Sunday, April 28, 2024

Afrika

Africa’s Coup Governments: When Elections Become An Exhausted Idea Confirming Democratic Fatigue

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Africa’s Coup Governments: When Elections Become An Exhausted Idea Confirming Democratic Fatigue

The trending successful military coups in West Africa today indicate the continuation of political processes and leadership by another method. Their executions have been systematic; citizens protest against the ruling elites’ failure to ensure economic, political, social and security provisions, then the military moves in.

West Africa is regarded as one of the most unstable subregions on the African continent. Between 1991 and 2011, some of the most brutal civil conflicts in the continent’s history wrecked West Africa. Another contributor to instability in West Africa has been the continuing role of the military and the phenomenon of military regimes. Of the fifteen ECOWAS states, only Senegal has not witnessed a military coup.

The first military coup in Africa was staged on the night of January 13, 1963, when Togo’s President Sylvanus Olympio was shot dead by rebels. The scourge of military coups has further infected other parts of Africa. Moreover, military coups are contagious. A successful coup significantly increases the probability of military coups in that country or its neighbors.

The reactions, actions, and inactions of African public intellectuals, activists, academics, and other opinion leaders to these coup developments have not given enough ground for consensus on whether military coups are the needed form of governance in Africa. However, the agreed-upon common position is that democratic gains in Africa are slowly diminishing.

In April 2019, the government of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir was deposed in a military coup that was backed by some of its civilian allies. The civilian-military alliance overthrew the interim structures and effectively ended al-Bashir’s rule, and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became the head of the transition that incorporated civilians.

Since then, statistics have been going southward. Since August 2020, Africa has experienced eight military coups. These have been in Mali, which witnessed two coups in nine months; Guinea in September 2021; Sudan in October 2021; Burkina Faso had two coups in eight months—in January and September 2022; Niger in July 2023; and Gabon in August.

Such political developments have brought historic turning points. State weakness has played a key role in these incidences. In other jurisdictions, they have occurred in part due to the government’s failure to prevent the development of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated groups throughout the Sahel.

Besides the coups being ‘people-driven’, what is striking is that the most complicating scenario that restricts efforts by African countries or the West to reverse these takeovers is that it is young men who rally in support of military coups and their leaders. With such support, coup makers have resisted regional and continental norms against unconstitutional changes in government and, in Niger, have shunned engagements.

The cases of military coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Guinea provide key insights on the changing nature of relations between citizens and military men.

Are Africa’s elections an exhausted idea?

Africa is going through “democratic fatigue and coloniality rupture” that is requiring an alternative to the Western liberal lens of looking at issues, says Dr. Alexander Rusero, a scholar on decolonial thought leader and lecturer at the Africa University in Zimbabwe.

Dr. Rusero argues that events in West Africa’s coup belt are indicative of the need to recognise the role of military men in Africa, as democracy through elections is now an exhausted idea.

“Democracy expressed through elections is now an exhausted idea, as there are certain alternative modes of installing governments, and the military heading that government is just but one of those modes. What we are witnessing is also what we can call the coloniality rupture. There is a rupture of the colonial grip by France over erstwhile colonies. So there are certain circumstances where the military becomes the last resort because there are certain powerful men who preside over states but fail to deliver public goods.

“There is therefore a recession to the extended influence of France in these establishments to the extent that all military men are calling the French government off whenever they assume military power to say, France, you no longer have any business in the affairs of our country; please leave. This talks to the coloniality rupture. Coloniality which has been sustained over the years is slowly depleting and depreciating,” argues Dr. Rusero.

The ECOWAS bloc and the African Union (AU) have been at the forefront of condemning military and unconstitutional power changes in the coup belt but have been silent when elected officials use the military to suppress dissent, civic society organizations, and political opponents using the armed forces.

Dr. Rusero further emphasized that “power consolidation in Africa is through the military, which remains the extension of a political appendage of power. As long as the military is the appendage of political power, the military man also wants to be in that seat because they know the dividends that come with that seat.

“It is hypocritical for the African Union to insist that it does not recognize these unconstitutionally placed governments, yet they hardly say anything whenever there are certain internal dynamics that result in repression, precisely by the incumbent using military force. So as long as the peer review mechanism does not call states to order whenever democracy is in recession, there will be no cure to the coups in Africa.”

Second social contract, covenant

The academic contributions by Western political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau see a social contract as the legitimate consent that those elected officials leading government policy require from those they govern.

However, a contradiction now exists where non-elected officials are given the mandate and consent to govern by the people. There is evidence of an urgent need to renegotiate and redefine models of a social contract throughout a continent where vast sections of the population feel estranged from real citizenship when led by elected officials.

Pro-coup Nigeriens
Nigeriens supporting the July military takeover led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani are seen holding Russian and Chinese flags as they gather in Niamey on August 20. Credit: AFP via Getty Images

To endear themselves with the people, the coup leaders in Mali (Col. Assimi Goïta), Guinea (Col. Mamady Doumbouya), Burkina Faso (Capt. Ibrahim Traoré), and Niger (Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani) promised to institute enough fundamental change to lay new social, economic, and political foundations for their societies. In other words, the military leaders are seen as promising social justice.

Thus, there has emerged an implicit agreement, a new social contract, between the people and their military men and armed forces. Under the new social contract, the citizens and the armed forces have committed to recalibrate the foundations of the state, fight corruption, and expunge French influence and neo-colonialism in Africa’s Sahel region.

Pan-Africanism, neo-colonialism, Russian flags

A new Pan-African spirit is being reincarnated in young African opinion leaders and modern activists who share the values of the first generation of the continent’s liberators. 42-year-old French-Beninese Pan-African ideologue and anti-Western activist Kémi Séba has been the leading voice of reason to endorse the military leadership in Niger, at a time when it has not been fashionable to do so.

Pan-African Activist, Kémi Séba
Kémi Séba, one of the leaders of the Pan-Africanist movement, advocates for the collaboration and integration of African states against Western imperialism. In Niger, he urged pro-coup protestors to stop raising Chinese and Russian flags. Credit: Acotonou

In September, he addressed thousands of pro-coup supporters in Niamey, Niger, rallying people to support the military leadership borne out of the July coup.

“We support General (Abdourahamane) Tchiani (as the head of the regime), we support the military who have taken their responsibilities,” he said after meeting General Tchiani. He observed that the military had listened to the people and “decided to stop the mechanism of neo-colonialism,” hammering that France and the West will not stop the ongoing revolutionary process.

“The Nigerien authorities are counting on us to continue this work of deconstruction of Françafrique and the propagation of Pan-Africanism. We will not disappoint them,” claimed Seba.

On his official X handle (formerly Twitter), he reiterated: “No Pan-Africanist can count on the flawed laws of the institutions of Françafrique to destroy the latter. Only a radical rupture, characterized by the mobilization of the people, allied to the army, and to a powerful geopolitical partner opposed to Western imperialism, will be able to do so.”

He urged positive alliances with geopolitical partners and advised Nigeriens against waving Russian flags.

“Every African leader who collaborates with French neocolonialism is politically on borrowed time. We have started work in the Sahel, and we are going to finish it. Military bases, CFA Franc, cooperation agreements, incestuous relationship between corrupt African and French elites—we are your terminal; know this well,” warned Seba.

From Seba’s advocacy, it is desirable to see Africans free from neo-colonialism, but it is also important to realize that the end of neo-colonialism is likely impossible as West African governments and their economies are not only stimulated by foreign aid but also require it for their own survivability. Unity in breaking this bondage is what Africans require.

Western thought, wrong prescriptions

Experiences in the coup belt resemble the demystification of the Western liberal lens that the military man must not be anywhere close to the political menu. This is fast becoming a myth, as the military man is in essence at the center of the scheme of things in as much as the political dynamics and the political balance of forces in a country are concerned.

The success of military coups in Africa indicates one variation. It is now clear that elections alone are not able to deliver an equitable system of governance. Elections, modeled on the Western liberal system, have alone been unable to correct and address post-colonial challenges in Africa.

Without partaking in any democratic contestation, coup leaders in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger made military interventions responding to the deteriorating security situations and poor economic and social governance of their elected officials. Also, citizens need to be politically conscious, as political leaders create false expectations in their bid to win power. They know they cannot deliver on election promises. Part of this explains their rejection and the embrace of the military.

Decolonizing democracy and development

Prof. Last Moyo, a scholar at the British University in China, doubts the sincerity of the coup plotters and urges citizens to be cautious when they try to embrace them. He describes the military leaders as “opportunistic elements being used to depose governments” and desires that Africa develop its own version of democracy that is not supported by the structures of neocolonialism as they are today.

“The problem is that Africa’s politics is in service to the modern commercial empire that is non-territorial but is still there; that is neocolonialism. Africa’s institutions are not delivering. That is why it is easy for Western countries to interfere in Africa because our politics are not serving the people’s interests. There is a need to reconstitute politics in Africa and answer the fundamental question of who our politics should serve.

“The tragedy that Africa has is that these coups are not necessarily the panacea to African problems. Once they (coup leaders) are given the mandate, unfortunately, they begin to degenerate into the corruption they were condemning. So these cases in West Africa need some time to be understood,” submitted Prof. Moyo.

As the military coups are also partly showing, neoliberal models of democracy and development being implemented in Africa only pander to the interests of Western corporations and global capital. They are not people-driven and oriented in their implementation.

IMF And World Bank: The ‘Bad Samaritans’ And Neoliberals Cheating Africa Into A Cycle Of Pernicious Debt

UbuntuTimes
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IMF And World Bank: The ‘Bad Samaritans’ And Neoliberals Cheating Africa Into A Cycle Of Pernicious Debt

The Western liberal consensus has long been intervening and interfering in Africa. The first form of intervention was through the slave trade from the 16th century, a mechanism that was used to reverse the trajectory of African history, followed by colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries which led to the robbery of the continent’s resources and the displacement of its political and socio-economic organization.

However, for the years towards the end of the twentieth century, these two forms of intervention have been resurrected and today re-appear in the form of debt. The rhetoric of Africa being independent remains a mirage when the is encircled with the debt traps, an enticing formula that capitalism uses to lure Africans through its institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).

The IMF and WB are instruments used by the United States to engage in a modern form of slavery by offering giant loans, especially to Global South nations. On the surface, this appears generous, yet the loans are intentionally too big; failure to repay means the entrapped country begins to abide by the political interests of the United States.

While Africa decries slavery, the U.S. through the IMF and WB, pulling the mechanics of a global empire, enslaves more people today than what the Romans and all other colonial powers did.

From the onset, the Bretton Woods financial institutions were created to capture, first, the post-World War II Europe under the pretext of rebuilding and reconstruction. Secondly, the period of decolonization in Africa from the 1960s, gave way for an independent Africa to support the U.S. in its gesture towards liberation movements that opposed mainly British rule in Africa. African countries were later inclined to support the United States’ financial plans through the IMF and WB, endearing themselves to an all-pervasive culture of aid dependency to which there is little or no real debate on the exit strategy from this debt web and quagmire.

In his magnum corpus, Confessions of An Economic Hitman, U.S. writer John Perkins summed it all saying when dealing with the United States and financial institutions of the neo-liberal consensus, “nations need to avoid debt at all costs if they want to remain free.” 

The Sad Case Of Zimbabwe

In 2000, Zimbabwe embarked on a revolutionary agrarian reform exercise meant to address colonial imbalances, thus repudiating the International Law of Colonialism or the Doctrine of Discovery that European colonizers used to displace indigenous Zimbabweans from their territory on September 12, 1890.

For repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery which gave whites rights to access all land and property belonging to blacks without compensation, in 2001 Zimbabwe was sanctioned by the United States, and the European Union (EU) in 2002. The U.S., using the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), directed the IMF and WB to block any loan meant for Zimbabwe, and that the African country repay the debt it owes its creditors.

The debt now stands at US$17.4 billion! The latest US$3.5 billion debt was assumed in July 2020, meant to compensate the white farmers who lost land during the 2000 agrarian reform, in particular for the developments they put on the agricultural land they had. 

In search of avoiding the pariah state tag, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has consistently approached the IMF and WB since 2018 as part of his administration’s re-engagement policy with the West with a debt clearance proposal of at least US$8 billion, in the meantime.

Zimbabwe’s President Mnangagwa appointed the African Development Bank (AfDB) president, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina and former Mozambique’s President Joachim Chissano as conveners of meetings with the IMF and WB.   

Repentance Under Tough, Unforgiving Conditions

The debt debate about Zimbabwe has provoked reactions from African academics, intellectuals and interventions from politicians. Zimbabwe is expressing a willingness to settle the debt, but under tough conditions imposed by the IMF and WB. There are points of convergence, and similarly of divergence, on what has to be done.   

“It is always important to talk about debt. You cannot turn a blind eye to it because it is a pertinent matter. More importantly, talking about debt means Zimbabwe will have clarity from its creditors on their expectations. Zimbabwe has been given conditions by the IMF, WB, and the Western countries, and they are tough and we as history informs, the Zimbabwean government cannot meet them,” Gift Mugano, a professor of economics at Durban University of Technology in South Africa told Ubuntu Times.    

The conditions include that Zimbabwe liberalize its financial markets, institute currency reforms and electoral reforms, respect human rights, hold free, fair and credible elections on August 23 to entrench democracy, stop the harassment of political opponents, and implement the December 2018 Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry into the August 2018 post-election violence in which soldiers shot and killed six people.

“The Zimbabwean government is doing the opposite, meaning the holding of free and fair elections is not on the right footing. Reforms relating to financial markets liberation and the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are going to fail because the government wants to embark on command economics.

“These IMF and WB conditions are just a reprint and duplication of the ZIDERA sanctions as the U.S. government confirmed. Zimbabwe is being reminded that it has to repent, yet the conditions are tough,” notes Prof. Mugano.

On the issue of political rights, Zimbabwe is deemed to be faltering as the deputy chairperson of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, Job Sikhala, has been in pre-trial detention since June last year for inciting violence, while leader of the Transform Zimbabwe party, Jacob Ngarivhume, was sentenced to four years imprisonment in April for inciting violence on social media. Several other opposition members face various charges.

Suicide Is Not Martyrdom

Despite having tough conditions to re-engage with Western financial institutions, Zimbabwe’s pathway to compensate former white farmers in the region of US$3.5 billion is seen as “suicide”.

Some analysts accuse President Mnangagwa of pandering to the interests and agenda of Western neoliberals, unlike his predecessor (the late) President Robert Mugabe who was uncompromisingly strong on Pan-African and nationalist values. 

“Where will Zimbabwe get the US$3.5 billion dollars? On that issue, the country committed suicide. In essence, it is now Zimbabwe saying ‘we are sorry for taking back our land’. 

“Practically Zimbabwe will not win and the IMF, WB, and the West will even not do much. Other multilateral institutions will be given sanctions if they lend Zimbabwe money without America’s approval,” Prof. Mugano said. 

Development economist Dr. Prosper Chitambara thinks the issue of compensation is unavoidable. 

“I do not see a way out. Compensation is necessary to bring closure. Zimbabwe cannot avoid it, or run away from it,” Dr. Chitambara said. 

What Needs To Be Done?

Many scenarios are up for consideration on how to deal with and address debts African countries owe to creditors, and some radical approaches have been thought of.

Speaking about debt, Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, at a meeting of the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in May 1987 before his assassination five months later suggested that “We should even stop paying the debts and in any event, we deserve the reparations for slavery, colonization and if we (Africans) take a joint decision that we are not going to pay the debt, what will they do to us?” 

Kenya’s Pan-African scholar and public intellectual Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba describes Sankara’s approach as a “positive methodical madness.”

In an interview conducted on May 2023 ahead of the 60th-anniversary celebrations on the founding of the OAU and its transition to African Union (AU) in 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, blamed the IMF and WB for being “economic enslavers whose agenda is to ensure Africa is in a perpetual state of debt because they want to ensure they control our economics, politics and us.”

“When the IMF and WB were created in the United States in New Hampshire in 1944, none of the African countries participated and it was the British and American economists who participated specifically to rebuild Europe, and Africa was only grafted into these organizations,” Prof. Lumumba said.

The Kenyan erudite said the AfDB was going to be an engine fit to determine Africa’s economic freedom, but remains African “only in name” as foreign countries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) “have seized, captured and paralyzed the AfDB.”

“The AfDB is only African in name. Even on sanctions deployed in Zimbabwe, it cannot help because we do not have Pan-African institutions. One of the things I hope Africa could do is to rethink how as a continent we finance ourselves. The AU is now financed up to 70 percent by foreigners. As long as we are dependent on the IMF and the WB, our economies are simply going to be shadow economies of the Americans, Europeans, Chinese, and Russians. The time is now to wean ourselves from the breasts of the IMF and WB,” Prof. Lumumba added.

According to Dr. Chitambara, Zimbabwe will only deal with its debt after posting good growth results from investments in critical sectors.

He said: “Countries that have been able to deal with debt have been able to do so at the basis of a growth trajectory. To achieve that Zimbabwe needs to address things to do with infrastructure, energy, transport networks, and all critical enablers to unlock the potential of the economy.

“Zimbabwe can also leverage the rent from natural resources, meaning the government should impose revenue rents and that is a viable alternative to collect money that can be used towards debt pay-offs.”

Beware Of The Bad Samaritans

For long, Zimbabwe and other African countries have been kept in a pernicious cycle of poverty as a result of loans that were extended by the IMF and WB in the name of helping in economic transformation. 

However, the conditions tied to these loans and unfortunately accepted by African countries, demand that Global South states reevaluate their positions on what they receive from Western financial institutions. 

The best way to deal with the IMF and the WB is never to deal with them!

Lumumba’s Tooth: A Symbolic Caricature Of Afrika’s Continued Political Toothlessness

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Lumumba’s Tooth: A Symbolic Caricature Of Afrika’s Continued Political Toothlessness

The western media’s campaign in 1960 to discredit the first democratically elected prime minister of the Republic of Congo (modern-day DRC), Patrice Èmery Lumumba, make a sad ending as the burial of his golden tooth last week Thursday, 30th June shows the continued pauperisation of Africa’s heroes in both life and death.

On June 30, 1960, Lumumba’s independence speech after the country untangled the shackles of Belgian colonialism inspired great confidence in the other countries that were fighting for independence.

For him, the Congo’s victory over Belgium was a victory for Africa. His plan for the struggle for political independence and economic emancipation of the Congo was to have a far and wide-reaching impact on the whole of Africa.

“The Congo’s independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent. It was filled with tears, fire and blood. We are deeply proud of our struggle, because it was just and noble and indispensable in putting an end to the humiliating bondage forced upon us.

“That was our lot for the eighty years of colonial rule and our wounds are too fresh and much too painful to be forgotten,” Lumumba said in his independence speech.

While his yearning for African independence was a wholesome commitment to the sprouting movements of freedom in other countries like Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, western media was planning to erase Lumumba’s historical contributions to Africa’s independence renaissance.

With high tensions fostered by the Cold War, many from the western bloc that was led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) described and labelled Lumumba as the “man who has the head of Lenin which has to be crushed.”

Lumumba’s boldness in preaching the socialist ideology in the face of capitalism made those who want to monopolise the world kill him.

In his book, The Assassination of Lumumba, Belgian academic Ludo De Witte highlighted that no person of African extract was expected to speak against Europeans like the way Lumumba did on independence day because they were masters of all humanity.

Lumumba’s Flame Of Consciousness Dying

For Africa, the recorded last words of Burkina Faso’s revolutionary President Thomas Sankara in 1987 when he was facing his assassins that “ideas cannot die”, speak in contradiction of the actions shown by Africans at the arrival of the continent’s hero’s golden tooth that was kept as a trophy in Belgium.

While “ideas cannot die” has been a popularised way to speak for independence and post-colonial freedom by Pan Africanists and nationalists in general, the silence of Africa on Lumumba’s demise on January 17, 1961 poses a loud betrayal and dissipating appetite of continental togetherness.

Lumumba, just like Sankara, had the vision to see Africa independent of all manacles that were impeding its growth. A reality that is difficult to envision today under the new continental leaders who, mostly, have sacrificed principle on the altar of political expediency.

Burying An Incomplete Hero As Atonement

Lumumba fought for the Congo’s independence as a complete man. The burial of his golden tooth, his only remains, on Thursday 30th June at the 62nd independence anniversary of the DRC invokes the colonial prejudices and an unfair post-colonial setting where Africa’s former colonisers show no remorse over their past misdeeds.

In November 2002, Belgian authorities who had deliberately engineered the elimination of Lumumba released a report of his murder, an inquiry that was carried out by a parliamentary commission by examining archival and testimonial evidence.

The accounts examined were porous and evidence also showed that many witnesses were not subjected to rigorous cross-examination. It was a stage-managed inquiry to allow for a “national consensus” over the matter, critics said then.

Even those who participated in Lumumba’s violent death, most have used Cold War rhetoric to their defence and have died a reluctant death. One such man is Gerard Soete, a Belgian police officer who directed Lumumba’s assassination and threw his chopped pieces into acid, later said the Congo’s independence Prime Minister “had beautiful teeth” before his death in June 2000.

Gerard’s daughter, Godelive, reportedly shared images of the tooth with Belgian media following pressure from Lumumba’s family.

Without bringing the matter to justice, DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi, while presiding at the 62nd independence anniversary said the “Congolese people can have the honour of offering a burial to their illustrious prime minister.”

“We are ending mourning we started 61 years ago,” said President Tshisekedi.

In 2011 while speaking to The Gambia’s exiled former president, Yahya Jammeh, Lumumba’s youngest son, Roland, disclosed that his family was trying to follow the good ideals and practices of his late father towards the liberation efforts of Africa.

“We must know exactly who did it, how and why. We have the right to know and it is our duty to pass this knowledge onto the future generation. The answers to these questions should be known by all Africans,” said Roland.

Now that the answers are clear for the Lumumba family, the Congolese and African people, the burial of Lumumba’s remains without a formal apology from the Belgian political and monarchical establishment project a tainted Africa-Europe future relationship.

In a letter read at Lumumba’s funeral by one of his granddaughters, it painted a picture of an Africa that has not been shocked but expressed a silent satisfaction with the burial of Lumumba’s tooth as a historical victory for Africa by the return of his remains.

“With you, today, Africa is writing its own history,” read Lumumba’s granddaughter.

Africa’s Painful Path To Recolonisation?

In his lecture on The Past, Present and Future of Pan Africanism at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa last October, renowned Pan Africanist and public intellectual Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba said Africa is weak hence no one wants to pay attention to its progress, if it has any.

P.L.O. Lumumba on the Past, Present and Future of Pan Africanism
Pan-Afrikanist, P.L.O. Lumumba is one of the vocal figures whose call for Pan-Afrikan political leadership has largely been ignored by neocolonial African political rulers who are merely complacent with being political figureheads in the gross destabilization and maladministration of Afrika. Credit: Office of the Prime Minister – Ethiopia

He said the issue of Pan Africanism and African unity is a basis for the continent to come together and avoid yesteryear pitfalls that came with colonisation.

“If you want to know how weak we are look at how we are treated. When our leaders even if they are saying something, it is something that can be ignored. The world does not listen because we are weak and disunited. So we have a weak continent because the spirit of Pan-Africanism disappeared.

“We are weak. That is the reality of our mother continent. It is because we are politically weak, economically weak and socially we are disorganised, culturally and spiritually we are confused. That is the continent in which we are in today. We unite or we perish.

“We need to use our Africanness as a building block to talk about African unity. Sometimes when we talk about Pan-Africanism and African unity, people think we are being simplistic about it. No, it is not being simplistic. It is recognising that as long as we remain the way we are, then African in the next 25 years will be recolonised. So the question that we can ask is what is the state of Pan Africanism as we speak today?” asked Prof. Lumumba.

He said the weakness of the continental body, the AU, stems from the manner it acts.

“The African Union, which is weak, says the right things and does the wrong things nine out of ten times,” he added.

Opinion: Corruption Continues To Fight Back And Ghana’s Special Prosecutor Is Its Latest Scalp

Delali Adogla-Bessa
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Opinion: Corruption Continues To Fight Back And Ghana’s Special Prosecutor Is Its Latest Scalp

In an interview with a local radio station back in October, a director at Ghana’s Center for Democratic Development sounded the alarm over the lack of citizen concern on issues of corruption following a pre-election survey.

About a month later Ghana’s first Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, resigned citing interference at various levels of governance, even up to the president. In his resignation letter, Amidu said Ghana President Akufo-Addo had mistaken him as his “poodle”.

In a more recent and much more scathing letter, Amidu described President Akufo-Addo as the “mother corruption serpent” and not the “innocent flower of anti-corruption” he once thought.

With less than three weeks to a general election, this resignation is probably the final report card assessing the Akufo-Addo administration’s corruption fight and the state has failed woefully.

Before this resignation, the government was already seen to have bowed to the whims of graft. Akufo-Addo’s tenure has been littered with corruption scandals not followed by requisite prosecution and punishment. Akufo-Addo has been tagged “a clearing agent” by the opposition because of the number of officials implicated in acts of corruption who appeared to receive protection from the state.

Despite this, the Center for Democratic Development’s pre-election survey indicated that only 6 percent of the electorate considered corruption a concern though it has a latent effect it has on other issues like infrastructure and management of the economy which receive much more attention.

In contrast, in the center’s survey ahead of Ghana’s elections in 2016, 62 percent of Ghanaians backed the perception that Ghana was corrupt and 75 percent of the electorate said corruption issues would influence their vote.

This was reflected in Akufo-Addo’s victorious campaign where he defeated the incumbent, John Mahama, handily. As far Akufo-Addo and his cohorts were concerned, corruption flowing through the veins of the Mahama administration. This was not far from the truth.

But four years on, it would appear that Ghanaians sat distracted in the back of the anti-corruption bus as the Akufo-Addo administration fell asleep at the wheel. More cynical observers will tell you that state actors were actively complicit in acts of corruption.

The timing of Amidu’s resignation is its own flaming red flag. He recently completed a corruption risk assessment on a controversial state agreement to leverage Ghana’s mineral royalties for developmental projects.

Among other things, Amidu concluded that this deal, the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transaction, violated multiple laws whilst the appointment of transaction advisors, which included a firm with ties to the Finance Minister, also flouted the law and did not meet the “fundamentals of probity, transparency, and accountability.”

Amidu claims the President directed him to hold off acting on this assessment. This was the last straw for him.

“We disagree on the non-partisan independence of the special prosecutor in the performance of functions of my office in preventing and fighting corruption and corruption-related offenses,” he said in his resignation letter.

The presidency denied the interference claim but confirmed that the President indeed met the Special Prosecutor earlier in November to discuss the deal which meant a line had been crossed.

If Akufo-Addo really respected the idea of independence, there would be absolutely no reason why he would be meeting with the Special Prosecutor in private, much less in such sensitive times.

Accompanying Amidu’s resignation were concerns about how well-resourced his office was. He and his deputy had not been paid any emoluments since 2008 and this was only rectified (by a presidential directive) after his resignation.

There is also the adjacent chatter over Amidu’s office space, or lack thereof, and utilization of budget allocations for recruitment among others. He has been operating out of what is generally a three-bedroom apartment and has been unable to hire more staff to ensure the efficient running of his office.

Amidu’s office had been offered a bigger building by the state but he deemed it unfit for human occupation.

As of September 2019, he had only three senior staff and nine junior staff. It is thus no surprise that, of the GHS 65.69 million transferred to Amidu’s office, only a little of over GHS 5.22 million had been utilized, according to the Presidency.

Some consider the under-utilization a slight on Amidu and more critical persons accuse him, incorrectly, of loafing about on the job. Amidu complained about his working conditions multiple times, including alleged interference from state actors, but he was told he whined too much and did little work.

That said, had Amidu not complained and created a ton of receipts from himself, he would be perceived in a much worse light now. “Why didn’t he speak up,” his critics would have asked.

Given his apparently dire treatment by the state, one legitimate question can be asked: Why didn’t he resign earlier?

Amidu tries to answer this in his resignation letter pointing to his commitment to fighting corruption over the years; even in his capacity as a private citizen. In his words, he was never an anti-corruption entrepreneur but a “non-partisan anti-corruption crusader.”

His track record of integrity was the reason his announcement as Special Prosecutor in January 2018 was met with much joy in the earlier days of the Akufo-Addo administration. How innocent we were.

Ghanaians had voted for change and the setting up of the Special Prosecutor’s Office was to be the beginning of the end of corruption’s stranglehold on Ghanaian governance.

But as it turns out, we were just characters in the fable about the scorpion and the frog. Corruption stung again and it hurt.

If I fault Amidu for anything, it staying too long in the job because it was clear quite early on that the state was not prepared to lay the foundations for an independent vanguard in the corruption fight.

Indeed, Amidu was appointed by the President, like the heads of other anti-graft offices before his that lacked bite so were we really expecting one plus one to equal three this time around?

Despite the constraints, Amidu pursued cases against multiple government officials, past and present but the Agyapa deal and the purported hurdle the President put his way is one he refused to jump. That Akufo-Addo may have stood in his way was probably a shock to him.

When Barack Obama visited Ghana three presidents ago, he stressed the need for strong institutions. Ghana is yet to take his advice. It is because of strong institutions that the United States of America did not collapse completely under the galactic weight of presidential incompetence.

Ghana tends to prioritize building personalities and not institutions but history has shown us that personalities are no match for the partisan state capture that permeates all arms of governance.

Lest we forget, Ghana’s Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo, another man perceived to be on the vanguard of the anti-corruption fight, was forced on an over-150 day leave in what amounts to a sacking. This was after he challenged with key state actors in another controversial deal.

No matter what faults one lays at the feet of the likes of Amidu and Domelevo it is ultimately a question of who the Ghanaian people should be giving the benefit of the doubt.

The Akufo-Addo administration should have been breaking its back to make sure the first Special Prosecutor’s tenure was successful, leaving absolutely no room for fault.

In my book, the buck always stops with the President because of the amount of power vested in the Executive by our constitution.

It is not that Amidu’s success would have meant a net-positive for the Akufo-Addo administration in the corruption fight. Rather it would have offered some hope that an institution could adequately fight corruption.

But Amidu’s resignation means there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

Africa Could Be Staring At Antimicrobial Resistance As Next Deadlier Pandemic If Swift Action Is Delayed

Robert Kibet
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Africa Could Be Staring At Antimicrobial Resistance As Next Deadlier Pandemic If Swift Action Is Delayed

Nairobi, 18 November 2020 – With Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) threatening development and health in Africa, six international and continental organizations are launching the first partnership of its kind to combat this public health crisis on the continent.

Noting the ‘silent public health threat’ that antimicrobial resistance poses in African countries, representatives from key health agencies have expressed concern over uncontrolled antimicrobial use across the continent.

The leaders spoke during a virtual press conference on the first day of the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) Campaign for Africa.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa says Africa needs to act swiftly on AMR to curb a looming health crisis.

“Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most pressing health challenges Africa faces. If we don’t act now, we could see the continent roll back the gains in health we have made through immense effort and sacrifice. We must stop endangering our future and think before we pop a pill in our mouth,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti told the virtual press briefing. 

Antimicrobials include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals, and plants.

Antimicrobial agents have saved millions of lives and protected animal health and welfare, as well as food security. But their rampant misuse in health settings and agriculture is killing 700,000 people annually around the world. 

In Africa, research findings estimate that 4.1 million people could die of failing drug treatments by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.

While data on AMR is sorely lacking on the continent, there are signs that resistance to commonly prescribed antimicrobials is significant. 

Malaria, which kills 3000 children in Africa every day, is increasingly showing resistance to once-effective treatment options. Tuberculosis is becoming resistant to the drugs typically used to treat it. 

Current studies indicate that drug resistance to HIV is increasing and could cause 890,000 deaths by 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Antimicrobial resistance threatens the health, safety, and prosperity of Africa. We need immediate and sustained action from governments and all partners across the human, animal, and environmental sectors. Together, we can prevent infections, ensure antimicrobials are used appropriately, and limit the transmission of drug-resistant infections,” Dr. Nkengasong John, Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention told the virtual press briefing.

AMR is exacerbated by the easy availability of medicines without a prescription. An estimated one in ten medicines globally is substandard or falsified, and the African region is one of the most affected in the world. 

In markets and on street corners, people are buying antimicrobials of unknown quality. Without proper medical supervision, people often stop their drug course too soon or they double-dose rather than keep to a prescribed strict time interval for appropriate drug-taking. 

The same happens in the treatment of animal diseases coupled with under-dosing, disrespect to drug withdrawal periods, and use of antimicrobials as growth promoters.

The improper use of antimicrobial medicines enables bacteria, viruses, fungi, and microscopic parasites to mutate into superbugs that are resistant to the drugs designed to kill them. 

These superbugs can travel across countries, resulting in thousands, or potentially millions, of deaths. Their treatment is resulting in prolonged hospital stays and the need for more expensive medicines, leading to huge additional costs in health expenditure by governments and individuals. 

“We are at a critical time to change the way we use antimicrobials for humans, animals, and plants and reduce the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. If AMR is left unchecked, the next pandemic we face could be antimicrobial-resistant, and much deadlier if the drugs needed to treat it do not work,” Dr. Abebe Haile-Gabriel, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa told the media briefing.

The World Bank projects that the additional health care cost by 2050 could be between US$ 0.33 trillion and US$ 1.2 trillion.

AMR in agriculture reduces productivity, hinders the provision of safe food, and has a direct impact on food security and sustainability of livelihoods for farming communities. Improper disposal of pharmaceutical, hospital, abattoir, human, and animal waste contaminates the environment with antimicrobials and antimicrobial-resistant organisms. 

“Antimicrobial resistance is a matter of concern for Africa because of the public health threat on African citizens and the negative socio-economic impact on wellbeing and livelihoods,” noted Prof. Ahmed EL-Sawalhy, Director African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources.

AMR is not only a health issue but a complex problem that requires a united multisectoral approach. The six partners making this joint statement represent the public health, agriculture animal health, and environmental sectors.

The organizations jointly committed to 10 points of action, including fostering a One Health approach and leveraging each organization’s core competencies. 

Areas of collaboration include strengthening advocacy for the more prudent use of antimicrobials by increasing general public and medical practitioner awareness, understanding and behavior change; supporting the integration of AMR action in routine infection prevention and control (IPC) measures as well as vaccination, farm biosecurity, and good hygiene practices; and supporting compliance with international standards for the management of human, animal and industrial waste.

African CSOs Call On Governments To Participate In The FACTI Panel High-Level Africa Regional Consultation

Robert Kibet
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African CSOs Call On Governments To Participate In The FACTI Panel High-Level Africa Regional Consultation

Nairobi, Kenya November 19 — Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) meeting at the 8th Pan African Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Taxation in Nairobi have expressed deep concern over African governments limited interest in the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI Panel) consultations.

They are calling on African governments to actively participate by providing written and oral input into the FACTI Panel High-Level Africa regional consultations, saying to date, only the governments of the Republic of Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa have confirmed participation at the ministerial level.

The FACTI Panel regional consultations seek to bring together high-level representatives from member states, along with leaders from the private sector, civil society, and academia. 

The inputs from these stakeholders will feed into the FACTI Panel’s determination of technically feasible and politically viable recommendations to be made in its final report in February 2021

On 18th November, the High-Level FACTI Panel and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa hosted the High-level Africa regional consultation to discuss possible means to address the shortcomings identified in the interim report published by the FACTI Panel on 24 September 2020.

It is only by active participation can African leaders ensure the FACTI Panel’s final report addresses the needs of African countries as losers in a rigged international finance architecture.

The FACTI Panel represents a critical institutional space to call for the implementation of measures targeted at curbing illicit financial flows and widespread tax evasion and tax avoidance that most harm countries in the Global South. 

By participating in the FACTI Panel High-Level Africa Regional Consultation, African leaders can use the opportunity to critique the shortfalls of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) processes and demand the establishment of a truly inclusive and democratic global tax governance structure.

Reforming the global structure of the international financial architecture and strengthening the fiscal and policy space for socio-economic transformation were key recommendations of the PAC conference.

They also call on African governments to demand that the FACTI Panel explicitly recognizes the immediate need for a universal, intergovernmental tax body at the United Nations, where developing countries can defend and safeguard their national interests through collective action at the United Nations. 

“As Africans, we are saddened with how African Ministers of Finance are taking the FACTI Panel consultations casually. This is the moment to correct an international tax system that has all along been rigged against us. We cannot afford to lose this moment!” Alvin Mosioma, Executive Director, Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) told Ubuntu Times in an interview.

In the face of the fundamental lesson that COVID-19 has taught governments, the centrality of public resources to Africa’s development is critical.

“We must all work towards ensuring that the FACTI Panel’s final report builds better on the Mbeki-led High-Level Panel Report on Illicit Financial Flows by clearly framing the analysis around IFFs,” added Mosioma.

According to Munir Akram, the 76th President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, today, member states face three simultaneous global challenges. These are COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, the realization of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs and the existential threat of climate catastrophe.

“Adequate financing is key to addressing each one of these challenges. Such financing will have to be mobilized at both the national and international levels. The ability of developing countries to mob dome finance is obviously constrained and this capacity has further diminished due to the impact of Covid-19,” Munir highlighted. 

To allow illicit flows to continue at this time, he adds, would be nothing short of criminal. IFFs deny vulnerable people access to basic services and infrastructure and condemn them to a life of inequality and poverty.

To ensure African governments build back better and sustainably post COVID-19, the CSOs called on African governments to ensure the creation of a truly inclusive architecture of international tax cooperation to end IFFs. 

IFFs deny governments billions of dollars that would otherwise be invested in public services particularly health, education, and social protection. 

African civil societies hosted the 8th Pan African Conference (PAC) on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and Taxation from 9-13 November 2020 whose theme was ‘Africa We Want Post COVID-19: Optimizing Domestic Resource Mobilization from the Extractive Sector for Africa’s Transformation.’

Trust Africa organized the 8th PAC in collaboration with 18 co-conveners, including Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), African Union (AU), United Nations Economic Commission on Africa (UNECA), Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ), African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), OXFAM, Action Aid among others.

Africa Losses $89bn In Illicit Financial Flows, UN Report Shows

Kizito Makoye
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Africa Losses $89bn In Illicit Financial Flows, UN Report Shows

Dar es Salaam — Africa losses roughly 88.6 billion USD every year in illicit financial flows (IFFs) including tax evasion and outright theft of resources, UN study shows.

The report, titled “Tackling illicit financial flows for sustainable development in Africa,” published a week ago by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) suggests the IFFs is nearly as much as the combined total amount of development assistance, valued at $48 billion and annual foreign direct investment, pegged at $54 billion — the average African countries received between 2013 and 2015.

Hurdle To Development

Illicit financial flows are hindering African development by draining foreign exchange, reducing domestic resources, stifling trade, and macroeconomics stability thus worsening poverty and inequality.

“Illicit financial flows rob Africa and its people of their prospects, undermining transparency and accountability and eroding trust in African institutions,” says UNCTAD secretary-general Mukhisa Kituyi.

The report shows, almost half of the money that Africa loses is accounted for by the export of undervalued commodities such as gold, diamonds, and platinum.

For instance, the report shows, gold accounted for 77 percent of the total under-invoiced exports worth $40 billion.

Stopping The Flight

While tackling illicit flows is a priority for the United Nations, most African countries are yet to plug loopholes that facilitate illegal capital flight and commercial practices such as mis-invoicing of trade shipments, corruption, money laundering, and illegal markets and theft.

From 2000 to 2015, the total illicit capital flight from Africa amounted to $836 billion. Compared to Africa’s total external debt stock of $770 billion in 2018, this makes Africa a “net creditor to the world”, the report says.

IFFs related to the export of extractive commodities ($40 billion in 2015) are the largest component of illicit capital flight from Africa. Although estimates of IFFs are large, they likely understate the problem and its impact.

IFFs Undermine Africa’s Potential To Achieve The SDGs

IFFs represent a major drain on capital and revenues in Africa, undermining productive capacity, and Africa’s prospects for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
For example, the report finds that, in African countries with high IFFs, governments spend 25% less than countries with low IFFs on health and 58% less on education.

Since women and girls often have less access to health and education, they suffer most from the negative fiscal effects of IFFs. Africa will not be able to bridge the large financing gap to achieve the SDGs, estimated at $200 billion per year, with existing government revenues and development assistance.

The report finds that tackling capital flight and IFFs represents a large potential source of capital to finance much-needed investments in infrastructure, education, health, and productive capacity.

Paul Akiwumi UNCTAD Director for Africa said IFFs is a shared problem between developing and developed countries.

According to him, extractive, telecom sectors, and financial services are more susceptible to IFFs.

Akiwumi said IFFs have huge social and economic consequences. They not only drain domestic financial resources but also they’re correlated with lower government spending on key development areas.

“Illicit activities are by their very nature inherently difficult to record due to the differences in legal and regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions,” he told Ubuntu Times.
According to him, efforts to curb IFFs are hampered by lack of statistics.

The report shows IFFs in Africa are endemic to certain high-value, low-weight commodities including gold.

Sharpening Skills And Knowledge

Out of $40 billion of IFFs derived from extractive commodities in 2015, 77% were concentrated in the gold supply chain, followed by diamonds (12%) and platinum (6%).
The report aims to equip African governments with knowledge to identify and evaluate risks associated with IFFs and foment solutions to curb IFFs and redirect the proceeds towards development projects.

Improving Cooperation 

The report says African governments have not sufficiently reformed their taxation systems and enhance their national capacities to curb tax evasion and tackle proceeds from money laundering and recover stolen assets

Global Intervention

Tax revenues lost to IFFs are costly to Africa where public investment and spending on SDGs are lacking. In 2014 Africa lost approximately $9.6 billion to tax havens, equivalent to 2.5% of total tax revenue.

Local judicial authorities often lack the tools to challenge tax evasion at the core of the global shady financial system.

“Tackling illicit financial flows, however, will open the door to releasing much-needed investments in education, health, and productive sectors. African Governments — in concert with Africa’s private sector actors — should take the lead in strengthening stolen asset recovery, setting new standards for avoiding illicit flows and committing to more concerted actions to combat the negative impact of illicit financial flows on African economies,” says Kituyi.

Local analysts have called for global policymakers to devise measures that would deter billions of dollars from being siphoned out of the continent through money laundering and industrial-scale corporate tax avoidance.

“Africa is not a net debtor, rather a net creditor whose resources are drained through corruption, tax evasion, and outright theft. We need a new paradigm to reverse this trend,” said Bohera Lunogelo an analyst from a Dar es Salaam-based Economic and Social Research Foundation.

Africa Could See Spike In Illicit Financial Flows Amid COVID-19 Onslaught

Robert Kibet
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Africa Could See Spike In Illicit Financial Flows Amid COVID-19 Onslaught

Nairobi, August 1 — With COVID-19 proving to be the most adverse peacetime shock to the global economy, tax advocates have raised concern over a possible rise in the scope of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in Africa.

Fearing that existing fragile health systems might be swiftly overwhelmed if the pandemic spreads beyond a small number of cases, governments across Africa are stepping up their preparedness to curb its spread.

A recent tax justice advocacy training done via online conferencing sought to end aid dependency in Africa, helped redefine roles to be played by various sectors in an effort to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and underdevelopment in Africa.

The training by International Tax Justice Academy (ITJA) and Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), attracted participants from 40 African countries drawn from the media, academia, civil society, and trade unions.

“Since we started such training in 2014, we have so far imparted knowledge on over 1,000 participants on issues which include the need for domestic resource mobilization to finance Africa’s development,” Alvin Musioma, Executive Director at Tax Justice Network Africa, a Pan-African advocacy and research network of 31 members in 16 African countries told the conference in his opening remarks.

It is estimated that illicit financial flows in Africa stand between $50 and $80 billion annually; with 44 percent of the continent’s financial wealth thought to be held offshore, which corresponds to tax revenue losses of some $20 billion. The ultimate objective is not only to reduce but ultimately eliminate illicit outflows.  

Africa, endowed with significant natural resource wealth with good husbandry has the potential to finance its development but existing illegal cross border movements of money and capital that threaten the continent’s sustainable development have been growing every year.

“The threat that illicit financial flows pose on the continent’s integrity and stability of its financial system in normal times has existed over decades, and now there is much to worry of in the face of the pandemic,” adds Mosioma.

Carried out by experts in their respective fields, the trainers shed light on an array of topics including Double Tax Treaties and the role they play in facilitating international corporate tax avoidance, global financial secrecy and how tax systems are rigged against Africa as well as techniques used by multinational companies to reduce or avoid taxes among others. 

This year marks the 7th Edition of ITJA training with the theme: Tax Justice Advocacy: Increasing Participation of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Journalists through Capacity Building. This, according to Mosioma proved that with technology, regular capacity building activities can be held amid a global pandemic as COVID-19.

Africa is home to the world’s largest arable landmass, second largest and longest rivers (the Nile and the Congo), and its second-largest tropical forest. 

A study carried out by the African Development Bank Group estimates that the total value added of the continent’s fisheries and aquaculture sector alone stands at US$ 24 billion. Besides, about 30 percent of all global mineral reserves are found in Africa. 

The continent’s proven oil reserves constitute 8 percent of the world’s stock and those of natural gas amounting to 7 percent. Minerals account for an average of 70 percent of total African exports and about 28 percent of gross domestic product. 

Even with such enormous resources, the continent’s poverty rate stands at 41 percent, and out of the world’s 28 poorest countries, 27 are in Africa all with a poverty rate above 30 percent.   

Undoubtedly, IFFs have turned the continent into a net creditor. During the academy, TJNA empowered the target groups with skills to identify, track, and report illicit outflows from the continent. 

Trade misinvoicing, tax evasions, and the criminal smuggling of cash, illicit goods ad human trafficking across borders are the main types of IFFs.

A recent Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report on the problem of trade misinvoicing found that illicit cross-border movement of money by hiding within the regular commercial system indicates massive levels of IFFs are going undetected through the global trading system.

“Approximately $ 8.7 trillion is the sum of the value gaps identified in trade between 135 developing countries and 36 advanced economies over the ten-year period 2008-2017,” says the GFI report.

Between 1980 and 2018, Sub-Saharan Africa received $2 trillion on foreign direct investment and official development assistance and emitted over $1 trillion on IFFs. Ethiopia, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria account for over 50 percent of illicit financial flows in Sub Saharan Africa.

Africans Suffer Chinese Mistreatment – in China, Like in Africa

Amindeh Blaise Atabong
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Africans Suffer Chinese Mistreatment – in China, Like in Africa

May 23 — In early April, a persistent phenomenon of Chinese mistreatment of Africans reared its ugly head. It was unexpected at such a particularly difficult and strange time as the world remained in the midst of grappling with the Coronavirus. The recent wave of mistreatment of Africans was inspired by claims that Africans were responsible for new imported cases of COVID-19 in Guangzhou. But the claims have remained callous as most of the targeted Africans had no recent travel history, and the Chinese city of Wuhan was the epicenter of the virus.

The treatment meted out on Africans in Guangzhou by Chinese local authorities and some Chinese was a toxic mix of inhumanity, wickedness and insanity, victims who spoke to Ubuntu Times disclosed. It smacked of pure racism. Some Africans were forcefully evicted from their homes and abandoned to take refuge on the streets, under the biting night cold. Others were compelled to undergo multiple screening, while some were forced to quarantine in certain lodging facilities at their own cost. “Africans have been subjected to high levels of scrutiny, suspicion, anger, and discrimination in Guangzhou,” Keith B. Richburg, Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Human rights activists and organizations couldn’t be indifferent to the abuse. “Chinese authorities claim ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination, but what they are doing to Africans in Guangzhou is a textbook case of just that,” Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch said. “Beijing should immediately investigate and hold accountable all officials and others responsible for discriminatory treatment.”

Others like Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch have called on African governments to urge the Chinese government to cease all discrimination against Africans in China. “African governments should also press China to enforce measures to prevent discrimination in the future,” she said.

The pressure on the Chinese government over the Guangzhou incident seemed to have been too much. And then, Beijing said it will take steps to lay the matter to rest through new anti-discrimination regulations. But this remedy to many an African in China is merely a strategy to douse diplomatic tensions between the Asian giant and Africa.

China’s political system, which works towards the economic empowerment of the country, has characteristics which breed gross rights violation. Being critical of the Chinese government is the last thing any person based in Mainland China will want to do. So, in the aftermath of the Guangzhou incident, many Africans Ubuntu Times contacted were reticent for fear of victimization.

An African in Shandong province, who asked not to be named, said local police officers unjustifiably detained him and a friend. “They came to our apartment and asked us to follow them to the station. When we got there, they said we had not registered our presence in the town with the police district. We showed relevant documentation to prove we had done the right thing but no one cared to listen to us. They locked us up,” the African said. Both of them ended up paying a ‘fine’ of ¥ 1,200 (about $ 170) each before regaining freedom.

Chinese Dark Side in Africa

Mistreatment and racial discrimination/attack against Africans seem to be deeply ingrained in all aspects of Chinese national life. China’s infamous racist detergent ad — considered as the most racist TV commercial ever made — puts this in practical context. In the 2016 TV commercial, a Chinese detergent is forced into the mouth of a dirty-looking black man by a Chinese lady. The black man is then pushed into a washing machine only to emerge as a sparkling white Asian man.

China isn’t doing much to suppress the mistreatment and racial discrimination/attack against Africans and other black people. This can probably be accounted for by its lack of diversity — the country remains reluctant to boost long-term immigration. And the laxity in checking against racism is encouraging Chinese nationals to go haywire, even more on the African continent.

In April 2020, two Tanzanians were rescued off the coast of South Africa after being thrown out of a Chinese vessel into shark-invested waters. The Chinese captain of the cargo ship and his six crew members later pleaded guilty in a Durban court for attempting to murder the two black stowaways on grounds that they could infect them with the Coronavirus. Such mistreatment of Africans by Chinese in Africa isn’t new. There are indications it could only get worse.

Nowadays in much of Africa, the Chinese build more infrastructure than any other country; be it foreign or African. Chinese banks, especially the EXIM Bank of China, are financing billions of dollars in new loans, aid packages, and other deals to build badly-needed infrastructure across the continent as Africa looks forward to becoming the global powerhouse of the future by 2063. And it is Chinese companies that are doing most of the engineering and construction work.

With the rolling out of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation as well as the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese companies have been at the fore of major construction works in Africa such as the construction of roads, bridges, stadia, dams and public buildings. This trend is widely expected to continue as Beijing turns to its new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to focus more of its economic diplomacy on building infrastructure.

Although the Chinese are making a huge contribution to Africa’s infrastructure development, this comes at a great cost. The quality of some Chinese-built structures is also questionable. There have been reports of Chinese-built structures that quickly develop cracks after construction, roads that quickly fall apart, structures built by Chinese contractors that wreak havoc on its users and so on. Also, Chinese infrastructure and investment companies operating in Africa, especially in some priority landscapes, have been noted for flouting Guidelines of Sustainable Infrastructure for Chinese International Contractors (SIG); something they won’t dare back home.

Dead bodies lying on the ground.
Nine locals were killed in a cave-in on December 29, 2017, on a mining site abandoned by a Chinese company in east Cameroon. The Chinese company had flouted local regulations as it failed to fill in the hole and secure the mining site it had just pulled out of, despite inherent dangers. Credit: FODER or Forêts et Developpement Rural

The SIG guidelines were developed by the China International Contractors Association (CHINCA), to which most member companies are or have subsidiaries operating in Africa. However, Chinese companies constructing major infrastructures in Africa have come under fire for highly disrespecting human rights and environmental exigencies inherent in the execution of their projects. Cases abound like in 2014 when the China Water and Electricity Corporation in charge of constructing the Lom-Pangar dam was accused of violating the rights of workers. There were also industrial strike actions in protest of the high-handedness of the China First Highway Engineering Corporation constructing the Douala-Yaounde double carriageway. The China Harbor Engineering Corporation (CHEC) was also indicted for not respecting its corporate social responsibility in the construction of the Kribi deep seaport.

Since 2011, a company with links to China has been keen on threatening Cameroon’s biodiversity and the survival of indigenous people. Sud-Cameroun Hevea (Sudcam) has destroyed almost 25,000 acres — the size of Paris — of dense tropical rainforest for a plantation to satisfy its appetite for rubber. Besides displacing locals and depriving them of their land and livelihood, the monoculture plantation has touched the Dja Faunal Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Locals in remote villages in Cameroon have also been among the Africans to be mistreated by Chinese, who in most cases often enter the country illegally or overstay their visas. In the mining localities east of Cameroon, Chinese miners frequently beat up locals, seize their wives and lands and operate like demi-gods as they mine away millions of francs CFA in precious stones. In 2017, a Chinese who had a minor disagreement with a Cameroonian pulled out a short gun and opened fire. The local died! They often bribe local officials to get away with such impunity.

In Kenya early this year, a Chinese chef, who didn’t hold a work permit, was caught on camera flogging his employee — a waiter — over allegations of reporting late to work. The victim later said he was fired for the same offense. The victim said, for over six months, he amongst other Kenyan workers had been enduring the Chinese beating with a special cane made of wires for fear of losing their jobs. “He [Chinese chef] is very harsh and arrogant. As you can see there are no jobs in Kenya. All employees had to bend low in order to keep the job. I, personally, was whipped more than once but, this time, it was worse,” the victim told K24 Tv back then.

No Easy Way Out

Any form of racism or mistreatment anywhere is unacceptable. But that of Chinese, particularly in Africa, is one too many.

According to Hannah Wanjie Ryder, CEO of Development Reimagined; the first-ever Kenyan wholly foreign-owned international development and diplomacy firm in China, the Chinese government has a clear policy — that any form of racism and discrimination is not acceptable. “However, Chinese people are human. There is no country in the world, no society in the world, that does not have some form of racism and discrimination, especially towards black and African people but also others. China has one of the smallest international migrant communities in the world. Thus, what matters is how quickly and seriously the Chinese government acts to remind and educate [its] citizens of, and enforce, its official position, both in China or abroad,” she told Ubuntu Times.

Ryder confirms Africans across the world are treated unequally, be it in terms of visa policies, access to health, and even to jobs and business opportunities. “Whether as a diplomat or business leader, I have had personal experience of this unequal treatment around the world. China is not an exception. And usually, these issues are too many and complex for African leaders to respond to every time, they must prioritize.”

The CEO of Development Reimagined argues that because of the evidence of the magnitude of the problem, what African leaders must now do going forwards is encourage their key trade and investment partners — such as China — to demonstrate their commitment to Africa by making their countries a friendly and conducive business environment for Africans in particular. “Without this commitment, it will be very hard for economic relationships with African countries and people to evolve for the better,” she said.

Letter From A Concerned Afrikan: Xenophobia In South Africa Desecrates Ubuntu

Eze Nwankwo
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Letter From A Concerned Afrikan: Xenophobia In South Africa Desecrates Ubuntu

South Afrikans,

You went against our sustenance. You violated Ubuntu. You failed in keeping to your end of our shared humanity. Xenophobia is alien to Afrika. In its literal sense, xenophobia translates to fear of foreigners. The word xenophobia is of Greek origin. Xenophobia is foreign to Afrika. You appropriated xenophobia to waste the life of your people. You took ownership of something that does not belong to you, all to destroy the little economic strides your people were making. You acted on the grounds of xenophobia, a concept that has no bearing on our shared suffering while going against a principle planted in your backyard. “You are because we all are” is the cornerstone of Ubuntu. Whether this has any meaning or validity to you, the xenophobic violence in South Africa desecrates our shared humanity.

I first preached Ubuntu at Xavier University during a spoken word at an African Student Association Gala event in 2017. “Being who we are through each other” was my memory verse. I don’t mean to get scriptural with you. To put it another way, it became a refrain in my mind. The spoken word was a point of healing. Some students targeted Xavier University black students a few months prior. You were not there when a white student painted her face black. “Who needs white when black lives matter” was the caption which undermined our long-suffering. You also were not there when someone dressed a skeleton in a dashiki, a symbolic Afrikan attire—flooding back terrible memories of the American lynch mob. These racial occurrences are typical in an anti-black society. Xavier University is America. You are not familiar with America. You do not know that in America, black lives do not matter. And now in South Africa, South Afrika, of all places, you mean to tell me that black lives also do not matter?

You are not in the diaspora to witness the anti-black sentiment the world over. I must tell you that Afrikans, particularly black Afrikans, are the most despised people on the planet. This statement is not meant to bring about self-pity. In the main, it is the black experience. You ought not to trivialize self-respect. You might ask what I mean. My point is: if you do not value yourself, your own people will not value you. What more from the loveless world?

A sense of an Afrikans’ self-worth is a requisite condition for liberation so delayed, and so sought after. In the brutal assault on fellow Afrikans, I saw the horrific scenes making rounds. Back in 2008, Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave from Mozambique was burned alive. You did not come to his aid. You watched while the fire consumed him. South Africa’s judicial system never charged anyone for Ernesto’s murder, an assault on justice, another precious black body destroyed, and forgotten. In the recent September attacks, black-owned shops were looted, vandalized, and burned. These vulnerable black peoples’ offense was making a living through menial jobs despite continental hardships. Afrikans scampered to save their lives from the violence.

These attacks happened and continue to occur in a continent that has experienced and continues to experience collective oppression. Where is your conscience? Have you lost a sense of your history? I thought you were a better Afrikan than what you showed. People whose future depends on one another would not conspire to wipe each other out. Yet you see the reverse is proving to be the case. These attacks against black people have become common in South Africa. They were soft targets. The attacks were against Afrikans, who could not defend themselves. The perpetrators would not have attempted these attacks on policed, white, affluent neighborhoods or cities where black elites who are monopoly capital collaborators live—refusing to address growing economic inequalities.

South Africa birthed Ubuntu to the world, but the original enclave of the tenet is in the blood of its people. How can we talk about Ubuntu without speaking to our dignity as a people? “Being who we are through each other” reminds me of an Afrikan’s worth. The world watched as we shed our blood and tore ourselves down in Gauteng Province, Durban, Mpumalanga, Johannesburg, and other townships or regions. There was no collective angst or condemnation. We should pull ourselves together and ask why this is so. Harm to self supports the myth that Afrikans are destructive. At the same time, xenophobia eliminates an Afrikan people so despised.

You seem to have forgotten Nelson Mandela’s campaign. The fight against Apartheid had undeniable elements of Afrikan solidarity. Afrikan nations rallied around South Africa—lending moral and financial support. Not allowing you to walk a journey alone exemplifies Ubuntu. But now you have chosen to betray the path that we threaded together. I ask you not to deceive yourself by believing that South Africa is an island onto itself. I also plead with you not to be under any illusion that Afrikans are foreigners in the southernmost part of Afrika. For this is the danger, we all face.

You know South Africa, I do not. You are approximately four-fifths of the South African population, yet you don’t own your land. The predicament of black South Africans applies to all Afrikan nations. We have not recovered from the colonial experience. You can never defeat your oppressive travails if you continue to hate. Nelson Mandela reminded us: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” I must tell you from the bottom of my heart: the xenophobic attacks dishonor our shared past and plight. My soul is heavy. Xenophobia endangers us. It goes against Ubuntu, a fundamental principle that we recognize. Alas, we can never be free as Afrikans unless you are free from hating us, a part of you.

Yours Truly,
EZE

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