Power has an enthralling effect on African politics and politicians. Many a President never imagined life outside power. That is why graceful retirement or resignation is somewhat something of a ‘taboo’. After unleashing series of terror on the populace, committing assassinations, looting of the treasury and other sundry crimes with impunity fear of the unknown, post-presidency, tends to grip them leading to sit-tightism. Change at the very top seldom happens because we tend to worship our leaders — sometimes forcibly or helplessly. You see a President behaving like a god or demi-god marshalling the state instruments of coercion to rape democracy and device anti-democratic means to remain perpetually in power against the popular will of the oppressed populace. Yet, the ultimate struggle for Africa and Africans remains one of political emancipation, total freedom from this evil breed making life hell on earth for ‘owners’ of the very power they use and abuse.
Robert Mugabe
History is replete with the exploits of African tyrants (living or dead) who came onto the scene and left same in a blaze of infamy. The continent is littered with graves of millions killed by the brood of vipers in power at different epochs from the east to the west, up north down south. But little or no lesson has ever been learnt of the transience of power and the mortality of man. Man, being a stubborn political animal, some politicians often attribute their power conquest, by hook or by crook, to divine favour but one wonders if the Almighty is partisan in any power struggle.
The Mugabe muddle in Zimbabwe represents the very worst illustration of a life presidency. The good old Bob, 94, is still trudging on without any plan for a successor or succession. Robert Mugabe obviously wants to drop dead in power and we cannot but wish him ‘goodluck’ in his (mis)adventure in Harare. He has ‘killed’ the Zim-dollar and the economy is in shambles with the opposition led by the MDC openly protesting the power longevity of Mugabe and the dire consequencies on the daily lives of Zimbabweans but Mugabe is impervious to such tantrums of “Western stooges”. Long live Bob but save your people from further misery. There is time for everything including that of retirement!
As the historically defeated Apartheid regime in South Africa brought out the very beast in the white man (especially the Afrikaans) so did the grisly genocide in Rwanda produce the very beast in the black man (especially Rwandans). On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana (the then President of Rwanda) and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down over Kigali leaving no survivors! What happened thereafter was horrible to say the least. Close to a million people (mostly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus) were slaughtered over the next three months in an organized mass killings that had all the definitions of a genocide. Millions fled across the borders as the hate-inspired rampaging youths and armed gangs and security forces unleashed a wave of terror that shook the foundation of the nation leavings orphans and victims in almost every home. What really happened to the presidential flight that wés blown over and crashed was never made known officially but sabotage was not ruled out. Today President Paul Kagame, a minority Tutsi, is in power for decades providing quality leadership and healing the wounds the genocide left behind.
Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the independence President of Cote d’Ivoire, died in office after a protracted illness associated with old age. He had ruled for 33 uninterrupted years but he was a great leader from all indications. The magnificient Basilique in Yakro remains one of his greatest monuments. In Abidjan and other cities, towns and villages he brought infrastructural development to bear ubiquitously. There is round-the-clock power supply and pipe-borne water; there is good network of roads and bridges built with revenues from cocoa and coffe. He is remembered fondly by his people decades after his demise. Cote d’Ivoire became a ‘mecca’ for immigrants from west Africa and elsewhere (including the French, Lebanese, Morrocans, Indians and Chinese) because of the politics of inclusion and hospitality by the Boigny administration — something the ex-President Gbagbo (now being judged by the ICC in Holland) had sought to imperil.
Captain Thomas Sankara was a revolutionary leader who made the terrible mistake of trusting his friend and second-in-command, the deposed President Blaise Compaore. Compaore, the Brutus, stabbed him in the back by organising his brutal elimination via a bloody coup d’etat. Burkina Faso post-Sankara had to live with the state terrorism of Blaise for 27 years until he was chased away into exile two years ago. Sankara’s ghost still haunts those behind his execution. Today Compaore has become a fugitive who prefers abandoning his nationality for naturalisation in Cote d’Ivoire than going back home to face multiple charges bordering on murder, looting, disappearances and other illegalities. Sankara must be smiling in his unmarked grave, satisfied that his best friend is paying for his executive atrocities while calling the shots in Ouaga.
Lansana Conte ruled Guinea with iron fist for decades. Even when he suffered stroke, getting paralysed in the process, he refused to quit having been bitten by the power bug. When he was hobbled out of power to the grave Guineans were subjected to another dose of the military Jackboot. One idiot of a Captain, Dadis Camara, seized power and proceeded to commit series of human rights abuses for which he stands accused today even while living in imposed exile in Burkina Faso. Dadis was nearly taken out violently by his bodyguard following recriminations over the suppression of an opposition rally in Conakry. He was shot at close range but miraculously survived but rendered incapacitated mentally. The late Conte never gave any thought about life after power or immortality belonging only to God. So when the time came for the final farewell he never knew what hit him. There he laid, motionless, breathless, much like every other mortal, oblivious of the environment or those mundane possessions for which many risk everything. Conte died and was buried six feet below much like hundreds of his compatriots his goons sent to their untimely graves for voicing out their opposition to his repressive regime.
General Sani Abacha came to power in Nigeria at a time of national crisis occasioned by the annulment of the June 12 presidential election won by the late Bashorun MKO Abiola. He simply sacked the lame-duck Interim Government led by Ernest Shonekan hurriedly put in place by the fleeing Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Abacha bared his fangs early enough by consolidating power and using brute force to maintain order. Pro-democracy activists left Nigeria en masse for exile where the struggle for revalidation of June 12 intensified. Abiola dared Abacha by declaring himself the President-elect and was caught and thrown into detention from where he never returned back home alive! Abacha was reportedly ‘assassinated’ by an Indian prostitute armed with a poisoned apple! The dark-goggled dictator was thrown to the grave hours later in accordance with the muslim rites. His marshal plan of re-establishment of democracy in 36 months died with him too!
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was ‘coronated’ President by the OBJ/PDP forces. Few years later the former lecturer who was suffering from Churg-Strauss Syndrome died from the debilitating ailment after much medical trips around the world. A cabal led by his wife, Turai, wanted Yar’Adua to continue ruling Nigeria as a ‘ghost president’ by retarding the official announcement of his demise. The then Vice-President, former President Goodluck Jonathan survived the antics of the cabal by ascending the vacant ‘throne’ through the so-called “Doctrine of Necessity” resolution passed by the NASS. Yar’Adua was a fairly good leader but his ill-health made it impossible for him to exercise his presidential function optimally.
Like Meles Zenawi, the late Ethiopian executive Prime Minister Bingu Wa Mutharika, the ex-President of Malawi, died in office. Zenawi, the strongman in Addis Abeba, suddenly took ill and was flown abroad for treatment only for him to kick the bucket there in the course of cure. Peter Mutharika, the blood brother of the late President has since bounced back to supreme power after soundly defeating the then incumbent, Ms Joyce Banda, in a hotly-contested presidential poll. Like the diminutive late President of Gabon, Omar Bongo Ondimba “King Cobra” Michael Sata died of old-age-related ailment as President of Zambia in London. As a prominent fiery opposition figure Sata, 77, fought a good fight to achieve his power desire but sadly could not live to live it till the end. The Kaunda nation has since seen through a transition from Guy Scott to Edgar Lungu who remains a legitimate President.
Like the late former President Samuel Doe of Liberia who was butchered to death by his abductors led by Prince Johnson the late ex-President Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira of Guinea Bissau came back to power with vindictiveness in mind. He made the mistake of ordering the execution of an Army Commander (whom he accused of plotting a coup) in Bissau. What took place at wee hours of the night was horrible. The man was executed and his body was cut into pieces! Politics in Guinea Bissau, a narcotics haven, is fraught with blood and tears. There was institutional crisis and power struggle at the top was always a way of life with Generals aiding and abetting drug barons and receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks.
In Kinshasa in the late 90s a fat warlord, Laurent Désiré Kabila, who led the rebellion that toppled the kleptocrat Mobutu Sese-Seko from power, was assassinated by his bodyguard inside the presidential palace. The late President whom the late revolutionary Che Guevera had dismissed as a ‘she-rebel’ had waged an international war of survival before he was killed in his office by a supposed hired assassin within. His son, Joseph, had succeeded him and the young Kabila seems to have been bitten by the African power bug given his manipulations and schemes in an election year. Joseph wants more years in power but he would have served out the two terms prescribed by the Congolese constitution hence the call for dialogue with the reluctant vibrant opposition. Kabila’s administration is becoming more repressive and violations of human rights occur daily.
The late President Gnassingbe Eyadema ruled the tiny Togo from independence till his death in 2005. Eyadema, the ‘devil’, left a huge legacy of underdevelopment and pauperization of the Togolese population. In Lome, the capital city, there are no good roads except the expresssway from the Ghanaian border into the city; no pipe-borne water, no constant electricity. The average policeman there is paid less than a hundred Dollars monthly! When you compare that to a low-ranking police offiicer in Abidjan receiving more than 500 Dollars a month you see why Abidjan is jocularly described as the Paris of francophone west African countries.
The marked and unmarked presidential graves from Kano to Katsina, Kigali to Kinshasa, Lome to Lilongwe, Lusaka to Conakry remind us instructively of the collective mortality of man from Adam. They serve as reminders of the vanity of our struggles for fortunes, power and entitlement.
