavington Street London SE1 0NZ United Kingdom www.bcafrica.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-9931124-1-6

Introduction Martin Kaye Whiteman, historian and friend of Africa, who died aged 78 on 17th May 2014, was one of the most distinguished writers of his generation on Africa. He developed a remarkable understanding of almost all matters African and in particular Nigeria where he lived and worked from 1964 until settling back in the UK in the late 2005.

Born in Hadley Wood, north London, Kaye was the son of George and Mary Whiteman, a Quaker couple, and brought up in Saffron Walden where he went to the Friends’ school and on to Bootham School in York. He married Marva McGeary from Barbados in 1963 with whom he had a son, Simon.

Kaye read history at Queen’s College, Oxford where he developed his interest in Africa and the decolonisation process. He met most of the key African leaders from the independence period and was in touch with many of those involved in public service throughout the continent.

For seventeen years as Editor, then Editor-in-Chief and General Manager of West Africa magazine, he wrote on African politics, economics, history and culture. He was Editorial Adviser for Business Day in Lagos writing a weekly column analysing issues and events across the continent. A Nigerian edition of his book “Lagos: a Cultural and Historical Companion” in a series called ‘Cities of the Imagination’ is to be published shortly. He co-edited with Dr Adekeye Adebajo of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town a widely reviewed volume on The EU and Africa and before his death was working on a study of “Africa at Chatham House”. Known as ‘Lagos Boy’, his integrity as a journalist was hugely respected.

At the Information Directorate of the European Commission in Brussels in the late 70s and early 80s he dealt with development issues, and between 1999/2000 was Director of Information at the Commonwealth Secretariat. Kaye was a research associate at the Centre of African Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a trustee and Vice-Chairman of the Africa Centre in London and for twenty years a member of the Trustees of the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. As a researcher with Chatham House he used the resources of the Royal Institute of International Affairs to embark on a history of Africa.

The essays in this collection first appeared in the monthly newsletter of the Business Council for Africa which is privileged to be publishing them in one volume for the first time. Kaye was an Adviser to the BCA over very many years, writing editorials with great insight and appearing as a panellist. Courteous and soft-spoken, he knew the importance of all types of communication in increasing understanding and co-operation and made a huge impression on those who had the privilege to know and work with him.

In his memory the annual BCA Summer Lecture is to be known as The Kaye Whiteman Lecture.

London, November 2014 —3—

Contents Reflections on Houphouet-Boigny Part 1...................................................................................7 Reflections on the Côte d’Ivoire elections Part 2......................................................................9 The Arab Spring: Could it happen on the African Street?..................................................... 16 Nigeria’s Test Case Election: plus ca change? .........................................................................20 Côte D’Ivoire: Fresh Challenges for Ouattara......................................................................... 23 Nigeria’s Election Model: Still unsafe to make assumptions in a country of surprises ...... 25 ECOWAS and Democracy........................................................................................................28 Some African Success Stories...................................................................................................30 A Few Nigerian Blockbusters................................................................................................... 33 Some reflections on Francophone Africa ................................................................................36 The importance of Governance and Leadership for Africa ....................................................39 Three African Perspectives........................................................................................................42 Nigeria hits Choppy Waters ....................................................................................................46 Somalia and the African Union................................................................................................49 What price the Democracy Dividend in the Sahel?............................................................... 52 The Persistence of Conflicts in Africa .................................................................................... 55 French President Hollande and Africa..................................................................................... 57 The Story of Coups in Africa...................................................................................................60 The Growing Mali Crisis..........................................................................................................62 Ten Years of the African Union................................................................................................64 The President of Cote d’Voire, Alassane Ouattara in London...............................................66 Addis Ababa, Mogadishu and the death of Meles Zenawi....................................................68 Marikana Challenges the ANC in South Africa ....................................................................70 British MPs and Nigeria............................................................................................................72 Election time in Sierra Leone and Ghana................................................................................. 75 2013: Tempering Optimism on the Continent ........................................................................78 More Challenges of Mali ......................................................................................................... 81 British Government Minister Simmonds and Africa..............................................................84 Post-colonial Networks in Africa.............................................................................................87 Biometric Elections, Power Shifts and Dynasties.................................................................... 91 Thatcher and Africa: Paradox and Power Realities..................................................................92 A Half-Century of African Unity ...........................................................................................94 G8, G20 and Africa....................................................................................................................97 Creative Africa ........................................................................................................................ 100 Revolutions and Democracy in Africa .................................................................................. 103 Nigeria and its Banks............................................................................................................... 105 —5—

Forgotten States....................................................................................................................... 107 The Swaziland exception......................................................................................................... 108 The Forgotten Gambia............................................................................................................. 109 Governance and impunity in Africa ....................................................................................... 111 2013: Year of Ambiguity in Africa?..........................................................................................114 Two Faces of the African Diaspora..........................................................................................116 Juba and Bangui: 2014 New Year Headaches ..........................................................................117 Reassurances and Uncertainties in Africa ............................................................................. 120 The Looming Nigerian Question ...........................................................................................123 The EU-Africa Strategic Partnership ..................................................................................... 127 Tanzanian Beacon: What next? .............................................................................................. 130

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Reflections on Houphouet-Boigny Part 1 Back in 2004 I wrote an essay titled ‘The Three Deaths of Houphouët-Boigny.’ The thesis was a simple one, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, first President of Côte d’Ivoire, in office for thirty-three years since independence, was the founding father of the Ivorian nation. After his death in 1993, much of what he stood for was destroyed: first in his ‘second death,’ the military coup of December 24, 1999. This broke the political system he had established in which his Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) which continued to be dominant even after the multi-party system came in the early 1990s. The ‘third death’ was the failed coup of September 19, 2002, by northern elements in the Ivorian army, which led to the de facto partition of the country, complete with intermittent civil war, until the power-sharing peace accord in Ouagadougou in March 2005. This shattered the concept of the Ivorian nation he had tried so hard to build, and also delivered the country in fee to the United Nations, which attempted to determine its future through the Security Council resolutions, and the presence on the ground of a 9,000 strong peace-keeping force. This was built on the basis of a French intervention in the autumn of 2002 (Operation Licorne).

It is historically manifest that Houphouët-Boigny laid the foundation for an economic success story (it was called “the Ivorian miracle”), based on the liberal economics of the free market and close cooperation with the former colonial power, the French. It was not a route to everyone’s taste: he had had a famous wager with the socialist Kwame Nkrumah just after Ghana’s independence as to whose options would be more successful in ten years.

Houphouët had also seen that the nation had to be inclusive of other West Africans who had come to the country to be part of the success, knowing that an open door on immigration is very often a key to growth. This was in part following up his own much-criticised actions in the 1950s in assisting the break-up the French colonial West African Federation (the AOF), which he felt was too dominated by the Senegalese.

His own vision was that his own country should play a leadership role in West Africa.

By the same rationale, after he had failed in his efforts to assist in the break-up of the Nigerian federation in the Biafra war in the 1960s, he was persuaded that the future lay in the setting up of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975 in which Côte d’Ivoire at the head of the francophone countries of the sub-region, could play a leading role, in spite of Nigeria’s preponderant size. By the time of his death in 1993 the mirror of the Ivorian miracle had cracked, and the 1957 wager looked much less one-sided.

Where Ghana had learnt some brutal lessons and was beginning to move towards economic take-off, faced with low cocoa prices, he had fallen victim to Nkrumah’s belief that he could buck the cocoa speculators, and blamed the World Bank for encouraging him to over-production of cocoa, when they had been doing the same thing in Malaysia. It was as if, somehow, he should have been the favoured child of the West, just as he had been of France.

—7—

Indeed, it had been the French connection that was the key to Houphouët’s initial success.

An early radical, who had an alliance with the Communists, he threw in his hand with the colonisers and was instrumental in establishing the post-colonial system established by Gaullist France after 1960. The gratitude of the French political class was seen in the way they all (from Mitterrand to Giscard d’Estaing and Chirac) attended Houphouët’s funeral in February 1994. It was almost as if they knew they would never have it so good again.

The presidency of Henri Konan Bédié (1993–9) who was Houphouët’s fellow Baoulé and appointed heir, was a spectral continuation of the system of le vieux. The viable nationstate that Houphouët had founded was betrayed by a perverted form of the very nationalism that had been sought, in the concept of Ivoirité. Although this could be explained as a pursuit of national identity, its advocates used it as a means to marginalise a whole section of the country, the North, where northerners might be Ivorian, Burkinabe or Malian, due to the ambiguity of artificial borders in the colonial period. It was used particularly to debar Alassane Ouattara from standing in elections, because of his Burkinabe connections, even though he had been Houphouët’s last Premier. Ouattara had at one time represented Burkina Faso at the West African Central Bank, but his family origins, however, were indisputably Ivorian. The Ouattaras are the ruling house of Kong in north-east Côte d’Ivoire, once centre of an empire which in its heyday stretched into what is now Burkina. Multi-partyism, introduced in the early 1990s (against Houphouët’s instincts, which were favoured one-party states) led to a rise of ethnicity and xenophobia. This had always simmered in Ivorian politics from the anti-foreigner riots of 1958 to the defeat of Houphouët’s proposal for double nationality for citizens of the Council of the Entente – a mini-sphere of Ivorian influence in West Africa. The rejection of this in 1966 was his biggest defeat, but ironically it related to his own ‘balkanising’ agenda in the AOF in the 1950s.

The tensions over Ivoirité was a factor in the coup of December 1999, which brought General Robert Gueï to power, which was when Houphouëtism began to unravel.

The refusal of French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to allow troops to reinstate Bédié, as sought by President Chirac, was a major psychological moment, although three years later French troops did return to act as a buffer between the warring parties when the ‘third death’ of partition occurred in September 2002. By then the French were much less in favour of unilateral interventions than they had been in the heyday of reckless neo-colonialism, and brought in a UN umbrella as soon as possible. This presence of 9,000 UN troops mandated by a succession of Security Council resolutions is what gives the present situation its unusual nature, and causes particular difficulty for Laurent Gbagbo in his efforts to remain in power. It has permitted Alassane Ouattara to give his claim to have won the November 28 election some permanence and credibility, because he can sit in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan protected by UN troops and pretend he is running a government.

—8—

He also has the remarkable cover of wide international recognition including in Africa. Many others in Africa have rejected election results, but have usually resorted to litigation, or been left in lonely isolation, but the UN presence makes the Ivorian situation exceptional. This also has dangers for the UN as it is perceived as partisan by one of the parties, and makes prediction difficult. Those that have recognised Ouattara have a strong moral and ethical position, but in real terms, once the threat of force is involved, serious complications set in. This brings an element of masquerade to the posturing that has been going on, not helped by the unreality of some of the declarations of both contending ‘presidents’. Gbagbo‘s determination to sit tight at all costs could be a disastrous position, but he has the virtue of incumbency, even if perceived as illegal. His belief that the UN, the French and most of Africa are involved in a neo-colonial plot looks threadbare, but it gives him a rhetorical base. On the other hand, Ouattara seems to think that a small task force to kidnap Gbagbo is all that is needed by way of solution. The problem with the military option raised by ECOWAS is that has severely dangerous aspects. Does it make sense to use force to impose Ouattara when half the country would be hostile, even if his ‘Houphouetist’ alliance with Bédié’s PDCI brought him some southern support? Some African voices have begun to raise questions (see for example the paper attached below by Pierre Sané, former Secretary-General of Amnesty International). This position has begun to be articulated by neighbouring leaders such as Atta Mills in Ghana and Ellen Sirleaf in Liberia, in spite of warlike noises coming from ECOWAS in Abuja, and its current Chairman, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. The UN itself verified that 46 per cent of voters opted for Gbagbo, and even if more Ivorian’s would prefer a quiet life than brawling militias, intervention would present a huge security problem that 2,000 extra UN troops will not begin to handle. The failure of the peace mission of Raila Odinga for the AU, the latest in a series of abortive mediations, is not surprising, but does not bode well in a deteriorating situation.

It may take another spasm of violence and incidents fraught with danger, before this most serious national fracture yet can begin to be healed.

Reflections on the Côte d’Ivoire elections Part 2 Chronicle of a failure foretold By Pierre Sané Former Amnesty International Secretary General, and former UNESCO Assistant Director General. Note-this section edited by Kaye Whiteman They were to be the elections that would allow put an end to the crisis, to finally turn the page on Félix Houphouet-Boigny’s inheritance, and to set Côte d’Ivoire on the path of peace and development. They were by all means the most at length and painstakingly prepared African elections, which involved, since the Marcoussis Agreement reached in Janu—9—

ary 2003 ( ), an imposing number of parties: the Government, the armed rebellion, the Côte d’Ivoire political parties, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union, the International Organisation of La Francophonie, France, the European Union, the United Nations, not to mention the successive mediators; the Togolese Gnassingbé Eyadema, the South-African Thabo Mbeki and the Burkinabe Blaise Compaoré; a collection of influences never seen before in Africa!

The polling process had been an intricate consensus between all the parties involved, even if there had been slips at each and every stage. From the open air meetings to the population census, from the creation of the polling list to the issue of national identity cards, from the establishment, then re-establishment of the Independent Election Commission to the distribution of polling cards, the whole process prepared and implemented by the authorities, the opposition and the rebels under the watchful eye of the international community was supposed to lead to an indisputable result. Beyond the Elections Act and the Constitution, a Code of Conduct had been prepared by the political parties in order to guarantee compliance with the rules by all those involved in the polling competition… The cherry on the cake was that the United Nations had been called upon to certify the whole process set up. Never seen before in Africa!

Thus, and after the first ballot, all agreed to validate the genuineness of the round, and both candidates undertook to abide by the outcome of the second ballot. However, once it is all done with, we have two winners. This means a failure and a dead end, which may drive the country to a civil war much more ravaging than the one it went through between 2002 and 2005. And the only outcome for the winner, whichever side it is, will be to have to rule for a long time against the other half of the country. What happened? How did the situation develop and how can it be sorted out? Beyond cutting judgments, partial siding, overbearing orders and threats, it is crucial to reach an unprejudiced post-mortem that will represent a lesson for Côte d’Ivoire and Africa. An impartial and unbiased observer of the Ivorian political arena and aware that even if I claim my allegiance to pan-Africanism, one should not allow oneself to order the Ivorian authorities around, especially in an Africa where internal disputes are intricate, and where ballot processes manipulations are more than the rule. From what should have been the “perfect” ballot to the present entangled situation, I have identified four anomalies/mistakes which, in my opinion, have led to glitches resulting in the foreseeable failure of the process. This fiasco should of course be blamed on all the parties involved, whether domestic or international.

The first anomaly involves the non-compliance with the agreements endorsed, which, in particular, set out a framework and schedule for the serene organisation and holding of presidential elections. These terms were outlined in the 4th Amendment to the Ouagadougou political Agreement( ), which outlines a framework for the demobilisation, disarmament and weapons storage, defines the provisions for restoring the State machinery and — 10 —

government authorities throughout the Country, while planning the end of the crisis.

Article 3 of the Amendment highlights that “[…] in order to support the better organisation of the elections, both Parties have agreed to stimulate immediately, and under the ICC [Integrated Command Centre] and the supervision of the Impartial Forces, the disarmament and storage of the weapons of both former confrontational Forces, as well as the demobilisation of the former New Forces troupes. In any event, these operations must be completed at the latest two months before the date chosen for the presidential elections. The Amendment also specifies the regrouping and cantonment of the rebel forces, the dismantling of militia, the payment of demobilisation bonuses, all “due to be completed at the latest two months before the presidential elections”. In addition, article 8 of the same Amendment acknowledges that “the absence of reunification of the Country and the slow progress of the institutional and political normalisation critically hinder the organisation of fair, transparent and democratic elections”.

It seems that the above provisions, absolutely crucial to holding open ballots, have not been implemented, the rebels refusing to disarm and making the redeployment of the administration and collection by the State of fiscal and customs income uncertain. The recent events (Iraq, Afghanistan) have shown that it is illusory to expect holding open and transparent elections in areas controlled by armed rebels. Why did the international community not insist that the rebels comply with the Ouagadougou political Agreement and its four Amendments, which they themselves signed and endorsed? Why did the United Nations Security Council not order the rebels to disarm, as stipulated in the Ouagadougou Agreement that the Council endorsed? Why did Blaise Compaoré, the Facilitator and a leading figure in the Ouagadougou process, not apply the required pressure to ensure compliance with this crucial provision? And finally, why did the rebels and their political leader, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, refuse to disarm despite having signed the Agreement? This essential breach of the painstakingly prepared electoral process inevitably would lead to potential violence and intimidation in areas actually controlled by opposition groups in the Centre, North and West of the Country. The fact that such violence may have affected the validity of the ballot was considered differently by the Constitutional Council and by the Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Côte d’Ivoire just added to the crisis.

As I see it, the second anomaly rests with the composition and operating mode of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Taking the oath at the presidential palace on 25th February 2010 before the Constitutional Council, and in the presence of the Facilitator and of the United Nations representative, its members had “committed [themselves] to fulfil their assignment in compliance with the Constitution and with complete impartiality”.

However, this commission consists of 31 members, 11 representing the constitutional bodies and 20 issued from the political parties and rebel groups. It seems to be a unique situation — 11 —

in Africa that among the 20 representatives of the political parties and rebel groups in the Commission, 18 belong to the opposition and 2 to the party in office! Even supposing that the constitutional body’s delegates (11) are close to the Government, it would still only add up to 13 against 18. One way or the other, the “independent” Commission is in point of fact controlled by the opposition! Its Chairman is a senior member of the opposition coalition, and a former PDCI minister in the Gbagbo cabinet. Strangely, all its members were appointed by presidential decree! And among the 18 members representing the opposition, 6 stand for 3 rebel groups (MPCI, MPIGO and MJP) which have merged a long time ago with the New Forces, and 8 who come from 4 opposition political parties (PIT, UDPCI, MFA and UDCY), which at the first presidential ballot only managed a combined score of 3.5% of valid votes, the 4 others representing the RDR and PDCI… Never to be seen in Africa… or elsewhere! And still, the 2001 electoral law only made provisions for “two representatives of each political party or group with at least one MP at the National Assembly or having won at least one local council election”.

Meanwhile, there had been an attempted coup, an armed rebellion, the dispatch by France and the United Nations of intervention forces, and the instigation of the political ballet leading from Marcoussis to Ouagadougou, via Accra and Pretoria. It is in Marcoussis that such composition was devised, regardless of the Ivorian Constitution endorsed two years earlier by a vast majority of the people, and notwithstanding the most basic impartiality rules. In addition to this rather odd composition (and probably to limit it’s consequences), a decision-making module was added, which will definitely lead to a blockage: consensus. This blockage resulted from the disagreement over the way the outcome from several Northern districts in the Country, from the opportunity to disclose temporary ballot results considering the lack of consensus, and from the removal of authority from the Electoral Commission by the Constitutional Council. It is pursuant to this removal of authority that the IEC Chairman, a member of the opposition, has hastily and amidst great confusion declared non-consolidated results, and moreover not even validated by all the IEC central commissioners and, most unusually, from the campaign HQ of the opposition candidate, i.e. his own! Previously, a picture had circulated the world: that of papers ripped away from the very hands of the IEC spokesperson, a member of the opposition. The perpetrator, an IEC central commissioner and representative of the Interior Minister, justified his action before the media: “The operating mode we mutually agreed upon outlines that before the results are made public, they must be consolidated by the Central Commission.

The matter is that Mr Bamba Yacouba’s actions are a blatant breach of the operating mode unanimously endorsed by the IEC”.

It is therefore obvious that the Electoral Commission did not abide by it’s pledge of impartiality and compliance with the Constitution. However, considering it’s composition, operating mode and the stakes, how could it be otherwise? Can one be both judge and — 12 —

judged? Why should one consider that the results collected and disclosed by the sole Chairman of the Commission (and the Commission has not to date ruled on the issue) are a fair reflect of the electorate’s majority wishes? And, crucially, why was such composition of the Electoral Commission ever imposed? In any event, the 2008 decree amending the Electoral Code for the end of crisis poll outlines that the final announcement of the outcome is within the exclusive remit of the Constitutional Council, the disclosure of temporary results by the IEC being only one stage in the electoral process. And this is where, in my opinion, rests the third mistake. It is due to the haste of the Constitutional Council. The issue here is not to challenge its legitimacy or the legality of its action. Like anywhere else, its composition and assignments are determined by the Constitution. Also, and like anywhere else, its Chairman is appointed by the executive leader. Arguing that the Chairman is somewhat close to the President is therefore not admissible. It is the same everywhere.

Just as it is everywhere else, Côte d’Ivoire Constitutional Council is sole judge of the constitutionality of the Laws. It “controls the fairness of referendum operations and of the election of the people’s representatives” ( ). It “rules on the eligibility of candidates to the presidential and legislative elections, on the disputes linked to the election of the President of the Republic and Members of Parliament. The Constitutional Council announces the final results of the presidential elections”. ( ) It is under the provisions of this mandate that the Constitutional Council cancelled the ballot in 7 districts (out of the 8 challenged), on the grounds of 5 appeals introduced by candidate Laurent Gbagbo based on irregularities involving “the absence of his representatives and delegates in the polling stations; ballot-boxes stuffing; conveyance of records of proceedings by unauthorised individuals; voting obstruction; absence of polling booths; and rigging of valid vote numbers”. Based on evidence provided to support the demands, the Constitutional Council cancelled the ballots in the relevant districts, and re-adjusted the results, thus leading to confirm Laurent Gbagbo as the winner.

However, since the decision of the Constitutional Council is final and not subject to appeal, and considering the unusual circumstance, why did the Council not take the time to make further enquiries on the demands submitted by candidate Laurent Gbagbo, and may be even ask candidate Alassane Ouattara to introduce his own queries without challenging non-compliance with the deadlines? Similarly, why did it not order a new ballot in those districts disputed by requesting that the Government involves the armed forces and the United Nations troops to guarantee security in the polling stations of these 7 districts? Or just cancel the ballot, and hold it again after 45 days as outlined in the decree? This nevertheless remains a decision by the supreme court of the Country, and it is not ours to challenge here as it has happened so often in a number of other African elections, and even elsewhere (such as, for instance, the struggle between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the United States). I can understand that the swiftness implemented aimed — 13 —

at counteracting the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, but this unavoidably created a suspicion of prejudice.

The last rush and anomaly were of course the official recognition of the outcome by the Representative of the United Nations. During a press conference held in Abidjan on 12th November 2010, the United Nations General Secretary Special Representative in Côte d’Ivoire, Choi Young-Jin, had certified the final results of the first ballot of the presidential election held on 31st October 2010, six days after their announcement by the Constitutional Council. Relying on the five certification criteria (peace, inclusivity, access to the State media, finalised polling list and results), the UNOCI leader had considered that the first ballot of the presidential election had been held in “an overall peaceful and secure environment despite isolated incidents, in particular intimidation actions and obstruction to free movements in some regions”. It was the first time in its history that the UNO was entrusted with such a role. Pursuant to the Pretoria Agreements (2005) ( ), the Security Council had, through its resolution No. 1765 ( ), had entrusted the United Nations General Secretary Special Representative with the exclusive and personal certification mandate.

The Resolution emphasises that “the Certifier must safeguard the legitimate results with honour and determination. He will ensure compliance with the results, that the winner is effectively the candidate who came out ahead, that the results be neither democratically disputed nor subject to compromise”.

Relying on the compliance with the above-mentioned criteria, the certification by the General Secretary Special Representative involves the various stages of the electoral process, the safeguard of “legitimate results” and the prevention of “non-democratic disputes”.

The crucial issue which therefore requires clarification is therefore definitely the meaning of “legitimate results”. Are they interim results? Or final results? Those announced by the Independent Electoral Commission, or those published by the Constitutional Council?

Legitimate means compliant with the Law. In this very instance, the legitimacy of results derives, like in any democracy, from the body imparting such legitimacy, i.e. the Constitutional Council. Why did the United Nations Secretary General Special Representative not work on the results proclaimed by the Constitutional Council, and decide to certify them or not as was the case for the first ballot? In the event of enduring disagreement, why would he have not thoroughly checked the cancellation criteria brought forward by the Constitutional Council, and assessed their validity, and even required, under those exceptional circumstances, that Alassane Ouattara submit “democratic divergences”, then transmit a report to the Security Council?

No election is ever perfect, whether in Africa or elsewhere. And nobody can today pretend unequivocally that either won the presidential election, and in particular if the petitions filed were justified or not. This is why a judicial body is the one to which the Law confers last resort authority to determine and decide the final outcome of the ballot. Dur— 14 —

ing the past decade, many elections in Africa were challenged. Only the decisions made by the supreme judicial bodies have conferred victory to one of the candidates. Such should have been also the case in Côte d’Ivoire, unless the legitimacy of it’s Constitutional Council is challenged, which would be against the resolutions of the Security Council on Côte d’Ivoire: they all state that “[they] confirm it’s definite regard for the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity of Côte d’Ivoire, and endorse the significance of good neighbourhood, non interference and regional cooperation principles”. Supervision by the United Nations does not in any way affect the Ivorian Constitution. The haste with which the Certifier declared a winner undoubtedly contributed to the present deadlock, contrary to what occurred in Guinea where the various bodies took their time, thus allowing the tensions to dwindle.

All these malfunctions have drawn Côte d’Ivoire to the brinks of civil war, and the crucial issue now is now to avoid it.

How can this be sorted out?

Since the FPI came to power in 2000, one must admit that this party has never been able to run Côte d’Ivoire peacefully. Having suffered a coup, followed by an aborted armed rebellion which lead to a de facto partition in 2002, the regime has been imposed by the international community a power sharing, which has seen its opponents, and even the rebels, to exercise part of the power, including control over the Electoral Commission, hence over the election process. Instead of punishing the rebels and their support, they were offered ministerial jump seats, imposing consecutive Prime Ministers until appointing the rebels’ leader in the position (expected to be neutral during the oncoming presidential elections).

What they did not achieve through armed rebellion was offered to them on a silver tray by the international community, without getting in counterpart disarmament and country reunification. It is therefore understandable that half of the Country, which supported President Laurent Gbagbo, has grown an unrest and defiant attitude towards this international community, which hurried to acknowledge the interim results, hence ignoring the democratic process and the constitutional rules of the Country. On another hand, the other half of the Country considers that only the involvement of the International Community can protect the reliability of the ballot. Henceforth, orders and injunctions can only enhance the divisions that hit the Country. As for an armed intervention, and whatever may be the alleged reasons put forward, it would have immeasurable consequences in the whole region. Also, and even if Alassane Ouattara or Laurent Gbagbo were to be in power, they would be disregarded by half of the Country and reigning over a ruined community.

What is now an absolute must is a political dialogue, but it has to be this time an internal interchange without interferences or go-betweens. Just let the Ivoirians deal with their own issues! They are solely responsible for finding a way out of the crisis, and crucially for the — 15 —

future management of their Country’s resources – in particular the significant oil reserves which attract a lot of lust as all over Africa.

Whilst awaiting the end of the crisis, it is imperative that everyone is fully concerned with preventing violence on both sides, and ensures that any allegation of human rights violation is subjected to impartial local judicial enquiries, and swift and appropriate punishment. It would indeed be foolish to believe that in such an environment, violence is only on one side. There is no such thing under these circumstances as the “good ones” and the “bad ones”. Africa nowadays is subjected to a struggle for power which, beyond the obvious ethnic and religious national divergences, essentially opposes two concepts of society, and which, in simple words, see leaders promoting global liberalism to others, who support a sovereign and socialist pan-Africanism. As we celebrate 50 years of independence, all Africans should mainly consider what is really at stake through today’s events in Côte d’Ivoire. Gullibility after 50 years is unforgiveable!

References and additional reading 2003 Marcoussis (France) Agreement 2007 Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) Agreement Article 5 of the Law No. 2001–634 dated 09 October 2001, outlining the

composition, organisation, attributes and operation of the Independent

Electoral Commission Article 32 of the Constitution of the Côte d’Ivoire Republic Article 94 of the Constitution of the Côte d’Ivoire Republic 2005 Pretoria (South-Africa) Agreements Resolution No. 1765 endorsed by the Security Council on 16th July 2007 (January, 2011)

The Arab Spring: Could it happen on the African Street?

Are the street demonstrations seen in the Arab world since the beginning of the year possible elsewhere in Africa south of the Sahara? They have so far brought down apparently all-powerful leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, and have led to bloody engagement in Libya, whose acute drama perhaps heightens the African aspect of the crisis, just as does the restiveness in Algeria and Morocco, even though the contagion has touched the whole Arab world from Bahrein to Yemen. The African continent remains vitally concerned, even if for the time being it has been watching and wondering what the sudden political explosion portends. The word ‘revolution’ has been freely applied to these experiences, which have taken the world by surprise. Dictatorship has been regarded as a norm in so many Arab — 16 —

countries that suddenly to find a younger technology-wise generation burning to have its voice heard, and its passions felt, has been a revelation. We are in new and uncharted territory here, and few can see where it may lead, except the movement is more motivated by the quest for modernity than the protection of Islamic values, and, although mainly middle-class led appears to express the frustrations of a very broad spectrum of society.

But ‘revolution’ is a loose and easy term that has had many applications in history. The US, France, Russia and China all had memorable revolutions, each sui generis, each with very different results. Moreover, the demise of the European empires in the 20th century, often through prolonged and violent wars can be seen in some ways as one of the great revolutionary movements of recent times. In Africa it very often produced very un-revolutionary regimes, but the transfer of power was real and finite. Back in 1964, the then Chinese Premier Zhou En Lai, on a tour of East Africa made a still-remembered statement that Africa was ‘ripe for revolution’, implying that the independence that had been granted was bogus. He had in mind the 1964 upheaval in Zanzibar and the still turbulent Congo, where there was still a leftist regime in Stanleyville, but in fact it proved to be one of history’s less accurate predictions. Zhou might have done better to adapt his other famous saying on the consequences of the French revolution – “it’s too soon to tell”.

His observation may even so have struck a chord with those that hoped for more far-reaching change, especially in the area of decolonisation of the mind, just as the Mandela/Mbeki ‘African Renaissance’ aroused hopes at a time of particular continental difficulties. Just as there has been much talk of late of the ‘the Arab street’ as a major impulse for change, it is possible to talk of the ‘African street’. In the past seventy years, going back to the pre-independence era, there are plenty of examples of politically motivated street demonstrations. They often featured in the nationalist movements and there are some historic examples, from Abidjan, Accra, Leopoldville, but after independence was achieved, how many governments bit the dust because of demonstrators? The most conspicuous examples were in Sudan – the massive Mahdist protests against military rulers in Khartoum, which led to the fall of General Abboud (1964) and of General Nimeiry (1985). Sudan at the moment has other things on its mind because of the impending agreed division of the country into two after the January referendum vote. The Omar Bechir regime is still weakened, and with a wary eye cast on the Egyptian situation.

The 1960s are better recalled as the season of coups that brought the blight of military rule to a dozen countries, mainly in West Africa. What is almost forgotten in these dismal sagas is that there were three veritable case histories of changes of regime in francophone Africa, drawing on the French revolutionary tradition, generated from the street:

— 17 —

1. The fall of the corrupt and eccentric Abbé Fulbert Youlou in Congo-Brazzaville in August 1963 was the result of three days of demonstrations besieging the diminutive unfrocked priest (with a taste for rose-coloured soutanes and Mumm Cordon Rouge champagne) until he conceded power to a coalition of trade unionists, students and Marxist intellectuals using the language of 19th century France (the three days of riots were known as Les Trois Glorieuses in acknowledgement to Paris 1848. A ‘Communist’ regime was set up under President Alphonse Masssemba Debat, ushering in fifteen years of revolutionary turbulence complete with coups and assassinations until the definitive army take-over of President Sassou Nguesso, who has remained uneasily in power for much of the ensuing period. Although still vaguely Marxist, the country never left the CFA zone and the French sphere of influence.

2.

The fall of French stooge Hubert Maga, a northerner, in the then Dahomey in October 1963, was also the product of demonstrations organised by southern-based political parties and trade unions, especially emanating from Porto Novo. They concentrated on his presidential palace (built in lavish Hollywood Egyptian-style, in a totally bankrupt mini-state), but it led to a period of chronic instability with a series of coups, changes of government and a bizarre Roman-style triumvirate until the country arrived at its own Marxist revolution following the coup of Colonel Kérékou in 1972. The name was changed to the Peoples Republic of Benin, devised by the home grown Marxist intellectuals (the country was known as the ‘Left bank of Africa’) but the revolution soon became a hollow dictatorship that in turn was eased out of power in the ‘democracy wave’ of 1989–90 following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

3.

The oddest successful street demonstration of the period was in the then Upper Volta in January 1966 when a fairly modest peaceful march by groups of youths and trade unionists against the unpopular President Maurice Yaméogo led to the army taking power rather than fire on children. It led to a series of unstable governments, sometimes military sometimes civilian until the more authentic revolution of Thomas Sankara in 1964. This strange experiment in populism ended with his assassination in 1987 and the arrival of a more typical dictatorship under Blaise Compaoré, now in power for 24 years. All of these demonstrations were urban phenomena, confined to the capitals, leaving the rest of the country-bewildered spectators.

The 1960s also saw copycat demonstrations after the May 1968 student/worker model from Paris, most spectacularly in Dakar where the Senghor regime was only saved by the army.

The overthrow of President Tsiranana in Madagascar in 1972 was a textbook case of a successful mass street protests, again on the Paris model, even if it led to military regimes only — 18 —

shed in the 1990s. Indeed, for the next period of regime-changes in the wake of popular movements you have to look at the early 1990s, where the model was this time the democracy revolutions of Eastern Europe. The most spectacular was the case of Benin, where a model National Conference mobilising civil society (again modelled on the Estates General of 1789 France) unseated President Kérékou who complained weeping that he had been the victim of a coup. Most other African autocrats managed successfully to tame the national conferences although there had been demonstrations bin Mobutu’s Congo, Bongo’s Gabon, Biya’s Cameroon, and particularly bloodily, Eyadèma’s Togo. The only democratic regime change of the period was in Mali, and was the result of the disinterested coup by Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré (‘ATT’) following days of violent protest. This ushered in a genuine multi-party democracy still currently in place. This century has been much less enthused with popular protest. The spectacular exception was Guinea in 2004–5 where there was a genuinely national protest movement involving country-wide demonstrations against the deeply unpopular corrupt rule of the ailing military dictator Lansana Conté, which managed to secure the introduction of a reform government although, despite illhealth Conté was able to outmanoeuvre the reformers. But for a year or so Guinea seemed on the brink of a genuine revolution.

One also has to consider the special case of Côte d’Ivoire, which had seen feeble protests at the end of Houphouët-Boigny’s rule, but witnessed a real popular mobilisation after the November 2000 elections in which Laurent Gbagbo’s victorious party organised marches to dislodge the military ruler Robert Gueï. Alas, the systematic use by President Gbagbo of organised militias to secure his power-base debased the whole concept of genuine popular demonstrations in the pursuit of xenophobic sectionalism. Alassane Ouattara’s recent call for Cairo-style protest against Gbagbo ignores the fact that much of southern Côte D’Ivoire voted for Gbagbo and against Ouattara. It is a strange fact that Anglophone Africa has been much less disposed to street protest, except perhaps recently in Kenya, but one has to pay tribute to South Africa, where protest from Sharpeville to Soweto was a feature of the anti-apartheid movement that played a crucial role in the demise of the ncient regime. We may yet see the Arab model taken up in countries like Senegal or Djibouti but for the moment the African street has yet to be mobilised, in spite of the existence of regimes that may merit such treatment.

(February, 2011)

— 19 —

Nigeria’s Test Case Election: plus ca change?

In April Nigeria will be passing through its four yearly electoral marathons, with elections to presidency, national assembly, and governorships and assemblies in 36 States, spread over three Saturdays. This will be the third time Nigeria has been through this experience in its twelve years of civilian rule – one can set aside the election of 1999, which had many shortcomings, but these were understood because of the need to push it through as rapidly as possible to complete the transition to civil rule.

The elections of 2003 and 2007 genuinely disappointed those who had high hopes for the fourth republic. Too many of the old vices of rigging and thuggery, and the lack of independence of the election administration, which had helped precipitate military rule in the first place. It seemed as if the Bourbons of the Nigerian political class had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. If anything the 2007 vote saw more fraud than that of 2003, especially in the Delta (at that time, admittedly, in the middle of violent dislocation). The views of observers, both Nigerian and international were increasingly critical, and abuses received more media attention in 2007 than in 2003.

The narrative is still very much about building democracy. The annulment by the military of the June 12, 1993 presidential election (the only clean election Nigeria has ever held), led to events bringing to power later that year the most brutal regime in Nigeria’s history – that of General Sani Abacha. The single most potent reason for the survival of the Fourth Republic introduced in 1999 after Abacha’s death has been that he gave military rule a permanently bad name. Although civilian rule has had many shortcomings, there have rarely been indications of the military returning.

The democratic dispensation has been helped by a consistently high oil price. Reforms

by President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007) and cancellation of much of the country’s debt burden also brought benefits, as did the campaign against corruption, flourishing from the continued flow of oil money.

So what is Nigeria’s particular problem with elections? Democratic practices in Africa have become more sophisticated, exploiting modern technology from mobile phones to private FM radio stations, and diverse facilities offered by the by the Internet, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, deployed to such great effect in Tunis and Cairo this year. Elections in Ghana, Benin and Senegal have shown the way, and a country with a burgeoning technology-loving civil society like Nigeria ought to develop the necessary checks and balances that could prevent unreconstructed political throwbacks from still managing to steal elections.

From the 1950s, Nigerian politicians have shown a cynical awareness that to win an election it is essential to control the streets. Areas where there have been some semblance of contest have been those where hold on the streets have been in doubt. Most people have — 20 —

gone into politics because of the incredible opportunities it offered for making money, from access to oil revenues to massive contracts to patronage of all kind, politics has been the source of most large personal fortunes. The rise of a business class in the Fourth Republic has diversified openings for enrichment, especially in the banking and financial sectors, but politics, as much at State as Federal level, is still the obvious avenue to wealth.

There are many in Nigeria who are cynical when told that this time round ‘things are going to be different,’ although there is a rising impatience for change among the expanding middle classes, especially the younger generation. Fears that the underlying regional and ethnic tensions that have always been present in Nigeria’s political life are still present, although the mould of three parties to three regions was broken in 1967 with the creation of states, (now thirty-six in number), where much power and influence lie.

There is some concern over violence, especially in northern states – there was a bomb in Niger State in early March that killed ten people and Boko Haram, the purported arm in Nigeria of al Qaida is still active in the north-east. There have also been signs of unrest in the Delta, despite the ceasefire, but in 2007 persistent troubles there did not prevent the elections from holding.

The front-runner in the elections is perforce President Goodluck Jonathan, who earned cautious good opinions for his management of the difficult transition from former President Umaru Yar’Adua. and in his year in office Jonathan not made major errors. His own perceived mediocrity is probably surpassed by that of his Vice-President, Namadi Sambo (also his election running-mate, from the strategic Northern state of Kaduna), but uncontroversial leadership candidates often thrive in a sharply competitive country like Nigeria. He will undoubtedly benefit from the incumbency factor, even if rigging opportunities prove less open.

The way in which Jonathan’s candidacy was steamrollered through the Convention of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) caused much upset in the North. It had been expected there that another Northerner would inherit the mantle of the late Yar’Adua, because of the PDP’s zoning system, alternating southern and northern presidents. This, however, was only a party rule, not in the constitution, while Jonathan’s succession to the remainder of Yar’Adua’s term definitely observed constitutional niceties. Although his ducking out of the recent televised candidates’ debate was perhaps unfortunate, it was in keeping with his laid-back, low-key image.

Most importantly, Jonathan is from the Delta, the region of minorities known in Nigerian political jargon as South-South, an area which has never had a president before, and it has seemed too many to be natural justice, as well as good politics, to have a leader from a region that has given so much political trouble in recent times. At the PDP Convention he beat soundly the wealthy and ambitious Northerner, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, now not standing. But the northern vote is still seriously split.

— 21 —

There are twenty-one candidates, but, other than Jonathan, those reckoned to have a chance are all northerners. Firstly – former military leader Muhammadu Buhari, who stood in 2003 and 2007 but only had a strong showing in the far north, the most Islamic part of Nigeria. Now on the ticket of a new party, the Congress for progressive change (CPC), with ‘born-again’ pastor Tunde Bakare as his running-mate, a surprising pairing, although the two ‘fundamentalists’ have apparently found shared values.

Buhari will have serious competition for the vote in far-north states from the Governor of Kano State Ibrahim Shekarau, leader of Buhari’s former party the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), also running on a progressive but puritanical ticket, with John Oyegun, a respected veteran minority politician from Edo State as his running mate. The problem of both Buhari and Shekarau is uncertain appeal in Southern Nigeria. A much more attractive Northern candidate in the south is the former anti-corruption ‘Tsar’ Nuhu Ribadu, who acquired substantial reputation for himself in the fight against corruption as head of the Economic and Financial Crimes commission in Obasanjo’s second term. Although sometimes accused of pursuing ex-President Obasanjo’s sometimes devious political agenda, Ribadu was perceived all over Nigeria as someone who was ready to take on Nigeria’s unattractive political establishment.

It will be interesting to see if his fighting spirit can translate itself into the murkier world of politics, as he has chosen the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) party, whose traditional heartland is among the Yoruba people of the south-west, albeit with strong radical roots. He has a respected reforming Yoruba banker Fola Adeola as his running mate. On the other hand, ex-President Obasanjo, one of the biggest ‘beasts’ in Nigeria’s political jungle, still one of the PDP’s main king-makers, is keen to deliver south-west voters for the PDP (as he did in 2003 and 2007, as well as the governorship of Ogun State. Lagos has always been a prize that has eluded the PDP, and will continue to be so.

In view of the likely heightened international focus on these elections, due to the wind of democratic change in the north of the continent, high hopes are attached to Attahiru Jega, the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral commission (INEC), a body that in the past has earned much abuse for too easy compliance to political pressures. A former head of the radical university lecturers’ union, his integrity has been much praised. But although voter registration has been completed (more than 73m are on the electoral roll) there have been many hiccups and there are likely to be more complaints.

Running INEC is one of the most difficult jobs on the Nigerian political landscape, and the weight of the old way of doing things may prove hard to change. It is to be hoped that new technology may this time kick in and help produce a more authentic result, but it is real political will that will count. The presidential result may well be predictable, but a higher international approval rating will do the country a world of good.

(March, 2011) — 22 —

Côte D’Ivoire: Fresh Challenges for Ouattara The arrest of Laurent and Simone Gbagbo, and the end of the Gbagbo regime, marks a turning point in the troubled history of Côte d’Ivoire. As noted when I last wrote in detail on the Ivoirian crisis in January, for the last twelve years the country which was once the most promising in former French West Africa has been struggling through a series of coups, civil war and partition. It had been hoped that the election of last October-November would have marked a definitive end to instability. But contrary to the expectations of many, it triggered the worst crisis of all that had happened since 1999.

Since the fatal and ultimately doomed decision of incumbent President Gbagbo to contest the United Nations-endorsed final election result, which gave the presidency to Gbagbo’s opponent Alassane Ouattara, the country found itself in the absurd situation of having two presidents. One inhabited the presidential palace; the other occupied the Golf Hotel under UN protection. Since December there has been a mounting crisis and war of words, with Ouattara’s allies in the Forces Nouvelles in control in the northern half of the country as far as Bouaké, and Gbagbo in control in Abidjan and most of the south and west, and still ostensibly in control of army, gendarmeries and police, but most especially of violent and uncontrollable militias. Most of the international community, not to mention the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the African Union (AU supported Ouattara), with only Angola, and, most uncertainly, South Africa, still backing Gbagbo, as well as a handful of African intellectuals who were disturbed at the progressively higher profile that France was taking in the crisis. Gbagbo was also said to have recruited mercenaries mainly among Liberians just across the western border. The role of France has inevitably come under much scrutiny, in part because of the fairly reckless interventionist policy she has carried out for much of the period since independence.

Arguably, since the moral humiliation in Rwanda in 1994, this has changed, and President Sarkozy has occasionally put himself forward as champion of a new deal, and a break with the past. But the temptation to play the gendarme in Africa, which Giscard D’Estaing and Mitterrand succumbed to before him, having likewise entered power with promises to eschew the old ways of de Gaulle and his eminence grise Jacques Foccart, seems to have proved too strong. This was not just in Cote D’Ivoire, but also in Libya, where France has been even more gung ho. The cause of unseating Gaddafy may be moral, but the current intervention looks like a can of worms.

President Chirac, an old interventionist Gaullist in his time, had his hands tied for much of his period in office by cohabitation with the Socialist Party under Lionel Jospin.

But Chirac was responsible for sending French troops to Cote d’Ivoire after the coup of September 2002, when the soldiers of Opération Licorne placed themselves between the Forces Nouvelles (FN) in the north, and the remains of the Ivorian army in the south. This — 23 —

constituted a buffer zone which effectively stopped the FN from advancing on Abidjan, and ushered in the years of de facto partition which successive peace deals endeavoured to bring to an end. The elections of 2010 were supposed to consecrate reunification. Alas, it turned out differently. Almost from the beginning, France sought not to do this alone, and progressively brought in the United Nations, so that as the UN force increased, Opération Licorne shrank. This meant that when the balloon went up, it was the UN that bore the brunt of Gbagbo’s opposition, especially after their wholehearted commitment to the election result. But when it came to it and the reconstituted army of the north was ready to move in mid-March to take over the whole country and install as legitimate president Ouattara, this time the French were in there behind them, which reinforced the Gbagbo view that the whole affair was really a French conspiracy. The extent of their involvement in the unseating of Gbagbo is already a subject of controversy, for although the taking of the Cocody presidential palace was carried out by Ouattara’s troops, it seems the French bombardments of Gbagbo’s arsenals, and the unblocking of the tunnel from the French embassy, broke the military stalemate that had been developing in the battle for Abidjan.

What impresses, however, is not just the UN’s role but also the broad international support for a clear election winner deprived of his throne by a sit-tight president. This gainsays the French conspiracy theory, and will help Ouattara immensely in the challenges he is now facing. Certainly in ECOWAS there has been a collective sigh of relief that an intervention on their part will no longer be necessary. In retrospect, Gbagbo’s struggle to hold on to power looked increasingly desperate, as his economic situation began to collapse, and his own army showed no enthusiasm to fight. He also had no bank full of gold bullion like the great leader in Libya.

Ouattara’s first challenge is political. He has already called for reconciliation, and has suggested that the first step for Gbagbo and his supporters (and others) may appear before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The International Criminal Court has also shown deep interest. Although there is still some clearing out of militias continuing, the appeal by prominent hard-line members of Gbagbo’s party, the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) for a laying down of arms is a good sign. But will he include the FPI in a government of national unity? And how big a role will be accorded to the former single party, the Party Democratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), led by former President Konan Bédié, whose vote put Ouattara in power in the second round of voting on November 28, 2010. They will expect a reward, and not just as part of the ‘alliance of Houphouëtists’(both Bédié and Ouattara had served Houphouët-Boigny, the country’s first president and founding father, who can always be called on as the spirit of unity. Bedie had been the main begetter of the disastrous ‘Ivoirité’ policy which excluded many northerners from voting and Ouattara even from standing. Gbagbo had only adopted it later as politically convenient and pandering to the inherent xenophobia of the south. Parallel to, and ultimately more important, is — 24 —

the security situation. One has especially to ask, how much control Ouattara has over the forces that put him in power. The defection almost without fighting of much of Gbagbo’s regular forces is encouraging and should make reintegration easier, although this is an army that has been seriously damaged over the past twelve years. Despite all the UN sponsored disarmament programmes, army reintegration was never quite convincing. This does not even begin to answer queries about alleged atrocities in the western part of the country, especially in Douekoue.

The other great challenge is putting the once successful economy together again.

Relaunching the vital cocoa networks may not be hard, although smuggling is rampant, and funds from offshore oil will be more than welcome at the moment. The opening of communications to neighbours should also help; but the cost of repairing damaged infrastructure and bringing Abidjan back to its former glory will be immense, running into billions of dollars. The fact that donors approve of Ouattara, and his relations built up over his years in the IMF are significant, should make the big bucks easier to tap. There have already been encouraging noises out of Paris, and the EU in Brussels, where substantial funds can be made available. In some respects it may happen quicker than some currently fear, as there are buckets of goodwill, but the country is politically and socially fractured, and there will be a continuing problem of youth unemployment which helped fuel the crisis in the first place. One harbinger of a convincing recovery will be when the African Development Bank decides to return to its lavish but still empty headquarters on Abidjan’s Plateau, once one of Africa’s busiest business districts.

Can I use this space to thank copiously the BCA representative in Cote d’Ivoire, Craig Hitchcock, for the continuous and well-informed supply of information he has been sending from Abidjan, even in the darkest days of the conflict, when many had decided to leave?

We hope to get a chance to hear him in person before too long.

(April, 2011)

Nigeria’s Election Model: Still unsafe to make assumptions in a country of surprises Having written at length on this page only two months ago on the Nigerian elections, this comment can only be a postscript. Most particularly, I have been reproached by official Nigerians for having demonstrated too much scepticism, for not having been sufficiently aware in advance that a real change in the Nigerian way of voting was at last being engaged.

Once the presidential election had happened on April 16, the change was apparent, notwithstanding the regrettable violence that followed the election in parts of the northern states. The enthusiasm shown by the media, and international and domestic observers were — 25 —

signs that this had been a different kind of election from the dismal experiences of 2003 and 2007. Despite the necessary haste of the new Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) under Professor Attahiru Jega, and a number of hiccups along the way, there was a genuine attempt to give the Nigerian people the kind of voting experience they have long deserved (if only judging by the patient attachment to the electoral process shown by would-be voters in election after election, in spite of the frequent frustration of their aspirations).

Judging by relative standards, it is true, Jega’s election was much better than those of his un-lamented predecessor Maurice Iwu. Perhaps the best way of demonstrating my regret that I was too cautious, too disbelieving in my last piece, is by providing a record of the inspirational session Professor Jega held with members of the Nigerian diaspora in London at the Nigerian High Commission in mid-May, at which I had the good fortune to be present. Until recently a radical leader of the university staff union, he impressed the audience first of all with his frankness and admission of where things went wrong, a quality bringing him acclaim in Nigeria. He first acknowledged that for his academic colleagues, “the jury is still out” on the elections. He went on to describe how his nomination to the post of INEC Chairman in June last year had followed the report of the panel set up under former Chief Justice Uwais, which had toured the country seeking views on electoral reform. Some 80 per cent of the panel’s recommendations were adopted by the legislature although the appointment of the Chairman remained in the hands of the President. It was the more general commitment to INEC’s independence that caused Prof Jega to accept the appointment, along with “twelve other committed and passionate Nigerians”, a commitment borne out by events. The new dispensation, said Professor Jega, also had the blessing of friends of Nigeria, including Non-governmental Organisations, and development partners. The key factor was a commitment to “obey the rules” and end the “culture of executive lawlessness”. He named no names but it was an implied criticism of his predecessor at INEC. One of the main problems was the short time available to fulfil the new mandate. He was “hitting the ground running”, he said. The election had originally been due in January 2011, but when it was found that the voters’ register was not credible, and a new one was needed, the polls were postponed until April. and a new register with 73.5m ‘registrable Nigerians’ was drawn up in a remarkable three weeks, ending on February 8, following a series of amendments to the electoral act “unprecedented in Nigeria’s history”.

Timing, said Jega, now “dictated the methodology” and a complex electronic system compiled “the best database in the country” complete with photos, addresses, and even phone numbers. This also permitted more easily “identification of multiple registration” and meant greater prevention of such traditional rigging tools as stolen ballot boxes and other evident frauds. It also made possible simultaneous registration and voting. Although it was “not a perfect election” as he said, “our objective was to be much better”. He was — 26 —

obliged to mention the delay of the polls by one week on April 2 because key materials had not turned up in time. “It could not happen without result sheets” he remarked laconically. Paradoxically one has been aware this admission of early failure encouraged the Nigerian public to believe more in INEC’s honesty and integrity than they had been wont to in the past. Jega added that in many respects the whole exercise was “a logistical nightmare” because of Nigeria’s size and geography”, as well as problems of power supply and transport, and the difficulty of operating in “insurgency areas” such as the Niger Delta or Borno State. There was also, he said, the very particular problem of transit of votes from polling stations to collation centres, an area which Dr Jega acknowledged was still “the weakest link”. This was because “the mind-set of our politicians” with their “do or die mentality” had not changed, although electoral reforms had meant that fraud was in fact harder, making it easier to find the evidence to put before tribunals. He particularly praised the members of the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC) volunteers – an essential part of INEC personnel. He also had a good word for the armed forces especially the Air Force and the Navy, which offered invaluable help in difficult transport situations. INEC, he said, now had time to properly prepare for the vote in 2015, supported by a professional ICT-trained cadre of returning and collating officers. There was also a serious need for more voter education. Optimistically he concluded that by 2015 INEC would become the model “not just for Africa but for the world.”

Jega was honest enough to look at the negative aspects of the election, recognising that regrettably there had been “terrible post-election violence”. This had actually been played down in Nigerian media – in part because of not wanting to be inflammatory, but the troubles were marked by the unpleasant undertones of all previous riots in the north, from early in the fourth republic and the Maitatsine troubles in the second Republic. One could follow this trend back to 1966, when the series of anti-Igbo massacres in the North were arguably one of the main factors that led to the civil war the next year. One highly interesting phenomenon in these latest riots, which died down after the heavy military response, was that they involved not simply attacks on southerners, but also on the northern elite.

Houses belonging to emirs were burnt, and also those of northern PDP leaders. Some stress that this was the first time such an intra-North reaction had occurred, although it had long been half-expected. There has been school of thought that said that Northern radicalism had always been a tender plant that would never amount to much. The new breed of northern radicals that emerged from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria in the 1970s and ‘80s produced some excellent polemicists like Bala Usman, but they were often talking in a vacuum, and made little impact on the ruling political class in the north.

One generalisation that I have often made about Nigeria is that it is a place where generalisations contradict each other. It is unsafe to make too many assumptions, as it is a country of frequent surprises. For example, the use of the expression ‘the North’ is often used — 27 —

too glibly by those writing of Nigeria. Where it had strong significance at independence, especially as promoted by the colonial British, it can be convincingly argued that the myth of the North died with the creation of ‘twelve states’ in 1967 and became harder to assess, as, over the years, the number rose to 36, and the diversity of Nigeria’s populations became more and more apparent, though people still like to talk of ‘the North’. Another generalisation often made is that Nigeria will soon experience fully the change in the generations from the old political guard who have dominated the scene for far too long. This is an idea that in fact has been touted in the past, only to find that the ‘new breeds’ have tended to behave as badly as the old, especially when confronted with the prevailing corrupt electoral culture, which Professor Jega forcibly decried. We are also often told that the Nigerian diaspora, especially in Europe and the US will come to play a more and more important role, even if at the moment they still do not have the vote. This is a generalisation that actually has roots, as apart from the huge role that remittances now play in Nigeria’s economic well-being, the position that many have come to play in their adopted countries, and the education they have received can now be counted a real national asset. Many of them now see themselves playing a vital role in stimulating the birth of a new Nigeria that can make their country genuinely a part of the world in the era of globalisation.

(May, 2011)

ECOWAS and Democracy Back in the 1960s, the newly independent African states, formed their common political organisation Organisation of African unity (OAU) as a body committed to existing states and borders, with political union as a D distant dream. At the same time, as if to make up for their lack of boldness, or out of basic common sense, they came to the conclusion that the best basis for arriving at that union was to achieve economic integration by bringing smaller units together into a wider entity, especially creating a single market.

The most practical way to pursue this, it was felt, was through regional groupings. This was championed by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, which designed five major regions – north, west, central, east and south. There was some confusion in the east and south, since at a certain period the two came together as COMESA (the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa), a looser design obfuscated by the spontaneous formation after 1980 of what later became the Southern African Development Community (SADC) based originally on front-line states fighting apartheid South Africa. The interlocking groupings have been further confused of late by the revival of the idea of the East African community in which the former states of the old EAC are now joined with Rwanda and Burundi in a grouping making very real progress. SADC, also, took on a more robust shape — 28 —

with the joining of South Africa after 1994, although the South African presence creates its own challenges.

The grouping which has always been seen as the pioneer regional grouping that has made the most positive progress towards integration has been the Economic Community of West African States (formed in 1975 by the Treaty of Lagos). The size of Nigeria puts it to some extent in the same hegemonic position in ECOWAS as South Africa in SADC, but Nigeria does not have quite the same global status as South Africa in that the latter is often described as a “first world country in a third world setting.” ECOWAS, in its thirty-six years of existence, has not been without its travails, especially when the grouping became directly involved politically in helping to settle the brutal civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, having already been obliged to adopt a more political stance at the time of the new wave of democracy that affected Africa from the beginning of that decade onwards. This was very much the theme of an important lecture delivered on the record at Chatham House earlier this month by the President of the ECOWAS Commission, James Victor Gbeho, a seasoned diplomat who was Ghana’s Foreign Minister for five years at the end of the Rawlings period in power.

Gbeho, now in his seventies, came to the ECOWAS job unexpectedly when his predecessor Ibn Mohammed Chambas was translated to the equally challenging position of running the Secretariat of the Africa Caribbean and Pacific Group in Brussels. Ghana’s eight years dispensation at ECOWAS had a year to run, and Gbeho was an undisputed safe pair of hands. At the ECOWAS summit in March in Abuja, his term was extended so that agreement could be reached on his successor, at the same time as President Goodluck’s term was also extended by another year. His pairing comes at a fortuitous time as the resolution of the Ivoirian crisis (albeit with the use of force) means that there is now no major conflict in the region, and, with the help of the ECOWAS High Authority, the grouping is more able to develop its role as “a leading brand in regional integration”. In his lecture, Gbeho said that there were now more and more instances of incumbents losing elections and accepting the results, and there was a “zero tolerance” for power obtained by constitutional means. He cited the examples of Guinea and Niger, where, after some ructions, there were “peaceful transparent outcomes”. He also referred to the “principled role” of ECOWAS in the Ivoirian crisis, although questioners pointed out that the AU had complicated the issue and the crisis was finally resolved through intervention from the UN and France.

He stressed that there is an opportunity for the grouping to concentrate on its economic vocation, which had known some problems in the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s. The early success of ECOWAS had been in part due to the adoption in 1976 of the protocol of movement of peoples, which has slowly been worked on in the direction of common citizenship. Although there was slow movement towards the idea of a common market, he referred to the adoption of a common agricultural policy in 2009 and the recent decision to — 29 —

form a common currency by 2020. Here I made so bold as to ask a question on France’s position on this, recognising the frequent delays in moves towards this policy. Was the linkage of franc zone countries to the Euro a problem here? He replied that there had been no objections raised, either by the weight CFA countries, or by France. The non-CFA countries (who range all the way from the small Gambia to large Nigeria) also had to ensure their own convergence criteria, which had been one of the causes of delay in the past. He also drew attention to continued difficulties in relations with the EU over the vexed question of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). These were an important provision in the Cotonou Agreements of 2000 replacing the Lome Convention, which had governed relations between Europe and the ACP countries over the previous twenty-five years. Although Cotonou had been presented as a progressive view deal, in fact it back-tracked on many of the better aspects of Lomé, and the EPAs, although supposedly promoting regionalism, in fact split the ACP into six parts, creating disunity. Although intended to be completed by 2007, increasingly acrimonious negotiations meant that, although the Caribbean and Pacific, as well as the East Africans partially signed up, ECOWAS is in a difficult stalled discussion, mainly, says Gbeho, because the EU are insisting on the abolition of the ECOWAS ‘community levy’ which provides 80 per cent of the organisation’s budget, and has helped stabilise its existence.

I must confess to some surprise that the EPA argument is still rumbling. With ECOWAS insisting that the accord has to be regional (Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire’s interim accords notwithstanding), it is likely to drag on. The poor atmosphere currently prevailing in Africa’s relations with Europe (very different from the mood which surrounded the original Lomé Convention in 1975) is increasingly encouraging Africa’s regional groupings to look for partnerships elsewhere. While continuing to recognise the continuing importance of the relationship with Europe, there no longer appears to be much that is ‘special,’ despite all the new superstructure of Europe-Africa strategies that have been devised since the Lisbon summit of 2007. Gbeho in his lecture referred to all the infrastructure projects in Africa now involving non-Europeans, emphasising that for ECOWAS the Asians were “coming in loud and strong.” All this would seem to confirm his slogan on the “leading brand in regional integration”.

(June, 2011)

Some African Success Stories Amid all the current euphoria that Africa is after all not the ‘hopeless continent,’ which The Economist once so cruelly branded it, and is now actually attracting more investment than other emerging markets, there have been a number of caveats. One familiar one — 30 —

is that it is a mistake to regard Africa as a single entity, that there are a multitude of countries with vastly different situations and prospects, where generalisations are odious. Such is the confusion that surrounds the current frenzy of Murdoch-gate and all its trappings, that those who felt that David Cameron was right to be travelling in South Africa and Nigeria (accompanied by “25 business leaders drawn from blue chip companies, private equity firms and small businesses”), seemed to feel it was something to do with the disastrous famine in the horn of Africa. In fact it was a trade promotion exercise in subSaharan Africa’s two most important countries. Thus what we had was an absurd conflation of opposing generalisations.

It was in fact quite sensible of the Prime Minister to prioritise relations with the two biggest African economies. A leader on his visit in The Times observed: “as a single market of one billion people Africa could rival china or India,” adding, a trifle obsequiously, “David Cameron recognises just how much and how fast life in Africa is changing.” No doubt his trip-planners bore in mind the interesting Morgan Stanley prediction that what they call Nigeria’s “growth charge” was so promising at the moment that it would be overtaking South Africa by 2025, as oil prices climb (already a risky assumption, but then Morgan Stanley are in the business of risk assessment) and consumer spending expands.

Morgan Stanley economists in Johannesburg predict that Nigeria’s crude output is estimated to climb 9.5 per cent to 2.3m barrels a day by 2012 while prices will continue to be over $100 a barrel. Rising wages and an increase in borrowing is helping to boost consumer spending and”the sources of output growth are broadening and accelerating, retail trade is vibrant and its financial markets are deepening”. This glowing picture is confirmed by other commentators, always with the usual political provisos. Indeed the IMF forecasts that Nigeria’s economy is going to grow from the present GDP of $286bn to $400bn by 2016.

Taking the wide variety of African experiences into account, there is a general consensus that one of the greatest success stories among the membership of the African Union is Mauritius. This was recognised at the recent dinner of the African Business Awards, which gave Mauritius that for “Country Achievement for Sustained Improvement in Investment climate”, which although not quite ‘best economy’ (how would one judge it anyway?) is still a highly satisfactory source of praise. Some may say that Mauritius is extremely atypical, even in the midst of African diversity. First, it is an island state, which gives it special conditions, and secondly it has a majority of ethnic Indians, the only country on the continent to have neither an Arab nor a black majority. It still has a number of achievements to its credit quite apart from its current investment climate. There is, for example, its functioning democracy, in operation since 1968, in which what the French call alternance has been working well. The party of the father of independence, Sir Seewosagur Ramgoolam, Prime Minister until his death in 1985 has alternated in office with an alliance of opposition parties, which had a period in power from until 2005, during which period the country — 31 —

became a Republic. After winning the 2005 elections, Sir Seewosagur’s son, Navin became Prime Minister, and won elections again in 2010. Over forty years of political stability has been one of the factors that have given it a boost as an investment destination.

The main achievement, however has been converting the sugar monoculture which obtained at independence into a diversified economy dependent not just on sugar but tourism and financial services, industry (including textiles) which has permitted it to become a middle income economy with an average growth rate over the past thirty years of 4.6 per cent, with a range of encouraging statistics on the human development side, in health, education, life expectancy and equitable income distribution. It has always enjoyed close relations with Europe having been colonised successively by Dutch, French and British and trilingual in English, French and Hindi, it has increasingly diversified its source of both aid and investment. When the High Commissioner in London, Abhimanu Kundaswamy came to talk to the BCA recently, he confirmed that the EU had always considered Mauritius a special partner (perhaps because of its francophone connection). It mattered less now that the sugar Protocol in the EU-ACP accords was coming to an end, and Mauritius was now looking increasingly to partnerships in Asia, partly because of its crucial geographical location in the Indian Ocean. Apart from the obvious Indian link, China, Malaysia, and others in the Far East had all been showing an interest. It also values its ties with the Commonwealth, and in 2015 is scheduled to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The BCA, increasingly evolving a Pan-African organisation, this month also hosted the High Commissioner for Mozambique, Antonio Gumende, who is concluding his nineyear tenure as High Commissioner amid many plaudits for his constructive and rewarding diplomacy. With his fluent English and his friendly outreach he has built a major bridgehead for his country, especially in Commonwealth circles. He told the meeting that Mozambique has “an economy transformed beyond recognition.” Rather than trundling out statistics he gave examples of how Mozambique is now in what financial observers call the club of Seven (countries tracked over ten years as having 7 per cent growth; or how major corporations like Exxon Mobil have suddenly developed an interest in a relatively small $10bn economy; or how worried investors monitor closely statements by government ministers. He drew particular attention to the energy sector (both oil and natural gas) and the power sector, as one of the few countries with an electricity surplus, which is also a major exporter of coal. Ironically, the problem is how to provide electricity for Maputo when so much of that generated at the celebrated Cahora Bassa hydro-electric dam is exported to South Africa. There is also huge potential in tourism, a coastline of beaches and islands, he says, the distance “from London to Moscow, as well as a wealth of wildlife, both land and marine.” For tourism and the development of the country’s known considerable agricultural resources, investment is needed for the “fragile infrastructure”, both road and rail. Mr — 32 —

Gumende stressed the asset of Mozambique’s geographical location as the “natural logistical centre for the rest of Southern Africa” – its ports have been developed to service the landlocked countries of the region, which has made it one of the region’s most integrated economies. But sixty years of conflict had seriously damaged the limited infrastructure left by the Portuguese.

Other points he made included stressing that Mozambique’s rapid development (while in 1992 it had GDP per head of $100 it was now $500) began from a very low base, and that there was still a serious problem of food imports. For example, there is still $245m worth of cereals imported, including up to 500,000 tonnes of rice. The problem was aggravated by the food price riots of September last year, a problem stimulated by world food price increases. “Why should we import, when we used to export?” asked the High Commissioner, who made the point that his country had in the past twenty years since the end of civil conflict was acquiring a reputation for political stability that was also a comfort to investors. He referred to the fact that the first Mo Ibrahim Award for Excellence in African Leadership in 2007 went to Mozambique’s ex-President Joaquim Chissano, and after going to Botswana’s ex-President Festus Mogae in 2008 has not been awarded for two years. This was a sign of international appreciation of Mozambique’s governance path. The High Commissioner ended by modestly expressing the hope that he had made Mozambique “more visible”.

(July, 2011)

A Few Nigerian Blockbusters It was some time in 1968, when Brigadier Ogundipe was Nigerian High Commissioner in London. He was entertaining interested hacks for a lunch with the then Commissioner for Information, Tony Enahoro on the latest state of the Nigerian Civil War. I found myself sitting opposite former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, then front bench spokesman on foreign affairs for the opposition Conservative Party. After listening to Enahoro’s comprehensive briefing on the situation, including, as I remember, a detailed breakdown on the reasons for the federation the year before of twelve states, Sir Alec looked quizzically at me and said:”the thing about Nigeria is that it is so deucedly complicated that I am surprised anyone understands it.” I may have been treating him to my own over-erudite decortication of the South-Eastern minorities, but the remark cut through all the public perceptions of Nigeria with such clarity that it has become one of the stories that has been seared on my memory of those times. It used to be said of Sir Alec that his posture of innocent naivety was always thought by his Russian counterpart Andrei Gromyko to mask the kind of devious cunning only to be found in the British upper-classes. It was a period when there — 33 —

was a strange de facto alliance between the British and Nigerians in support of the federal side in the war, both championing Nigerian unity. I had myself interviewed the immensely civilised Soviet Ambassador in Lagos, name of Romanov (the pre-revolution Russian royal family name), and I had regular contacts with the USSR embassy in Kensington, as well as a somewhat bibulous correspondent of Izvestia called Lev Kostenko. The Anglo-Russian alliance, however limited in practice, is one of the almost forgotten aspects of the international dimension of the civil war that put the Cold War into a different perspective, especially as it brought Anglo-French relations to an extremely low point.

Sir Alec was right – complex it is, which makes the study of it all the more fascinating. Those of us who were around then (and there are fewer and fewer of us) have already amassed considerable libraries of ‘Nigeriana.’ The trouble is, as the libraries swell, it goes on being ever more of a conundrum, a riddle as great as that of the Sphinx. It happens that I have been reading in this holiday period two new books on Nigeria that cover the whole post-independence period, even while giving particular illumination to the periods of both Civil War and military rule, renewing, with fresh vigour the memories and controversies that surrounded both. The two books are mammoth door-stopping tomes, both first-hand accounts by participants in different segments of that history. Peter Enahoro, the celebrated columnist of the early 1960s named Peter Pan, stresses that his Then Spoke the Thunder (published in London by Broadmind in 2010 but distributed mainly in Nigeria) is not an autobiography – rather “a compendium of some of the events that have marked seventy years of my life”. There is, in fact, a great deal of autobiography in its 750 pages, as well as detailed background about his home area of Ishan (in the north of what is now Edo State), which produced one of Nigeria’s most remarkable political families. There is also much concerning his life as journalist (and author of the unforgettable How to be a Nigerian), editor and media mogul, spanning all the first decades of African independence. We learn especially of his period as publisher of the monthly Africa Now, which rose brilliantly in the 1970s boom and sadly folded in the depression of the 1980s.

It is, however, of crisis, coups and civil war that I wish to concentrate here. Peter was for a short period a player in the drama, having stuck out his neck in his column as a Southerner and a nationalist in support of the January 15 1966 coup (mixed-up though it may have been). Although not as much an insider as some believed, when the Northern reaction came in the July 29 counter-coup, he felt so insecure in the atmosphere of mayhem that he was obliged to smuggle himself out of the country. He stayed out well after the end of the Civil War, first in Germany, then in Britain. One sub-plot concerned his relations with his bosses at the still foreign-owned Daily Times Group, which recognised him as a star, but also as something of a loose cannon. He was in some ways too good for them. I was already at West Africa (part of the same Mirror Group’s West African empire at the time), but was only dimly aware of the travails that he was undergoing.

— 34 —

This part of the book is compulsive reading matter for anyone keen to know more of Nigeria’s post-independence history. The same applies to the other giant volume I have been reading – Witness to Justice: An Insider’s Account of Nigeria’s Truth Commission (publisher Bookcraft in Ibadan, 2011) by Matthew Hassan Kukah, priest, academic and social commentator, one of the most intense seekers of true Nigerian identity currently active.

This volume of just over 500 pages concerns principally his experience at the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission set up in June 1999 soon after President Obasanjo returned to power (this time as a civilian ruler) under Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, one of Nigeria’s great legal luminaries. Better known as the ‘Oputa panel’, this three-year exercise overcame some of the reservations that had been expressed at its limited mandate, to become one of the most important indictments of military rule in any African country. It was thus a great thing that Oputa happened at all. The explosive potential of such a project was spotted by former President Babangida who refused to appear before it, worried about how certain episodes (notably the still unexplained death of the journalist Dele Giwa) would be presented. Even Obasanjo, who had initiated it as part of the new deal of civilian rule and did appear before it (because of a petition from his son on the General’s treatment in detention), seems to have been less enthusiastic at actually seeing it published in full with all its annexes, a cooling of viewpoint referred to, but discreetly not unduly emphasised by Father Kukah.

Although the whole of Oputa, with annexes, is available on the Internet, if you pursue the right links, it is still the kind of vital collection of historical documents, covering much of the sensitive points of independent Nigeria’s political history, that any book publisher would be proud to have on their list, and for which there would be a tremendous academic and political market. Its panoramic span is enormously impressive, even if the start-up date for the Commission’s brief was January 15, 1966, removing all the background between 1960 and 1966 (including the heavy violation of democracy in the Western Region election of October 1965) from the Commission’s purview.

Kukah covers many pages agonising over the non-appearance before the panel of the generals (the other ‘no-shows’ were Abdulsalami and Buhari), and one of the most interesting aspects of this absorbing volume is his detailed account of the diplomatic negotiations (involving other former heads of state) to try and secure a complete attendance. One feels his disappointment that the efforts ended in failure, although he wonders if those who did not appear only hurt themselves. The panel did not perhaps attain the central role in the making of the Fourth Republic achieved by the Tutu Truth and Reconciliation Commission did in the post-apartheid regime in South Africa. At the time, however, Oputa did perform a certain national exorcism, even if some side issues obfuscated it. Although it is now seldom referred to, I was in Lagos at the time, and recall that in televised form it was followed with a great deal of public passion, even late at night. It would have helped if an — 35 —

introductory book like this had appeared earlier – Kukah says that he wrote it for the most part on a sabbatical in Oxford in 2003, but various other factors prevented publication earlier. One can still express disappointment that the report’s public relations value has never really been exploited.

This book Witness to Justice is still a major contribution to Nigeria’s political historiography, a marvellous book to have in one’s possession and treasure for its contribution to our knowledge and understanding of this mysterious independent entity called Nigeria.

Objectively, one is obliged to comment that it could have done with some copy-editing to tighten up the narrative. Kukah is so preoccupied with his mission (and rightly so, as it was a privilege to be included in the panel, and his commitment and hard work helped give the project added value), that one feels he sometimes misses the wood for the trees. He is often distracted from the central powerful narrative by the spiritual aspects of that mission, which could form a separate study. But that is easily forgiven.

(August, 2011)

Some reflections on Francophone Africa Over recent years, I had thought that the exotic and arcane relations that France has enjoyed with its former African territories was a vein of political story-telling that had more or less become exhausted. This was the material of the post-colonial era, when neo-colonialism was young, and a fertile domain where the French excelled themselves. It was narrative developed by General de Gaulle, who needed a protective system for the French territories of sub-Saharan Africa thrust unceremoniously in 1960 into independence by continental circumstance. De Gaulle had not wanted such a disorganised process – some of the leaders such as Félix Houphouet-Boigny had also not wanted it (so close had they felt to ‘the metropolis’). However, the sweeping revolution triggered by Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, a country entirely surrounded by the French colonial presence, had encouraged Sekou Touré in neighbouring Guinea to sabotage all the French plans for retention of semi-control in the form of a Franco-African Community.

Faced with this fragmentation (1960 was the year in which Harold Macmillan had spoken in Cape Town of a “wind of change sweeping across Africa”), all the French was left with was a sphere of influence. And how they made the most of it! The architect and machine-minder of this special relationship (an arrangement designed to prevent the recurrence of the kind of horrendous colonial war that the French had stubbornly brought on themselves in both Indo-China and Algeria) was de Gaulle’s eminence grise, a former loyalist of the resistance called Jacques Foccart. He was an integral part of the legend of what has subsequently come to be called Françafrique, and occupied an office close — 36 —

to de Gaulle in the Elysee Palace. African leaders came to know that they could access de Gaulle through Foccart, and found this was a route to influence policy, A pokerfaced functionary with the natural look of a ‘spook’ , he was notorious for his ‘networks’ (reseaux,) a parallel security system that played a more important role in the making of African policy than the Foreign Ministry.

One of his essential supports was the independent Cooperation Ministry, which supervised a series of cooperation agreements with the countries of the special relationship (also known as le pré carré – the backyard). These included defence agreements, which led to multiple military interventions in countries like Chad, and Mauritania (and reverse coups as in Gabon in 1964, or the removal of Emperor Bokassa in 1979); education agreements maintaining both the teaching of the French language and the maintenance of a France-oriented curriculum; and the Franc zone, a unique monetary area featuring convertible currency (the famed CFA franc) and a fixed exchange rate, with reserves held in the Treasury in Paris.

After de Gaulle, Foccart lingered uncomfortably for five years with President Pompidou, who sensed hostile opinion and introduced mild reforms of both defence arrangements and the CFA zone. In 1974 President Giscard D’Estaing removed him altogether and pronounced a new era in relations, but found the Gaullist clothes too convenient and kept on the idea of having a ‘Foccart’ at the Elysee, a concept maintained to this day. Giscard also soon found that he enjoyed playing the role of ‘gendarme ‘of Africa, although he eventually burnt his fingers with Bokassa’s propensity for giving diamonds.

President François Mitterrand, too, abandoned the idea of sanitising African relations after about a year, and operated the Gaullist system almost more completely than any other of the General’s successors. There were other reforms, notably and ironically when the right-wing Edouard Balladur was Prime Minister in 1993–4. At that time, the CFA was devalued and supervision of the often feeble economies of the series of mini-states that constituted the précarré passed to the Washington institutions. But Balladur was one of the few without an African network. Even Lionel Jospin, who as Prime Minister from 1997– 2002 genuinely sought reform, enjoyed special relations with Laurent Gbagbo (before the disastrous years of his presidency in Cote d’Ivoire, which deeply embarrassed the French socialists). Chirac also found himself shifting policy positions, especially on military intervention, in the wake of the French military humiliation in Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide; he increasingly sought cover from both the UN and the EU, even if the French intervention in Cote d’Ivoire was fundamentally a part of the classic pattern. And though France’s influence often seemed reduced, and Françafrique is not the dominant force it once seemed to be, the CFA zone has survived and is now linked to the Euro. The alternative (an ECOWAS monetary union) was felt to be even less secure.

President Sarkozy, on assuming office also opted for change, but somehow managed to maintain the ‘sphere of influence’. Libya showed he still had interventionist tendencies, — 37 —

even in North Africa, especially if he could drag the British along with him (since Blair and Sierra Leone, interventions in Africa have been much less of a taboo for British governments). For most of the former French territories, the special relationship with France, especially extended into the nebulous Europe-Africa Strategy, may still seem the best bet in a hostile world, The countries have often been seduced by others, as by the blandishments of Gaddafy’s Libya (now unceremoniously cut off), or, increasingly the commodity-hungry Chinese, not to mention other powers, such as India or Brazil. In this climate the goings-on of Françafrique sometimes seemed to be an outdated left-wing obsession. So why should we get excited about it now? Only because a ‘whistle-blower’ has finally come along making a number of very serious charges of corruption involving not just old-guard African politicians, but much of the political class in France.

The name of the whistle-blower is Robert Bourgi a Lebanese lawyer/businessman, a one-time protégé of Foccart, and who has been for years one of the principle influence-peddlers in the murkier waters of Françafrique. He has named Chirac, de Villepin, and even Sarkozy as having received large sums of money as party political donations from a clutch of African presidents. Those named are Bongo of Gabon, Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic, Wade of Senegal, Compaoré of Burkina Faso and Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire. For those who find the latter an unlikely member of this group, these donations were for Chirac’s election campaign of 2002, before the Chirac-Gbagbo falling out. Bourgi was working in Prime Minister de Villepin’s office at the time, and claims he actually took suitcases of money to Chirac’s office at the time. There have been denials and threats of litigation all round, although one of Gbagbo’s colleagues, Mamadou Koulibaly, has confirmed that the transaction took place. Bourgi says that he decided to go public in order to pre-empt a book published this month in Paris called La Republique des Mallettes (the Briefcase Republic).

The book is by Pierre Péan, who has written before on some of the scandals of Françafrique, especially involving Gabon. His writing is typical of a certain school of exposure of hidden secrets which began fifty years ago with George Chaffard’s celebrated Carnets Secrets de la Decolonisation, a history vastly different from official histories with some question-marks over authenticity. They have to be balanced by Foccart’s own diaries which seem to confirm clandestine activity carried out in the name of patriotism (he would be a good subject for John Le Carré, who told us recently that spymasters are essentially moral characters, ‘cleaning the sewers’ for the rest of us).

There has been some speculation as to Bourgi’s reasoning for his revelations. Some say his influence has been declining of late, especially since some of his indiscretions featured in recent WikiLeaks revelations of US diplomatic messages. It seems he was only too willing to talk openly to the Americans about his ‘friends’ in Africa. Others suspect he may have been put up to it by Sarkozy himself, keen to divert attention from other scandals slopping around in French politics on the eve of next year’s presidential elections, in which — 38 —

Sarkozy is facing a serious struggle for re-election. Should this ‘affair’ then be simply seen as a red-herring that will not actually have a follow-up? The problem of the financing of political parties views one that has caused problems in all democracies, but it is true that the open=ness of French parties to contributions from Africa has been notorious, shocking to many because of the levels of poverty in some of the countries concerned, such as Burkina.

No other western power has seen such political activity, and the latest revelations may (one has to emphasise the ‘may’) lead to some kind of house-cleaning. But it can help explain in part the durability of the ‘backyard’ of Franco-African special relations.

(September, 2011)

The importance of Governance and Leadership for Africa The final undoing and death of Muammar Gaddafi on October 20 may not be the best time for a rational assessment of governance and leadership in Africa. He was, after all, a prime example of the abuse of both. Even so, October 2011 has been in some ways a good month to consider the subject, and not just because the ‘Arab spring’ also saw another important development, the holding of properly democratic elections in Tunisia, of a kind rare in the Arab world. There were also three African elections in particular, those in Zambia (actually at the end of September), Liberia and Cameroon, which have sent very contrasting signals, while the decision of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to award its controversial leadership prize this year, after two years of unsatisfactory abeyance was particularly timely, and cast a mixed bag of topics into the African democracy argument.

Mo Ibrahim, the stocky Sudanese telecoms billionaire, speaking at the award ceremony in London, which also marked the fifth anniversary of his Foundation, made a singularly telling appeal only six days before the passing of Gaddafi, which was predictable, but had been a long time coming. His call was to African leaders clinging to power, saying that people were no longer prepared to put up with bad governance on the continent. The face of Africa had changed, he said, and the ‘Arab spring’ had shown the world that the younger generation were not afraid to demand change. “There’s a lot of African people who are educated and well-informed and that’s a better generation than ours and those people won’t take nonsense.” He added: “These are the people who went out in Tahrir Square, Tunis and Libya and bred havoc.”

It is a question that has been asked frequently since the first North African explosions of anger earlier in the year – whether this new democratic spirit was going to spread south of the Sahara. The response that is usually given is that sub-Saharan Africa experienced its ‘democracy wave’ after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet bloc after 1989. The East European example at that time was important, and many were astonished — 39 —

that change came so rapidly in Africa, when the same sentiments seemed to barely perturb the Arab world. It seemed as if Africa at that time had been dying for such an evolution, and the ending of the Cold War, with its peculiar constraints, seemed almost to be a signal.

Only one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, protests were taking place in Cotonou that precipitated the collapse early in 1990 of President Kerekou’s pseudo-communism in the Marxist Leninist Peoples republic of Benin. I was there at the time, ironically attending a conference on the bicentenary of the French Revolution, attended by among others the distinguished Marxist historian Jean Suret-Canale. This was even as a statue of Lenin in central Cotonou was being removed to an undisclosed secret destination (I often wonder if it is there in somebody’s back garden). In another part of the city a delegation from the IMF was trying to impose conditionality’s on Kérékou’s disintegrating government and two months later a National Conference formalised the introduction of multi-party democracy, and an end to the single-party State and its bogus Marxism-Leninism, leading to an election which voted Mathieu Kérékou out of office. One of the best stories from the National Conference was when a weeping Kérékou (who had been the architect of the 1972 military coup), told of the National Conference’s conclusions grumbled vociferously, ‘it’s a coup d’état.’

The last twist in the tale was that in 1996, Kérékou, by now no longer Marxist but a born-again Christian, and his country no longer a Peoples’ Republic, was voted back to power for another ten years.

There were other National Conferences, mainly in francophone Africa, mostly manipulated by leaders such as Bongo (Gabon) and Mobutu (Zaire) to prolong their stay. Other countries adopted multi-party democracy, but the real deal was often some time coming.

Zambia had the message early and voted out of office one of Africa’s best known statesmen, Kenneth Kaunda, who graciously conceded. One place, often ignored, that took seriously the multi-party route was the Republic of Cape Verde that had been under one of Africa’s best-known and admired single parties, the Party of Independence of Guiné and Cape Verde (PAIGC), but had gone on its own after the coup in Guinea-Bissau in 1980, changing the party name to PAICV. Cape Verde’s adoption of multi-partyism in 1990 was followed by a defeat for the party the next year, and President Aristide Pereira, as well as Pedro Pires, who had been Prime Minister for sixteen years, went into opposition. In the presidential elections of 2001(by which time he had become leader of the party), Pires scored a narrow victory, and was re-elected with a wider margin in 2006, stepping down as provided in the constitution, for the elections in August this year. It is this record of stable multi-party democracy, with provision for seamless changes of government, which the French elegantly call l’alternance, that Pires was awarded the $5m Mo Ibrahim leadership prize this year, although the country’s record of good governance and solid economic development also figured in the jury’s — 40 —

decision. This was the first time the prize had been awarded since 2008, when it went to the Botswana President Festus Mogae. It is also significant that in the Mo Ibrahim African Governance Index Cape Verde headed the list last year, and came second this year, having still rated very highly in the four areas (safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, and human development) that were assessed and computed for the index. In passing, one notes that Mauritius now heads the list and down at the bottom are still Somalia, Chad, Zimbabwe and DRC. Nigeria should be disappointed that it has only moved from 42nd to 41st in the last five years when years of reform should have been having some impact.

The three contrasting elections mentioned at the beginning of this essay deserve a little more consideration. On September 23, Zambia produced a change of leadership and party that surprised everyone, with Michael Sata (sometimes called ‘the cobra’ due to his turbulent reputation) unseating incumbent President Rupiah Banda, although once in office Sata seemed to adopt instantly a more moderate line. The Liberia election of October 11 has been a different matter, as there was a close contest between President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the main opposition candidate Winston Tubman (whose vice-Presidential candidate Prince Johnson now holds the balance, with the result that there will be a second round on November 8. There have been many ironies, not least the unwise decision of the Nobel Peace Prize to award ‘Ma Ellen’ one-third of this year’s prize, announced just four days before the election. The bitterest twist of all is that, for all Sirleaf’s good governance and human rights record, she may have to depend on the murderer of Samuel Doe in 1990 to return to power, yet another twist in the scarred story of Liberia’s efforts at democracy.

Cameroon also offers a somewhat dismal picture. President Paul Biya, in power for nearly thirty years and, at the age of 78 standing for another seven-year term, is exactly the kind of long-lasting president in Mo Ibrahim’s sights. Few are going to accept willingly the 79 per cent vote in his favour, the highest tally he has ever received in his long period in power. In Cameroon, however, there is a tendency to day that real change is only going to come with ‘après-Biya’. And who knows when that will be? Is Africa making real progress on both governance and democracy? The balance remains mixed, the itinerary winding, the setbacks more frequent than one would wish. But Mo Ibrahim’s warning may have some intangible effect, although probably not among the worst cases, such as Obiang in Equatorial Guinea or Dos Santos in Angola, both 32 years. Museveni in Uganda (25 years) and Compaoré in Burkina Faso (24 years) also seem to have Mo’s finger pointed at them, while King Mswati of Swaziland is in a governance class of his own. As for the impact of the ‘Arab spring’ south of the Sahara, there may be a few cases where the example may have an impact. It has happened already in Malawi (where there were violently suppressed demonstrations against the unpopular president Bingu wa Mutharika in July). The elections in Senegal next February, where the octogenarian Abdoulaye Wade is also preparing a ‘power elongation’, are also — 41 —

anticipated with apprehension. In short, while there has been much solid and meaningful change, there are still too many bogus or ‘virtual’ democracies.

(October, 2011)

Three African Perspectives As an innovation, this month’s editorial, the last one this year, is divided into three parts.

This is a reflection of the rising tide of Africa-related activity we are experiencing at the moment, both in meetings and different forms of publications and news. It is also perhaps a pointer to the way this newsletter, increasingly diverse because of significant contributions from different parts of Africa, might further develop. The first piece is a disquisition on international politics seen through the eyes of the Commonwealth at its summit in Perth: the second is an account of an example of an increasingly popular phenomenon, investment conferences on Africa, in this case a recent one on Senegal; and lastly, readers will find a flashback to the first major crisis of newly independent Africa at the start of the 1960s, that in the Congo, seen through the prism of an investigation into the air crash death there of the UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold.

1. CHOGM in Perth The meeting of Commonwealth Heads of government (CHOGM) in Perth did not have a particularly good coverage in Britain. It is not that there was no coverage, but what there was skewed in the direction of the subject of the gender-base of the succession of the British monarch. UK viewers and listeners might be forgiven for thinking the topic of succession was one of the main issues at CHOGM, but in fact a meeting of those that preserve Queen Elizabeth II as monarch were only sixteen of the 54 member states, and the meeting to discuss the matter was held in the margins of the Summit.

Reports came back from Perth via civil society sources expressing disappointment at the way the report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on reinvigorating the Commonwealth was handled – first that there was a curious reluctance to publish it officially before the Heads had discussed it, even though it had been widely leaked; and second that one of it’s key recommendations, that of a Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law to run in parallel to the Secretary-General’s own ‘good offices’, had been handed back to ministers to review. This may have looked like an own goal in terms of public relations, but the way Perth had been built up as the organisation’s ‘last chance saloon’ to demonstrate it’s relevance did not help. Neither did the decision (already taken two years ago) to hold the next CHOGM in Sri Lanka, whose human rights record has been much criticised.

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Wiser heads observed that, although a Commissioner would perhaps have helped the Commonwealth’s image for pro-activity, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) recommendations were more important. These had been made by the CMAG itself, beefing up the watchdog Committee set up in 1995 to point up “persistent and serious violations” of human rights, going beyond the military regimes that had originally been it’s main target. The Zimbabwe affair, where punishments and suspension had ended with Zimbabwe walking out, had seemed to be a deterrent for public action against errant regimes, and although there had been discussions on a number of regimes ‘below the radar,’ it looked as if the Commonwealth had lost impetus when it came to pursuing it’s values.

Now, much is expected of the EPG’s endorsement of CMAG’s own raising the stakes, not least in mandating the Secretary-General to “speak out publicly in expression of collective disapproval of serious or persistent violations.” Much therefore will still depend on the political will of Commonwealth member states acting through the Secretariat to implement these rules, but at least expectations have been raised and conditions placed Members of the Business Council for Africa were fortunate to have a briefing on the Perth CHOGM from no less a figure that the Deputy Commonwealth Secretary-General Mrs Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba. Although her talk concentrated on The Commonwealth and Africa: the Future, she presented broad sweep of what went on at CHOGM, confirming much of what has been said above. Her message was that the Commonwealth believes in “dialogue and engagement”, aiming to “understand, assist and facilitate” which “makes us a trusted partner”. She said that Africa was well-represented at CHOGM and at the Commonwealth Business Forum held prior to the summit, noting that some African leaders stayed on in Australia after the meeting to pursue business contacts. There had been a major presence at the Business Forum not just from India (one of the Commonwealth’s leading members) but from China, whose economic relations with China are fast developing. The presence of Paul Kagame, President of the body’s newest member Rwanda, symbolised Africa’s interest in the Commonwealth as a ‘global player’. She also noted the recording of an expression of interest from the newest independent State in Africa, the Republic of South Sudan, and also that the next CHOGM but one will be held in an African country Mauritius. Also, coverage in African media was much more extensive and balanced than one had seen in London.

Mrs Masire-Mwamba was particularly concerned to correct the impression that there had been little discussion of the global economic crisis, noting especially that a declaration on Food Security had been adopted, in which Africa’s potential to become a “significant food exporter” was highlighted. The current potential of a new Africa, in spite of the global crisis was the main theme of the second part of her talk, as there was a new generation of leaders who were interested in reform and intolerant of corruption. There were strong prospects, going well beyond what some presented simply as a “resource boom”. She was, — 43 —

indeed, full of optimism about Africa’s future, even as the world crisis seems to worsen for the West. We have to be “intolerant of old excuses,” she said as “a new type of Africa is evolving before our eyes”.

My own last word is that, judging by this account, compared with the chaos of the G20 summit a week later in Cannes, which had been derailed by the Eurozone crisis, the CHOGM in Perth seems to have been a model of focused discussion and a collective desire to move forward.

2. Senegal and the ‘New Type of Africa’ The spirit of Mrs Masire-Mwamba’s message was also something that seemed to infuse the UK-Senegal Investment Conference held in London at the beginning of November. Most observers were surprised and happy that it attracted more than 200 people, a number that would have been difficult for such a conference in the past. Now, it may have been that the billing of Karim Wade, son of President Abdoulaye Wade and holder of several key ministerial portfolios was important, and there was undoubted disappointment that in the event he was unable to come. There was, however, more to it than that. Although in the past Senegal has aroused uncertainty because of it’s close links with France and it’s lack of natural resources, it has a number of selling points for those investors now probing Africa as “the last emerging market”. In the past it has suffered from unfavourable comparisons with the richer, better-endowed Côte D’Ivoire, but the conflicts there in the last ten years have given Senegal a greater opportunity (soon, ironically, to come to an end as a similar investment conference on Côte D’Ivoire is scheduled to happen in London early next year).

Senegal has the combination of a key geo-political location on Africa’s western Atlantic coast, and a talented well-educated work-force, which gives it, added potential as a service economy. They were also able to deploy a number of key Senegalese speakers who spoke English (having transited through British universities), notably the Deputy Energy Minister Ibrahima Sarr; and Aminata Niane, Minister and Director-General of Senegal’s Export Promotion Agency. The latter in particular is a talented and experienced marketer of her country. She put across persuasively the encouraging growth statistics of the last seven years and the progressive diversification of the economy, as well as the merits of major infrastructure projects currently under way such as the new Blaise Diagne airport. Politics was only mentioned in the context of political stability, and the fact that elections are being held in February, without reference to the particularly sensitive atmosphere that is likely to surround them. A session on agriculture had to be called off because of a ‘no-show’ by the speaker, so the focus was more prominently on the potential of new mining projects near the Malian and Guinean borders, in both iron ore and gold. Martin Horgan, British Chief Executive of Toro Gold, already an investor, spoke very positively on working in Senegal.

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The most interesting case history of investment in Senegal unveiled at the forum, however, was not from Britain but from, Nigeria. Not well-known to most of the audience was the fact that there is now a significant connection with Senegal on the part of Aliku Dangote, one of Nigeria’s richest billionaires (he is high on the Forbes ‘rich list’), with an industrial empire in Nigeria that takes in cement, sugar, steel, telecoms, oil refining, salt, flour, vegetable oil, packaging and real estate. Dangote has investments in thirteen other African countries, and this year has just opened one of the largest cement works in sub-Saharan Africa in Senegal, in which he has invested more than $500m., the first major investment in the country by a wholly-owned company from another African country. According to Aramine Mbacké, Managing Director of Dangote Senegal, work has also begun on a sugar refinery, and future developments include expanding into the fertiliser industry. The Dangote-Dakar connection is another portent for the African future, promoting pan-African trade and crossing the old Anglophone francophone divide. Before our eyes, here is Mrs Masire-Mwamba’s ‘new type of Africa’.

3. History and the Congo In the 1990s, I can clearly recall the late Keith Kyle, historian writer and journalist, telling me it had proved impossible to find a publisher for a book on the Congo crisis of the early 1960s. He had been in the Congo many times between 1960 and 1965 and had a formidable grasp of the subject. Such a book would also have made an excellent ‘end-of-empire’ companion volume to his major tome Suez, that other great turning-point of decolonisation. It was, however, not to be. The ‘90s was a period of marginalisation of Africa in the mind’s eye of the world. Even the decade of the decline and fall of the notoriously corrupt Mobutu dictatorship, profoundly rooted in the crisis of the ‘60s, could not trigger the interest. Even now, when the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been struggling to hold approximately democratic elections, despite its size and immense natural wealth, it is seriously under-reported. The roots of its present disorder still merit proper attention, not just from academics and policy wonks, but also from a wider public struggling to stay informed. Thus a recent book* called Who Killed Hammarskold? is definitely recommended reading. It is not just because of the fascinating compilation of new evidence (including from the papers of Sir Roy Welensky, former Prime Minister of the defunct Central African Federation), which supports the thesis implicit in the book’s title. In spite of the new evidence, it is still left to the reader to decide the identity of the killer (or killers), most likely in the mercenary community recruited to support Katanga.

Ms William’s real achievement is to put crime in the turbulent context of its period. This was not just a time when Cold War rivalries were at their height, but a period of rapid change in Africa. The year of the Congo’s over-rapidly conceived independence was also the year of the Sharpeville massacre and Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech. The tide — 45 —

of independence was sweeping southwards and the forces of white racial supremacy felt threatened as never before, and the Congo became the theatre of conflict. Thus these forces, and the Western mining corporations that had profited so much from the territory under Belgian colonialism, engineered the secession of the rich mining province of Katanga from the rest of the Congo. It was a testing period, raising all sorts of compelling issues. Firstly, it was too dangerous for Africa to become a setting for Cold War conflicts; secondly that the continent needed to put practical teeth into aspirations for unity, which led in 1963 to the setting up of Organisation of African Unity (OAU); and thirdly that, in the condition of newly-independent Africa, secession was a non-starter. This was demonstrated when the US under President Kennedy (who had an enlightened view of supporting independent Africa) backed the UN military operation to end Katanga secession in January 1963. It is this kind of detailed background that gives the book its special power. *Who Killed Hammarskjold? The UN, The Cold War, and White Supremacy in Africa,

by Susan Williams (Hurst, London: 2011, no price given) (November, 2011)

Nigeria hits Choppy Waters Let me begin with a short anecdote. A few days ago I bumped into Bob Dewar, former British High Commissioner in Nigeria on the staircase at Chatham House. “What of Nigeria?” I asked him. A little surprised, he cast himself as former diplomat being tasked by a forward hack, and came up with as sagacious a sound-bite as I have heard on the subject.

“It is a shock to the system”, he observed, but “we shouldn’t over-react”. For, as I sit slightly wearily at my keyboard, I have to note that once again, Nigeria has willy-nilly hit the headlines, with the combination of two shocks to the system at once. Firstly came the ferocious and distressing attacks by the shadowy movement named Boko Haram. Some suggest this was a name invented by the residents of its birthplace Maiduguri, after the Hausa expression boko meaning western education and haram meaning “sin” or “sacrilege”.

It is sometimes described as a “Salafist Muslim sect”, that since the killing of its founder by police in 2009 has been “jihadist,” with a reported ambition to make all Nigeria a Caliphate, and impose sharia law, although one should be wary of too many attempts at definition, as some reports suggest it has no central organisation at all, and others that it is splintered into three or maybe more parts.

The movement appears very much home-grown, with no proven links to outside organisations, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) which operates across the Sahel states of West Africa. It is likely that it has benefited from the high level of arms formerly belonging to Gaddafy’s Libya. The origins of BH (as it is usually referred to) can — 46 —

be traced to Nigeria’s far north-east. The historic Borno sultanate (one of the earliest in the North) was never conquered in the jihad of Uthman dan Fodio in the early 19th century and the area has always sought to be distinct from the rest of the “holy North.” Many see in BH a certain similarity to the heretical Maitatsine movement in the same area in the 1970s.

Named after a prophet from Marwa in former North Cameroon, who preached bitter hostility to Westernisation (Maitatsine means “he who damns” in Hausa), including against such symbols as bicycles, radios, spectacles and wrist-watches, and in 1979 he even rejected the prophet hood of Mohammed, and met increasing difficulties with the authorities. A bloody confrontation between his followers and the Nigerian army in Kano in December 1980, in which over 5,000 people died including Maitatsine himself, although the movement lingered on through the 1980s. Although Boko Haram is said to have been formed in 2001, it only became conspicuous at the end of the decade. The movement, and Nigeria’s security services, have been engaged in mounting violence against each other that culminated in the bombing campaign in Kano, chosen deliberately for Christmas Day 2011, and targeting particularly police stations because of the tough repression they have experienced at the hands of the police. Other acts of violence have followed, including reprisals in the south.

This has forced President Jonathan to take even more serious notice of them, especially as there have been reports of cover being offered to the movement by some political forces in the North. A massive shake-up in the police has been one consequence. But in the medium term there is a need to look at the root causes of the problem.

The Right Reverend Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, returning from a visit to the Anglican community in Nigeria (those in the North are in a particular state of alarm at some of the threats that have been made as well as the attacks on churches) made a clear analysis in a BBC interview. There were three causes of the rise of Boko Haram, he said. The first was political, relating to particular conditions in North-east Nigeria, but also to the fact that there was a Southern, Christian, President. The second was socio-economic, especially related to the extreme poverty in parts of the North, which has been a permanent feature occluded by all the recent focus on the historic neglect of the Niger Delta. Religion, he said, was only a third factor, used to cover the other two causes. What has caused the real “shock to the system” has been the fact that one week after the December 25 bombings, there were massive country-wide protests over the sudden removal on New Year’s Day of the long-standing fuel subsidy. There have been serious attempts to remove this in the past, but each time serious protests have forced a compromise, and so the subsidy has continued.

There is a logical case against a subsidy, which causes an annual hole in the budget of $8bn, and allows wholesalers to smuggle cheap fuel to Nigeria’s neighbours where the price is higher. It also fuels other forms of corruption, contrasting powerfully with the fact that Nigeria has to import over 80 per cent of its fuel because of difficulties in rehabilitating its three major refineries satisfactorily. But it was not sensible to push the removal through at — 47 —

the same time as a huge national security drama was being enacted, so that although the two are unrelated, together the combination has presented President Goodluck Jonathan with what has come to be seen as a crisis of confidence in Abuja.

The still young and inexperienced Jonathan administration was in any case not short of challenges, still in its first year after democratic election. The most considerable usually comes under the broad umbrella of governance, or economic and administrative reform.

This is a concept pressed through in the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, especially in his second term. Then, as now, the direction of the economy was broadly in the hands of Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who, when not trying to bring under control Nigeria’s still imbalanced but potentially exciting economic life, has managed to move through different senior positions at the World Bank, and thus comes to Abuja with an immense range of donor contacts and influence. It was these contacts that helped Nigeria resolve its massive debt problem in 2005, and there are currently great hopes that she will be able to help Nigeria stay on course. There is, however a particularly piquant contrast to be made between an economy with an assumed growth rate this year of over 7 per cent, making it one of the most attractive of current new emerging markets, surrounded by salivating investors, and a polity in full crisis over the security issues raised by the rise of Boko Haram. Add to this the uproar as a Nigerian government yet again finds itself confronted with the perennial problem of how to remove massive fuel subsidies, even if it is a move that Mrs Iweala’s friends among the international donor community have long recommended.

The economic reforms have also involved bringing order to Nigeria’s banking system, recently undergoing further sweeping changes in the authoritative hands of Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi, further rationalising the major consolidation introduced in 2005 by his predecessor Chukwuma Soludo. Indeed, Nigeria has to count itself fortunate to have its economy in sound hands as it goes through the present political turbulence. Past reforms now being further consolidated include tightening procurement procedures and the setting up of a sovereign wealth fund, to introduce more accountability in the management of funds that used to disappear into the opaque ‘excess crude’ account which took advantage of oil price increases. There are signs that two huge obstacles to perceptions (both internal and international) of Nigeria as a haven for investment are finally being tackled: the oil sector, which has been in need of shake-up for years and the time-honoured issue of deficient provision of electric power. Both have been victims of that perennial scar on the face of the country’s polity, corruption. Indeed the protests triggered by the fuel protests soon escalated into an anti-government corruption protest (calling itself Occupy Nigeria in adoption of international fashion), and although for the moment they have fizzled out, the compromise has left a popular mood that is less than happy. This may even have some beneficial consequences. There was already some hope that the Economic and Financial — 48 —

Crimes Commission (EFCC), an anti-corruption body which showed some serious desire to tackle the problem in Obasanjo’s second term, may be about to receive a second wind.

The removal of Mrs Farida Waziri and her probable replacement by Ibrahim Lamorde, one of the key figures in the earlier more successful EFCC is seen as a possible opportunity to put anti-corruption measures in Nigeria back on track. There is certainly enough for them to get their teeth into, and more will certainly be heard once the trial of ex-Governor Ibori gets going in London, reportedly in April. Await another instalment.

(January, 2012)

Somalia and the African Union Although staged with a great deal of publicity and circumstance, in the presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and a clutch of African heads of state (not to mention the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary), did the London conference on Somalia on February 23 achieve very much? It was held at Lancaster House, scene of so many set-pieces of the British decolonisation process (above all that for Zimbabwe). More recently, it has been used for subjects that the British Government wants to bring to international attention, on which some kinds of diplomat action was needed, such as Afghanistan. The purpose was to focus on what were seen as key issues, mainly in the domain of security, such as terrorism from the Al-Qaida linked organisation al Shabaab; the acute problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean, facilitated by Somali lawlessness; and the grave question of humanitarian assistance in a time of famine that has killed thousands. There have, however, been expressions of disappointment that there was no discussion of business trade and investment, which, it is argued, are still highly serious topics, in spite of twenty-one years of Somalia’s ‘failed state’ condition Reservations have also been expressed about this conference in other quarters. For example, The Daily Mail’s diplomatic correspondent said it was “as much about public relations as genuine action”, drawing attention to the fact that prime minister Cameron had held five ‘summits ‘ in two weeks, described as “the politics of posturing”. The Daily Express railed against the idea of giving any development assistance to Somalia, because of the acknowledged difficult in control and monitoring, even given the dire need arising from famine. These views contrasted strongly with the bullish account in the Nairobi-based East African magazine which saw the success of the London conference in the photo opportunities for Meles Zenawi, Yoweri Museveni and Mwai Kibaki, the main winners in the present situation in which concerted efforts (with a measure of Western aerial and logistical backing) have driven Al-Shabaab from the capital Mogadishu, and even more significantly from its power base at Baidoa. From this point of view, Cameron was simply cashing in — 49 —

on the recent successes of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). And while military situations can always be reversed, at the moment the wind is in the sails of the African Union forces.

Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to comprehend how Somalia has found its own ‘African solution.’ Mary Harper, the BBC’s specialist on Somalia has questioned whether the new involvement of the world will help or hinder Somalia. While Cameron said, “this is not about telling Somalia what to do”, much of the conference did precisely that. One of the best examinations of Somalia’s “stateless capitalism” which have helped sustain a thriving informal economy, is Mary Harper’s own recent book Getting Somalia Wrong: Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State. She writes of how “more than two decades of conflict and crisis have forced Somalia to invent alternative political and economic systems.” This goes beyond the model state of Somaliland (former British Somaliland) which has survived peacefully and democratically without international recognition or aid, offering, indeed, one of the best anti-aid arguments that exists. Puntland, too, is a political curiosity. But the rest of the country, despite it’s often terrifying anarchy, has found ways of surviving and even prospering. Through all the period of difficulty it has maintained a thriving trade in livestock to neighbouring countries and to the Middle East, accounting for 95 per cent of all goat and 52 per cent of all sheep exports to the entire East African region. There have also been continuous exports of charcoal. The trade in the stimulant plant called Khat, enduringly popular on both sides of the Red Sea, is also worth millions of dollars. Not much of all of this commerce will appear in official trade statistics, however.

Somalia also has, we are told, one of the cheapest and most efficient mobile phone systems in Africa, and also operates one of the largest money transfer companies on the continent, Dahabshiil, which transfers remittance from the important Somali communities in a wide diaspora, in America, Europe and the Middle East, estimated at nearly $2bn a year.

This operates through the complex clan system. Although this was the foundation of the claim to be potentially one of Africa’s most ethnically-united countries, with one language and one culture, in fact, paradoxically, it’s febrile competition contributed to the political breakdown, even if it had been partially suppressed under Syad Barre’s ‘socialist’ state before 1991. It may also have helped maintain the fracture, but has been a remarkable fabric holding society together in a time of stress. The only question arising from conferences like Lancaster house is, what help is appropriate? Although better coordinated and controlled humanitarian assistance featured, and current successful joint actions against piracy were reviewed, the only new development was the announcement by the UN Security Council of an increase in AMISOM, from 12,000 troops to nearly 18,000 (it has support from a number of donors, notably the European Union under the African Peace Facility set up in 2004).

AMISOM was the AU’s second intervention as it develops it’s own peace-keeping operations (supervised by it’s Peace and Security Council): the first, the African union mission — 50 —

in Sudan (AMIS) in Darfur, Sudan, was experimental, and cannot be called an unqualified success. It was eventually subsumed in the UN force there, after a period as a ‘hybrid’ force. AMISOM was set up in 2007, after Ethiopia’s withdrawal in awkward circumstances, and has been through difficult times. One problem was the limited value of Ethiopian participation in view of the traditional Somali-Ethiopian hostility. It has also had some difficulty from finding African countries ready to contribute troops in a high-risk situation, and was initially sustained only by Uganda and Burundi. The progressive involvement of Kenya under force of circumstances, and the triumphant return of Ethiopia last year, which recently led to the fall of Al-Shahaab’s stronghold in Baidoa has changed the picture.

Immediate success in Somalia helped create a conducive atmosphere for the 18th Summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa at the end of January. It was in some ways a more relaxed occasion than the last Summit last June in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, preoccupied by the dramatic conflict in Libya, as Colonel Gaddafy had played such a key role in so many summits in the past, and had only recently ceased being host and chairman. Now Gaddafy was not only gone, but was dead in painful circumstances, with the Libyan Transitional Council that had succeeded him sending a representative to Addis Ababa, although their presence was controversial. While many delegates said that the summit was more ‘relaxed’ without Gaddafy, there was still lingering embarrassment among some of the brother leader’s subsidised acolytes, and in the case of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, straightforward anger and bitterness at the fickleness of some of his colleagues.

The most positive outcome of the Summit, which had been billed as a summit concentrating on trade and development issues, was the adoption of a Declaration providing for a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) by 2017. This was designed to give a fillip to a planned eastern and southern free trade area (a fusion of three groupings – SADC, the East African Community and COMESA), but the five-year deadline still looked ambitious. Although recent military progress in Somalia provided some comfort, there were other security anxieties, especially in the Sahel region. This prompted the newly-elected Chairman, President Boni Yayi of Benin Republic to convene in Cotonou in mid-February a special summit of more than twelve leaders to discuss peace and security. Subjects included the serious recrudescence of the Touareg rebellion in Northern Mali, fuelled by returnee fighters from Libya, and a major influx of arms from Libya throughout the region. It was thought that these had also been acquired by Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. The meeting also touched on Sudan and Somalia, and would report back to the next AU Summit to be held in Malawi in June.

President Boni Yayi used the occasion of the mini-summit to lament the “lack of unity” on the continent. He was probably thinking of the impasse in the election for the President of the AU Commission, in which the incumbent, Gabonese Jean Ping, failed to secure the necessary two-thirds support, after a challenge from former South African Foreign Minister, — 51 —

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who withdrew after securing fewer votes after several rounds of voting. Supporters of South Africa conspicuously refused to switch their votes to Ping and produce a consensus election. Now neither can stand again, and, while Ping remains as interim President, it seems that new candidates will present themselves at the next summit.

But this was official Africa presenting another face, a very long way from Somalia.

(February, 2012)

What price the Democracy Dividend in the Sahel?

History sometimes produces strange juxtapositions and reversals. Take the case of six days towards the end of March 2012. In Mali on the night on March 21–22 there was a military coup full of new dangers. This was all the more tragic in that, for the last twenty-one years, Mali has been one of the model democracies that came to life in the ‘African spring’ of the early 1990s. The other side of the coin was the second round of the presidential election in Senegal on March 26. By the evening of that day it was clear that Abdoulaye Wade, President since the year 2000 had lost to his only opponent, Macky Sall, who had obtained a convincing majority of 66 per cent. This transformed an atmosphere that had been full of suspicion of the octogenarian’s intentions over the past year, into a celebration of a democratic revival.

The sad case of Mali is in part an unintended consequence of last year’s NATO operation that helped the ‘Arab spring’ protest in Libya to reach the successful conclusion of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafy. His fall not only drove out of Libya some of the hardened Touareg combatants who had been fighting in his army, but also unleashed on much of North Africa an uncontrolled traffic in arms, a manna for dissidents through the whole Sahara area. The flood of arms has particularly affected the area sometimes called North Africa’s “soft under-belly” the semi-arid belt known as the Sahel (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, also significantly touching part of northern Nigeria). It is in the Sahel that the impact of the Libyan convulsion has been most widely felt. I am not going to discuss here whether it was right or wrong for France and Britain (with eventual, somewhat qualified US support) to spearhead the international backing for the anti-Gaddafy forces, without actually putting any NATO ‘boots on the ground’. The jury is still out as to whether the successor regime – the National Transition Council (NTC) is going to be able to get its act together. The existence of ill-disciplined and mainly ethnically based militias in much of the country also has the potential to induce regional instability.

Gaddafy’s regime of more than forty years had many grievous faults, and it had certainly outstayed its welcome. However, the sporadic ambitions of the ‘brother leader’ to dominate a sphere of influence south of the Sahara was arguably a calming influence in — 52 —

recent years, especially as he had no truck with the shadowy movement that had developed called Al Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). Although born out of Algerian Salafists, AQIM had found its most fertile ground in the countries to the south of Algeria, mainly Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Gaddafy had formed in 1998 his own regional grouping called CEN-SAD (Community of Sahelo-Saharan States). This was an institutionalisation of his well-funded patronage networks in Africa, whose membership had expanded from its original six to 28, with participants as far afield as Somalia, the Comoros and Sao Tome e Principe. Although it was officially recognised by the African Union as a Regional Economic Community, with a Secretariat in Tripoli, an Economic and Social Council and proclaimed its intention to become a ‘free trade area’ to conform with one of the AU’s current policy priorities, its main achievements have been several summits and a highly popular CEN-SAD Games in Niamey in 2009. The second version of the Games, due in Chad in October 2011, has not surprisingly been cancelled. CEN-SAD is not quite dead, however, amid some surprise, Morocco, which is not even in the AU, has announced that it will host a meeting of CEN-SAD foreign ministers in June to discuss the organisation’s future. It is unlikely that the TNC is going to pay much attention to it, not just because of other items on it’s plate, such as the very survival of the country in one piece, but it’s record towards migrants from sub-Saharan Africa has been openly hostile, and will remain so, at least until such ac time as their labour is needed again. Mali, one of the original CEN-SAD members, with strong ties to Gaddafy, is especially affected by the demise of his regime. As already noted, the arrival in northern Mali of over 1,000 well-armed Touaregs shattered the country’s political equilibrium The Touareg, one of the leading nomadic ethnic groups in the Sahara with no respect for frontiers has been a thorn in the flesh of both Mali and Niger governments from soon after independence. A number of reconciliations have never lasted long and, since the turn of the century, a political movement for an independent Touareg Republic, the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has presented a growing problem. Although Mali has been the main centre of Touareg revolt, there has been much cross-border activity, and those operating in Niger have made a speciality of kidnapping foreigners. Where the Niger government of President Oumarou Tandja took a tough line, President Amadou Toumani Touré (usually known as ATT) in Mali began to earn a reputation for vacillation, and an over-willingness to compromise. Ironically, both Tandja and ‘ATT’ were military men who had later stood in democratic elections, but here the comparison ends. The former had used incumbency to ease himself into an elected democratic role as military rule came to an end, while ATT had earned considerable plaudits as the soldier who staged a coup in order to hand over to civilians, and only came back through standing for election. Tandja’s attempts to change the constitution to permit him a third term caused his eviction from power by soldiers who then reverted to more genuine civilian rule. As for ATT, although he was re-elected five years ago, and ironically was due to step — 53 —

down in June following planned elections in April, ten years of somewhat directionless exercise of power had eroded his popularity. It was not helped by the country’s grinding poverty, despite recent signs of economic improvement, and this year is witnessing a serious drought in the Sahel.

It was, however, the handling of the Touareg problem, which increased dramatically since the end of last year that brought serious discontents to the army, angry at ATT’s weak handling of the rebellion, and lack of proper supplies for the troops. The success of the rebellion in north-East Mali brought riots to Bamako in February against the government’s ineffective performance, although popular anger has now turned against the army following the takeover by the US-trained Captain Amadou Sanogo, an anger fuelled by looting and anarchy on the part of the new rulers. The Mali crisis is now exacerbated on three fronts – an increasingly successful and threatening rebellion; an army in danger of implosion with captains and lieutenants pitted against senior officers accused of cronyism; and international hostility to the coup from ECOWAS, the AU and the whole international community, concerned that a coup should happen one month away from elections that would have brought fresh democratic leadership in any case. The think-tank International Crisis Group has called the development “a disaster for Mali and the whole of West Africa.” As democracy retreats in Mali, so it recovers its position in Senegal. After weeks of demonstrations in which eight people were killed and many more injured, the vote on February 26 in which Wade obtained only 36 per cent in a clearly transparent election, made his departure from power almost inevitable. The second round was delayed for two weeks, amid rumours of negotiated deals concerning the future of the president and his deeply unpopular son Karim. Wade’s apparent desire to have a third term at all costs led many to believe he might still be ready to force himself on the Senegalese people, but in the end he demonstrated that he was still the dutiful democrat he had been for most of his political career.

The new fifty-year old President, Macky Sall, who will be installed on Senegal’s National Day, April 4, is a comparative newcomer to the upper echelons of Senegal’s political class. Coming from Wade’s own party, the PDS, Prime Minister for two years and then President of the National Assembly, he broke with Wade, like many others who had been groomed for power by the old man. This had led many commentators to suggest there will be little change of direction. Having been so closely associated with most of Wade’s twelve years in power, he will be likely to protect his heritage, including some of the economic successes. At the moment, Senegal’s democracy dividend will include the opportunity to call on the current excitement about investing in Africa (an excitement already seen in London in Senegal’s recent investment conferences which attracted large numbers of participants.

But the immediate challenge (among many) for Sall will be the management of his relations with the multitude of notoriously fractious opposition parties who put him in power.

(March, 2012) — 54 —

The Persistence of Conflicts in Africa Of late I seem to have participated in and supported numerous occasions at which an optimistic view of Africa in the world economy has been promoted. Overall growth figures for the past decade in Africa have done better than global statistics, and many wonks and number-crushers have been making some fairly spectacular predictions of where Africa might be in the next five, ten or twenty years. There has also been encouraging discussion on whether the growth witnessed might not just be resource-based but also transformative.

After all the pessimism that used to surround the continent in the 1980s and 1990s, this has been a comforting redressing of the balance. It also confirms one’s covert view that Africa was probably never as bad as it was sometimes painted, the worst exaggeration probably having been at the time of the notorious cover story titled ‘The Hopeless Continent’ that was a cover story in the economist in 2000. The African renaissance floated in the 1990s has clearly had more and more meaning as the 21st century progresses. In the circumstances, it might seem churlish to write a piece drawing specific attention to trouble spots that are currently exercising Africa-watchers. But they are cause for alarm, and it may be no bad thing to come down to earth from time to time. The first and most obviously disturbing situation is the threat of war between Sudan and it’s former southern part, the Republic of South Sudan. This became an independent state on July 9 last year, in an apparently conciliatory atmosphere. There had been signed in 2005 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which was the product of over three years of negotiations, which produced a number of subsidiary accords (on subjects such as power sharing wealth sharing, especially in the oil sector, the resolution of particular conflicts (Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States). The accord signed in Naivasha, Kenya in January 2005 was hailed as a major example of conflict resolution, putting an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War, which had broken out in 1985. The first Civil War had lasted from just before independence in 1955 to 1972, and led after four years to a referendum on independence for the South in January 2011, which was approved very convincingly by 98.83 per cent.

There had been some surprise that the regime of Omar el Beshir in Khartoum had accepted the principle of the referendum with the possibility of independence. It may have been war fatigue, combined with a desire to placate the international community (not very successful in view of the arrest warrant issued for him by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Darfur). There was also evidence that strong American pressure may have had important influence on the putting together of the CPA. And the independence of the South saw an initial measure of goodwill that was seen as beneficial for the whole region. This goodwill has now disintegrated in a welter of abuse and an escalating military situation that has, not surprisingly, focused on the oil sector, in particular Heglig, responsible for half of the production of Northern Sudan, which the SPLA (Sudan — 55 —

People’s Liberation Army) occupied and then, under international pressure, withdrew from, although Khartoum claimed it had re-occupied it. Although most of the oil is in the south, the pipeline goes through the North, a recipe for self-destructive brinkmanship. This is likely to continue, but there are still reasons for believing that both sides might still be unwilling to engage in economic suicide by sabotaging the infrastructure of the oil industry, which is of benefit to both parties. The difficulty of a frontier that crosses the location of known oil reserves and the demands of interdependence is bound to lead to frictions, seen in the rival claims to the Abyei area. Sudan was the largest country in area in Africa (over 2.5m square kilometres) but, losing an area of over 647,000 sq km to the new state to the south, is now second to Algeria, but is still one of Africa’s major countries. It would also be wrong to think of it as Arab, as it is ethnically extremely complex – Arabic being more a question of culture and language than ethnicity. In this Sudan has resembled Chad, also hard to pigeonhole as being simply subject to the north-south dialectic beloved of analysts.

The same specificity applies to the complex situation in Mali, explored in last month’s editorial, but which is still in full crisis, as the proclamation of an independent Azawad in northern Mali (which happened after writing) does not look as if it can be reversed in the immediate future, and is giving rise to a number of spreading influences that could easily contaminate the whole West African region. The name ‘Azawad’ is apparently taken from the basin of dry river Azawagh, which once ran through all of northern Niger but also, extended into Mali. Although it is hard for nomads like Tuaregs to claim a precise homeland, it is more than likely that a consolidated Azawad would seek to extend it’s writ to northern Niger, rich in uranium, which makes it of much greater international concern. Alongside the Tuareg separatists, there is the Ansar Ud-Dine movement backed by mainly Algerian Salafists, seeking to extend the writ of sharia law to all of Mali, a further source of potential discord, and the shadowy Al Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb AQIM). The traditional frontiers of colonialism, however arbitrary and against both geography and natural ethnic distribution were enshrined soon after the creation of the Organisation of African unity, in a famous resolution of the OAU’s Cairo summit in 1964. To rearrange them, even if it looked natural or logical, opened too many Pandora’s boxes. By and large these have been preserved. The merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into Tanzania; the division of Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania; the separation of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau offered cases of readjustment of colonial frontiers, as did the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia (which restored the situation under the Italians). But the democratic secession South Sudan appears to have put the question of changing frontiers on the agenda in a dangerous way. Just as Katanga and Biafra, major secessions of the 1960s were put down by force of arms, so we may well see something similar happening in Mali.

— 56 —

The declaration of independent Azawad gives the Economic Community of West Africans States (ECOWAS) one of the most serious crises it has had to face, and although there is some talk of using the new ECOWAS standby force on what would be its first outing, a number of counsels are recommending holding back. First of all, Mali would have to accept it, which does not look likely. It is true that the captains’ regime of the March 22 coup was short-lived and ECOWAS scored an important success in persuading Captain Amadou Sanogo to stand down. There are still, however, a number of huge question-marks over the future of the new regime of President Dioncounda Touré and his high-profile Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, especially over the date of forthcoming elections, and what kind of talks can be held with the rebels (and with which rebels?). Secondly, an external military intervention would have to depend on logistic and material support from the West, notably the US and the EU, which would be opposed by Algeria, Mali’s powerful neighbour to the north, the only regional power with an army strong enough to dislodge the forces of Azawad. Faced with this kind of huge challenge, it seems as if ECOWAS, under its new Commission President, Kadré Ouedraogo, and it’s new Chairman President Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, may be looking to use it’s standby force for a more achievable task. Guinea-Bissau, where a coup on April 12 stopped a presidential electoral process, which would almost certainly have led to the victory of Carlos Gomez Jr in the second tour, is in a critical state. The coup came from elements in the army reportedly involved in international drug trade that feared Gomez’ arrival in power, because it was thought he was going to clamp down on them. Even so, reversing a coup is not easy, even if the country is in a shambles. The ECOWAS military interventions in the 1990s (through it’s military wing ECOMOG) in the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone were not easily achieved. The moral, democratic case for an intervention in Bissau may be good, but a misfire could be a terribly serious set-back for the organisation.

(April, 2012)

French President Hollande and Africa The assumption of power as President of France on May 15 by François Hollande has many surprising but imponderable aspects. On assuming office, he was plunged into a series of summits (G8, NATO, EU), which have given him substantial exposure on the international scene. Once an anonymous figure, he has initially projected well as one of the major global players. He has operated correctly, paying due obeisance, first of all to Mrs Merkel, holder of many of the EU cards, and then, crossing the Atlantic, forming a promising alliance with President Obama. They share the same concept that growth should take precedence over austerity, which he then proceeded to put on the European table. In all this high — 57 —

global diplomacy, there have been few glimpses of any possible evolution in French policies towards Africa. Most visibly, there has been a change of style from his predecessor, in a country where style matters. Where Sarkozy was erratic and impulsive (his supporters would say ‘dynamic’, and he certainly demonstrated a surfeit of energy), Hollande is calm, considered and sometimes excessively amenable, above all taking time before making up his mind, though not necessarily a vacillator. He showed a flash of steel in the manner in which he excluded Martine Aubry, the powerful Chair of the PS (Socialist Party), and daughter of the legendary Jacques Delors, who demanded the prime ministership or nothing. He also has had to show diplomacy in handling his former wife and mother of his four children, Segolène Royale, satisfying certain claims by including seventeen women in his government, the most any French government has ever contained, at parity with the men.

Jeune Afrique, which at times like this becomes a bible on French African matters, reports that Hollande’s main adviser on African affairs is to be Helène Le Gal, a career diplomat with African experience, the first time this position has ever been held by a woman. There are, however, still others in the frame, including those who come into the anti-Françafrique category, such as the magistrate William Bourdon of Transparency International, one of the main lawyers on the case of the many properties owned by certain African presidents as evidence of embezzlement of public funds. The question remains as to how much influence she will actually have, as it is understood to be Hollande’s intention to abandon the possibly sinister idea of a ‘cellule’ closely attacked to the presidency that has marked every presidency since that of General de Gaulle. He kept relations with former French territories in sub-Saharan Africa as part of the domaine réservé of the presidency (along with aspects of defence and foreign policy) leaving much of the high-level relations with African presidents in the hands of the General’s grey eminence Jacques Foccart. Since then every president has had a ’Foccart,’ although the post had less significance under Nicolas Sarkozy, whose view of the system that came to be known (and criticised) as Françafrique, was erratic, but his commitment to serious reform was more an intention than a reality.

Françafrique was actually invented by President Houphouët-Boigny, to describe the closeness of a relationship he actually favoured, but (as described in a preceding editorial in September 2011) it increasingly became a label for what was perceived as an anachronistic neo-colonial relationship, dominated by special interests and cronyism. As a system for maintaining a sphere of influence, however, it proved remarkably effective since it was devised in the de Gaulle period, following the dependence-encouraging balkanisation of the colonial federations in West and Central Africa. The relationship consisted of three main strands: the first was economic, symbolised by the CFA franc, the common currency of France’s former territories. While the fixed exchange rate with France’s currency and it’s convertibility eased transfers and trade, both with France and with each other, it also facilitated capital flight from Africa to France. The great CFA devaluation of 1994, which — 58 —

happened at the same time as the concession of economic overview to the Washington institutions, curtailed the effectiveness of the zone. Even so, it has survived even switching it’s fixed parity from the French franc to the euro zone in 2002, while maintaining a portion of the CFA zone’s reserves in the French treasury. The zone seemed an additional guarantee, although the recent Eurozone turbulence has been disturbing for it’s African appendages, who have no control over it’s vagaries. Even in the event of Euro zone disintegration, the guarantee of the French treasury should continue, and still offers some kind of stability. As I wrote last September, the alternative, an ECOWAS monetary union dominated by Nigeria seemed “even less secure.” The cooperation agreements signed after independence were another pillar of the ‘special relationship.’ They covered a range of subject matter including maintenance of French style educational and legal systems, backed up by the International Francophonie Organisation (OIF) launched in 1986, whose core objective is the maintenance of the French language, which still translates itself into a foreign policy objective. Also most important were security arrangements through defence agreements, also initiated in the 1960s. France became the only power (apart from Cuba in Angola) to maintain a permanent military presence in Africa through the first thirty years after independence, and was in the forefront of unilateral military interventions in that period.

This changed somewhat after the traumatic experience of |Operation Turquoise in Rwanda in 1994 in which France was tainted with genocide. Since then she has assiduously sought cover from the UN (as in Côte d’Ivoire) or the EU (as in Chad-CAR). In the case of the Sarkozy-Cameron intervention in Libya in 2011, the cover was NATO, which had long been coveting a security role in Africa. Across the political spectrum, it seems to be accepted that France needs the sphere of influence to help maintain it’s role as a middle-ranking power, along with the independent nuclear deterrent and the permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It will probably. Only be when the Africans themselves decide to break it up that the system will change, even if there a periodic discontents, especially over such issues as controls on immigration. Meanwhile France will continue to seek EU involvement, which has always applied in the economic sphere, where sharing the aid burden was one of the main reasons for France to encourage a European development policy. In view of these abiding interests, is Mr Hollande, even in pursuit of being ‘normal’ going to make any major change? French socialist leaders have often been more susceptible to radical pressures, and the French left has been increasingly critical of Françafrique. President Mitterrand, after his famous victory in 1981 soon became caught up in maintaining the sphere of influence. The interventions in Chad (1983) and Rwanda (1994) were on his watch. The 1997–2002 period, in which Lionel Jospin was Prime Minister under Jacques Chirac as president was more ambivalent. One defining moment came after the Ivoirian coup of December 1999.

Troops sent on Chirac’s orders to reinstate Konan Bédié were stopped en route in Dakar under pressure from Jospin. Some see a connection with PS backing for Laurent Gbagbo, — 59 —

then an opposition leader, but it was still a turning-point. The Ivoirian intervention by Chirac in 2002 had a better objective (opposing both partition and civil war), and was done with UN approval and eventual control. The PS distanced itself from the Gbagbos as their regime became mired in the brutalities of survival. The climate of general African revival of 2012 is also significant. Increased Asian interest, notably from China and India means European powers cannot quite call the shots as before. Francophone African countries are increasingly keen on diversifying their partners. Both Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, key countries for France, have both transcended recent political crises, advertising their openness for business. France for long has sought to enlarge its interests by developing business with the booming countries of eastern and southern Africa, despite the backyard’s pull and the political capital it still offers. There is also the insoluble political crisis in strife-torn Mali, in which France will be expected to play a role, although Mr Hollande would probably wish it would go away. He will certainly try to seek support from others in the EU, NATO, the UN – anybody but France alone.

In general, Mr Hollande would prefer to pursue ‘normal’ policies, and secure some advantage from imaginative distancing from the clutches of special relationships. Others have found such distancing not so easy, as the weight of history still comes into play, The old French saying ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ (the more it changes the more it stays the same, To pronounce the death of Francafrique would be brave indeed.

(May, 2012)

The Story of Coups in Africa Let us go back to the era of the dawn of Africa’s independence in the 1960s. It was a heady time, full of transformations and infinite possibilities. It was also, however, a period of shocking learning curves on the reality of the new ‘altered state. The first Congo crisis of 1960–1 showed the twenty-one African states that had been launched into nationhood between 1956 and 1962 (from Sudan to Rwanda and Burundi) that the road was going to be rocky, especially in the then dominant Cold War ‘super-power’ frame of international politics. Those of us that began studying African politics at that time recall only too well how much the 1960s was a season of instability and coups it was a decade in which the poor preparation for independence of the colonial powers and institutional weakness sullied the new dawn. For the flags, the national anthems and the seats at the UN, masked the reality that independence was fragile and lonely and full of threats; and the brand new security services, the national armies, symbols of nationhood, proved the biggest threat of all.

It is a little-recalled fact that independent Africa’s first military coup was that of General Abboud in Sudan in November 1958, because of the “state of degeneration, chaos — 60 —

and instability” in the country arising from feuding political parties. For some this looked like an extension of the often militarised politics of the Arab world, but Sudan was also very much part of sub-Saharan Africa and should have been more heeded. The hour of the African military dictator truly arrived in September 1960, when Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu stood on a table in the Hotel Regina in Leopoldville to announce a coup, dismissing President Kasavubu and Premier Lumumba. While the Congo crisis continued it’s tragic itinerary, other cracks appeared. Ghana and Nigeria, both beacons of hope, saw alleged treason plots in 1962. The first properly West African coup, however, was at the moment of the assassination of president Sylvanus Olympio in Togo on January 13, 1963, one of the most fateful dates in the sub-region’s history. This was when Sergeant Etienne (Gnassingbé) Eyadèma, who was to brutally dominate Togolese politics for the next forty years, first came blinking into the light. The killing of Olympio was a crime that demanded retribution, but punishment was there none.

1964 saw a coup in Gabon, smartly reversed by French troops, but it was 1965 that saw the real beginning of the contagion. Although mass demonstrations had enforced changes of government in Brazzaville and Cotonou (both in 1963) and in Khartoum in 1964, there had been no suggestion of the military taking over. It was the accidental arrival in power of the portly veteran of the French army in Vietnam Christophe Soglo, in Dahomey (later Benin Republic) in December 1965 that appeared to be the event that “let slip the dogs”.

Another Vietnam veteran Jean-Bédel Bokassa seized power from David Dacko in Central African Republic (CAR) on New Year’s Eve, and a few days into 1966 in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) the hapless President Maurice Yaméogo, was painlessly removed after a demonstration by schoolchildren, in which troops would not fire and Sangoulé Lamizana was obliged to take over. Ten days later came the big one, the messy January 15 1966 coup in Nigeria, which ushered that country into a long period of mainly military rule. And on February 24, Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in Ghana. Thus in the space of less than three feverish months, the mirror of democracy in West Africa was hopelessly cracked., and the curse of military rule was at large in the land. More coups came: in Sierra Leone in 1967, in Mali and Congo-Brazzaville in 1968, Uganda in 1971, Niger in 1974, Chad in 1975 and Dahomey in farcical series between 1968 and 1972. Ghana and Nigeria were further contaminated by the infernal cycle, and Liberia fell victim in 1980. Sudan saw another coup in 1985. The Horn of Africa (Somalis in 1969 and Ethiopia in 1974 led to decades of conflict and worse that is almost another subject).

Coups are most often triggered for internal reasons or personal rivalries, but this was a situation in which fragile institutions fell victim to Cold War considerations or even the peculiar politics (outlined in previous editorials) of Françafrique. These factors were demonstrated in the most grievous and reprehensible of all coups, that of 1987 in Ouagadougou. In this, that most attractive of Africa’s military leaders, Thomas Sankara — 61 —

was assassinated, to be replaced by his old comrade-at-arms, Blaise Compaoré. It was a West African coup too far, with a suspicion of many outside hands, the memory of which still burns twenty-five years later. The wave of democracy of the 1990s saw a conscious effort by African states (using especially ECOWAS and the African Union) to cure the malady of military rule, even if some of the dictators reappeared wearing the mask of democracy. It was also a period of civil conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and sporadic coups continued (Strasser 1992, Abacha 1993, Jammeh, 1994, as well as the 1999 coup in Côte d’Ivoire, which ushered in ten years of instability). Exceptions continued, in the near-failed state of Guinea-Bissau, or the bizarre takeover in 2008 of Dadis Camara in Guinea after the demise of the long autocracy of Lansana Conté. The brutal year of Dadis served to justify the strong line of ECOWAS against coups. The coup in Niger in 2009 brought similar strong reactions, although it was a principled removal of a dictator clinging to power. and with the ending of the conflict in Côte D’Ivoire in April 2011, it looked as if a new period of regional stability was coming. Until Mali.

The Growing Mali Crisis The coup in Bamako of March 21–22 this year was a true throwback to the ‘sixties. It may well be remembered as a day of infamy in West Africa because it marked the shattering of a model democratic polity that had genuinely seemed to be moving in the right direction, despite it’s vast unmanageable size and extreme poverty, as well as recurrent drought and insecurity in the north, Mali was, after 1991 a functioning democracy. In 2001 an alternance saw the two-term president Alpha Omar Konaré replaced seamlessly by Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). His reputation was already high, as the military man who had facilitated the 1991 democratic rebirth, and in April this year had been due to step down after he, in turn, has served his two constitutional terms. It was said that he was tired and increasingly overwhelmed by the problems by Touareg dissidence in the north, as well as the growing activities of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM), a phenomenon that had been causing increased concern in the Sahel in the past seven years. ATT was criticised by his neighbours, including Algeria, for having been insufficiently robust towards these security challenges. Concerned Western powers, especially the US and France, who had been in the forefront of Sahel ‘counter-terrorism,’ also found Touré a ‘weak link.’

There were, however, deeper problems. The Mali army, which had been well-paid and provisioned during the military regime of Moussa Traoré (1968–1990), had suffered increasing neglect under the subsequent civilian governments. There was an increasing lack of esprit de corps, with senior officers alienated from the juniors and the rank and file, all recognisable symptoms. Unconfirmed reports of corruption added to the malaise. None of — 62 —

this need has caused rupture, however. What could not have been predicted was the unintended consequence of the fall of Gaddafy in Libya. A group of maybe 2000 Touareg combatants, veterans of the Libyan leader’s army, left Libya in the second half of 2011 with an important supply of heavy arms and established themselves in the mountains of north-east Mali. By January this year, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was read to launch it’s campaign, building on years of grievances and failed rebellions. It was their advance that put pressure on the Mali army that led to the events of March 21–2.

It only took the emergence of a catalyst for hell to break loose. This was Captain Amadou Sanogo, coup-maker and loose cannon, whose take-over broke the chain of command, a fatal move for an army, however much under stress. This was a captains/lieutenants coup, slicing off senior officers, blaming ATT and his colleagues for the army’s failure faced with the MNLA. Sanogo was the main player, a rough diamond but popular with the rank-andfile, and the unemployed youth of the capital, who changed everything, making this coup a dangerous sixties’ throwback. It is hard to imagine more disastrous timing. First, ATT only had a month to go before stepping down, and new elections. Second, the MNLA advance created a state of national crisis, which in-fighting in Bamako could only worsen. The coup was followed by the capture of three major northern centres, Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, and the proclamation on April 6 of the independent state of Azawad, covering all Northern Mali, about half the country (Azawad is actually a dry river basin – Azawagh – covering parts of Mali, Niger and southern Algeria).

Political wrangling in Bamako, with pressure from ECOWAS to restore constitutional rule, eventually led to the acceptance by Sanogo’s improvised military council of a constitutional ECOWAS-designated President, Dioncounda Traoré, and a Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, but this became more tenuous on May 21, when a rabble beat up the 70-year old interim President in his office and he had to go to Paris for medical treatment.

Sanogo’s undissolved council denied complicity, but the army guards allowed the attack to happen, knowing that the crowd were calling to have Sanogo as president. Earlier Sanogo and his military supporters had taken on the elite 600-man paratroops (ATT loyalists – ATT himself having been smuggled out to Dakar), and after a series of battles, disbanded them and jailing some for rebellion. So there are now two seats of power in Bamako, civil and military co-existing uneasily, with ECOWAS navigating with difficulty between them.

At the same time the MNLA has been displaced in it’s control of Azawad by the Ansar Dine movement, led by a dissident Touareg, but of extremist Salafist inspiration They had originally wanted all Mali to be an Islamist state, but are content to let their rule run on Azawad, imposing a reign of terror on the non-Touareg population of Gao and Timbuktu, where they are also destroying historic Sufist shrines. In this pitiful situation there is talk of a military action to re-conquer northern Mali, involving ECOWAS and perhaps Algeria, but it would be a complex operation to mount and would need much outside logistic sup— 63 —

port, and virtually impossible without the backing of a stable and legitimate government in Bamako. Meanwhile, Azawad, with AQIM still maintaining a presence, and MNLA and Ansar Dine at loggerheads, has become a magnet for international jihadists and there is even talk of training camps with Pakistanis and Somalis. A Boko Haram presence has also been mentioned, although without proof. No wonder a West African diplomat described the situation to me as “nightmarish.” We are thus in a period of clear and present danger in which the whole of West Africa could suffer from the contagion. Clear and present action, however, to neutralise the malady, does not look like happening any time soon.

(June, 2012)

Ten Years of the African Union Back in 2002, the African Union was born in a mood of optimism that reflected the spirit of ‘renaissance’ that had been developed in the 1990s after the remarkable democratic change of 1994 in South Africa. The Pan=African movement of the early twentieth century had led to the birth of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 in the full flush of the independence movements at the time. Indeed the independence of Algeria after a long and gruelling colonial war was the key to setting up the OAU, as France no longer needed to put pressure on her former sub-Saharan African territories at the UN. The resolving of the Katanga crisis in the Congo in January 1963, by a UN military action supported by the US, also encouraged the new mood of unity, and virtually all the leaders of the independent countries assembled in Addis Ababa to sign the OAU charter. It was not an easy ride. The pressures of the Cold War, which had been so painfully exposed in the Congo crisis (and which had been one of the most powerful arguments for setting up a Pan-African organisation in the first place) caused a series of crises for the OAU. All too often it was shown to be unable on its own to handle problems. An early success in mediation between Algeria and Morocco had few successors. Although bidden to intervene in the Nigerian civil war, the OAU was only in the3 end able to back the position of the Nigerian government, in part because secession was a defiance of the rules of the organisation, which caused African states to want to make the preservation of colonial boundaries a cardinal OAU principle.

The rash of military coups that beset independent states from the 1960s onwards compounded the poor image of the OAU, but it still pursued the stated objective of the total liberation of the continent with consistency and determination. The 1965 unilateral declaration of independence by the white regime in Rhodesia was a setback, to the cause of liberation and there was no doubting that the power of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, which saw the OAU as one of it’s principal enemies. But the collapse of the Portuguese empire in the mid-1970s was a major breakthrough, even if it precipitated a Cold War — 64 —

tension over Angola. If the OAU summit on Angola in February 1976 split the organisation down the middle, it meant that the organisation took the heat of the crisis, while the real power play between South Africa and Cuba was played out. The support of countries like Nigeria for the MPLA government saved independent Angola, helping to strength the Pan-African movement. The same could not be said of the OAU’s worst crisis in 1982–4 in which Colonel Gaddafy’s bid to take over the Chair of the organisation precipitated another Cold War division, with as pretexts the crises in both Western Sahara and Chad. Here again a core of leaders who valued the future of the organisation rather than the specific issues involved, with the departure of Morocco and the denial of the OAU chair to the ‘brother leader’ the prices that had to be paid. But the crisis weakened the organisation, and it was only the arrival as Secretary-General in 1988 of Tanzanian diplomat Salim Ahmed Salim of Salim that provided the leadership to put it back on course.

Two major international changes played in Salim’s favour: firstly the end of the cold War ended some of the international pressures that distorted unfavourably conflict situation, as well as ushering in a welcome wave of democracy in Africa. Secondly, the major political change in South Africa in 1994 with the arrival of non-racial democracy led to the movement for ‘African renaissance’ initiated by President Mandela. This found expression in calls for a reform of the pan-African organisation. Freedom from cold war constraints led to the development of a change of view on the part of many African states on the possibility of intervention in conflict in neighbouring states. The main trigger was the massacres in Rwanda in 1994, but the conflicts of Liberia and Sierra Leone brought what the French call le devoir d’ingérence (the duty of interference), moving ideas beyond the ‘colonial frontiers’ mentality of 1963.. The main architects of the new African Union, finally established in 2002 were the new democratic Presidents of Nigeria (Obasanjo) and South Africa (Mbeki) with support from the leaders of both Egypt and Algeria (also major funders). The loose cannon of President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal also had to be accommodated politically.

The ground had already been set by Salim, who for some time had seen the need for some kind of operational security mechanism to permit Africans to handle their own conflict situations, as indeed ECOWAS had been able to do with some effectiveness in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The AU provided robustly for both a Peace and Security Council and an eventual stand-by force. This came tentatively into existence with support from EU, deployed in Darfur with tentative effect, but more effectively in recent years in Somalia.

There were some regrets for dropping the word ‘unity ‘in favour of ‘union’. If ‘unity’ is to be achieved, ‘union’ is a statement of fact – as much or as little as you wish it to be.

More important have been the threats to unity that came first from the more recent crusades of Gaddafy, now mercifully over, and of late in the bitter series of struggles over the election of the President of the AU Commission. This was deadlocked at the January summit between the incumbent, the Gabonese Jean Ping, and Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma, — 65 —

South Africa’s seasoned foreign minister, the first woman ever to run for the post. Although she had the disadvantage of the tradition that the ‘African hegemons’ (South Africa and Nigeria) traditionally do not seek the pan-African post there was a strong feeling that the views of southern and eastern Africa had traditionally been under-represented, and it was the ‘South African moment’. At the election in Addis Ababa in July, the West African solidarity front which had contributed to the deadlock was broken by a few leaders such as President Johnson-Sirleaf, in the wider African interest, to the great disappointment of M.Ping and some other francophones. Although there is a need for a certain amount of repair work, the arrival of a pro-active woman leader, backed by one of the continent’s most powerful countries, we now have a new era beginning in Pan-African politics, at a time when the continent is making a more significant impact in global politics.

The President of Cote d’Voire, Alassane Ouattara in London The President of Côte d’ Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, was one of the several African leaders visiting London at the invitation of the British Government for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. He took the opportunity to make a number of contacts in the business community, and also spoke at the think-tank Chatham House on the subject of ‘Stability and Economic Prosperity in West Africa’. This was a subject on which he is eminently well-qualified to speak. It is not just that he went through the crucible of years of conflict in his own country, which finally came to an end with his own democratic election in 2010 and the departure from power of Laurent Gbagbo in April 2011. He had also moved to play an important regional role, having been chosen in March to be the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in succession to Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan. This happened at the same time as the regional grouping’s institutions were renewed.

With the appointment of the Burkinabe Kadre Ouedraogo as the President of the ECOWAS Commission for the next four years. The new Commission President and the new Chair as francophones were well-positioned to handle the new explosive crisis in Mali.

If Ouattara’s main purpose in London was to reassure both the British government and the business community (in the past Britain has had substantial investments in Côte d’Ivoire – CDC, Standard Chartered, and important cocoa traders – the regional message was also a highly important one. Côte d’Ivoire in the past has had ambivalent feelings about ECOWAS, although the post-Nigerian civil war rapprochement of General Gowon with Ivoirian founding father President Félix Houphouët-Boigny was instrumental in setting up the Community in the treaty of Lagos in May 1975. The first Executive Secretary of ECOWAS Aboubakar Diaby Ouattara steered the organisation adroitly through it’s first eight years. As the most powerful and economically important of the francophone members — 66 —

of ECOWAS, a strong pro-active position from Abidjan has always been a key factor, and one which has not always been evident, especially in the Gbagbo years (2000–2010).

President Ouattara’s move to the ECOWAS Chair (the first it has time ever held by his country) has been taken as a testimony of his commitment to the organisation. His significant understanding with President Goodluck Jonathan, which he specifically referred to at Chatham House, is a major new development. As a demonstration of unity it could play an important role in the coming test over the crisis in Mali. It is envisaged that the military plans to reunite Mali (backing the proposed government of national unity in Bamako) should have a key ECOWAS component, and the organisation’s chiefs of staff have been meeting to work out plans for what could prove to be a troublesomely complex operation.

The African Union component will also be vital, but backing from the UN and interested Western parties will also complete the deal. But none should minimise the challenge there.

At the Chatham House meeting, President Ouattara was presented with the text of a speech which had been delivered almost exactly fifty years before by President HouphouëtBoigny on an official visit. One should note that this was the last time an Ivoirian president had spoken there, the text makes fascinating reading, not least because of the pertinent references to the reasons for the foundation of the OAU mentioned in the above piece (including the end of the Algerian war). As significant, however, was the stress in the speech on the importance of the economy for under-developed countries. The dangerous position of inferiority of the “third world”, he said, was not due to any ‘curse’ (malediction) or any congenital incapacity. There was a “scientific explanation”, the main reasons being “weakness of private saving, lack of capital, shortage of skilled labour, and serious shortage of scientific and technical culture”. All of which chimes fully with the pitch of President Ouattara that his country, having overcome it’s internal conflict is now open for business.

While Ouattara’s own pitch is more focused on the riches of the gulf of Guinea (oil and gas, minerals) it will be recalled that the success of the Ivoirian miracle in the 1960s and 1970s was due to a combination of liberal policies and strategic agricultural diversification accompanied by the value=added to come from agro-industries. The 1962 speech also contained warnings, however, about the need to prepare carefully for mineral development; the limitations of doubtless beneficial foreign aid; and above all the dread instability of world commodity prices (which hit Côte d’Ivoire seriously in the 1980s). Ouattara, having been Houphouët’s only Prime Minister (1990–3) still describes himself as Houphouëtist, taking the first president’s philosophy of sound economic development and national unity. Ouattara’s own stress on regionalism is a development of Houphouët’s ideas, for in truth the first president had aided in the breakup of the French colonial federation in West Africa, although he always advocated greater regional cooperation, as witnessed in his vital role in forming ECOWAS. Regional leadership in partnership with Nigeria has been a garment waiting for an Ivoirian leader to assume.

(July, 2012) — 67 —

Addis Ababa, Mogadishu and the death of Meles Zenawi Last month’s consideration on this page of the current state of the African Union (AU) only paid modest attention to Africa’s various crises. If this year one has dwelt this year on the threat in West Africa from the grave situation in Mali, events now demand a focus on the eastern flank of the continent, above all the Horn of Africa. As According to The Economist there are some countries that “suffer in unison” a reference particularly to the Horn of Africa where countries “have all spilled internal conflicts and misrule across borders.” Two historic events could now transform the situation.

The first is the death in a Brussels sanatorium after a short illness (whose nature has not yet been disclosed) of the Ethiopian Prime Minister and dictatorial leader of his country, Meles Zenawi. This has taken the African commentariat somewhat by surprise. He had been such an important fixture on the African political scene for his twenty-one years of power that his premature departure produced a rash of soothsaying as to what it might portend. “Death of African Linchpin Leaves Vacuum” was the headline in The Financial Times, saying he had been a “towering figure on the continental stage.” Although his designated successor Hailemariam Desalegn is due to complete Meles’ term until 2015, at some stage some kind of power shakedown in such a large and complex country is expected, in part because he is from the South, which has never held power. The precedents of rule by strong men (Haile Selassie and Mengistu before Meles) fuel the speculation. Such broad uncertainties, however, mean that most comment has concentrated on Meles’ own record.

Tributes from Africa have been heartfelt, beginning with the AU, which described him as “one of Africa’s greatest sons” who has been central to “pioneering a new era of hope and growth in Africa,” although his role in the continent’s diplomacy has often been controversial. Particularly striking have been eulogistic tributes from western sources, in spite of the frank recognition that he had always been authoritarian, with a poor human rights record, All agree that of late the oppression of his regime has intensified and that what slender democratic shoots that may have appeared were imperilled. Some in the West have chosen to stress his part in prosecuting the ‘war on terror’, especially in Somalia, but what comes through from the obituaries has above all been admiration for his development role.

David Cameron, for instance, described him as an “inspirational spokesman” who had lifted millions out of poverty. There was a similar tribute from Gordon Brown, who as Prime Minister had specifically invited Meles to represent Africa at the Docklands G20 Summit in London in April 2009, although (or perhaps because) the African Union chair at the time was none other than the ‘brother leader’ Col Gaddafi. The somewhat disingenuous device was employed of inviting Meles to participate as chair of NEPAD (the New Economic Programme for African Development). Since its inception in 2002 NEPAD has been semi-attached to the AU, and the hapless Jean Ping (Chair of the AU Commission) — 68 —

found himself simply a member of Meles’ delegation. Many have praised the sharp intellect of this former Tigrayan Marxist rebel, who was the brains behind the fall of the Mengistu dictatorship in 1991. Abdul Mohammed and Alex de Waal in the International Herald Tribune notes that even in his early revolutionary days he was “best able to articulate a theory linking state power, ethnic identity and economic policy”. In power “all his national policies were framed around the conquest of poverty” Unconvinced by the prescriptions of the Washington institutions, Meles held back on accepting loans until his conditions were met. “Throughout the next two decades he was uniquely ready to engage in sustained debate with policy-makers, diplomats and scholars from around the world.” Drawing from models like South Korea and Taiwan he argued that the route to accelerated development was through a “strong state to encourage and direct investment and through inculcating the values of hard work sarong the general population”. His policies delivered growth of around ten per cent per annum for much of the last decade, combined with “impressive” infrastructure projects, sound use of aid and “low corruption”. In view of this record, Ethiopia’s democratic deficit has been swallowed. But, as The Economist points out, there is no governance legacy coming from this ‘big man’ syndrome – a problem that confronts many other African states.

Meles Zenawi’s relations with Ethiopia’s neighbours have not been easy. Although responsible for the radical move of allowing Eritrea’s secession in 1991, he found himself pushed seven years later into war with his difficult neighbour, but was able to restrain his military hawks who wanted to push victory beyond disputed border areas. Somalia has been even more controversial, as on two occasions in the past seven years Ethiopian troops have pushed into Mogadishu, despite the bitter hostility of the two peoples. The moves had full support from the Americans, concerned at the control of the Islamic extremists of the Shabaab, but it has not been Ethiopia that has eventually tamed the situation in Somalia. The credit for this goes first of all to Uganda that intervened in 2008, initially without AU approval, and then the pan-African organisation itself, with the endorsement of the UN, set up AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia). Ethiopia is only now a participant and this US/Europe backed force has slowly, at considerable expense in both men and money, been able to bring about the essential security on which a new political dispensation may become possible. The strong presence of Uganda in AMISOM, independent actions of the military in Kenya (now integrated into the AU operation), which has seen itself seriously threatened from the failed state, are complicating regional factors. Meles was also a key player in the US-guided process that led to the creation of the Republic of South Sudan, which entered a troubled independence in July 2011. There is not space here to explore this complex and critical development, except to say that it is an experiment still to be proved. Especially as the North, now called the Republic of Sudan, is in a political situation growing more and more difficult that could further disturb regional balances. The — 69 —

former US special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios provided a gloomy piece in The International Herald Tribune titled “War, War and More War”, a scenario different from those presented by the Americans last year, arguing that fifty years of war showed Sudan’s unity was not working and that the mutual necessity of jointly benefiting from the country’s oil riches should lead to a more lasting peace. Since last year already several violent altercations brought the two countries to the brink of full-scale war. There are too many other forces at work, not least the ripples from the ‘Arab Spring’ that look like upsetting an already fragilised situation. The lack of a firm guiding hand from an Addis Ababa trying to sort out its own politics may be one of them. But the problems centre on the increasing turbulence of politics in Khartoum itself.

The second key new event is the inaugural session of the first parliament on Somalia since 1991, when the Syad Barre regime fell apart. Although for security reasons this had to be held at the airport, it has been seen as a symbol that Somalia is finally struggling out of its ‘failed state’ status, following the marginalisation of al Shabaab. The next step should be the inauguration of a genuine national government, following the first elections since 1967. As well as a decrease in piracy and increased cooperation among local power brokers, “Mogadishu” as Time magazine reports, is “all but free of fighting” for the first time in a generation, Refugees are returning home and it is possible to begin planning tentatively for the future. As this editorial page recorded in February, even in its worst phases of disorder, Somalia has always maintained a thriving informal sector, providing much of the livestock for the East African region, not to mention sustaining the trade in the stimulant khat. It has also operated one of Africa’s most efficient mobile phone systems (in contrast to the extremely low rate in Ethiopia) as well as one of the largest money transfer companies, which transfers remittances from Somali communities in a wide international diaspora, now seriously coming into its own. There are still many imponderables, – where al Shabaab will now relocate itself, the continuing problematic of warring clans, and how far Somaliland and Puntland, the two other parts of the original independent Somalia will join a wider unit again – but the inspiration given to all Somalis by the iconic Mo Farah has great value. If a British-Somali asylum-seeker can win two long distance gold medals anything is possible – especially the rehabilitation of a failed state.

(August, 2012)

Marikana Challenges the ANC in South Africa The ending of the strike at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Rustenberg caused widespread relief and not just because of the boost the settlement gave to Lonmin’s suffering shareholders.

There has been concern not only in international circles, but among South Africans preoc— 70 —

cupied with the political future. In view of some of the alarmist warnings uttered during the strike, especially after the shooting by police of 44 strikers, the worst seemed to have been avoided. There are signs, however. that the precedent of a 22 per cent pay rise is giving rise to wildcat strikes at other mines, significantly going beyond the platinum sector (South Africa produces 80 per cent of the world’s platinum) into the equally important gold sector.

President Zuma will need to appear to be in control of this situation before the political challenges he will be facing before the end of the year. Many column inches have already been produced on the grave impact the strike and it’s political side-effects will have on the African National Congress (ANC), which has recently celebrated it’s centenary, making it the oldest modern nationalist movement in Africa, as well as being probably the best known of all Africa’s political parties, spending much of the last century as the spearhead of the struggle against the hated apartheid regime. Other celebrated African political parties have bitten the dust – such as the CPP, the RDA, but the ANC, perhaps because of it’s long period of struggle and honing of it’s leading personalities many of whom are now ageing, has had remarkable resilience. The party’s forthcoming Congress at Mangaung (December 16–20) when he stands as candidate for a further four years as President. He is still expected to win through, especially with the support of the influential COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), although he is likely to face damaging opposition from rival candidates notably the alliance of Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe with the billionaire Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale. COSATU itself has lost credibility from its impotence during the Marikana strike.

It is possible to put up a positive scenario that the challenge of Marikana may help the ANC to put on a new face. The party needs to rediscover certain populism – it’s muchtouted BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) has mainly succeeded in creating a few billionaires, and there has been a widely reported alienation from the masses, worsened by evidence of corruption. This has given the firebrand Julius Malema (currently expelled from the ANC) his crude opportunity, but as Moletsi Mbeki, brother of the former President has said, Malema is a symptom of what is wrong, rather than a cause. The profound alienation we are witnessing comes from a feeling that the promised land offered by the end of apartheid has not been realised, and that economic improvement has been too slow in coming, while too many of the structures as well as the psyche of the apartheid regime have survived. Moletsi Mbeki also underlines the fact that new investment has more or less dried up, and that unemployment, especially amongst the black majority is at a colossally high level and rising, adding to the frustration of the demographically numerous youth.

The challenge in how to rediscover the roots and mission of the ANC without bringing new problems for an already fragile economy, more affected than many African countries by the global downturn. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has admitted that the unrest could undermine growth and investment, a self-evident truth. An additional and pressing prob— 71 —

lem is how, at this stage, to upgrade South Africa’s policies in Africa, given the imminent arrival at the head of the African Union Commission of its first South African leader, Mrs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. South Africa’s African stance has not really capitalised on the ANC’s African prestige to forge a successful foreign policy, although it has expanded an already significant economic position, especially among it’s Southern African neighbours in SADC. In Africa Confidential we are told: “South Africa has benefited from substantial portfolio investment and from it’s role as an investment platform for other countries in the region.” The country’s neighbours have been watching anxiously as the mining crisis has developed and hope that it does not spread further. Ever since the great change of 1994 there have been great expectations that South Africa would take a leadership role in Africa, but it has often seemed to misfire (as in it’s interventions in the Côte d’Ivoire conflict). All too frequently it has seemed to be preoccupied with it’s own internal balancing, to pursue a more pro-active and representative African policy. At the 2009 G20 summit in Docklands, the presence of South Africa was as a middle income newly emergent country, and not, as was made clear, representing Africa, which task at Gordon Brown’s say-so, was done by Ethiopia’s recently deceased premier Meles Zenawi. Indeed, it has sometimes been felt that South Africa has sometimes felt it stood apart from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, which recent diplomacy has been rectifying, although the present Marikana crisis has not been helping this development. A strong economy always reinforces a strong foreign policy.

British MPs and Nigeria All Party Parliamentary Groups in the Palace of Westminster have expanded considerably in the 21st century. They are an institution going back many years, but have proliferated in the past thirty, and are now subject to increasing scrutiny. There are nearly 140 country groups and over 400 thematic groups, from Accident Prevention to Zoos and Museums, by way of the Ahmadiyya Movement and the Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Society.

Parliament’s website describes them as” informal, cross-party, interest groups that have no official status within parliament and are not accorded any powers or funding by it”… they should not be confused with Select Committees” formal institutions of the house. Country all-party committees include about twenty for African countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan and Angola, as well as for the Great Lakes in East Africa, and for Western Sahara as well as Morocco (but not Algeria); and for both Mauritius and the Chagos Islands. Some critics of our MPs have always tended to maintain they provide jollies for backbenchers and opposition MPs, but it is hard to believe this applies to the Nigeria group.

This was set up only in 2005 (when it was officially a group on the Niger Delta). It has taken some time before getting to cruising speed. Its early visits were mainly to Abuja, and it’s — 72 —

last report was as long ago as 2008. From a fairly limited membership it now has thirty-six members including Diane Abbott, Chuka Umunna and David Davies, with one baroness and one bishop (Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham). Regrettably, however, only two of it’s members Meg Hillier and Obi Onwurah were able to make the visit.

Meg Hillier, Labour MP for Hackney, who has a substantial number of Nigerian constituents. Chairs the Nigeria APPG. She records that without “the interest, energy and support of a whole network of contacts in Nigeria and the UK, the Nigerian APPG would not be able to continue with is work.” Obi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central, secretary of the Group also played a leading role in helping to organise the visit in April this year, as well as ‘animating’ during the visits to Lagos, Niger State and Abuja. In their report the Group “recognises the importance of building and sustaining knowledge of Nigeria within the British legislature because the country is set to become increasingly important to UK interests.” The report attached particular importance to youth issues – young adults (18–35) being more than one third of Nigeria’s population. Estimates put youth unemployment between 20 and 30million. Many of the senior officials they met “lamented the decline in educational standards and skills provision.” And they have unearthed the depressing statistic that Nigeria accounts for 17 per cent of children globally, who are not receiving an education. Their comment: “one of the most harmful costs of a turbulent history and poor governance has been the lack of investment in people”. In the context of the sub-region, they make the additional observation that “if Nigeria can support it’s youth population and capture it’s potential, West Africa will benefit”.

The visit put emphasis on the economy, with meetings with the CEO of the Stock Exchange, and with a group of movers and shakers in the power sector. They comment that while power sector reform is “the most complicated, costly and multifaceted reform that the government must deliver,” it is this reform that will “change Nigeria’s prospects” The report concentrates on present efforts to improve a dire situation, stating that “the British government is working with Nigeria to double power supply by 2015” noting that USAID, World Bank, US Eximbank and China Eximbank are all also there, but “many observers are clearly sceptical about the chances of the reform succeeding”. They quote the Presidential Task Force on Power’s estimate that ”by 2020 the cost of Nigeria’s poor power supply would be up to 20 trillion naira ($130bn) per annum if the situation remains the same”. The other major subject the report considers is agriculture, “a sector essential to critical change.”

They also heard Governor Babatunde Fashola address the Lagos Economic Summit. The report comments that “Lagos was frequently held up to the delegation as an example of a state where the government has forged ahead with a successful reform agenda and has demonstrated that resource rents do not bring change, which comes rather from investment in infrastructure and human resources”. The institutionalising of practices in Lagos “has helped boost investor confidence” and private sector success has helped motivate improved — 73 —

public sector performance. but concluding with the cautious comment that ”the key test on whether best practice really has been institutionalised in Lagos State will come after the 2015 elections”. This, of course, will be when Fashola has ceased to be Governor. The report also considers the general political situation in the context of the 2015 elections, and the need for further reforms to improve on the electoral process, which had already produced some encouraging results in the 2011 elections.

The report draws attention to the country’s negative international reputation. A recent Chatham House/Yougov survey found that 16 per cent of British people felt particularly unfavourable towards Nigeria while only one per cent felt “especially favourable towards it” It records that “political uncertainty and short-termist policy has created an attitude among many foreign businesses that they must operate on short-term horizons and seek to recoup their investments as quickly as possible”. Investors attracted because of the country’s resources and market potential “are concerned about contract sanctity, security and the lack of infrastructure” pointing out recent headlines on terrorist activities”. The authors go on to say that “this new threat is real and very serious, but does not characterise or dominate the country and it feeds a negative narrative of Nigeria that is too generalised”, adding that while there are some states that for reasons of poor governance or security “investors would do well to steer clear of” there are others with dynamic and reformist governments who “look to British companies to bring strong management teams and expertise”. The report comments that although the UK is “increasing its efforts to support commercial engagement…it is being outpaced by newcomers who are more openly and aggressively representing their businesses.” The delegation was encouraged by the additional resources for the High Commission in Abuja, and the DFID 2012/13 bilateral budget of £185m. There are currently 30 projects with a total budget of £918,675,316, with the cautious comment that it was “also about using these resources effectively and as efficiently as possible.” After considering ways of engaging communities, and the role of the Nigerian diaspora in helping build civil society the report concludes with a trenchant section on security, commenting that Boko Haram “can be a catalyst for greater fragmentation…” noting that distributors who used to transport goods from Lagos to Kano no longer do this due to security concerns”. This was not just damaging the economy but also social cohesion. On possible outside assistance, the delegation’s view was that “the terrorist phenomenon is uniquely Nigerian, having emerged in a local context, and therefore any effective and sustainable strategy for dealing with this threat will have to be Nigerian-owned and led at all levels of government and leadership.”

(September, 2012)

— 74 —

Election time in Sierra Leone and Ghana Although there have been important developments in international reactions to the crisis in Mali, with a UN resolution moving closer to a West African military intervention, I have chosen to concentrate this month on other developments in the sub-region. For there is a convergence of excitement before the end of the year in two West African countries that will be holding important elections. Both of them will be further test cases of the reintroduction of multi-party democracy in states which in their independence of over fifty years have been through the mill of political experience. The one that will focus most attention will undoubtedly be Ghana where presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on December 7, with the possibility of a run-off for the presidentials two weeks later. But before then there will be presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone on November 17. President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress (APC) will be seeking a second term, contested by Maadu Bio former military officer, for the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP). Maadu Bio’s democratic credentials rest on his role in handing over to Tejan Kabbah in 1996.

For Sierra Leone it will be a chance to see if the ‘alternance’ practiced in 2007, when the SLPP conceded defeat to the APC can continue. Then, the change of candidate (Tejan Kabbah stepped down in favour of Solomon Berewa) probably made it easier. This time an incumbent president is more likely to want to use all the means at his disposal to keep control of the government. The SLPP and the APC are the country’s two main parties and each has had their share of power since independence. Neither have had a particularly encouraging record in power, and although history and demography have fairly evenly matched them, a volatile public opinion has often sought to chase the incumbent out of office. The SLPP, which had deftly ushered the country to independence in 1961 under the country’s founding father, Sir Milton Margai, found itself caught in post-independence hangover under his successor, his brother Sir Albert Margai, especially when he tried to introduce a single-party-state. The country’s first major post-independence crisis came in 1967 when the election victory of the opposition APC under Siaka Stevens was first denied by Sir Albert, which led directly to the country’s first military coup. This was so badly handled and so unpopular that it was reverse a year later by a rank and file movement in the army which restored Stevens to his rightful democratic position as prime minister. There can be few African leaders who so destroyed their own credibility as democrat and leader as Stevens. It was not just his adoption of the single-party rule that so offended Sierra Leoneans, or his brutal treatment of opponents (true, some had tried to overthrow him) it was the atmosphere of political thuggery and corruption that embodied the atrophy of governance brought by eighteen years of Stevens rule, followed by six years of Joseph Momoh which was essentially along the same lines. It was in this period that the seeds of civil war were — 75 —

sown. The ten years from 1991 (the year of the Strasser coup) to 2001 when the civil war was winding down after the two British interventions in 2000, were the most horrendous that any country could experience’ For those seeking to understand where Sierra Leone is now, it is instructive to read Atrocities Diamonds and Diplomacy,* the autobiographical account of the three most dramatic years of the Sierra Leone civil war by this British High Commissioner in Freetown (1997–2000). This was the celebrated Peter Penfold who found himself not just in the line of fire in the civil war, but in the middle of a furore over ‘arms for Africa’ in the Westminster village, sometimes known as the Sandline affair after one of the companies to which security was outsourced. It was what Tony Blair called a ‘hoo-ha’ and it distracted from the serious need to assist the democratically elected government of President Kabbah in the face of violent overthrow. Penfold has a strong grievance against his bosses both in Whitehall and Westminster over the way he was hung out to dry. He was suspected of ‘going native’ even if for the most honourable reasons. In a way, it is the case that he makes in his own defence that make it intensely readable. He has an acute eye for the flavour of Sierra Leone, to which he clearly became very attached, and Sierra Leoneans to him, because they felt that for once there was someone who was seriously on their side at a most demanding time. And the horrors of the RUF’s war which he recounts unflinchingly are a reminder that even if the current election bring out new turbulence, Sierra Leoneans unanimously never want to go back to the civil war period. Although the vices of violence and corruption have not been expurgated from the body politic, there is every reason why sadder and wiser Sierra Leoneans should not continue to ensure that they can look forward to the day when they become the ‘middle income’ country, which their natural and human resources eminently merit.

The Ghana elections are already being perceived as of great importance, as this will be Ghana’s fifth electoral experience since the return to civilian rule in the 1990s. There are eight candidates standing, beginning with the incumbent President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who took over in a commendably smooth transition as constitutional successor as Vice-President after the death of President Atta Mills in August.

His main opponent is Nana Addo Akufo-Addo candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who very narrowly failed to be elected in the December 2008 election. The other candidates represent smaller parties unlikely to score significant votes. When Mahama through swift political manoeuvre, was able to consolidate his position as President in August, it looked as if it was once again going to be a very close race. That was however to reckon without the reaction of the former first lady Nana Agyeman Rawlings who had long cherished political ambitions and felt that she should have been given a chance. Early in October she registered her own political party the National Democratic Party (NDP) but her candidacy was not approved by the election commission apparently because she had not registered in — 76 —

time to correct errors in her forms. Although this row may have some destabilising effect on the party, the fact that her husband Jerry Rawlings did not follow her in resigning from the party indicates that the Volta Region where his own support has been concentrated will still stay with the party, and mitigate damage, There are still however a few weeks before the poll, so there is still everything to play for.

It is also clear that this is to be an intensely fought election because the rewards in the next four years are going to be considerable. The meeting this month organised by the Business council for Africa with the Ghana High Commission was titled “Doing Business in Ghana: Trade and Investment” with the enthusiastic sub-title “Opportunities in Africa’s Fastest Growing Economy.” The speakers were Dr Ishmael Yamson, Chairman of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and a prominent businessman, and member of the Ghana section of the BCA (the largest of the BCA’s twenty African offshoots), Frederick Edusei of Shawbell Consulting Ltd. Between them they presented a remarkably encouraging picture of the present oil-based upturn in Ghana’s economic situation. Introducing the speakers, Ghana’s High Commissioner in London Professor Danso Boafo set the scene succinctly pointing out that from GDP growth of 4.4 per cent in 2009 and 7.7 per cent in 2010 it had leapt to 13.6 per cent in 2011. While it was true that the forecasts for 2012 were more conservative (that is back to over 7 per cent) the outlook was still promising, and counterbalanced by single digit inflation for 20 consecutive months. The lower figure this year, said Yamson, had somehow been caused by the exceptional figure the previous year – there had been a huge import bill, as well as technical problems in the oil sector, which had hampered production. Yamson, a veteran in Ghana business circles, having served 38 years at Unilever, ending as CEO – he is now non-Executive Chairman – prescribed four priorities: building a strong economy, developing people, ensuring infrastructure and “transparent, accountable governance” for him the latter was the most important. “If we have governance, we can build the entire infrastructure we need.” He was keen to stress the message that investors should pass through official channels, notably the GIPC. For him, trying to seek short cuts to get to ministers would not work. Alongside this Edusei’s message was simpler “you need to know who to trust in the business you do”. This was Yamson’s second bid to attract investors organised by the BCA, because he feels strongly that the present time is the most propitious to move into an economy on the brink of take-off. But he, like the other speakers, stresses the value of political stability as a vital incentive, which is what makes the coming elections so important.

(October, 2012) *published by Pen and Sword Books (Military) Barnsley, South Yorkshire

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2013: Tempering Optimism on the Continent As a year of much global disappointment and depression fights it’s way to ending, there is a continued streak of optimism about Africa. One may wonder about this is view of storm clouds over the Sahel and the Great Lakes, but more and more confident assertions and predictions are being made. One is bound to take seriously, for example, the views of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy.

I understand that Ngozi’s new book Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons from Nigeria was launched recently in Abuja. Her previous experience as President Obasanjo’s finance supremo which one looks forward to reading with interest, as Obasanjo’s second term was a period in which one saw signs that the Nigerian economy was not a hopeless case. Indeed her title puts one in mind of the saying “the impossible will take a little time”. This is why her predictions for next year (and beyond), articulated in The Economist’s annual publication “The World in 2013” is worth some very close scrutiny.

The magazine flagged it on it’s contents page buoyantly as ‘Africa Rising’ but, more conservatively, the page itself was titled ‘Emerging from the Frontier’, although etymologists may argue about the different means of ‘rising’ and ‘emerging’ – there is a little more inevitability in ‘rising.’ At all events the significance of what she was trying to say was clear: she is ready to stick out her neck with hard-headed confidence and say that “the year 2013 will mark a turning point for Africa”. She notes that sub-Saharan economies, often viewed as frontier markets are “gradually advancing towards the top ranks of emerging economies”, hitherto dominated by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). African economies have grown strongly “despite the global economic malaise” and she believes growth will be maintained next year. The countries she identifies especially to watch are Nigeria, Ethiopia and Angola (one can confirm that a number of commentators have especially identified Ethiopia as a country to watch, as was demonstrated at a BCA meeting with the Ethiopian Ambassador in October). She also foresees “sustained growth” in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Tanzania. This growth will be driven, she says, by not only natural resources but by “continued investments in agriculture and manufacturing.”

She foresees, firstly, an increase in trade and investment flows with the BRICS, who she sees as funding much of the badly-needed infrastructure investment, especially in power, roads and railways. I like her neatly paradoxical central argument: “In 2013 the issue will not be the usual trade-off of fiscal consolidation versus growth. Rather, it will be fiscal consolidation and growth. And infrastructure investment is the most likely to drive growth.” After dangling well-known statistics on the increase in African trade with China (from $10bn to over $160bn in twelve years) she predicts China will become the “greatest influence” on the continent as it’s new leaders deepen the strategic relationship with Africa, — 78 —

but she goes on to predict that “as Asia’s economies slow and it’s wages rise, Africa will become the next preferred destination for labour-intensive manufacturing of products such as garments and shoes.” Moreover development aid, though still important for humanitarian intervention will take a back seat to private investment, permitting Africa to “emerge as a more solid and respected member of the global community”. One is tempted to add that this is already happening.

Ngozi also predicts more of “Africa investing in Africa”, especially coming from Nigeria, South Africa and Angola, as well as the return of more African professionals in the diaspora. Africa, she says, will continue to innovate in using existing technologies such as mobile phones. She gives the example of Nigeria’s ‘e-wallet’ payments system in its agricultural supply chain. Her last bullet-point (one with teeth) is the struggle that still has to continue with weak institutions and governments. She sees that civil society groups will need to become “more visible, sophisticated and vocal” in exerting pressure on issues like democracy, transparency and corruption, at the same time as facing demands for greater accountability on their own part. She concludes with a resonant plug for Africa’s women vital economic role – speaking as one of them, she said she was confident that 2013 will be the year “the continent becomes a destination of choice for global investment”. The same optimism characterised the address in November to the Business Council for Africa of Henry Bellingham, who lost his job as Foreign Office Minister for Africa (after two-anda-half-years) in the government’s September reshuffle. It is always of interest to catch a minister just after they have left office, and Bellingham did not disappoint, talking unsurprisingly with greater frankness than when a minister. He is an interesting case of someone who entered a job with virtually no previous experience of Africa but who plunged into it with enthusiasm telling his BCA audience that after sixty-one visits to Africa he had become “passionate” about it and planned to carry on his interest.

A barrister who had his own consultancy advising firms on inward investment he clearly took up the trade aspect of his job although this was also the preserve of Lord Green who operated from both the Business ministry and the FCO. It was part of the Coalition Government’s pressure to increase trade as a way of achieving desperately-needed growth.

And Bellingham was happy to say that on his watch UK’s bilateral two-way trade with the whole of Africa grew in value from £28bn to £36bn. Trade with sub-Saharan Africa is now an estimated £24bn “and moving in the right direction”. Without disguising concerns about security problems in Mali and northern Nigeria, or expressing concern at the political situation in South Africa, he presented a generally encouraging picture. He was particularly enthusiastic about Somalia which he called a “bright spot” because it finally had something like a proper government, although no-one can entertain illusions about the problems of recovery. He noted en passant that the Turks were pouring money into Mogadishu and Kismayo, and there were now daily flights from Istanbul. One note that he has been replaced — 79 —

as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa (the proper title of the job) by Mark Simmonds a younger Conservative MP of the 2001 intake (Bellingham had been in parliament since 1983). A chartered surveyor, he too has little previous experience of Africa so let us hope he too finds it possible to become passionate.

Simmonds has already been involved in all the fuss and bother over Rwanda, having visited there shortly before the International Development Secretary Justine Greening suspended British aid. Next year we are likely to see more tough decisions on aid from the avowedly cost-conscious Greening, which will raise questions on the Coalition’s so far effective ring-fencing of development aid.

One can safely add another prediction to those from Ngozi – that Africa is going to receive more political attention next year, quite apart from some of the good news that may come up on the economic and business front. Although conflicts have reduced in the past ten years, there are still areas such as the Great Lakes region where tension is likely to continue. The real cause for concern at the moment, however, is the continued unresolved nature of the Mali crisis. Latest reports indicate that, after the report from ECOWAS to the UN secretary-General over possible military action was delivered, there are some serious reservations developing. It will be impossible for any force to be mobilised before the Sahara becomes unbearably hot from April onwards, and that is likely to be followed by unpredictable rains. That being the case, no military action before September is predicted and even then difficult terrain and political imponderables will make it a complex exercise.

There is also the continued reservation of Algeria about participating in any military action, adding its voice to those that feel negotiations are possible with some of the disparate elements now controlling two-thirds of Mali. This includes especially the Tuareg, who have an important presence in the south of Algeria, but there are also important Algerian Islamist elements in both Ansar Dine and in al Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQMI).

Given this stalemate there are understandable concerns at the impact this may have on the whole Sahel region, including the north of Nigeria. The way in which what looked like a promising democratic experience in Mali crumbled so hopelessly and so quickly shows how external events (in this case the still unfinished and unpredictable ‘Arab spring’) can have powerful influence. This is not necessarily a voice of doom, but one has to offset the optimism of both Okonjo-Iweala and Bellingham with some expressions of concern at a Sahel situation that still looks out of control.

(November, 2012)

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More Challenges of Mali There is a pattern in events in Mali. They seem to start off the year with a bang, at least for the last two Januaries. Last year on January 17 the Tuaregs of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) began rebellion with an attack on the oases of Tessalit and Aguelhoc, near the Algerian border which led to a coup and a de facto partition.

This year on January 11, France brought the Mali crisis into full international view with a military intervention triggered by the threat to the regime in Bamako from the capture of a strategic town too near the capital for comfort. France brought in troops (at least over 3000), and alongside the enfeebled Mali army have begun a successful counter-offensive into the north, soon to be reinforced and perhaps replaced with an African force. The north was taken over in March last year by an uneasy coalition of Tuaregs with those variously called jihadists, Islamists, militants, extremists or terrorists. Apart from the MNLA there is Ansar Dine (led by veteran Tuareg politician Iyad ag Ghaly); and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), reportedly a splinter organisation from the shadowy presence of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM).

The Mali crisis had already been West Africanised, from the moment the collapse of the Mali army led to the March 22 coup d’etat, which complicated an already tangled situation, during 2012 the neighbours of the 15-nation grouping, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) made increasingly strong commitments. These were first of all to restoring democracy in Mali, still only partially successful, but also to putting together an African force to help Mali re-take the vast north of the country. This was backed up by important UN Security Council resolutions in both October and December, but at the end of the year, for mainly logistical reasons, it was not thought possible to begin military operations until September 2013, and the situation looked stalemated. The AQIM/Ansar Dine initiative in early January, taking the small but strategic town of Konna thus threatening the capital dramatically changed the situation and brought in the French, who initially repeatedly claimed no wish to intervene. The surprise move by Ansar Dine on January 15 from over the Mauritanian border to take Diabaly, even closer to Bamako heightened the alarm.

In the course of three weeks in January the French had remarkable success, moving with the Mali army to recapture Diabaly and Konna, and then the main towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal (capitals of Mali’s three northern provinces). It has arguably been too easy – it has been a war almost without engagement, with positions softened by air attacks in advance. But, as President Hollande said on his visit to Mali, the war is not over. The rebels have vanished into the Sahara, especially to the mountains of north-eastern Mali beyond Kidal called the Adrar des Ifoghas, and so will remain a permanent threat, especially if they can still have access to the Libyan open market in Gaddafy’s massive arms stocks.

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Maintaining vigilance will not be easy and may best be left in the long term to a more comprehensive UN force manned mainly by troops with experience of desert warfare. These will include those from Chad who have now joined the slowly assembling African force (although not a member of ECOWAS).

Since the dramatic attack on the BP in Amenas gas installation in Algeria on January 16, there have been strong reactions in the west, including over-heated predictions of decades of war. Hollande has been cooler, aware that nothing helps a war like a successful exit. He has indicated that he would like to get his troops out and return backstage as soon as an African force is in place capable of fulfilling the complex mission of propping up the Mali army and supervising the difficult return to democracy. Even though this is said to be the largest commitment of troops made by France in Africa since independence, larger even than that of another socialist Mitterrand, Britain and France both know very well that their economies are not in good condition and that taking on any long term military commitments while cutting defence budgets does not make much sense, however grievous the threat.

Although Cameron’s contribution to the French effort in Mali is only token, his new alliance with Algeria is an interesting strategic development, even if the Algerians may have been puzzled at this sudden British enthusiasm. As they themselves say, they have had high-level security problems for years and long experience of handling extremists. But they are now surely concerned at the new threat to their oil and gas industry, key to their economy.

However, as far as the Mali intervention is concerned, the idea that we have on our hands ‘Afrighanistan’ or ‘Sahelistan’ stands up uncertainly, As The Economist pain stakingly pointed out in a thoughtful leader “short sharp intervention can lighten the misery of millions of people”. It uses the alternative example of the British role in Sierra Leone in 2000, Afghanistan has been at the sharp end of global power politics for nearly two centuries, while Somalia was left to fester as a failed state for twenty years. Mali is different.

The nature of war in the Sahara means that low intensity conflict is likely to continue there in which taking territory may prove meaningless as Al-Qaida in its nature is a non-territorial organisation. The US establishment of a drone base in Niger is also a worrying extension of conflict, however much it may seem to simplify and economise that conflict. Some in West Africa have been thankful that the US has held back, aware of the effect their involvement could have on attention-seeking jihadists.

So far, however, it looks misleading to see what has been going on in Mali as part of a vast Al-Qaida game plan, although it is claimed that Bin Laden before he died had had some contacts with AQIM to advise on strategy. Arguably, in the Sahel you simply have a group of opportunists (specialists in hostage-taking, drug-smuggling and other criminal activities) using the Al-Qaida franchise to ride on the back of a real local problem. It cannot — 82 —

be underlined enough that the Tuareg were a particular problem for the French as soon as they colonised Algeria in the 19th century because they never accepted French rule. The Sahara (Algeria. Niger and French Soudan, now Mali) was under military rule for the whole colonial period, giving rise to the myth of the Foreign Legion who also knew only too well the limits imposed in the Sahara by climate and terrain.

Although predictions are always difficult in this kind of situation, it is possible to advance a convincing theory that what was needed was simply to recapture the lost towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, which is what the French have done with commendable despatch. While it is not possible to return to a status quo ante, one has to remember that there were always “ungoverned spaces” in the Sahara, and that the nomadic Tuareg have always roamed them, without consideration of colonial frontiers. Mali’s two longest frontiers are with Algeria and Mauritania from which AQIM launched the surprise attack on Diabaly.

Although Mauritania’s President Ould Abdulaziz is claimed as a staunch counter-terrorist ally of the West, he has a strong, discontented and often Islamically-minded opposition, Mauritania, like Algeria, has conspicuously not offered any troops for the African –led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA).

The Algerian position has always been crucial. It experienced a profoundly bitter Islamic revolt after the 1993 annulment by the army of a general election won by Islamic parties. While this was largely marginalised after 2000, the rebels continued as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which changed its name to AQIM in 2007 finding the Sahel easier terrain.

There is now a possibility of negotiation with the apparently hard-line Ansar Dine of Iyad ag Ghaly, a veteran Tuareg politician who has shown flip-flopping pragmatism in the past. To complicate matters his Number Two Alghabass ag Intallah has split from ag Ghaly and put himself forward as also willing to negotiate. It looks complicated, but one of the political priorities should now be a Tuareg new deal, even if independent Azawad cannot be an option. Settlement may be hard to achieve, as there is popular feeling in the rest of Mali against both Tuaregs and Arabs for their support for the rebellion, and their desire to leave Mali. This sentiment has been seen in revenge attacks in the recaptured towns of Gao and Timbuktu and it is said to be particularly strong in the Mali army. Part of the EU’s brief in re-training the Mali army, and it would appear, those of neighbours, is thus likely to be in the dispassionate handling of minorities. Otherwise conflict really could last for decades.

It is sometimes not appreciated among the politicians that the Mali crisis also exists on another plane. Modern Mali (it is worth recalling) took its name from the ancient Mali empire, and before independence had wanted to be a federation of all of western West Africa, based on the territory that Mali once was in the 13th and 14th century.

That was the era of historic greats such as Soundiata Keita, and the Emperor Mansa Musa who in 1324 dazzled Mecca and Cairo with the trappings of his entourage, bringing so much — 83 —

gold with him that he shook the money markets. The culture dating back to that time of the griots of Mali, of music and language, of kora and balafon, is still a huge source of pride not easily threatened.

It helps one to understand why Islam in West Africa was always extremely open and tolerant, and why the fanatics simply did not comprehend the nature of the country they were dealing with. Anyone wanting now to impose a rigid form of sharia will have a much harder time simply because the jihadists made it look like an attack on Mali’s deep cultural roots. Ironically the threat to the historic Dogon cliffs of Bandiagara which some had feared, may now be not from jihadists but from tourists (another kind of vandal). The banning of something as iconic as the internationally acclaimed Malian music can rally a whole range of international opinion that might otherwise wonder about military intervention. It has been genuinely seen as a cultural outrage throughout Africa.

For that alone one hopes the calvary of the Malian people will soon be over.

The challenges now are immense, both in trying to put together an effective democratic political dispensation in Mali that will include reviving and containing its army, and in coping with an immediate humanitarian problem which has swollen with the new conflict.

The aim is for a better and stronger state to emerge that it is hoped will restore Mali’s place in Africa and the world.

(January, 2013)

British Government Minister Simmonds and Africa The current bullish messages that have been issuing forth for some time about Africa were crystallised at the recent well-attended meeting of the Business Council for Africa (UK) with the Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds. His official title is Parliamentary Under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with Africa among his responsibilities (he also looks after the British Overseas Territories) but he inherits the mantle of a job first defined in the era of Lynda Chalker who managed to combine it seamlessly with Overseas Development before it became the super-ministry of the Department for International Development (DFID). In his talk titled “Opportunity and Engagement: the British Government in Sub-Saharan Africa”, the most important point the Minister made (which may sound trite but is still worth repeating) was to underline that Africa is not a homogenous zone. This he said was an impression sometimes conveyed by the media, although to be fair it is also often declaimed by politicians. There are success stories and failures, although he was still keen to put across the message that “Africa is a continent brimming with opportunities” for parts of Africa that are now in a position where China and India were a decade ago. There are, it is true, problem countries such as Mali or — 84 —

Somalia but he drew attention to an already much-touted figure that in the past decade six out of ten of the fastest growing countries were in Africa and the IMF predicts this number will grow to seven in the next five years. But he also recognised the importance of ensuring that growth also means jobs.

The minister spoke of the advantage of the English language when it came to trade – educational establishments now formed part of trade missions – and of the high regard in which the UK is held in the countries he had visited. There was a lot of work to be done in helping governments overcome barriers to trade, improve governance and help build open societies. He also mentioned that for the forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of the African Union in May an event was being planned in London that would concentrate on development. One other point which he emphasised, which is well worth dwelling on is the need for security in Africa as a “precursor for development“ I had even wondered whether to ask a question as to how this fitted in with the British government’s present cut-backs in defence spending, but somehow never caught the chairman’s eye. An answer to the question was in fact given by David Cameron in his statement the next day that some of the budget of the Department for International Development (DFID) might have to be reallocated to security expenditure (although not for “combat operations”) because it was a part of what was needed for as a “precursor for development” which was Simmonds’ phrase. Although the Cameron statement has produced some reactions of concern from organisations such as Oxfam, it is not in fact a new thesis.

Most importantly, the European Union (EU) has put it into practice for the past few years, in the allocation of expenditure from the European Development Fund, rather loosely covered by the Cotonou agreements of 2000. These are in fact only for sub-Saharan Africa as a member of the Africa Caribbean Pacific Group (ACP), but in Brussels nowadays there is a preference for the Europe-Africa Strategy, which also broadly includes the security-development equation. This funding, which over the past eight years is now moving towards a billion Euros, has gone not only to reinforcing the security institutions of the African Union (AU), but into non-combat support for exercises such as the continuing hybrid AU/ UN operation in Darfur and the African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM), which after a shaky start has seriously assisted the country to begin to get back on track. Thus indirectly (via Brussels) the British government has already been blending security and development, even if still operating strictly speaking within the OECD rules of the conditions for aid.

Indeed, it is worth recalling that the EU took the template for this approach to development from the prioritising of security in the main programme of the 2002 New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) now run as an organ of the AU, so it is not at all a new idea. At that time it was promoted particularly by the Obasanjo-Mbeki alliance of the period, and exercised a real influence on the Africa Commission set up by Tony Blair during his G8 presidency, the high point of which was the Gleneagles Summit of 2005.

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Interestingly, it is said that David Cameron also plans to make the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June the main base from which to launch a discussion on the run-up to the Millennium Development Goals (the famous MDGs which concentrate on global poverty alleviation), which reach their target date in 2015. It would have been weightier for the British Prime minister if he had been able to use the G20 (a more balanced and relevant international grouping than the G8 which for some has passed its sell-by date) but as a good public relations operative Cameron knows that one has to make use of the best material available, and a summit of even part of the ‘haves’ can provide such a platform. Simmonds, however, did not really explore that side of government policy covered by the Department for International Development (DfID), although it has a Secretary of State which in government terms means a very superior being who has had a seat in the cabinet ever since 1997. It is a reality that DfID Ministers seem not often to get to speak to business audiences, something which the BCA might seek to correct. And in support of the arguments which he floated on security and development, Cameron said that before the next spending review he would like to build up the “conflict pool” already used by the Ministry of Defence and DfID and other departments, which could help him meet an undertaking to defence chiefs that their budget would increase after 2015’ He also said “what is healthy about this government is that DFID is no longer seen as, nor does it see itself as, a sort of giant NGO. It is very much part of the government on the National Security Council. DFID, the Foreign Office and the defence secretaries work incredibly closely together.”

Politics being what it is, this brought a strong party political reaction from the opposition development spokesman Ivan Lewis. The comments were, he said “a cynical attempt to appease his right-wing backbenchers” concerned over defence cuts. Christian Aid, in a more considered reaction worth quoting at greater length, said that they would be “deeply concerned about any move to link aid to military spending in fragile states, not least because of the risk it can pose to aid workers on the ground. Aid diverted to ‘security, peacekeeping and demobilisation’ could have long-term implications. The blurring of the lines between military action and aid delivery could mean that aid workers become associated with those forces, meaning that they are not only put at risk, but find it hard to gain the trust of the people they are trying to help.” However, amid all this gunfire, one needs to put in a reminder that Cameron’s overall commitment to maintaining a ring-fence around development (a policy approved by his coalition partners) has often been perceived as one of his saving graces. That has helped the Conservatives to shed their image of the “nasty party.”

So any suggestion that in fact he is side-tracking development money into defence, however cunning the sleight-of-hand, could damage that position, and however innocuous it may prove in the end. But then, politics is a funny old business (to somewhat paraphrase Mrs Thatcher at her moment of resignation back in 1990).

(February, 2013) — 86 —

Post-colonial Networks in Africa When the European empires in Africa packed their bags and left, sometimes violently, sometimes argumentatively, sometimes reasonably peaceably, there were certain historical pressures to continue the more positive sides of the ties in some form. These were not always consistent or immediately visible, but by the early 21st century it was possible to see a clear picture of the structures Europe had introduced for managing relations with the post-colonial world. The parent of all the post-colonial relationships was the Commonwealth. This had begun as an idea for grouping independent dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) with Britain but was transformed by the independence of India in 1947 into a multi-racial grouping, ceasing to officially be British, while continuing with the monarch at its head, a personal designation for Queen Elizabeth II. The Commonwealth achieved its new identity as a distinctive multilateral voice in the post-colonial world partly through the flexible position of allowing membership to those who sought to be republics, but also through its principled stance on apartheid in South Africa. It was this moral force in the face of the single-handed opposition of the British government that gave it standing in the world and permitted it to affirm an identity in a changing international environment, especially in the post-Cold War world after 1990.

This imposed dramatic new challenges related to democracy that are still not resolved, but it helped the organisation in its struggle to remain relevant. It was also an example of involving developed countries of the old ‘white Commonwealth’ of the 1930s in the new multi-racial, multi-cultural organisation embracing one third of the population of the planet. Although it has never really had the resources to become a major developmental player it has an unrivalled network and a real potential for South-South cooperation.

The Commonwealth has also been a model for other European countries faced with withdrawal from empires. In Africa this has applied particularly to France and Portugal, whose situation was in a way more dramatic because of the fighting of long destructive colonial wars before disengagement. France under President de Gaulle tried to find post-colonial structures in Africa in the shape of a stillborn ‘Community’ but resisted the idea of a Commonwealth à la Française. This was pressed on de Gaulle strongly by leaders of the nationalist era such as presidents Senghor of Senegal and Bourguiba of Tunisia, but the General had a distrust of international organisations, especially the United Nations, which he called le machin (‘the thing’).

It was much later under President Mitterrand that the idea of institutionalising La Francophonie gained substance when he summoned the first Francophone summit in 1986.

These are now held every two years, like the Commonwealth. And there is also a Secretary-General supported by a secretariat. It was always based much more on the notion of a linguistic community, which never applied to the Commonwealth even if the English — 87 —

language has been a great unspoken de facto presence. Senghor, poet, linguist and grammarian, had been its prophet and advocate, but the first francophone structure was in fact an initially modest development agency called the ACCT (Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique). Founded in 1971 on an initiative from President Hamani Diori of Niger, it was accepted by French President Georges Pompidou. It was a way of involving countries which had significant francophone minorities (Canada, Belgium Switzerland), and over the years became an important instrument in helping maintain the global position of the French language which for the French was one key tool to be used in order to remain a major global influence. English language has been even more so, especially in view of its advantage in the world of information technology, but the British have never really played this up, perhaps because they did not need to. There has nevertheless been no doubt that the common use of English has been major glue keeping the Commonwealth together. The parallels between the two remain evident. Both organisations make much of organised Games, but the Commonwealth is less involved in cultural activities than Francophonie. Both hold a ritualistic ‘day’ in March.

Once the francophones adopted the Commonwealth model, there was a conscious extension of the activities of Francophonie from its purely educational and cultural objectives connected to the French language. The International Organisation of Francophonie (OIF) also became involved in election monitoring, passing sanctions against those states which imposed military coups, and, in 2003, adopting a Bamako Declaration on human rights, democracy and good governance which echoed the Commonwealth’s famous extension of its sphere of activities in the Harare Declaration of 1991. Francophonie, however, has not been faced with major crises of membership such as that which beset the Commonwealth over Nigeria in the 1990s and over Zimbabwe a few years later, in part because it had the pro-active and sometimes controversial Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) designed to implement resolutions and watch over abuse in member states. This is currently involved in a zone of turbulence over Sri Lanka, due to hold the CHOGM Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) later this year. There is a major concern over how far there have been continuing human rights abuses in the wake of the thirty-year civil war there which ended in 2009, and whether CMAG should formally put it on its agenda, and even whether the CHOGM should be boycotted.

To some extent the Commonwealth makes more of a meal of these issues than the francophones – last year the issue of a similarly embarrassing host country in the shape of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was handled adroitly by President François Hollande, newly arrived in power, and expressing some misgivings over having to go to a country with such a difficult track record. He went to Kinshasa and told President Kabila a few home truths about his performance. This frosted relations for a while, but it permitted the summit to happen and satisfied local opinion in France. The same applied to Canada’s — 88 —

Premier Stephen Harper, who went grudgingly to Kinshasa but is now having real problems about whether to go to Colombo. The CHOGM in Sri Lanka question is likely to dominate headlines for the next few months, but at the risk of sticking my neck out, the summit will in all probability take place and the Commonwealth will survive, albeit a little bruised. The only other major European power in Africa to have developed a post-colonial structure is Portugal. The Community of Countries of the Portuguese Language (Comunidade dos Paises de Lingua Portuguesa or CPLP) was formed in 996 was more modelled on Francophonie than the Commonwealth, but in some ways drew more inspiration from Spain and the Ibero=American grouping, formed in 1991 which was much more specifically targeted on Latin America which actually has annual summits and manages to include Portugese-speaking Brazil under its umbrella. Indeed all these networks, part of what is now called ‘soft power’ depend on the growing strength of their larger components. The commonwealth has India and other Asian countries as well as Nigeria and South Africa who increasingly balance the weight of the ‘old Commonwealth,’ and the Portuguese have Brazil and Angola. The French have a smaller African sphere of influence, but have an edge over the Commonwealth with their stronger ties in the Arab world (which has conspicuously stayed out of the Commonwealth without exception). The Belgians and the Italians only take part in the ultimate post-colonial network through the European Union, which in fact has built one of the most significant post-colonial networks. This is certainly the case as far as the amount of money spent by the European Development Fund (EDF) since it was set up shortly after the Treaty of Rome in 1958 is concerned (EDF 10 covering 2008–13 totalled nearly 22 billion Euros, well over 80 per cent to be spent in Africa). The relationship has passed through number of identities, from the mostly francophone Yaoundé Convention (1963 and 1969) through the much bigger four Lomé Conventions from 1975 to 2000 to the Cotonou Agreements.

Although Lomé and Cotonou included the Caribbean and Pacific, the sub-Saharan Africa component of the ACP Group is much the most significant. Difficulties in the trade section of Lomé (for some of the countries the most important aspect of the agreement) have led some to doubt whether the ACP arrangement will last after Cotonou expires in 2020.

Some in the EU now seem to prefer regional partnerships and have become increasingly unhappy with the global coalition of developing countries which the ACP represent, seen in the continuing controversy over Cotonou’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

Cotonou is increasingly represented in Brussels circles as a hangover from the past. This gives rise to a bigger question – can all the other post-colonial networks will these networks continue to have a place in the 21st century world? The Commonwealth has been through a series of identity crises – the most recent being around the setting up of an Eminent Persons Group on the future of the organisation which led to the drafting on the Commonwealth Charter signed recently by the Queen but which failed to set up the Human Right — 89 —

Commissioner which had been the most solid recommendation of the group. The Queen’s presence, despite illness, at the signing was a reminder that the grouping will sometime be facing the serious transition that will follow her eventual passing, as her commitment to the concept is often seen as an essential factor in its durability. Can Britain continue to be the host and hub, of such a network, even given its one-third financial contribution?

Could India take on the responsibility or would it break the intangible connections which often seem so important? Britain has long seemed disenchanted with it. Despite the present Foreign Secretary making sympathetic noises, this comes partly from disillusionment with Europe. Britain, like France is increasingly dominated by its own internal economic problems and the Commonwealth seems essentially marginal France is in some ways in a potentially more disastrous situation, as it is also caught up in the wider crisis of the Euro. But Britain and France like all of Europe, as well as the US, are in a dramatic crisis of adjustment, faced with seemingly irrevocable changes in the world balance of power. In this context, all the organisations cited in this editorial are also facing a watershed and a danger of withering away. On the other hand some foresee a growing importance for such multilateral organisations complementing the efforts of the UN to seek a more defined version of global order. Soft power, and new ways of purchasing influence, means making every effort to use the assets you have. This is why so many African countries still want to belong to the Commonwealth, Francophonie and the CPLP, and sometimes take in all three. Classic examples are former Portuguese colony Mozambique (in all three) and Rwanda, which has clearly shown a preference for the Commonwealth despite its original francophone designation (as ex-Belgian). The Commonwealth has now imposed sterner membership criteria, but in the much less demanding OIF a host of countries with small French-speaking minorities have been able to gain admission, either as associate members or observers, neither of which exist in the Commonwealth.

Post –colonial networks may have more durability than may once have been imagined. If this essay sometimes seems like an elaborate history lesson, it is intended very much as an analysis of often-neglected but important relationships. As has been said, the past informs the future, and in matters as complicated as international political relationships in an age of increasingly rapid communications and global connections, it is sometimes worth standing back and taking the long view.

(March, 2013)

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Biometric Elections, Power Shifts and Dynasties Politicians, journalists and academics on the subject of changes of power have uttered much in African political systems. While it is recognised that the main legitimate vehicles for such changes have been elections, there has long been scepticism about whether these are the be-all and the end-all of democracy, even if they are the litmus test of that democracy. The most recent case histories for democratic change have been in Kenya in March and in Ghana last December. The Kenya election was the subject of particular attention, in that four years ago a disputed result led to serious violence in which several hundred people were killed.

There was much pre-election campaigning for peace and moderation, which at least had the effect of not repeating the outrages of 2008 which led to a scar on the reputation of a country that is still looked to as a potential beacon for both good governance and economic development in East Africa, even if it often seems to fall short of the hopes attached to it.

One of the doubts over the election in March this year came from the fact that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, the two leaders of KANU, one of the main parties contesting are the subject of arrest warrants from the Hague-based International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ). These doubts have become major anxieties in that the Kenyatta/Ruto ticket had been deemed by the electoral commission to have narrowly won the election with 50.7 per cent of the votes cast, or over six million voters, with a 70 per cent turnout. This verdict was confirmed by the Supreme Court, which meant that Kenyatta was inaugurated as President on April 9, although he is still facing the prospect of having to have his case heard in the Hague in July. According to opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is still contesting the result in the courts, this will mean a confused impression for the government over at least the next three months, or possibly “government by Skype” from the Netherlands.

There has, even so, been a concerted sigh of relief that this time there has been an absence of electoral violence, even if offset by the evidence that the new biometric technology of the electoral system showed conspicuous shortcomings, leading to a large-scale reversion to manual systems. As Michela Wrong, in an article in The Spectator, comments: “what’s shocking about Kenya’s technological fiasco, which formed the kernel of the legal petitions which unsuccessfully challenged the result, is that something stunningly similar had already taken place three months earlier in Ghana’s presidential election…” She concludes that “thumb pads, apps and mobile phone transmission do no harm in themselves but they cannot replace a society’s generalised buy-in to the democratic process”. Then comes her punch-line: ”The reason political parties rig elections so enthusiastically in so many African countries is because winner-takes-all systems of government and imperial presidencies make the rewards so enormous and punish failure so severely.” The solutions are harder to elaborate, although it has to be recognised that in the past twenty years, since the post-Cold War tide that swept Africa, there has been a consistent, if sometimes — 91 —

stumbling, progress towards more democratic governance in a number of African countries. Many would not even like to write off last December’s election in Ghana in the way Michela appears to do. Some argue, even acknowledging problems of technology, that it was a more representative result than that of 2008.

Apart from the technical questions, there are many other lessons to be learned. In Kenya, for example, is the revival of the Kenyatta dynasty going to further that country’s struggle for progress? There may even be special reasons why in fact what has happened could help move the country in the right direction, but we are still holding our breath.

The questions of ethnicity and regional domination also raise question marks (including in Kenya), but most countries seem to have achieved at some point, in the fifty years plus since independence, shifts in power. One saw it in Nigeria in 1999, in Chad (in the middle of civil war) in 1979 and in Côte D’Ivoire in 1999, to give three not entirely comparable but notable examples. Togo is one of the few countries floundering in continued political uncertainty because no power shift has happened. It is also one of the few sub-Saharan countries where dynastic succession has applied (the other main example is Gabon). Unlike many Asian democracies, the idea of a political dynasty carries much less weight in Africa, perhaps because it is not necessarily a fixed rule in traditional societies. To conclude on a note of irony, even in Kenya, the arrival once again of a Kenyatta in power may be due as much to the family’s substantial wealth as to an attachment to heredity.

Thatcher and Africa: Paradox and Power Realities Very little has been written about Thatcher and Africa, perhaps because it was only her involvement in the critical politics of Southern Africa that was of interest. First of all, not long after she came to power, she was plunged into the high drama of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Her first instinct was to pursue the Conservative Party policy of hostility to the nationalists, preferring the less promising and less supported Bishop Abel Muzorewa. It was, however, her confrontation with the full reality of the Commonwealth at its summit in Lusaka in July 1979 that caused her to pull the rug from under Ian Smith’s waning rule and accept a full conference at Lancaster House. This paved the way inevitably for elections, with the powerful parties of both Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo taking part. Lancaster House was not an easy exercise, and there was still somehow a belief that Mugabe could somehow be excluded from power, but the 1980 elections proved his victory incontrovertible, with independence duly following, and one has to give credit to Thatcher for staying on course, perhaps against her instincts.

Her second Southern African entanglement was more dramatic, because the stakes were much higher, over the burning international question the apartheid regime in South — 92 —

Africa. here again he instincts may have been on the side of the whites but her pragmatism eventually led her to realise that the only course was to work with the ANC (which she had stigmatised as a “terrorist organisation”) and release Mandela. Both De Klerk and the former British ambassador to South Africa Sir Robin Renwick have rightly stressed her positive role in the negotiations that led to Mandela’s release, but the conditions would not have been right had there not earlier been mounting sanctions which threatened economic interests (especially on disinvestments), and, dare one say it, had there not been a permanent threat of violence from both the ANC and from African states. In both Zimbabwe and South Africa interesting light shown on the relations between Downing Street and Buckingham which was more mindful of the damaging effect the crisis was having on the Commonwealth to which Queen Elizabeth II attached a great deal of importance. Mrs Thatcher tended to disregard the Commonwealth; indeed she enjoyed being in a minority of one at Commonwealth summits. This is what tends to be remembered in Africa. It was noticed that there were only a few African ambassadors, and no leaders, at the funeral in St Paul’s. Except of course De Klerk.

Otherwise her record in Africa was more noted for the most part for its indifference.

There were more important things for her to attend to. Her memoirs record an unfortunate belief that she could ‘do business’ with President Babangida at the time of his 1989 State Visit, before his regime began to implode. The former President made a few po-faced comments on her demise such as how he had supported her “constructive engagement” in South Africa, but at a time when anybody would have supported it anyway. Nigeria had in fact over the years been one of the greatest critics of British policy right up to 1987. There was nonetheless probably more admiration for her in Africa than was generally supposed.

At the time of the Falklands War I remember all too clearly one senior newspaper executive in Nigeria telling me he admired her “balls. But her public stance on South Africa for most of her period in power earned her many critics in Africa, a fact she did not mind at all.

Some interesting remarks on Thatcher, however, were made by former President of Ghana John Kufuor, who said that although she was “warlike and uncompromising” and many in Ghana had criticised both her South African policy and the Falklands War, he saluted “her economics.” She believed, he said, that “there are only a few creators in this world, entrepreneurs and investors… these are the people who will increase the wealth of the nation and make jobs for the people. That is a philosophy I also subscribe to.”

There are many who would support the view that it was in part Thatcher’s ideas that has helped Africa’s present renaissance. Although she appeared to have little knowledge of or interest in African society, it so happened that two of her mantras struck a real chord – the importance of the family and the virtue of the entrepreneur. Her role in the ideological defeat of communism, and therefore up to a point of socialism had an appeal in the continent’s growing indigenous business community, even if the widening gap between rich and — 93 —

poor is more and more going to precipitate the need for greater attention to social justice, especially if youth unemployment remains high and indeed growing. The lessons of the Arab spring in Tunisia and Egypt have not been lost south of the Sahara – which brings us back once again to the problem of wealth and who gets it. One should never forget that the much-trumpeted objective of wealth-creation could also, from a reverse perspective, be presented as that recognised ideal of the left, poverty alleviation.

(April, 2013)

A Half-Century of African Unity Fifty years ago this month, on May 25 1963, over thirty heads of state signed the charter of the newly formed Organisation of African Unity (OAU). This was a momentous day in the history of the African continent, and it is right it should be marked by important celebrations in Addis Ababa, where the Charter was signed half a century ago. Pan-Africanism, the dream of a free and united African continent was first articulated in the early 20th century, initially coming from the African diaspora in the Americas, but picked up by progressive American-educated Africans such as Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe. They came together at the Manchester Pan-African conference on 1945 where many iconic figures of African liberation were brought together. It was just after the end of World War Two when new ideas of ending colonialism and achieving independence were bubbling, and it ushered in the remarkable evolution of the next fifteen years. It was not easy, as the independence movement polarised the new nations into the radicals and conservatives of the Casablanca and Monrovia Groups, who fused to produce the OAU. The circumstances favouring the move were the independence of Algeria in July 1962 (ending eight years of bitter warfare), and the decisive ending of Katanga secession in the Congo in January 1963. Both of these had been divisive, as the Brazzaville Group of francophone states (which submerged into the Monrovia Group in 1962) had been pressurised by France for support on Algeria, and the Congo question alarmed many African states because of the intrusion of Cold War issues into Africa’s hard-won independence.

There were thirty-three states in the new organisation, but there were two absent leaders, from Morocco and Togo. These absences carried great symbolism, as they represented the dilemmas behind many of the crises of the next fifty years. The summit was boycotted

by King Hassan II of Morocco, even though he was member of the radical Casablanca Group. He objected to the presence of independent Mauritania, which was claimed as a part of Greater Morocco. It was a boycott encapsulating one of the main issues before the OAU – the acceptance by member states of the sacrosanct nature of the frontiers of independence, although mostly drawn up in the colonial period – arbitrary lines with no respect — 94 —

of peoples that had marked the Scramble for Africa. The reverse side of this was the refusal of secession, seen in the passionate opposition to Katanga. The 1967 secession of Biafra from Nigeria thus became one of the OAU’s early challenges and the organisation came down on the side of ‘one Nigeria’, in spite of a small group of pro-Biafran countries.

Morocco was at the heart of a related issue of frontiers – the question of what should happen to Spanish Sahara, as Spain withdrew in 1975. Should it be partitioned between two neighbours (Morocco and Mauritania) or allowed to become independent under the Algerian-backed liberation movement, the Polisario Front? This was an issue that eventually in 1982–3 brought the OAU as near to breaking up as it had ever been, complicated by the inordinate ambitions of Colonel Gaddafy of Libya.

There have been other secessionist issues like Cabinda’s attempt to leave Angola, while only Tanganyika and Zanzibar have actually merged two independent states in a lasting way (Senegambia tried and failed). Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau’s split in 1980 was a question of mutual agreement, while Eritrea leaving Ethiopia was accepted because during the colonial period Eritrea had been a separate territory while Ethiopia never accepted Italian conquest. This nevertheless opened up questions that broke the established OAU consensus, and had to be tackled when setting up the AU. Other occasional secessionist movements like Casamance in Senegal were deemed low-intensity conflicts. Only the eventual division of Sudan was the first formally negotiated secession of one territory from another, and that after almost fifty years of conflict.

The other symbolic absence from the first summit and charter-signing in Addis Ababa in May 1963 was Togo. The assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio in January that year was the first post-independence coup in West Africa (leaving the events in the Congo aside) and military interventions in politics were so rampant in the ensuing years that they had to be pragmatically accepted. After the 1990s, however, there were increasingly strong attempts to outlaw coups, and with the coming of the AU this became established policy, with formal sanctions on those attempting unconstitutional take-overs.

The difficulties of the OAU were part of the continent’s own teething troubles relating to the organising of political power. The economic stresses of the 1980s (stigmatised as “the lost decade”) exacerbated the problems. Although the fall of the Berlin Wall seemed to open new prospects for democracy, the 1990s were still problematic for Africa – post Cold War marginalisation was accompanied by civil wars (Sierra Leone and Liberia), failed states (Somalia) and genocide (Rwanda). Notoriously, in 2000, The Economist baptised Africa “the Hopeless Continent,” but by then the outlook was changing. Huge new opportunities were still only partially perceived at that time. Moreover, the 1990s saw the memorable election in South Africa, which saw the decisive end of apartheid and the opening of the country to a brave new era of multi-racial democracy. For the OAU this marked the completion of a key objective – total liberation of the continent. By coincidence or serendipity, it ushered — 95 —

in a new era of commitment to democracy and governance. Although well-prepared by the OAU (and Salim Ahmed Salim, its visionary Secretary-General, 1989–2001), it was the AU, born in July 2002, that reaped the benefit of the rebranding, though many prefer “positive evolution” and even more use ‘renaissance.” Rules of non-interference and hostility to secession became more relaxed under the AU, seen in the acceptance of the division of Sudan into two countries.

The Union’s eleven years have been notable for elevating its peace and security role, the operation of the new Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) brought practical results in operations in Burundi, Darfur, and above all Somalia. There, the AMISOM peace-keeping force, sent in 2007 and sustained particularly by Uganda, has after a faltering start been the prime mover in re-establishing credible central government in Mogadishu although the struggle is still considerable.

One question-mark has been the need to fund security actions externally, especially from the European Union, which has contributed around $100m a year for the past six years. Dependence on external funding and worry about the strings it may bring was raised in January 2013 by Economic Affairs Commissioner Maxwell Mkwezalamba, who deplored that 96 per cent of the project budget (not including military operations) came from external finances. This included the spanking new headquarters building funded by the Chinese.

Self-reliance through national contributions has never worked well in the past, and most of the budget has depended too much on the five largest countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, and, sporadically under Col, Gaddafy, Libya). This is leading the organisation to consider a continent-wide levy similar to that now used to fund ECOWAS. The Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town held a colloquium in Berlin jointly with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung last September on ‘The AU at Ten; Aspirations and Reality’. This produced a well-presented bilan * of the AU’s first ten years. Their report made sensible recommendations on implementing the 2007 Audit, and avoiding institutional duplication within the AU. It also said African governments should prioritise infrastructure to create free movement of people, goods and services: also that the AU’s decision to recognise only eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) “should be implemented as a priority.” There were recommendations on the membership of the UN Security Council, and prudent suggestions for the UN funding of peace-keeping operations.

Despite many challenges, the AU at the beginning of the 21st century has experienced an upward curve, so the celebrations of 50 years of unity have seen justified rejoicing, For example, the AU heads of mission in London held an excellent day-long conference in conjunction with the Commonwealth Business Council. They were able to secure British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to open the meeting, held in the august surroundings of Lancaster House, redolent with many African memories. It secured convincing support from a business community now increasingly interested in Africa.

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Clegg said that Africa’s growth story was often lost in the “customary narrative of conflict and instability” and that a transformed Africa “once perceived as a continent of distress [is] now looked to as a continent of opportunity.” His message was very much linked to the British government’s efforts to include Africa on the agenda of the forthcoming G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, and to Britain’s own trade promotion efforts, but although he made reference back to Gleneagles in 2005, we have come some way from that era of Blairite simplicities. As several British envoys to Africa have been telling a number of BCA meetings this month, you now have a British government fanatical about trade (Clegg with his addiction to mantras came up with another one – “trade, transparency and tax”) and concern about intra-African trade which has been climbing the AU agenda fits in to some extent with that objective. The new optimistic economic situation of many African states was much discussed at the Addis Ababa celebrations. The BBC correspondent there highlighted the encouraging lead of African states in recent growth statistics (seven of the ten fastest-growing), but this was counter-balanced by too many at the bottom end of the corruption tables of Transparency International. The message was one of satisfaction without complacency. The summit was also bound to take stock of the continent’s political pressure points such as Somalia, Sudan and the pressing new crisis in the Sahel triggered

by Mali, which has opened up a whole new area of concern.

(May, 2013)

G8, G20 and Africa Some four years ago, Lord David Owen at a Commonwealth Journalists Association meeting formally pronounced the G8 dead. This encouraged me to do a column in Business Day in Lagos with the title ‘G8 – Living Dead?’ The mood at the time was that the G20, then in its infancy, having acquired substance at the Docklands Summit in London in April 2009, was a much more representative collection of world leaders reflecting the new international balance of economic power. Indeed the Group called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) was born in June that year (it was with the addition of South Africa in 2010 that it became BRICS). The imminent demise of G8 was predicted. Lord Owen said that the G8 was ‘bankrupt’ but only the Americans had the clout to “call off the party.” These thoughts came back forcibly as I read of the great international circus that UK Prime Minister David Cameron has organised at the Lough Erne resort hotel at Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

For the ‘living dead’ it has been surprisingly animated, while it has been the G20 that has proved to be a more difficult vehicle for international diplomacy. It is clear that David Cameron has been doing his best to make the grouping still appear relevant by producing stimulating agenda items that he described as the ‘three Ts’ trade, transparency and tax, to — 97 —

which some added ‘terrorism’. He has also followed G8 tradition by bringing in African themes (and leaders).

The G8, as we have been reminded this month, is a group that was originally established in the 1970s, composed of the world’s richest industrialised countries (the US, Canada, Japan and four European states – UK, France, Germany, Italy) to which Russia was added in 1998. The concentration has always been on economic issues, but from time to time political ones have surfaced, like Syria dominated the latest one. The G20, we are now told, has not lived up to its expectations, and has proved a more cumbersome vehicle for diplomacy. So the G8 has survived, despite confident predictions of its demise, demonstrating that once something has been created it proves hard to dismantle, even if there is no bureaucracy attached, which should make abolition relatively easy. Also, because of its annual rotation, it gives a useful diplomatic tool to the leader of the country chosen to chair it for a year, offering a sort of pudding-basin into which a lot of notions can be poured and regurgitated as new policies. It is also, as Cameron has shown, a good public relations stage.

This has not prevented critics of both groupings from continuing to surface.

For example, one can turn to Adam Boulton’s sceptical view in The Sunday Times that it is “beginning to look like an old boys’ club meeting, just like those other summits that regularly demand the Prime Minister’s presence: NATO with its Cold War Memories and the Commonwealth’s echoes of empire”. He also draws attention to the curiosity that Russia, although in the G8 does not belong to the parallel group of G7 finance ministers, which makes nonsense of the avowed aim of constructive economic engagement”. Or the New Statesman, which carried a wide-ranging article on the idea of ‘G zero’ overtaking G8 and G20, articulated in his book “Every Nation for Itself” suggesting that existing groupings are fragmenting. It may be that since the economic crisis broke in 2008 we have been living more and more in a rudderless world, with no clear centres of power given the changing nature of world economic relationships. For years, African governments were forced to turn almost exclusively to western institutions such as the IMF and World Bank….China has become Africa’s largest trading partner… Multi-national and state-owned companies from developed and developing countries now compete for access to African consumers and the most favourable investment terms.” The disappointment of G20 for Africa is that only South Africa is there, and that as BRIC rather than African, so there is not really so much difference for Africa. The continent’s leaders are there in a dependent status and not as integral members of the group. In Docklands they still had to have as guests the OAU Commission president and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, so in a way Enniskillen is a reversion to form, although it sometimes looked like diplomacy on the hoof, not as well planned as the last time Britain has the G8, when Tony Blair set up his Africa Commission a year in advance. It looked like a success at the time, which may be why Cameron thought it would be good to have Africa as a supplementary angle for his summit.

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Trade is one of the areas in which Africa ought to be special; however this G8 Summit only stressed the EU-US context. One wonders if it needed a summit to announce the opening of talks even if they can be hyped up as historically momentous, with a figure (always in billions) attached as the ultimate benefit. Likewise, when laudable arguments are put forward for taking measures to restrict tax havens by saying how much this is costing developing countries, there has to be a figure attached (I wrote in 2009 that “all summits have to come up with a fat pledge”). The cost for Africa of the use of tax havens by many of the companies operating there, is now put at tens of billions or even trillions, endorsed by breathlessly supportive tweets from no less a figure than Kofi Annan, among many others.

This is not to belittle Cameron’s intentions, or the prospective agreement he managed to produce (over the disgruntled criticisms of the Prime Minister of Bermuda) after the special day-conference ‘Working for Growth’ at Lancaster House of June 15, also attended by several African presidents. There is a certain self-sacrificing nobility in seeing Britain take the lead on censuring tax havens (which the French call “fiscal paradises”) when it has been one of those mainly responsible for creating and nurturing them in the first place. For Cameron it was sensible to keep abreast of an international revulsion, a by-product of the changed circumstances of the present economic crisis.

One phenomenon to note is the irresistible rise to guru status of the Professor of Economics at the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford, Paul Collier, a name that has been around the Africanist/expertise scene for a little while, with a number of highly-praised books to his credit. He has become, we are told, the wise man on Africa for David Cameron. Presumably the Prime Minister, as an ex-public relations man appreciates Collier’s talent for devising sound-bites like ‘the bottom billion.’ One can find however that four years ago he demonstrated a measure of scepticism about the whole G8 process. But Collier, having rightly drawn attention to the more outrageous aspects of the long-festering tax havens issue, has also emphasised the need for practical solutions to theoretical problems, and is now a G8 man, favoured guest at Downing Street lunches, finding a soul-mate in the Prime Minister, who apparently buys substantially into a lot of Collier’s arguments.

This is a new issue for the front burner, and although one keeps an open mind, the proof of this particular pudding has to be in the eating of a fairly complex diet. Apart from anything else, taking a strong line that looks as if it may save money for developing countries clearly reinforces Cameron’s defence (against mounting criticism) of his commitment to continuing to ring-fence Britain’s aid budget and orient it towards UN targets. Despite some of the shortcomings of what the statisticians call ‘overseas development assistance,’ it is still an important part of the foreign policy of all the G8 countries, often masked by those who play up its charitable aspects. There has always been a dual aspect to aid, where morality merges with self-interest, and one has to commend Cameron for perceiving it. And so, after the dogs have barked, the caravan moves on.

(June, 2013) — 99 —

Creative Africa There is much talk nowadays of ‘Africa’s moment’. The French aid guru Jean-Michel Severino has written a book with that title, and the South African based website African Monitor has run a series of studies “unlocking Africa’s moment” as the continent takes hold of the digital age. Severino says “the west has missed a turnaround by a continent that will no longer wait for us” and looks especially at the dramatic economic and social changes of the last twenty years in particular. One aspect of this “moment” which he does include is one that for some time I have been concerned should be put in the forefront of current perceptions: it is the phenomenon nowadays called “the creative industries.” The expression gives the concept an economic twist – it has been pioneered by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) although Unesco has also taken it up, but it has become an important part of Africa’s current economic resurgence and as such part of the celebrated African Renaissance, which came in with the birth of multi-racial South Africa in 1994. These are thoughts that came very much to my mind at the Caine Prize dinner in the elegant surroundings of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The prize for the best African short story has now been in existence for fourteen years, and has become one of the major events in the UK African cultural calendar. The chair of the judges of this year was the cultural guru (author of Lost Kingdoms of Africa) Gus Casely-Hayford, who curated the memorable Africa ’05 Festival in 2005. In his speech announcing the Caine winner (a Nigerian story by Tope Folarin called Miracle) Casely-Hayford drew attention to the present current prominence of things cultural from Africa in the UK. He mentioned particularly the exhibitions currently at the Tate Modern of the Sudanese painter Ibrahim el Salahi, and the Beninois Meschak Gaba, as well as the marvellous cloth by Ghanaian El Anatsui draped all over the front of the Royal Academy in Piccadilly, to the surprise (and I hope delight) of those coming to the Academy’s annual summer exhibition. He also specifically mentioned the first ever performance in London of Aimé Césaire’s 1966 play about the death of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1961. This has just opened to excellent reviews, especially for the Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays Lumumba. It also marks the centenary of Césaire, Martiniquais father figure of the négritude movement along with Leopold Senghor, and one of the 20th century’s greatest black writers.

Somerset House and, last but not least, the launch of the African Art Auction: Contemporary and Modern Art from Africa and its Diaspora for The Auction Room London’s new online auction house. Many other organisations such as Rich Mix and the Royal African Society, as well as venues like the South Bank Centre, are now regularly purveying different aspects of the same kaleidoscopic faces of the African continent. The Africa Centre’s Festival is intended to be the first of a number of events (including a final Quiz) to mark its sad but inevitable departure from the historic King Street building it has occupied for — 100 —

nearly fifty years. The hunt is still on for a suitable new headquarters in central London, but it is considered of paramount importance to have one in time for the Centre’s fiftieth birthday in October 2014, which will be an occasion to review exactly how far awareness of the major cultural achievements of Africa in the years since the independence moment of 1960 has grown as multi-cultural Britain has grown. It is fair to say that the Centre has played a seminal role in that growth, which has increasingly helped to burnish the continent’s image in the outside world, correcting some of the negative political images that have sometimes been portrayed. It is worth recalling that back in 1962 it was still possible for the Regius Professor history in Oxford to pronounce that African has no history, even though African Studies was, at that time already developing rapidly. By the time in 1963 that I started work on West Africa (which, with other publications also played its part in helping African continent to be taken seriously), the serious study of Africa was beginning to establish itself in universities, both in Africa and in the wider world.

Having been around at the beginning of the Africa Centre in 1964, and having discovered the immense richness and vitality of African culture over all the years I have worked as a journalist covering Africa, it is incumbent on me in this editorial to consider the crucial significance of culture as a factor in projecting Africa as a whole. I have over my long career covered the three major All-African festivals in Dakar (1966), Algiers (1969) and Lagos (1977) which contributed immensely to the global image of the continent as well as reinforcing the cultural links with the countries of the African diaspora, in the Caribbean and north and South America, seen most profoundly in 20th century music, but with a world range and long perspective. The influence of the second post-independence diaspora is something that only now, in this present “African moment” is being fully exposed.

This is why the subject of creative industries, now semi-officially defined “advertising, architecture, arts, crafts, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, publishing, research and development (R and D), software and toys and games”, that continues to fascinate. In April this year an animated day conference on the subject was held at the Africa Centre, organised by the African Creative Industries Investment Summit (ACIIS) aiming to deliver: “evidence-based scenarios using African ventures within high growth creative sectors,” with a view to showcasing “economic opportunities to the network of development financial institutions, private equity, limited partners, venture capitalists and family offices in and around London”. Despite the jargon that may worry some, these particular explorations of new ideas have been attracting more and more attention. After an overview of creative industries in Africa, conference speakers very properly went straight away into the nitty-gritty of accessing of finance. Nicola Searle of the UK Intellectual Property Organisation stressed the disruption of old business models with the arrival of the digital age; and there were also advisers from the British Council, which has grasped the importance of creative industries in Africa for some time, One of them, Tom Fleming has worked — 101 —

in Nigeria on film development, including the “Nollywood effect,” as well as transcending the dearth of cinemas (there are a hundred in Nigeria compared with 800 in South Africa).

The securing of finance in the cultural sector is hard because of the difficulty of estimating value, which, as all fund-seekers and funders know, helps quantify the celebrated “return on investment.” For me, by far the sagest words at the summit came from Parmender Vir, an award-winning film and TV producer who now runs a specialist consultancy “facilitating cross border business with emerging markets”. I found her narrative fascinating, as she admitted having made the dramatic switch from “consumer to investor” – from being herself a creator to “looking at my industry from a commercial point of view”.

She had found it was “time to grow up”. Where once she had consorted with the cultural community, she said, she now mixed with accountants. What struck me was that she had found her most fruitful field of activity in the creative industries in Nigeria, where the sector is “the second largest employer after agriculture, generating millions of jobs”. This was a statistic I used when once more giving a presentation of my own book on Lagos and its creativity last week (incidentally, also at the Africa Centre). I was struck by how much the two subjects that dovetailed neatly together. Parminder Vir stressed passionately the need for a change of mind-set: telling how disappointed she had been by the reactions of possible investors when she tried to explain the potential of Nigeria. Her yardstick of comparison was India, where, in spite of having more poor people than the whole of the population of Africa, it has been able to market itself as a global economic leader. In her appeal for investment she asked, why not set up “state of the art” studios in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya? Indeed, her speech had many quotable punch-lines: for example, she noted that Nigerian “investment” in the UK is already in the realm of £4–5bn (mainly in property?)

“Leveraging the diaspora” was vital bearing in mind that the Arab diaspora had changed the Arab world forever, having gone from remittance culture to investment.

I cannot get out of my mind her remarkable prediction that “local content” in Africa will be entirely digitalised by 2015. Seeing the incredibly rapid technological transformation going on in Africa, and the effect this will have on continental growth and investment prospects, let me conclude by submitting that there is clearly room for further examination of this subject as a matter of priority for both the Business Council in Africa and the Africa Centre. Although no longer sharing the same building, I feel moved to suggest there is still plenty of room for synergy, between these two vital platforms for Africa in London.

(July, 2013)

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Revolutions and Democracy in Africa A little-remembered half-centenary happened this month. It is fifty years since the first overthrow of a government by street revolution in what is now usually called subSaharan Africa. This was in the Republic of Congo (still often referred to as Congo-Brazzaville to differentiate it from its larger neighbour across the Congo River). The unpopular and corrupt regime of the Abbé Fulbert Youlou was forced to give up power after three days of demonstrations (tacitly approved by the country’s infant army) in the capital Brazzaville, bringing to power a Marxist government under Alphonse Massemba-Debat.

The three days, in a nod to the French revolutionary tradition which had a certain influence in the nationalist movements around the time of independence, were known as the Trois Glorieuses (referring to the short-lived 1848 revolution in Paris. That may have been one reason there was no French military intervention (unlike in some other newly independent countries), as well as the fact that the French had no particular love for Youlou or his regime. The event ushered in a tortuous history of plots and coups, eventually leading to the nearly forty years political dominance of the current President Sassou Nguesso, not noted as one of Africa’s more democratic leaders, even if for a time he was obliged to yield power in the 1990s.

Why dwell on this now? Simply because the past two years have seen North Africa, as part of the Arab world, succumbing to the turbulence of what has been baptised the “Arab spring” in which two influential and long-running dictatorial leaders in Tunisia and Egypt were overthrown following popular demonstrations, another in Yemen faced a protracted departure in similar situation and Colonel Gaddafy in Libya was deposed and killed after popular uprisings with vital backing from Gaddafy’s old enemies in the West. Elsewhere in Africa there have been concerns that this wave of revolt might spread, but it has so far had little influence, even in countries which might have been susceptible such as Mauritania or especially Sudan, which in the history of its independence has seen several governments fall in the wake of popular demonstrations since the 1950s. The explanation may lie partly in the success of the democracy wave that followed the end of the Cold War straitjacket in the 1990s that saw many leaders pushed out of power ether through elections (Kaunda and Kerekou) or demonstrations, especially those in March 1991 in Mali. The battle for real democracy in Africa has been an ongoing process over the past twenty-five years. There have been many setbacks, and many examples of what has been called virtual democracy, accompanied by many expressions of doubts that Western style democracy is appropriate for Africa, offset by as many sincere and impassioned claims that democracy is now a universal aspiration and that the continent should persevere in its quest.

There have occasionally been elections that marked significant breakthroughs in countries like Ghana and Kenya, for example (now causing new heart-searchings), The story of — 103 —

Senegal, which saw a major opening with Wade’s election in 2000, only to we nearly submerged in the President’s own ambitions, and then unexpectedly to see a new democratic dawn last year with the election of Macky Sall. Again, while Nigeria’s history of attempts to transcend its propensity for electoral masquerades have amplified many studies and led to agonising appraisals, the search for their democratic Holy Grail is still elusive. The most interesting case-history this year has been that of Mali. In spite of a terrifying two-anda-half years in which the country was split into two, following a debilitating coup which has left an army still damaged and humiliated, as well as a Tuareg secessionist movement, and depradations from out-of-control jihadist extremists, Mali has just held a remarkably successful election producing a new President with a convincing majority of 78 per cent (in the second round) in Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (known as ‘IBK’).

It was successful not only in that it was accepted by the population as the nest way towards recovery from the disaster of the last two years, as well as the virtue of two tours increased the merit of having this exercise in democracy at this stage. It was also a victory for democracy in registering a turnout of over fifty per cent well above that in other elections in the past twenty years of ineffective struggle to practice democracy. This is not at all to say that Mali has re-re-entered the sunlit uplands. The new president has a monstrous pile of problems to attend to, and will need all the goodwill he can muster. Apart from the difficult reconciliation with the Tuaregs, there is the problem of re-stabilising the army under supervision of the new UN mission that has replaced the French ‘Operation Serval’, which after its January intervention facilitated bringing the country back together.

There is also the challenge of rehabilitating a broken economy as well as resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees, both internal and in neighbouring countries. With a credible and popularly elected government it may now be possible to implement the Plan for the Sustainable Recovery of Mali 2013–2014 totalling over 4billion Euro, which had received pledges of a highly encouraging 3.25bn Euro from international donors at a meeting in Brussels in May. The Malian election coincided with two other elections where the reputation of Africa’s democratic experiments fared less well. The most international publicity was received by the presidential and parliamentary elections at the end of July in Zimbabwe. It is possible to argue that the situation in Zimbabwe is totally sui generis because of the peculiar nature of the regime since independence and the special and paradoxical position of its founding father liberator and present dictator. The triumphant return of the eighty-nine year old Robert Mugabe by whatever dubious means and manipulations has saddened many who thought that the opposition was finally going to be able to make its way legitimately to power. The other election which has received very little attention because it tends to be one of the forgotten corners of Africa. These were the much delayed parliamentary elections in Togo, won with an increased majority by the new ruling party UNIR led by incumbent — 104 —

President Faure Gnassingbé. If this result may belie the true state of feeling in the country, the ruling party benefited considerably from the division of the opposition, demoralised by the support now given to Faure from the old enemy of the Gnassingbe clan Gilchrist Olympio, who was generally thought of as a potential victor of elections in the1990s, had they been free and fair. But then Togo has been a classic example of the ‘virtual democracy’ that obtains in a number of other African countries. These may be better than military dictatorships, and a strong policy has been formulated in both AU and regional groupings like ECOWAS and SADC against coups. These examples illustrate how agonising the road to genuine popular political expression through the ballot-box can be. What is, alas, totally unhelpful is to look for any model in Egypt, where mass demonstrations for the army to return, and a democratic election that seemed to pervert its objectives have rendered logical interpretation almost impossible. When is a coup not a coup? When can an election be over-ruled by mass demonstrations? When can revolutionaries be described as terrorists? It is a situation that has hopelessly confused most of us with semantics and new definitions of elections, revolutions and coups.

Nigeria and its Banks An argument can be made for saying that the health of the Nigerian economy can be diagnosed through the behaviour of its banking system. The transferring of ownership from foreign investors to Nigerians took ownership through and out of a difficult phase, that bore fruit once the new dispensation of civilian rule began to bear fruit in the new century.

The reforms of the Obasanjo-Iweala era (underpinned by the vital debt cancellation of 2005) were important milestones, but there is a case for examining the well-being of the economy through the prism of the radical measures of the two recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governors – Chukwuma Soludo (2004–2009) and Lamido Sanusi (2009). Soludo was, of course, part of the Obasanjo reform team, but the second wind provided by Sanusi has arguably been more significant.

The story of the evolution of Nigeria’s banking system (especially in the recent Sanusi period) is lucidly told in a newly-published report* by Afrinvest Securities Ltd, one of Nigeria’s most respected multi-activity finance houses which is a majority management-owned firm involved in investment banking, securities trading, asset management and investment research with emphasis on West Africa. Established in 1995 as SecTrust, and in 2005 it changed its name to Afrinvest Securities Ltd., as its activities grew and more emphasis was placed on investment banking.

Titled ‘2013 Nigerian Banking Sector Report’*, Afrinvest Research, authors of the study provide a cautious and balanced review of the 2012 banking landscape in which “Nigerian — 105 —

banks management faced the challenge of trying to beat high earnings expectations which encouraged them to leverage on the high yield environment and increase exposure to fixed income securities in order to maximise tax free returns”. This was expected to moderate in 2013 “as the outlook on yields and fee income decline”. A look at the profitability of banks in 2012 showed a ”clear separation of the boys from the men’ as all Tier 1 banks (which account for 68 per cent of 21.3 trillion Naira of industry assets) recorded gross earnings in excess of 200bn. Naira compared to the average of just over100 bn. for Tier 2 banks. Take as a starting point the global economic breakdown of 2008–9, and the “inter-related and contagious crises” that have sent the world economy “reeling”. Nigeria “was not insulated from these events” and shocks to its economy arrived through “trade and investment conduits”.

The decline in oil prices “put government revenue into a tail-spin.” This was followed by currency depreciation and a stock exchange collapse, so that by the time Sanusi took office in June 2009 there was an alarming situation. He immediately took “critical steps to preserve depositor confidence and liquidity.” These included suspending Expanded Discount Window operations, and “injecting 640bn Naira into eight distressed banks and orchestrating the dismissal and investigations of their managements.” Although this had political consequences, it stabilised the situation, avoiding collapse.

The central part of the report looks at this situation in the context of Sanusi’s reforms.

For students of the Nigerian economy, within this analysis, there is a fascinating section based on the governor’s lecture at Bayero University in February 2010 setting out his “vision and roadmap” in which he considered the factors that brought the entire Nigerian financial system to the brink of collapse, a circumstance that was well masked from those outside, even if it looked as if all was not well. These factors included “macro-economic instability caused by large and sudden capital inflows”; major failures in banks’ corporate governance; lack of investor and consumer sophistication; “inadequate disclosures sand transparency” and uneven banking supervision and enforcement; unstructured governance at the CBN itself; and weakness in the business environment. Sanusi’s blueprint for reform in 2010had identified four pillars – enhancing the quality of banks; establishing financial stability; enabling healthy financial sector evolution and ensuring that the financial sector contributes to the real economy. The report provided a series of ratings on the CBN’s performance on these four pillars, ranging from two “Very goods” for establishing financial stability and enabling healthy financial sector evolution, to “Weak Pass” for ensuring the financial sector contributes to the real economy. This, while not quite a thumbs-down points out the real challenges still facing the contribution of the banking sector to the overall economy. The report comments drily that banks were “expected to begin to engage the real economy through initiatives such as development finance, foreign direct investment, venture capital and public private partnership.” Thus the jury still out as his term comes to an end, meanwhile this is an extremely useful interim assessment.

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*The report was launched in an event organised by BusinessinAfrica Events of Christian Udechukwu, (member of BCA Board) in Lagos on July 24. It was attended by over 200 people including a substantial group from the South African finance sector.

(August, 2013)

Forgotten States Much attention is currently being paid to the continuing current optimistic assessments of Africa. For example, two recent books* with similar titles may appear to question bland Afro-optimism, but are still riding on the crest of the ‘Africa bounce’. Professor Robert Rotberg’s Africa Emerges uses the present tense to state that Africa is positively emerging as if it is a given. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu’s Emerging Africa has a more cautious title – the ‘emerging’ may or may not be final, begging the question of what period of time. In his preface, Moghalu says his is a book like no other that has been written on the subject, also noting that few such studies have been written by Africans. “Fewer still have sought to interpret the implications of Africa’s present place in the world economy and what its future trajectory might look like, from the perspective of what it will take to make a progress that is defined by Africans themselves.” The nuance in the titles comes through in the sub-titles of both works. While Rotberg goes for the enthusiastic “Consummate Challenges, Abundant Opportunities,” Moghalu offers, more reflectively “How the Global Economy’s ‘Last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter”.

This is partly a question of perceptions. How many came upon ‘The Hopeless Continent’ in The Economist in 2000 and felt hopeless, and how many saw it stubbornly as a challenge to be resisted, in part because it was so patently not true? Some may from time to time be discouraged, but hopelessness is on the whole not in the African genes. Moghalu, indeed, opens his first chapter with some thoughts on the subject of this “arrogant prognostication”, homing in on the way the magazine ate its words in a ‘hopeful’ editorial ten years later. His purpose, he says, is to “pause and ponder”, and look objectively at the pluses and minuses in the present condition of Africa. Which in fact is also the end result of the Rotberg book. Both also warn sensibly that generalising about Africa as a continent is dangerous, and remind us that Africa is composed of 54 states and among them there are enormous differences of size, advancement, population, Moghalu for example has a whole central section of five chapters on recent attempts to transform Nigeria, but still concludes with a number of recommendations that will help achieve that transformation, with particular stress on the need for a comprehensive reform of education policy.

However, in all this buoyant discussion of Africa ‘emerging’ it is well they consider some of the serious problem countries that tend to be forgotten. We are not talking here — 107 —

about failed states like Somalia (or, as it now almost seems, the unhappy Central African Republic) or major casualties like Mali, but about those who have worryingly dysfunctional political systems that somehow manage to struggle on but have the potential to blow up, and are seen to be problematic but are left to moulder on in near crisis because they do not immediately present a threat to anyone else. If concern reaches a tipping point, should neighbours take action, as has come to be the case on such issues as coups, or should it perhaps involve the whole international community? *’Africa Emerges’ by Robert I Rotberg, Polity Press, Cambridge UK ‘Emerging Africa’, by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, Bookcraft, Ibadan, Nigeria

The Swaziland exception One such country which often eludes scrutiny is the Kingdom of Swaziland, an enclave inside South Africa near to the Mozambique border which is Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy. As an important new report+ from Chatham House titled Swaziland: Southern Africa’s forgotten Crisis records, “King Mswati III and Queen Mother Ntombi, who rules as his co-monarch have ultimate authority over state institutions. In contrast to king Mswati (whose personal fortune is estimated at $200m. 66 per cent of the population of some 1.2m live below the poverty line.” It also notes that no elections on party lines have been held since 1972, and the 2006 constitution had no rules for registering political parties, so that candidates are required to stand in an individual capacity, although the report concludes this is “not undemocratic”.

Why should Swaziland now become a matter of greater concern affecting its neighbours? The report highlights particularly a “worrying” development trajectory. Following a fiscal crisis in 2011 arising from an increased dependence on revenues from the southern African Customs union (SACU) and from sugar, both of which both of which were hit by the 2008 global financial crisis. There has still been an unwillingness to reform finances especially the huge state sector wage bill and the extravagant royal household. The report sees the situation as “unsustainable” but although there is a risk of social explosion one of the authors, speaking at the launch doubted whether a revolutionary situation was being created because of the extreme conservatism of Swazi society which in the rural areas still largely support the monarchy. The report concludes that “and security, continued inaction will lead to greater sub-regional insecurity for its neighbours although Swaziland is not of strategic importance or a major threat to regional peace”. + Swaziland; Southern Africa’s Forgotten Crisis, by Christopher Vandome, Alex Vines and Markus Weimer, Chatham House.

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The Forgotten Gambia Some may express surprise that the Gambia should be included in this group of countries.

The BBC online summary of the country says, somewhat questionably, that it has been mostly stable since the coup of 1994. Many tourists go there every year and do not even notice the dubious nature of the regime. There are a number of aid projects, including serious efforts by the World Health Organisation (WHO) supported by, among others, the Gates foundation, towards malaria eradication, on which there is a page of commendation in the chapter on the vices and virtues of aid in Moghalu’s book.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an assessment this month by its Executive Board notes that, in spite of the 2011 drought, “the Gambian economy has generally performed well over the past several years”. Politically, after two years of military rule in the 1990s, international perceptions of the rule of Yahya Jammeh who seized power in 1994 have mainly been of resignation at his eccentricities, such as his belief in his power to cure HIV/AIDS, and his penchant for capricious and arbitrary rule. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), intended to be an acid test of governance shortcomings, dropped the country from its ‘danger’ list countries in 2002 after a Decree banning former political parties was repealed. Elections have been observed in 2001, 2006 and 2011 (again with the Commonwealth in the forefront) and generally found to have been well-conducted, with some reservations. It is still widely seen, however, as a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy by going through the forms to conceal the substance. For below the surface all is not well. There have been continuous doubts about human rights and the rule of law ever since Jammeh came to power of a kind not experienced in the thirty year regime of president Dawda Jawara which was there since independence in 1965, Jammeh has had a very high turnover of collaborators (one or two of whom have died in unexplained circumstances), as well as experiencing a number of real or imagined military plots against him.

The IMF report also pointed to persistent “weaknesses in the balance of payments” which have led to depreciation pressures on the Gambian Dalasi, aggravated by “inconsistent economic policies,” and fiscal deficits have added to the “heavy debt burden”.

This can be interpreted by those familiar with such language as IMF-speak for criticism of a spendthrift government. There is, indeed, a background of long donor concern about financial and governance irregularity focusing on, suspicion (which Jammeh himself has always adroitly managed to elude) of participating in West Africa’s increasingly worrying drug-smuggling routes. This came up again recently because of the US-backed international crackdown on the close neighbouring state of Guinea-Bissau, sometimes now classified as a ‘narco-state’. Schemes that have earned Jammeh popularity such as new hospitals and the University of the Gambia have received significant funding, including from continuing grants from Taiwan. Which the Gambia, to its financial advantage, continues to recognise.

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Amnesty International’s 2008 report titled ‘Climate of Fear’ was an alarming description of the reality of the political situation in the Gambia, undermining the atmosphere of calm and stability. The fear is generated not just by the ubiquitous presence of agents of the National Intelligence Agency and their armies of informers, but from daily acts of arbitrary brutality and mass unexplained detentions. Opposition, although allowed to function, is cowed and divided, and. above all; the country’s struggling nascent media are intimidated by repeated acts of harassment and devastating blows such as the assassination of a leading editor Dyad Hydra in December 2004 and the disappearance another editor Beria Manner in 2007, widely believed to have been inspired by the authorities. Media intimidation has now been extended by legislation against Internet websites mostly based outside the country) which have continued to publish anti-Jammeh material.

Last years the executions of 11 prisoners on death row without any due process brought widespread international condemnation (including even from the Commonwealth) and provoked neighbours whose nationals were either executed or under threat, notably Senegal.

Since the Gambia’s territory runs through the middle of Senegal along the banks of the Gambia River, relations have always been exceptionally complex, and in the 1980s there was a Senegambian Confederation which many thought might have led to a merger. There is still a risk that if Jammeh’s actions become too provocative a similar move might happen again. Elements in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have been worried for a long time about Gambian governance abuses as well as Jammeh’s own personal stability. The organisation declined to send observers to the 2011 presidential elections against all precedent in the grouping. International concern has been expressed mainly through the EU’s ‘political dialogue’ (which last year were suspended for six months) and a slight change of emphasis in the British Government’s hint that it might have to place the Gambia on its list of countries of serious concern in its annual Human Rights report.

Although there is a consensus of opinion even among diehard opponents that an armed rebellion against Jammeh is improbable, his own waywardness, as well the odour of impunity hanging over the regime and lack of real (as opposed to purchased) popular support except among his own Jola people, mean that, even if remaining off the front line of international concerns, and easily forgotten, it will continue to be earmarked as a problem area that will continue to be of concern to its regional neighbours and beyond.

(September, 2013)

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Governance and impunity in Africa This is the time of year when thoughts turn once again to the question of governance in Africa, principally because of the Mo Ibrahim Award for Achievement in Leadership in Africa. This prize of a handsome $5m (for African leaders soon after leaving office) was established seven years ago but has only been awarded three times, to President Chissano of Mozambique (2007); President Festus Mogae of Botswana (2008) and President Pedro Pires of Cape Verde (2011). This year the Mo Ibrahim Foundation decided not to award the prize for the second year running. There have been justifications for this reluctance – the prize is not awarded every year, indeed in seven years there have only been three winners.

One of them, Festus Mogae has observed that this was not a censuring of leadership in Africa – there were still a lot of incumbent presidents doing a good job, and there are those who still argue that it should include incumbent rulers, and those who have shown genuine “excellence in leadership” in fields outside government. Indeed, both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have had special awards from the Foundation. There is, however, still an uncomfortable feeling about an award that is not awarded more times than it is conferred – it is even seen to be passing an adverse comment on African leadership. Maybe that is intended, but it is a clumsy way of doing it.

The accompanying Mo Ibrahim Index (compiled with help from a number of reputable authorities including the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard and the African Development Bank) is a more apposite initiative, as it gives countries a yardstick against which to perform that compares well with the more complex UNDP Human Development Index. It is a ratings chart by which performance can be judged, and, most significantly, gives strong indications that those with high democratic indicators also have good economic ones, easier to achieve if you are small or island states, or modest demographically – the top four are Mauritius, Botswana, Cape Verde and Seychelles. South Africa, the ‘first world economy in the third world’ is fifth in the list, while down at the bottom are Chad (notwithstanding oil revenues) CAR, Eritrea, RDC, and, unsurprisingly, Somalia. Despite the usefulness of all the varied statistics from the different sectors examined, such ‘pop’ charts are sometimes facile and should not be taken as the last word. Each country in Africa has its highly specific conditions and as such they are likely to question any adverse positioning. But for the moment this index is one of the best and most interesting assessments we have.

Worries about the awards (or lack of them) were compounded by their coincidence with a display of emotional anger by the African Union in calling an emergency summit early in October to consider a request from President Uhuru Kenyatta for African states to pull out en masse from the International Criminal Court set up in 2002 to consider ‘Crimes Against Humanity’. Although this demand was supported by President Omer el Beshir of Sudan (who has been in the sights of the Court for some time over abuses — 111 —

in Darfur) and some other leaders who have been on the receiving end of international criticism over serious human rights abuses. In the case of Kenya, the Court’s charges against Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, who has already been appearing at The Hague, came from their alleged involvement in the post-election violence of 2007 in which over 800 people were reported killed.

Ironically, The Economist (after the announcement of Mo Ibrahim’s non-prize but just before the AU Summit) carried an editorial on how the survival of long-running tyrants blemished Africa’s struggle for democracy titled “Too Many Dinosaurs.” Some might complain that the weekly has ‘form’ when it comes to criticism of Africa’s performance, and will hark back to their famous editorial of 2000 in which Africa was stigmatised as “the Hopeless Continent”, which triggered a powerful reaction in an Africa that felt it was already embarking on a renaissance. Although in March this year The Economist reversed its earlier damnation by writing about a ‘hopeful continent’ there is still clearly an editorial tendency at the magazine that cannot quite believe its own Afro-optimism, and will be seen as a reversion to past misdeeds. It can be argued that the editorial chimed with the current wave of doubts that there is still an awful lot that needs righting in the continent, as the debate over Mo Ibrahim’s prize and the AU’s complaints about the ICC show. The latest Economist comment lambasts the long-lasting ‘dinosaurs’ in, for example, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, and of course Zimbabwe, but accepts that autocracy does not necessarily mean a hampering of economic growth, giving the examples of the late Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and Paul Kagamé (Rwanda) to prove the point. Which demonstrates again the potent risks of generalisation when it comes to Africa. Even the use of the word dinosaur implies imminent extinction, which is not necessarily the case.

All this is a little at odds with some of the highly favourable reviews the African continent has been receiving in Western media, Based on some solid progress made towards democratic governance in some countries and reassuring growth figures, not always but often in the same countries (as the MOI reveals). These commendations have been particularly encouraged by Western governments, which have a vested interest at the moment in being seen in a favourable light, and are therefore concerned at not getting too much flak from the AU over the ICC. One imagines that emollient moves will be made, especially as far as Kenya is concerned, as when it comes to strategic thinking in the West over Africa Kenya is a focal point, essential to the strategies of all, which is perhaps one reason why President Kenyatta might appear to have been pushing his luck, especially in view of the highly charged anti-Western, anti-capitalist speech he delivered at the summit. At the moment this is viewed as having a strong element of posturing. There is little doubt; even so, that he has been taking advantage of the wave of sympathy and supports his country has been receiving in the wake of the brutal al Shabaab attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi which causes many to feel that now was not the time to push Kenya too hard on the — 112 —

ICC issue. Indeed, there was a powerful case for saying that the country has been in need of whatever help can be provided, of a kind that is already flowing, notably from the European Union, to support the African Union forces in Somalia. That Kenyatta is not averse to an occasional rattling of Western cages can be seen in the report, later denied, that he was trying to encourage African Commonwealth States to boycott the forthcoming CHOGM in Sri Lanka because of the ICC issue. This had brought rapid diplomatic pressure from the Sri Lankans who have faced a partial Canadian boycott and have obtained comfortable assurances from African, Asian and Caribbean Commonwealth countries that a boycott, again on human Rights issues, would be out of the question. Incidentally, for those who might be curious, the sudden irrational decision of the Gambia to leave the hapless Commonwealth was not connected to the AU’s own anxieties about persistent Western pressure on human rights issues, even if he is now seeking a Pan-African cover for his action (see interview in the latest issue of New African).

The complexity of this ‘moral maze’ is underlined by the extent to which civil society in Africa in general supports the idea of the ICC. Prior to the summit we are told that civil society and human rights organisations were preparing a “mass campaign” against withdrawal. They were boosted in this by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who issued a well-publicised blast in the newly-born International New York Times against any idea that the AU should leave the ICC, asking “Is Africa Seeking a Licence to Kill?” and saying that “the continent has suffered the consequences of unaccountable governance for too long to disown the protection of the ICC”. He makes the point that more than 20 African countries helped found the ICC and of its 108 members, some thirty are African. Five of its judges are African, as is its Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who ironically is from the Gambia, whose President Yahya Jammeh has been in the sights of critics of human rights abuses (see this editorial last month). Jammeh, in his New African interview says, interestingly, that Africa has only itself to blame for its problems with the ICC, as most of the cases it has been considering (with the exception of Sudan) have been referred to the court by African governments themselves. There is need at the moment for cautious and rational responses to this fracas. The benefits the ICC can bring to Africa should not be lost in a barrage of recrimination. Somehow the issue needs to be taken out of the ‘Africa vs the West’ contest which some have tried to pursue. There is a real problem here of governance, as well as the issue of the impunity of Africa’s leaders, that needs some re-thinking by all concerned. It should also not be used as a device for a new round of unnecessary Africa-bashing. Let me use, as a shot on my way out, this month’s observation by Mo Ibrahim: “Afro-optimism or Afro-pessimism but Afro-realism,” (October, 2013)

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2013: Year of Ambiguity in Africa?

This year 2013 has brought a number of African issues into sharper relief, and in general struck many notes of continuing promise. And yet there were a number of developments that gave cause for concern. I must be forgiven for in the first place concentrating on this security issues rather than join the waves of optimism that continue to wash over the continent. The year began with an alarming development that turned out to have a relatively positive aspect. The grave crisis that had developed in Mali in 2012, which led to a de facto partitioning of the country, came to a head in January this year. A surprise move southwards by the Islamic extremists who had hi-jacked a separatist Tuareg revolt that had led to the attempt to set up a new state of Azawad in the North. The threat that this immediately posed to the capital Bamako led to an urgent appeal from the already fragile Interim President Dioncounda Traoré for French troops; in the circumstances French President Hollande, despite his squeamishness about pursuing policies that might be seen as reviving the flagging concept of Françafrique, had little choice but to intervene rapidly. Attempts to put together an ECOWAS/AU force under a UN umbrella during 2012 had been slow and tortuous, and it was only France that still had the capacity. What was essential was the absence of any criticism from Africa, because the threat posed by the Islamists to the whole of Western Africa and beyond was palpable.

It worked much better than one could possibly have expected, By May most of the Islamists had been defeated. Although Tuareg forces of the MLNA (Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad) still remained in the key northern town of Kidal, The situation was recovered enough to stage planned elections in July/August, which led to the emergence Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as a strong and internationally supported President, although it was clear recovery was to be a long haul. Continued uncertainties over reintegration of the Tuareg, and the perennial threat of Islamist activity meant that a French military presence, albeit under the auspices of the UN, was likely to continue for some time.

The developments in Mali were balanced on the other side of the continent by the continuing consolidation of the reborn Republic of Somalia, whose president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had been elected at the end of 2012 by voters in liberated areas (not including the autonomous if unrecognised states of Somaliland and Puntland, needed to reconstitute the former whole Republic of Somalia). He spent much of the year rebuilding his international credentials and donor assistance, even though the threat of Al Shabaab, which controlled important rural areas, was ever present.

The revival had seen a turning point at the beginning of 2012 with the take-over of most of Mogadishu by the troops of AMISOM (the African Union Mission in Somalia), which had been having an uphill struggle since it was originally constituted in 2007. The breakthrough which put al Shabaab seriously on the defensive was the intervention by — 114 —

Kenyan troops in September last year to capture the key port of Kismayo through which al Shabaab had exported key items such as charcoal, hides and skins and the stimulant qat which all provided important revenue sources. The revenge taken by Al Shabaab on the Kenyans with the brutal and unexpected attack on the Westlake Shopping Centre in Nairobi in October brought new uncertainties to Kenya, already shaken by the problem of its newly elected President Uhuru Kenyatta with the International Criminal Court over alleged crimes against humanity committed after the 2007 elections. Security issues, increasingly emphasised as the inevitable corollary of development, continued to pose anxiety in the two Sudans and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) although there also a massive push by the Congolese Army, supported strongly by the UN, caused the effective collapse of the M23 rebellion at the beginning of November. This has controlled a number of towns in Eastern Congo, with suspected support from Rwanda, but a new Western-supported invigoration of the army (the FARDC) succeeded in pushing them out and causing an admission of defeat, as well as a reported acceptance in Kigali that further involvement would be futile. It still leaves massive problems, but it meant that the year is ending on a less negative note.

As the year comes to an end, however, the security focus has remained on France’s apparent willingness taking upon itself special responsibilities in Africa. This came from an alarming new challenge as the Central African Republic, long a trouble spot, teetered on the brink of collapse into anarchy. The risks of a failed state in the middle of the continent brought a mounting danger to all its neighbours (Chad, the two Sudans, Uganda, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon), many of which have actual or impending crises of their own. It is sad that as others appear tentatively to be recovering from the worst of their crises, a new trouble spot should be emerging, of which the world is having some difficulty in grasping the urgency. It should indeed have been included in my short-list of forgotten trouble spots cited in this column in August, but I could not imagine that it was going to be elevated to the front rank of Africa’s crises so soon. It is a disturbing omen for 2014. In this context of persistent worries in parts of Africa, it was instructive to hear the address given by Lord Malloch-Brown at the Annual General Meeting of the BCA at the office of lawyers Simmons and Simmons in the City of London. Titled ‘Africa: Where Business and Politics are Going”, Malloch-Brown gave a surprisingly ambiguous assessment. Although he wheeled out the by now familiar encouraging growth statistics, he admitted that there was “not a straightforward picture”. He alluded to the observation in The Financial Times a couple of days before that it might be better to drop the expression ‘Africa’ as it was too prone to false generalisations and this was in fact a hugely diverse collection of countries. Still considering the big picture, he concentrated on three present drivers of growth – firstly, what he called ‘resource Africa’, secondly, the signs of improvement in management, and lastly, above all the phenomenon of the growing middle class, — 115 —

estimated in 2010 by the African Development Bank to be 30 per cent of the total population. It is the latter that has “caught the imagination of investors” and ties in with the demographic balance in favour of youth.

He then returned to the downside – increasing concerns in some countries over the rule of law, the fact that although there are now more democracies, there are more “directed ones”, ending up rather mournfully saying that the task of speaking about Africa as a whole was coming to “a natural end” and it might be better to concentrate on one or two countries. All of which brings us back to the punchline of last month’s editorial, the reference to Mo Ibrahim’s ‘Afro-realism,’ of which Malloch-Brown is surely one of the most persuasive advocates.

Two Faces of the African Diaspora Writing as the BCA was about to stage its important ‘flagship event’ “Fighting for Talent: Sourcing Skills from Africa’s Diaspora”, I feel moved to write briefly of two deeply contrasting events I attended in the past two weeks. The first was a true celebration of diasporic talents, the fourth Ghana UK-based Achievement Awards (known as GUBA), focusing on the outstanding achievers that have contributed to the Ghana economy. This was all about celebrating entrepreneurs such as Herman Chinery-Hesse, who has a highly successful IT business SOFT Tribe. It was an occasion to display all kinds of talents from subjects such as tourism to the import of shea butter, and a range of celebrities were on display, including GUBA patron, the Holby City actor Hugh Quarshie. From the large crowd assembled at the Park Plaza Bankside Hotel overlooking the Thames there emanated the huge and growing confidence (that increasingly extends to the home countries) you now feel from the African diaspora in the UK. It seems to be coming into its own.

The same sentiments occurred at a very different event in the House of Commons Committee room where the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nigeria launched its report “Too Many to Count: Justice and Accountability in Nigeria”. This group has grown importantly in significance since it was first launched in 2006. Its first reports sometimes seemed to be finding their way, but this one, based on a visit by two MPs, Meg Hiller (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch) and John Duddridge (Conservative, Southend East) concentrates on serious and seldom reported problems related to issues such as human trafficking, child labour, and particularly women’s’ issues. What impressed me was that the committee extended an invitation to members of the Nigerian diaspora who came in considerable numbers and engaged in a frank and serious dialogue on these questions. This presented a completely different face of diaspora Africans to the GUBA entrepreneurs. Both perspectives, however, revealed an increasing inter-action with the society in which the — 116 —

diaspora live. As Cherie Blair pointedly said, in presenting an award to Ghanaian entrepreneur Prince Kofi Amoabeng, it is “to the huge benefit of the United Kingdom”.

(November, 2013)

Juba and Bangui: 2014 New Year Headaches The New Year begins with the ‘African ambiguity’ highlighted by Lord Mark Malloch Brown at the BCA Annual General meeting in November continuing with aggravated intensity. The main reason for drawing attention to this has been that, since writing on the subject at the end of November, two crises that had been simmering in the middle of the African continent burst into the open as major problems demanding international attention, namely those in Central African Republic and South Sudan.

At a time when Africa continues to receive plaudits from international business and financial circles for the promise it continues to show in terms of growth prospects and market and investment opportunities, it is saddening to see two countries embarking on a course of patent self-destruction. In South Sudan it is particularly tragic that those that had fought together for so long for the finally achieved national independence should so quickly turn on each other simply as a result of a crude power struggle between a president and his deputy. It is the kind of cleavage that has not been unknown elsewhere in post-independence shakedowns, but to deteriorate into bitter ethnic warfare so soon after emancipation is unusual and doubly disappointing.

This has accounted for the rapid intervention of leaders of neighbouring countries under the aegis of the African Union (AU) including notably Ethiopia and Kenya in an effort at mediation. But it has been the tougher approach of the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, who with cynical calculation sent troops to support the elected president Salva Kiir that has been most effective in the re-conquest of the main towns in the country (though by no means the countryside) which has brought about an agreement on paper for a ceasefire. Museveni, like Idriss Déby of Chad in both CAR and Mali, has increasingly come to be a regional politico-military player. Witness his consistent support for the African Union mission in Somalia.

This has been a different crisis from that in Central African Republic which has been beset by political and social crisis for a much longer period. Some would locate it back in the colonial period when it was once described as a ‘colonial slum’, always at the bottom end of priorities in Paris, with high levels of poverty and low levels of development. André Gide, in his Voyage to the Congo in 1926–7, shocked French public opinion with his accounts the brutalities of French colonial agents under the thumb of French chartered companies exploiting rubber and other resources.

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Post-independence rulers fared little better, especially since the one visionary African leader Barthélemy Boganda, killed in a plane accident in 1959, but not before his dream of Oubangui-Chari taking part in a wider federation from Brazzaville to the Chadian desert had been killed by the egoism of Gabon, the richest and smallest territory in France’s Equatorial African Federation (the AEF). The independent CAR has been paying a grievous price ever since. A recent article in New York Times International by Adam Nossiter quoted a former Prime Minister Jean-Paul Ngoupandé as saying “France needs to question itself, candidly, on its role in infantilising this country”.

This refers above all to the complicity of French leaders in the diabolical thirteen-year rule of Jean-Bedel Bokassa. A military veteran of France’s Indo-China war, he came to power as Colonel Bokassa in a coup on New Year’s Eve 1966 and his dictatorship soon assumed megalomaniac proportions, culminating in his self-proclamation in December 1976 as Bokassa I. While he may have amused de Gaulle, Pompidou kept him at arm’s length and it was really Valéry Giscard d’Estaing who compromised himself with the absurd and ultimately horrific leader. When he was Minister of Finance before being elected French President in 1974 Giscard went on hunting trips with Bokassa, and reportedly accepted gifts of diamonds. This did not, after the massacre in 1979 of 100 schoolchildren who had refused to wear uniforms made in a factory owned by the emperor, prevent France from deciding to overthrow the Emperor by French troops while he was on a visit to Libya this was done in part at the behest of other francophone African presidents who finally lost patience with their disgraceful colleague. But for the chosen successor David Dacko (overthrown

by Bokassa in 1966) to return to Bangui in the back of a French aircraft was as much a deep humiliation for Centrafricans as the grotesqueries of his rule.

Since then CAR has seen a series of ineffective and unstable rulers from General Kolingba to Ange-Felix Patassé (who had been Bokassa’s Foreign minister) to the progressively imploding ten-year rule of veteran coup-maker General François Bozizé. Like so many others he was in power for the sake of it, but was also beset by rebellions, and was finally deposed by the successful rebel alliance known as Séléka (it means ‘alliance’ in the Sango lingua franca), under whose incapable leader Michel Djotodia the country tumbled into serious conflict and anarchy.

The fracturing of the army and the collapse of other institutions, accompanied by the growth of uncontrolled militias brought out latent antagonism between the so-called ‘Christians’ (in fact the two-thirds of the population in the Sango-speaking zones) and the Muslim minority, mainly from the deprived North-East, hitherto largely excluded from power games in Bangui. They had come to power with Djotodia, himself a Muslim, despite his Christian first name, as part of the Séléka alliance. Séléka, however, failed to show any awareness that power meant governing and not continuing to behave like rebels.

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the anti-Muslim campaign of the anti-balaka gangs (balaka being the word for machete in Sango), which were more based on animism, and were allegedly manipulated by Bozizé in his last desperate bid to stay in power.

An inter-faith platform organised by the Catholic archbishop of Bangui, Mgr Dieudonné Nzapalainga and the president of the Islamic Council of CAR Imam Omar Kobine Layama, with the protestant pastor of the Evangelical church, have campaigned over the last year to counter the misleading notion of a country of religious conflict. The Archbishop and the Imam have been touring told a meeting in London set up by Chatham House and Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation on January 27 that it was not true that the conflicts in CAR were simply Christians vs Muslims, pointing out that the country’s problems were more political and social than sectarian.

After Séléka came to power the struggles with the anti-balaka had grown out of control, leading to a rising death toll, and risked plunging the country into anarchy. The 4,000 troops from African neighbours (from Chad, Cameroon, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville) were having increasing problems handling this deteriorating situation, increasing the pressures for the French military intervention (Operation Sangaris with 1,600 troops) of early December last year, as the threat of violence and possible massacres became imminent.

The second such intervention in Africa in the course of the year (the first has been in Mali) marks a remarkable turnaround in France’s African policy, although some see it as a reversion to earlier type, albeit dressed up with greater international support and working with African troops. Those with long memories recall that since 1979 there have been at least seven known French interventions including three in 1996, and there had already been a modest French presence in Bangui for the past year. There is increasing speculation as to whether this one in particular may not blow up in their face, especially since we are already being told they are likely to be there for some time, a notion smacking of paternalism.

What is at stake is the rebuilding of what looks now like a failed state. The coming year is thus likely to be critical for France’s special sphere of influence in Africa.

What is striking about these two sudden and shocking crises in CAR and South Sudan is that they are in neighbouring landlocked countries at the heart of Africa, but still have entirely separate and complex roots in the local politics. The eastern borders of CAR are mostly with South Sudan and are long and porous, and although there is no striking ethnic partition as can be found elsewhere, the eastern part of the country has been politically neglected and vulnerable. There is also a shorter but key border with the northern Sudan, which has impacted upon CAR’s situation negatively with an influx of rogue militias (including those known as jinjaweed) from the conflict-beset province of Darfur.

Relations with Chad (which also has a shared border) are even more complex, as although Sara-speaking peoples traverse the border, the Chadians present in CAR who have had to be evacuated are mainly Muslim traders and herders, attacked by anti-balaka for ally— 119 —

ing with Séléka, and because for a time the Déby regime seemed to favour Djotodia. This was a position he backtracked on at the end of the year, when the meeting at which he was deposed by members of the Transitional Council in early January was actually organised as part of a regional summit by President Déby.

There is also the vexed case of Uganda, which although without an adjoining border, has been concerned that the continued rebellion of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony has been taking refuge in CAR. Transiting through the crucially turbulent north-eastern area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). International pressures were placed on Bozizé to prevent this, but both he and Djotodia after him, were incapable of so doing, a measure of the still continuing fragility of the state in CAR. The arrival in power this month of a new interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza, elected by the special transitional council which voted Djotodia out, is designed to be a beginning, Some speculate that a woman can perhaps succeed where men have so dismally failed, but it is only the beginning of a daunting long haul in the process of rebuilding a failed state, a pitfall-strewn task in which the French, the international community and above all neighbouring African states will have their work cut out.

This prospect alone, which should indeed be African-generated rather than externally-led, will make 2014 a daunting year for the continent, in spite of overall optimism on current prospects. One might also note mounting uncertainties concerning Nigeria and South Africa (sometimes known as the ‘two hegemons’ due to their dominant regional positions).

For both of these countries the coming year will be crucial, and the working out of their destinies will have a powerful influence on the whole future of the African continent. This is a theme that will inevitably capture attention in coming months.

(January, 2014)

Reassurances and Uncertainties in Africa Having begun the year with a somewhat pessimistic editorial suggesting that, with new crises looming in both the Central African Republic and South Sudan, it is probably a good moment to take a longer view of Africa’s present situation. The longer term prognostications that this century will see a steady improvement in Africa’s overall situation, still for the most part seem to apply. The slow global recovery based mainly on the Keynesian ‘stimulus’ policies of the Federal Reserve Bank in the US may have caused some wobbles for the emerging markets, but there is likely to be a wider benefit from an upturn.

One hesitates in a column like this to engage in too many predictions, although the alarums raised of what may come from a possible slow-down in China’s still burgeoning economy seem over-heated. The nature of Chinese growth means that it is still in need of a — 120 —

continuing supply of many forms of resources, especially minerals, and the long term plan to which they still appear to be working still gives a prominent place to Africa. The World in 2014, the annual volume put out by The Economist engages in unabashed futurology, as well as taking a usefully long view of the past twenty-five years. The report observes that “some of the world’s fastest growing economies in 2014 will be in Africa”. After recording that “in the past decade only the bloc of developing Asian economies, led by China, have grown faster than Africa,” we are told that even as China intentionally slows, and even if “prices for many of the raw materials that Africa has in abundance have fallen… there is enough momentum for Africa’s GDP…to grow by around 5.5 per cent in 2014, the average rate over the past five years – faster than any other region in the world”. This has led the IMF to predict that four of the world’s six fastest growing economies in 2014 will be in sub-Saharan Africa. And for the4 first time in living memory, inflation will dip below the GDP growth rate” Comforting statistics by no means tell the whole story, as good growth does not necessarily lead to good poverty reduction, and in some cases may exacerbate the gap between wealthy and poor. But it is also worth commenting in passing that the world’s current serious crisis points, apart from the ongoing nightmare in Syria (and inevitably the continuing question marks over Iraq and Afghanistan) now to concentrate on violent and angry street demonstrations in places as diverse as Kiev, Bangkok and Caracas. While Juba and Bangui, as pointed out a month ago, have generated, apparently suddenly, their own horrendous forms of violence, for the most part sub-Saharan Africa has been spared the kind of semi-permanent trauma now being experienced in Egypt, with incalculable economic effects such as the collapse of vital tourist business.

The exercises of containment in both South Sudan and the Central African Republic, it is true, have involved serious external interventions – in the one case the African Union with Uganda leading the forces (as in Somalia), and in CAR (as in 2013 in Mali) France has played the role of deus ex machina, even if the French deny that they are returning to their old vanity exercise of playing gendarme in Africa. For France, in the present changed situation, cover from both the EU and the UN, is an essential prerequisite for interventions.

The situation in CAR in particular is so dire than no-one would wish to carry the burden alone, with no easy exit strategy, a reality of which France is becoming more and more aware. It may sound churlish to mention in such a matter of fact way, but there is a kind of terrible law that dictates that countries that have gone down can begin to go up again.

One has only to look at even a worst-case scenario such as Somalia – for twenty years a failed state – or the other problem states of the nineteen-nineties, Sierra Leone and Liberia, to see that recovery, however painful, is possible. The case of Côte d’Ivoire is even more conspicuous. The country’s eleven years of conflict were often, it is true, in s state of halfwar/half-peace and it did not know some of the brutalities of its neighbours, it is showing a strong urge to return ready to its former regional predominance. The route is not an easy — 121 —

one, and there are a number of unresolved political and security problems. It is nonetheless reassuring suddenly to come across a fat twenty-page supplement in The Times earlier this month with the headline on its front page “A Stunning Economic Recovery.” When there is as much pressure to get back in sector after sector as is shown on these pages, recovery can even be self-generating if it is believed in enough. I still feel that when the African Development Bank finally returns to its former headquarters in Abidjan, confidence-building will take a great leap forward.

Another interesting example is Guinea, which has often been described as potentially one of Côte d’Ivoire’s greatest competitors in the West African sub-region in the similarity of its size, population, and natural and human resources. The option in 1958 to go for full independence outside France’s sphere of influence meant that its journey as a nation state has not been easy, and its has known many forms of stressful dictatorships and economic and social confusion. Yet especially since 2010 when it finally was able to hold the first democratic multi-party election since that independence, bringing President Alpha Condé to power, Guinea has been able to make its way uneasily towards credibility. Even the last two years have not been easy, as obstacles arising from political and ethnic tensions repeatedly prevented the holding of parliamentary elections. These were finally held in September last year, however, and a new atmosphere, admittedly fragile, has enabled the country to begin to prepare to join the competition for international attention that its opportunities in both mineral and agricultural sectors surely deserve.

This was seen at the recent instructive session organised by the BCA on ‘Business Prospects in Guinea’ with the new Ambassador HE Paul Goa Zoumanigui, supported by Biro Diallo, one of the executives in Guinea of the major Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto, who also happens to be one of the BCA’s widening network of representatives in Africa. Rio Tinto has already been present in Guinea for some years working on plans for a railway from Conakry to the iron ore deposits of Simandou in the south-east of the country, the main subject of the presentation. This report includes in its section on Guinea all the details the presentation, which also made a strong pitch for investors. It has been a long itinerary, but one has the impression that, little by little, progress is being made.

To return to predictions on Africa’s future, the main focus is often on what are sometimes called “the two hegemons”, South Africa and Nigeria. In some ways, the best hopes for the continent rest on these two pillars. But both face an uncertain political situation in the coming year. South Africa in particular has an immediate challenge in the shape of the forthcoming general elections to be held between April and June. The vote will be for a National Assembly as well as provincial assemblies in all nine provinces. The new Assembly will elect the president, and despite the disillusionment expressed surprisingly publicly at the time of the ceremonies around the passing of the late President Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress (ANC) is still expected to win, which means that — 122 —

President Jacob Zuma will have another five-year term as the country’s leader. The interest will lie in how many inroads may be made into the ANC’s formerly cast-iron majority. The coming election featured in an interesting recent Business Council for Africa meeting with Mamphela Ramphele, leader of an opposition political party, called Agang SA, launched in South Africa in June 2013. Dr Ramphele entered politics some forty years ago in the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko (assassinated by the apartheid regime in 1977) but her career has taken her to other pastures, including Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (1996) and as one of four Managing Directors at the World Bank (from 2000).

She returned later to business appointments in South Africa, but felt increasing pressure to enter politics because of a growing sense of crisis in the country. Agang (the world means ‘build’ in Sesotho, one of South Africa’s eleven languages) is committed to constitutional democracy and describes herself as a “social entrepreneur”.

Asked why she has decided to enter politics in her mid-sixties she says that “twenty years is too long to stand on the sidelines and watch a beautiful country slide into crisis”. The ANC had ceased to “care for ordinary people” and her purpose was to “restore dignity”. This will be the first election where the ANC will not have the shield of Mandela, with no “assurance of winning” and its alliance with the workers was beginning to break down. Her programme was based on fighting corruption and restoring standards in education. She accepts that she can only concentrate effectively on five provinces. Most observers recognise Agang is not aiming to win, and her own subsequent move of trying to secure the support of the Democratic Party, which misfired, has not helped. Since others are campaigning against the ANC from different quarters, such as the extreme radical Julius Malema, the party may still find its hold further eaten away. But the party can still play not just the incumbency factor but still retains a remarkable hold on the South African psyche. As for Nigeria, the crunch may not be till the 2015 elections, but their outcome may well be decided earlier in this year’s opaque and protracted power struggle, currently in a spell of particular turbulence around the Central Bank Governor.

But that will have to wait for next month’s editorial.

(February, 2014)

The Looming Nigerian Question For the year which marks the centenary of the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria to make one country (an event of great finality), the political atmosphere is peculiarly uncertain. This is in part engendered by the looming shadow of next year’s federal and state elections, now less than a year away. There are as many differing views on how these may turn out as there are States in Nigeria. Although President Goodluck Jonathan — 123 —

is generally thought likely to be a candidate, he still has to go through the hurdle of the nominating convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And in many quarters it is assumed that once he obtains the nomination, the incumbency factor will facilitate an almost inevitable re-election, as has happened with elections in the past. Others are now not so sure. This uncertainty is affected by the way the political heat has risen by several degrees in the past few weeks as result of allegations by the Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi against the President concerning unremitted oil revenues of $20bn, which led to multiple slanging matches involving figures from across the political class like ex-President Obasanjo, resulting in the suspension of the Governor on February 20. Although the government has said the charges were “unsubstantiated”, it has already been apparent that all is not well in the oil and gas business, central to the Nigerian economy. The Sanusi removal caused a measure of shock both inside and outside Nigeria, especially in business circles where the Governor has been well-respected for his reforms and his handling of the levers of the Nigerian economy. Sanusi’s critics linked the row to his possible political ambitions, but the scars caused by the row will nevertheless leave an abiding mark.

In the short term the drama has been digested, with Deputy governor Sarah Omotunde Alade taking on the leadership until June, when Sanusi’s term of office was due to end anyway and a new definitive Governor will come in for a new five-year term. This appointment will be watched closely, and is already the subject of intense speculation because of its political significance in the current pre-electoral situation. Sanusi’s departure has put more focus on the role of the finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, now more than ever guarantor of the country’s credibility in the international community. There was thus careful attention paid to her article in The Financial Times on March 13 with the comforting title ‘Recent Setbacks will not undo Nigeria’s progress.’ Despite the initial “consternation,” she noted that the All Share index at the Stock Exchange had recovered from its initial negative reaction, and the exchange rate was “stabilising.” And although foreign exchange reserves had dropped “slightly” to $39bn., it still provided a healthy level of import cover by IMF measures.

After these soothing words however, she still felt that the allegations of funds disappearing needed to be examined with a “forensic approach” by an independent committee, noting that the president had set up just such an inquiry. It should be followed by reform of the sector, as embodied in the Petroleum Bill which “has been with parliament for several months” which would open up the industry bringing more accountability, but has been delayed by “interest groups – some Nigerian some foreign – who benefit from the status quo”. She also repeated s call for the pursuit and punishment of “those engaged in corrupt acts.” But she also reminded us that other reforms, such as those in the power sector (“one of the world’s most comprehensive and transparent privatisation exercises”), show that progress in Nigeria is possible, despite all the stand-offs and disap— 124 —

pointments, such as the continuing total scandal of oil theft (Around the same time this was put by Shell at about $1bn a month last year from their production alone. Shell’s spokesman pointed out the grim reality that “the country’s 4m barrel-a-day target has become actual production of less than 2m bpd”). Although in deliberately low-key language, Ngozi’s call for action responds to the heartfelt wishes of many Nigerians, and whoever wins power next year will still be there as a permanent challenge. So much is now at stake in the country’s success that surmounting the election hurdle will make the next few months critical. This is where the continued horrifying assaults from Boko Haram in the states of North-East, and the apparent difficulty of the security services in taming the movement pose another range of questions, even touching on that of national unity. Its activities maybe increasingly confined to one area, and sometimes seem remote from the South, but if ways can be found to reduce the problem, it would have an inevitable beneficial effect on Nigeria’s standing in the world.

In this context, how much significance should be attached to the National Conference under the chairmanship of Justice Idris Kutigi? Assembling nearly five hundred of the great and the good from Nigeria’s political class and other walks of life, it was inaugurated on March 17. It seems inevitable that its members will find themselves discussing issues related to what is often called ’the Nigerian question’ as well as some of the pertinent issues such as corruption and accountability raised by the Finance Minister.

Some have already dismissed this gathering as a talking shop, an exercise similar to that convened by President Obasanjo in 2005, which broke up in deadlock on the South-South/Delta issue predominant at the time. The fact that it is not ‘sovereign’ has upset some, but to introduce the concept of ‘sovereignty’ would be an inadmissible arrogation of power tantamount to suspending the constitution. Even given this inevitable constraint, for those of us that have been observing the Nigerian political scene for a long time, these new proceedings in Abuja cannot but help provide fascinating material, especially as some of those taking part have been players in the unfolding of the country’s national drama over the years since independence. The same interest attached itself to the Oputa Report of 2003 which was as near Nigeria has ever come to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, examining all the sensitive political nerve-ends since the civil war. In my view Oputa deserved a much greater airing than it received for the rich raw material of Nigeria’s politics therein. The linkage of the National Conference with the Centenary may not be apparent, in part because the latter gives rise to ambivalent feelings, and also because at the time the amalgamation of the North with the South was looked on by the British as an administrative convenience to help save the North from bankruptcy by integrating the revenues of the two ‘protectorates’. This ‘convenience’ has nonetheless lain at the heart of the political/financial equation that has made up the country over the subsequent hundred years.

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Governor-General Lugard, brought in to carry out the merger took the crucial decision of keeping intact that same North, of which he had been principal architect as Governor, rather than following the advice of both Deputy Governor Temple and the celebrated campaigner ED Morel of dividing Nigeria into four or maybe seven parts. Thus did he formalise the top-heavy North, which created the post-independence imbalance, which led to the 1966 crisis and civil war. One often hesitates to make sweeping generalisations about Nigeria, as each statement sometimes seems contradicted by the next, I have this curious conviction that Lugard’s position of 1914 in fact led to the constitutional arrangements seen in the run-up to independence, which created the ‘Nigerian question.’

This may sound like a simplification, but the problem of how to organise power equitably has run like a turbulent underground stream beneath the Nigerian story especially in the years after independence. At the heart of the question is whether in a complex federal arrangement one area should claim predominance, especially through manipulating demography. This boiling undercurrent has broken loose at all sensitive moments in the national story, not just in the 1966–70 full-blown crises, but at points in time involving recurrent vexatious tangles such as revenue allocation, or the holding of national population censuses. It is above all elections, however, which have proved to be the elephant in the Nigerian political room.

This was why deep attention is being paid to the words of the Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, which we were fortunate enough to hear in London last month at Chatham House. Of all the recent election bosses in Nigeria, Prof Jega is probably the one to whom highest hopes have been attached, and the most recent polls in 2011 were generally thought to have been a major improvement on previous Fourth Republic votes, even if marred by serious post-election violence. While admitting that in 2011 the short time he had been given to prepare the election had posed “tremendous challenges,” he said there had been more time to introduce reforms, such as improving the voters’ register. This provided a good quote: “Even if there are dead people on the register they will not be able to vote”. Nonetheless the road is not easy. Jega accepted that last year’s State election in Anambra had shown there were still shortcomings, and this year’s polls in Ekiti (June) and Osun (August) would give further opportunities to learn lessons. Prof Jega’s earnest plea to stakeholders to abandon the “do or die” mentality, that has all too often characterised past votes, was perhaps an indication of how much nervousness still exists about the persistence, and indeed resilience, of old bad habits. So much still depends on who will be chosen as candidates at the primaries scheduled for October, for both ruling party and opposition, which may well have a lot of influence on the eventual results, both federal and state. Only cautious mention was made at the meeting of the effect Boko Haram’s activities might have on the conduct of the poll in affected states, but it is one of many, many question-marks.

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Given the likelihood of present tensions continuing to escalate, and the imponderable nature of the political drama, the February 2014 vote is likely to be another major chapter in the evolution of the country’s complex polity – another chance to study “the Nigerian question”. In view of increasingly bullish predictions on the potential of Nigeria’s economy, to which the BCA has again been exposed at a recent meeting on the exciting future of Lagos, political anxieties still stand a good chance of being diverted or even submerged by the country’s remarkable economic possibilities, so often set out in this newsletter.

(March, 2014)

The EU-Africa Strategic Partnership When I asked an informed Brussels insider how successful had the recent EU-Africa summit (April 2–3) been, the response came enigmatically: “it was better than the last one.” This is not surprising, as the previous one was held in Tripoli in December 2010, a month before the revolt in Libya which eventually led to the fall of Colonel Gaddafy and many delegations went from the EU with gritted teeth, having to accept that going to Tripoli was part of the price for developing a relationship with the African Union. Despite the lavishness of the Libyan leader’s hospitality, representation from both Europe and Africa was patchy, and the summit was not able to cope with its central challenge, how to translate the mountain of paper produced under eight strategic headings, for the comprehensive Joint Africa-Europe Strategy, now usually known in Brussels as the JAES, and first approved at the Lisbon EU-Africa summit of 2007. The summit in Brussels was the fourth one in a process which after a faltering start now seems to be gathering genuine momentum. The idea of a strategic partnership with Africa was an initiative from certain member states, notably Portugal and France, and the first summit was held in Cairo in April 2000. In retrospect it seems historically important that the summit was held two months before all of sub-Saharan Africa and their allies in the Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group signed a set of trade-and-aid agreements in Cotonou in June 2000. This replaced the Fourth Lomé Convention, the first of which had been signed in 1975 and hailed as a major breakthrough in relations with developing countries, although by the 1990s the relationship was felt in need of revival.

The Cold War had ended, the global economic situation was vastly different from the 1970s, and Africa had been through two decades of severe economic crisis.

Cotonou’s major innovation was the Economic Partnership Agreements. These covered aspects of trade relations in six regions (the Caribbean, the Pacific, and four in sub-Saharan Africa) and, crucially, abandoned the famous ‘non-reciprocity’ which had been one of the most attractive features of all the Lomé agreements, and indeed had been a major reason for many countries signing up to it, because of access to Europe without having to open — 127 —

markets to European exports. There were strong elements in Brussels that felt it was time this was ended, using the rules of the newly-created World Trade Organisation (WTO) as justification. Because of the discontent this provoked in the ACP, Cotonou provided a seven-year delay in application. At the same time the six-region provision of the EPAs was seen by some hopeful elements in Brussels a first move in the eventual breaking of the ACP Group into separate strategic partnerships.

Cairo and Cotonou thus marked the beginning of a two-track policy on the part of the EU towards Africa which has shown worrying signs of dysfunctionality, both of institutions and of policy which has affected the whole of the EU’s relations with the African continent. To begin with, Cotonou covered only sub-Saharan Africa, and there was a separate agreement with South Africa, in spite of the latter having been brought into the ACP Group, while the new Summits were for all Africa, including North African countries. To make matters more complex, despite improved relations with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which in 2002 morphed into the AU it could not be an official organisation-to-organisation relationship because the EU did not recognise the Sahraoui Republic and wanted to invite Morocco.

At the time, however, the Cairo summit attracted attention more as an international novelty. The British media were more interested in the presence of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, at that time beginning to receive serious demonisation at the hands of the same media. Indeed the problem of Mugabe’s attendance, and the squeamishness of British leaders about meeting him, led, quite remarkably to no further EU-Africa summit being held for another seven years. The Portuguese again took the opportunity of their chairing the EU Council to insist that the summit be held in Lisbon, this time over-ruling British objections, although it led to Gordon Brown, then newly Premier in London, not going to the Lisbon EU-Africa Summit. However, by 2007, there was stronger pressure bin Brussels, not least from the newly reinforced council of Ministers for a strategic partnership with Africa that would prioritise security cooperation. This coincided with African needs for assistance with problems such as Sudan and Somalia, but was notably part of the post 9/11 global atmosphere.

The Lisbon summit, despite its approval of the Joint Strategy, was nonetheless not considered a great success since, because of incredibly poor timing, it coincided with a crisis that came from the expiry of the EPAs seven year deadline, without real progress in working out the agreements. Although the summit was not related to the Cotonou agreements, and the Joint Strategy made no reference to them despite having a full chapter on trade, a number of African leaders took the opportunity to denounced EPAs and the way Europe had handled them. There had already been a number of EPA initiallings, but the irritation of the ACP at the way Brussels handled the negotiations led to protests against EU “mercantilism”, which covered a deeper resentment that what had been given in 1975 — 128 —

had been taken away. There was also unhappiness that the EPA process, while purporting to promote regional cooperation, in fact sowed confusion among the existing groupings, which did not necessarily coincide with Cotonou’s designated groups. Not surprisingly, although some progress has been made in putting EPAs together, the only one so far signed has been that for the Caribbean, which with a measure of fatalism accepted the inevitable.

In Africa most progress has been made in East Africa, but those with ECOWAS and SADC remain complicated.

For many of the ACP coming in the least-developed category, the existence since 2001 of duty free access for Everything But Arms (EBA) has lessened the EPAs significance, but there is a group of middle income countries, such as Ghana, Côte’Ivoire, Kenya and Namibia which are deeply concerned: they cannot afford to be handicapped in the European market by losing access. After the explosions of 2007–8, there was a concerted effort on both sides to defuse the problem and work out practical solutions, especially with the departure in 2008 of the abrasive Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, replaced by the more anodyne Baroness Ashton, who moved on to be the EU’s new foreign policy supremo.

Constructive approaches led to a series of tactical and pragmatic postponements, often supported by the ACP’s friends in the European Parliament, the latest of which is in October this year. The future of EPAs now seems more certain, but is still opaque and unsatisfactory.

There are also serious concerns that the EU will take the opportunity of the end of Cotonou in 2020 to try and dismantle the already weakened ACP Group altogether, but this may depend on the balance of forces in five years’ time, when a new negotiation will be taking place. Although some in Africa may regard such a development with indifference, there are others who still see a useful case to preserve what President Nyerere called the “trade union of the poor.” The ACP are aware that the aid-needy East European caucus in Brussels, which questions so much development funding going in one direction is lined up against them, and that the EU is still Africa’s most important trading partner. There are, however, more and more suitors for “Africa rising” from China and other Asians to Brazil and Turkey.

Even the US, traditionally fairly detached, will be holding an important summit with Africa in Washington in August, to renew its own trading arrangement AGOA (the African Growth and Opportunity Act). It becomes a question of whether in present circumstances.

Africa needs Europe more than Europe needs Africa. One has the impression that Europe is beginning to become more concerned about Africa taking up with other suitors interested in developing relations, but is still somehow seeking to impose its own framework as it has done over the past fifty years (with the brief exception of Lomé I). Africa however, is now in an even better bargaining position than that of the early ‘seventies. The EU should perhaps not assume that it can still call the shots.

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Tanzanian Beacon: What next?

It is not often one has a chance to editorialise on Tanzania, but an important joint meeting of the BCA/WS and the East African Association, provided an excellent opportunity to find out more about what is currently one of Africa’s most promising countries. The title was ‘Tanzania – a Country of Enormous business Potential,’ and followed on from an official visit to Britain of its President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, only the third such official visit since the present coalition government came to power in May 2010 (the others have been South Africa and Ghana). This is a reflection of how the country has currently enjoying favoured status among donors – it was one of those chosen by President Obama last year for his second African tour. And Britain has included it (with Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Angola) in its five priority African countries.

President Kikwete’s second term in office ends next year, which will mean that he will have done ten years, like his predecessor President Mkapa, who took over after the passing of the country’s founding father Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. He has already indicated that he is not going to change the constitution to seek a third term (as seems to be the habit among some of his fellow African leaders). Nyerere is still recalled as one of the great African leaders of the twentieth century, and the moral integrity he represented still serves as a model for others, and his country is still viewed as one of Africa’s most prudent and stable countries, even if currently facing major changes because of the huge possibilities of natural gas, although no-one is yet mentioning the “resource curse”, partly because no oil has so far been discovered. Moreover export of Liquefied Natural Gas is not expected until 2021 (two years after Mozambique, which has similarly seen major gas discoveries). In 2012 projections of Tanzania’s total reserves of gas rose from 10 trillion cubic feet to 40 trillion cubic feet, and a $20bn LNG plant is planned (supported by both British gas and Norway’s Statoil.

The future that these discoveries opens up was one of the themes of the BCA meeting. The encouraging growth seen in the economy in the past thirty years, even before the arrival of natural gas, has been based on the political stability, but also on the progressive liberalisation of a formerly tight state socialism. Between 1998 and 2009 the GDP grew by 40 per cent. It has been the promising political/economic equation that has brought in strong foreign direct investment. Speakers were keen to stress that the key to the “possibilities” lay in improving the business environment. The High Commissioner Peter Kallaghe said it was the key sector that could unlock the others (oil and gas, agriculture renewable energy and tourism), and Juliet Kairuki of the Tanzania Investment Centre after acknowledging that gas discoveries had “put us on the map”, also spoke of the importance of “transparency”. Questions from businessmen seemed to hint politely at problems of bureaucracy and red tape, and her answers were cautious. The meeting also put the spotlight on Mtwara, a port in the furthest south near the Mozambique border. According to the Mtwara regional — 130 —

Commissioner Col (retired) Joseph Simbakalia; it is planned, ambitiously, that it should be a regional oil and gas hub for the whole coast – an “East African Aberdeen”. A natural deep-water harbour in a strategic location, Mtwara port was built by the British in the late colonial period to service the ill-fated groundnut scheme, an early setback to what came to be called development aid but then was part of ‘colonial development and welfare.’

Col Simbakalia also spoke of the expansion for Mtwara town, which should more than double in size to over 200,000 people by the year 2020. Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote (in his Pan-African mode) is already committed to constructing a cement works there, with the expansion in mind, as port improvements should facilitate not just the local export of cashew but possible agro-industries, and, in this exciting future, the development of financial services in connection with the ‘hub’, for this is boom time. An article in The Economist last year on Tanzania’s LNG prospects was even titled ‘The Mtwara Rockefellers”.

It noted that, if expectations have sometimes been disappointed in the past, such as the decline of the port, and the non-completion of the important road-link to the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, the country is surely now a real attraction to investors especially in the regional context. During President Kikwete’s official visit he made reference, in a speech at Chatham House, to the potential of the new East African regional grouping (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, now reinforced with Rwanda and Burundi). “We are creating a wider market, an East African market... We are removing the constraints to our growth…

If we succeed in developing this, well, Tanzania will be one of the giant economies in East Africa if not the giant economy in the region.

(April, 2014)

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Kaye Whiteman (1936–2014)

Africa has been cursed in many ways. For centuries it has had to bear the consequences of prejudice and ignorance and avarice, but it has been blessed in its friends. They may be infuriated by its faults, frustrated by its failures, but have been constant in their certainty that the continent’s time will come.

There are few who kept to this faith as steadfastly as Kaye Whiteman.

He demonstrated his love of the continent in so many ways. His knowledge of West Africa in particular was encyclopaedic, but worn lightly and imparted generously to his friends. His diffidence and modesty were among his many endearing characteristics, but they were also deceptive, for they concealed a fine mind and a sharp pen.

To accompany Kaye on one of his verbal excursions down the byways of African history was one of life’s pleasures. And when he turned this knowledge into authoritative well-informed editorials in West Africa – the magazine so close to his heart – he was at his dispassionate best.

The respect of his peers is a lasting tribute to a fine journalist who gave dignity to our all-too-often flawed profession.

Michael Holman Former Africa Editor of the Financial Times

Published By Business Council for Africa ISBN: 978-0-9931124-1-6