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Thursday, November 21, 2024

Afrikan Revolution

The New Frontline: Youth Uprisings Across Africa Spark A Fight For Democracy And Dignity

Robert Kibet
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The New Frontline: Youth Uprisings Across Africa Spark A Fight For Democracy And Dignity

Across the African continent, an unprecedented wave of youth-led uprisings is shaking the pillars of political regimes that have held power for decades. In Kenya, Uganda, Mali, Burkina Faso, and beyond, young people are rising against systemic corruption, unemployment, and political exclusion.

The youth—armed with mobile phones, social media platforms, and a hunger for change—are rejecting the status quo, demanding accountability, justice, and an active role in shaping the future of their nations.

In Kenya, a vibrant and youthful nation where nearly 75 percent of the population is under 35, young people have found their voices louder than ever. They flooded the streets, their chants echoing across Nairobi’s sprawling skyline, through the dusty roads of Kisumu, and along the coastal corridors of Mombasa. Armed with placards and burning passion, they marched against the suffocating economic reality and political ineptitude that have stalled their future.

This year’s protests are not the first, but they are perhaps the most poignant. Large-scale demonstrations have gripped the nation, pushing thousands of youth into the streets in a spontaneous combustion of frustration. At the heart of their anger lies a cascade of grievances—soaring unemployment, rising cost of living, and the government’s unfulfilled promises. The protests are a physical manifestation of the pent-up disillusionment many young Kenyans have carried for years.

In one such demonstration, the air was thick with the smell of burning tires and the acrid sting of tear gas. As riot police formed imposing lines, their shields gleaming in the harsh sunlight, protestors responded with chants demanding justice. They carried banners that read, “Reject Finance Bill,” as they called for the complete resignation of political leaders they see as corrupt and indifferent to their plight.

Among them is 23-year-old Agnes Wanjiru, a bright-eyed student leader at the University of Nairobi. “We are tired of being ignored,” she says, her voice rising above the crowd. “We are told to be patient, but for how long? We have degrees, but there are no jobs. We cannot keep waiting for things to change—we have to make the change ourselves.” Agnes, like so many of her peers, sees the protests as a final stand, a last opportunity to salvage a future that seems to be slipping through their fingers.

Police camouflage and protective gear officers detain a protester and lift him into a truck during a protest in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
Police camouflage and protective gear officers detain a protester and lift him into a truck during a protest in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times

The response from the government has been swift and brutal. In an attempt to quell the unrest, security forces were deployed to various hot spots, using tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests to suppress the protests. But the heavy-handed tactics only served to inflame the movement, emboldening the youth to continue fighting for a democracy they feel is slipping away.

Kenya’s youth have grown up in a country where economic opportunities remain scarce. Despite being better educated than any previous generation, they find themselves locked out of the very system that promised prosperity. Corruption, which syphons off billions meant for infrastructure, healthcare, and education, has eroded their faith in government institutions. It is a betrayal that cuts deep.

“We watch as politicians drive around in luxury cars, build mansions, and send their children to study abroad, while we can’t even afford a meal,” says Brian Kamau, a 27-year-old recent graduate who has yet to find a job. “This is not the Kenya we deserve. We want leaders who care about the people, not their own pockets.”

The anger has been brewing for years. Once leaders take office, they quickly forget the political promises made to the youth during elections. Leaders promise jobs, economic reforms, and opportunities to young people during elections, but these promises fade into oblivion once the votes tally. This cycle of broken promises has left many feeling disenfranchised and voiceless.

“We’ve waited long enough,” Kamau continues. “The government has failed us. If we don’t fight for our future now, then we will be condemned to live in this misery forever.”

A Growing Movement: Lessons from Uganda and Beyond

Kenya’s youth-led movement is not happening in isolation. It is part of a broader continental pattern where young people are rising against authoritarianism and ineptitude. Just across the border in Uganda, a similar story is unfolding.

In a seemingly innocuous act, Edward Aweba, a young Ugandan activist who poked fun at Uganda’s long-standing president, Yoweri Museveni, on social media, was recently arrested. This incident serves as another example of the government’s ongoing crackdown on youth dissent.

His arrest, like that of many other young voices in the country, has sparked widespread outrage, especially among Uganda’s youth, who are increasingly becoming vocal against President Yoweri Museveni’s long-standing regime.

While details surrounding Aweba’s arrest remain scarce, early reports suggest he was detained for his outspoken criticism of the government, potentially linked to his involvement in organizing or participating in protests. The youth in Uganda, emboldened by rising frustrations over economic hardships, limited freedoms, and a lack of political representation, have become a formidable force against the authoritarian grip of Museveni’s administration.

This arrest adds to a growing list of young Ugandans facing state repression for challenging the status quo, fueling the #FreeAweba movement online. The youth are increasingly using social media to spotlight injustices and build solidarity across borders. In a nation where freedom of speech is constantly under siege, the arrest of activists like Edward Aweba reflects the regime’s fear of the power the youth wield.

Uganda, like many other African nations, is witnessing a generational struggle between entrenched leaders and a younger population yearning for change, dignity, and a brighter future.

Like their Kenyan counterparts, Uganda’s youth are calling for more than just political change. They want dignity. They are rejecting the idea that they must quietly endure the hardships inflicted upon them by a government that seems more interested in maintaining power than improving lives.

From Mali to Burkina Faso: The Military Solution

While Kenya and Uganda’s youth are rising in the streets, West Africa is witnessing a different kind of uprising. In Mali and Burkina Faso, frustrations with civilian governments that failed to address security challenges or curb corruption have led to military coups, driven by young soldiers and their supporters.

In Mali, the military ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in 2020, with many young Malians cheering on the takeover. They believed the military would bring stability where civilian leadership had failed. A similar situation unfolded in Burkina Faso, where young soldiers overthrew President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

Yet, even as these coups raise hope for some, they also ignite fear. “We wanted change, but now we’re not sure what kind of change we will get,” says Fatoumata, a 26-year-old activist in Ouagadougou. “We don’t want military rule to become the norm. Democracy is what we fought for.”

A Pan-African Call for a New Future

The youth-led uprisings across Africa—whether in Kenya, Uganda, or West Africa—are part of a larger movement. With over 60 percent of the continent’s population under 25, young people are now the most significant force of change. They are no longer waiting for power to be handed to them. They are taking it.

From Nairobi to Bamako, the demands are the same: economic justice, political representation, and an end to corruption. But perhaps most importantly, these movements are about reclaiming dignity. Young Africans are rejecting the paternalistic systems that treat them as passive subjects rather than active citizens.

They are building solidarity across borders, using social media to connect and share tactics. The #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, which aimed to dismantle a corrupt police unit, inspired youth movements across the continent. Similarly, the student-led #FeesMustFall protests in South Africa have served as a rallying cry for those demanding educational reforms elsewhere.

The youth uprisings in Kenya and across Africa mark a critical turning point in the continent’s history. Governments, long accustomed to ruling without accountability, are now facing an unstoppable force. Whether through protests, social media campaigns, or outright revolutions, young Africans are declaring that their time is now.

The path forward is uncertain, but one thing is clear: Africa’s youth will no longer be silenced. They are reshaping their countries, their governments, and the future of the continent. And as they march forward, fists raised and voices booming, they are reminding the world that Africa’s greatest asset is not its minerals or its land—but its youth.

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.

Labour Party And The Future Of Radical Politics In Nigeria

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Labour Party And The Future Of Radical Politics In Nigeria

Needless to say, the 2023 elections happened amid overwhelming disillusionment with the system and popular discontent with the major establishment political parties—the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party.

This mass disillusionment peaked with the resurgence of the secessionist movements, which resonated with a very significant base in the southeast and southwest regions of Nigeria. It also coincided with the RevolutionNow campaign, which swept across 24 states of the federation. Google recorded that on August 5, 2019, no less than 5 million Nigerians searched the internet for the meaning of “revolution.” The endSARS revolt in October 2020, largely staged by young people who subsequently suffered bloody repression, was the last straw that broke the Camel’s back.

The 2023 general elections will later come to manifest these discontentments in the form of increased politicization of young people; a significant portion of these later described themselves as Obidients.

Having been lured into the candidacy of a former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi, by the so-called “more progressive layer” of the elites, what followed was a process of de-radicalization of a radical mood that had great revolutionary potential. This process continued on a rather exponential scale when Peter Obi, a billionaire, adopted the platform of the Labour Party after losing out to the People’s Democratic Party, where he had spent a whopping sum of 140 million naira purchasing the presidential nomination form.

After securing the presidential ticket of the Labour Party after he had paid 30 million naira as the cost of the nomination form, he became the nominal candidate of the trade unions, their allies – layers of the civil society movements, and many change-seeking elements.

Despite contesting on the platform that was established by workers and endorsed by the trade unions, Peter Obi clung to his neoliberal agenda. His campaign heavily emphasized the removal of oil subsidies, complete deregulation of the oil sector, and policies of privatization and commercialization. However, he showed no commitment to ensuring decent wages for workers or ending the neoliberal assault on public education, an issue of great importance to his youthful base, many of whom hail from working-class backgrounds. Unfortunately, the trade unions remained silent, turning a blind eye to his vigorously anti-worker policies as he campaigned.

The silence of the trade unions was so loud that Festus Keyamo, a serving minister under the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, challenged why the unions kept quiet over the campaign rhetoric of Peter Obi, calling for the removal of fuel subsidy, and total deregulation of the oil sector after fighting successive governments that had tried to do the same thing. In light of the foregoing, many have asked if the Labour Party can indeed serve as the vehicle for the liberation of the working people of Nigeria.

Whereas, the fate of the Labour Party was sealed at birth as reactionary at the conference of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) held at Calabar and Lagos in 1989, which founded the party on petite bourgeois ideas and not the core values that had been associated with the Nigeria Labour Congress in the mid-80s: socialism, anti-imperialism, anti-privatization, national sovereignty, and a commitment to a national economy whose commanding heights are under state and popular control. This is largely because by 1989, a different generation of trade union leaders like Pascal Bafyau had dispensed with these values after the Babangida administration moved against the NLC, harassed, intimidated, and subsequently purged out radical elements from the union.

While the Labour Party’s revolutionary potential was greatly undermined at its 1989 founding conference, the conference of the NLC and TUC held in September 2002 did nothing to address the ideological challenges of the party. It was at this conference that the party was renamed and officially registered as the “Party for Social Democracy.”

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the “Party for Social Democracy” and the Trade Unions maintained a detached and quiet stance while radical parties like Gani Fawehinmi’s National Conscience Party, Democratic Alternative, and the People’s Redemption Party battled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to expand the political space for party registration. Notably, the “Party for Social Democracy” later rebranded itself as the Labour Party at its inaugural Congress in 2004. Since then, however, the Labour Party has failed to support or advocate for the Nigerian people, instead devolving into a purely electoral vehicle that includes elements of the ruling class that the established ruling class parties, such as the PDP and the APC, left out.

It is for this reason that figures like Olusegun Mimiko and Dele Momodu were able to run under the Labour Party. Olusegun Mimiko served as governor under the Labour Party in 2009, overseeing a neoliberal economy for two terms. He later returned to the PDP in the later part of his second term as governor. The party also provided support to President Jonathan in 2015 by endorsing his bid for a second term, and in 2019, it rendered similar services to President Buhari by endorsing his aspiration for a second term in office.

In the early months of 2022, the leadership of the two Labour centers held separate conferences where, in each case, both unions reasserted ownership and membership of the Labour Party. Unfortunately, these were just words. The leadership of the trade unions did nothing to mobilize their members into the party. Many of them, like the state councils of the NLC and TUC in Lagos, mobilized support for the ruling parties. Sadly, this has been the attitude of the trade unions toward the Labour Party since 2004—abandoning the party to the whims and caprices of establishment politicians. It is no wonder the nomination form of the so-called workers’ party sells for as much as 30 million naira. The implication of this is that only establishment politicians can run under the party, not workers. Moves like this consolidate the hold of establishment politicians on the party, effectively closing off any possibility of revolutionary working-class-based politicking.

Today, the Labour Party has become a political platform that loudly re-echoes neoliberal and IMF policies far above those of established bourgeoisie parties like the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party. The Labour Party, through Peter Obi and its Obidient base, amplified policies of subsidy removal and many neoliberal reforms that President Tinubu has implemented over the past six months.

The Labour Party today boasts thirty-five members in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. None have spoken in support of the Nigerian people; rather, they simply joined their colleagues in the national assembly, endorsing Tinubu’s wasteful use of taxpayers’ money, plundering public wealth, offering support for the regime’s neoliberal programs, including the removal of fuel subsidy, and renewed attacks on public education.

In addition, the Labour Party and its Obidient base had spent the last year demobilizing every attempt at mobilizing mass resistance against the neoliberal programs of the All Progressives Congress. Near the end of 2022, towards the general elections, it supported the Naira redesign policy, which imposed unfathomable hardship on ordinary people occasioned by the artificial scarcity of cash.

After Bola Tinubu was returned as President of Nigeria through a shabbily conducted (s)election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Labor Party and its Obidient base actively demobilized mass resistance against fuel subsidy removal, wave of fee hikes, and many other neoliberal programs of the government of Tinubu. It embarked on a massive social media campaign targeted at de-radicalizing and demobilizing young people from taking street actions and subsequently encouraged them to focus instead on reclaiming Peter Obi’s mandate at the election tribunal.

As to the immediate and direct question of how to engage with the Labour Party as presently constituted, there are two divergent views within the broad Labour Movement. Some believe the Labour Party can still be rescued from the tight grip of powerful neoliberal and anti-worker interests.

However, their experiences, like those of many revolutionary activists who have made similar efforts over the last 20 years, have been like that of a man trying to flog a dead horse back to life. Many of these people, especially radicals, soon came back with disappointments after they were purged out and isolated when Peter Obi and his Obidient Movement took over the party. Ayo Ademiluyi, a socialist who had been given a House of Representatives ticket to represent the Eti Osa constituency in Lagos, was dispossessed of his ticket, and the ticket was handed over to a different candidate who had not participated in the primaries but had been committed to the neoliberal interests in the party.

The Lagos State Chairperson, who had been sympathetic towards left-leaning elements, was also removed abruptly. It was this coup at the center that made it easy to purge and isolate socialists and radicals within the party, the bulk of whom were organized in Lagos.

Sowore Addressing the people Of Akure in a town hall
Omoyele Sowore addressed supporters at a December 2023 town hall engagement in Akure. Credit: Rock

Since the Benin Declaration in 2002, which finally sealed the fate of the Labour Party and ultimately beheaded its revolutionary potential, various civil society elements of the broader Labour Movement have floated political parties, espousing ideas that were synonymous with the core values of the Nigerian Labour Congress of the mid-80s. These efforts, like the National Conscience Party in 2003 and the Socialist Party of Nigeria floated by the Democratic Socialist Movement, had mimicked past initiatives like those of the Socialist Workers and Farmers Party and the Socialist Working People’s Party. The most recent of these efforts, and perhaps the most impactful, is the establishment of the African Action Congress (AAC) by the Take It Back Movement and leading revolutionary activist Omoyele Sowore, who ran under the platform as President in 2019 and 2023 respectively, campaigning strictly on revolutionary programs. Like the past endeavors, this too was not sufficient to dislodge the hegemony of Nigeria’s rapacious ruling class.

But the fact remains that the Labour Movement, workers, and change-seeking elements should and must be organized under one political party. Such a political party must be unequivocally committed to the core values that the Nigerian workers and the Labour Movement had previously sworn to socialism, anti-imperialism, anti-privatization, national sovereignty, internal democracy, and commitment to a national economy that is under democratic and popular control. The party must be rooted within the rank and file of workers, ordinary Nigerians, communities, workplaces, and campuses. If the oppressed and working people of Nigeria must look up to the trade unions to lead this initiative, then the trade unions must be made to recommit themselves to the values of the Nigerian Labour Congress as they were in the mid-80s.

Political Instability, Intra-state Conflicts, And Threats To AfCFTA Agreement’s ‘Made In Africa’ Aspirations

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Political Instability, Intra-state Conflicts, And Threats To AfCFTA Agreement’s ‘Made In Africa’ Aspirations

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is arguably the African Union’s (AU) biggest project since the launch of the continent’s Agenda 2063 in January 2015. Launched in March 2018, the AfCFTA agreement connects 55 African economies and is the largest free trade area in the world in terms of country membership.

When the AfCFTA agreement was initially proposed at an AU summit in 2012, it had two goals: to build a Pan-African agenda in trade and cooperation, and secondly, to lift a large percentage of people out of poverty by instituting structural economic changes and cooperative legislation.

AfCFTA is understood to be a groundbreaking opportunity to both create an industrial revolution within and across Africa and opt out of the types of deals like the United State’s Africa Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA) that keep the continent at the bottom of global production, trade, and investments.

But little of this has yet been achieved. The rising number of conflicts, military coups, terrorism, ethnic violence, warlordism, and the presence of mercenaries on the continent is dimming the hopes of the trade renaissance expected to have “Made in Africa” goods dominate world markets.

Hindrances to these aspirations were manifest in 2022. Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), northern Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Cameroon’s north-west and south-west regions were six African conflict hotbeds that year, against expectations that the continent would silence guns by 2020. In other circumstances, democratic backsliding continues, with insurgencies, insecurity, and weak governance leading to military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon, further restricting the prospects of sustainable trade practices and the successful implementation of the AfCFTA. Alongside dire humanitarian costs, the absence of peace in Africa is disrupting economic activities.

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, in 2022, the number of Africans who were forcibly displaced by conflict stood at over 40 million people. An additional 3.2 million Africans have been displaced due to conflict over the past year. This is impacting Africa’s intra-trade potential.

Though it aims to provide broader and deeper economic integration across the continent as well as attract investment, boost trade, provide better jobs, reduce poverty, and increase shared prosperity, in 2022, intra-continental trade share in Africa stood at only 12 percent, compared to 47 percent in North America, 53 percent in Asia, and 69 percent in Europe. This makes Africa the only bloc with the least trade among its 55 members.

What others are doing

The EU is considered to be the most advanced model of regional economic integration. In facilitating smooth trade, the bloc identified three categories where barriers needed to be resolved: physical, technical, and fiscal.

In terms of physical barriers, the bloc acknowledges that border posts entail additional costs that pass on unnecessary delays. In the end, the countries streamlined their procedures to abolish border controls within the EU.

For other concerns about technical and fiscal barriers, what is certain for the EU bloc is that the headway made is far more comprehensive and satisfactory to member states. This explains why the EU is very actively pursuing its goal of gradual irreversible progress on a worldwide scale on how it engages other partners in trade initiatives like the EU, Chile, and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). This has helped the group adopt positions in favor of having binding multilateral rules in relation to the facilitation of trade.

Defining trade in African terms

Dr. Levious Chiukira, an expert on trade and lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, thinks Africans need to redefine what they term trade and highlight at what level and capacity trade should be considered as such by African businesses and entrepreneurs. He fears Africa might be defining trade on the basis of blue-chip companies that might benefit alone from the AfCFTA, as it appears to be a platform to anchor white monopoly capital while substituting home industries or backyard start-ups, which contribute more to Africa’s economy.

“We need a new discourse that redefines what we call African trade. We have allowed trade to be defined by some blue-chip companies. African trade has to be redefined because the bigger elements of our trade lie in what has been labelled informal trade, yet that is what constitutes small and medium enterprises (SMEs), cross-border trade, and backyard industries. We need to break the hegemonic definition of cross-border trade as if African trade is illegal. By calling our people informal traders, they are being illegalised and their trade is not being recognised,” said Dr. Chiukira.

Working on upgrading the border management systems
Zimbabwe’s revenue collection authority has invested in modern border equipment to plug loopholes necessitated by the evasion of formal tax collection systems in the movement of goods. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

The World Bank (WB) estimates that small businesses represent 90% of all businesses and that Sub-Saharan Africa alone has 44 million SMEs. While acknowledging their importance, the WB confirms that small businesses, especially those in Africa, are poorly understood due to a lack of or fragmentation of data.

Dr. Chiukira sees infant industries or SMEs promotion in the framework of AfCFTA as only developing not on the basis of free trade policy but of understanding the needs of what facilitates African trade.

“Sustainable African trade has to be done in the precept of understanding what facilitates trade. We have failed to address the needs of the African people, and we have failed to understand the challenges of trading within Africa. Conflicts are hampering trade. In the end, human capital will not be functional as conflicts might trigger movement of refugees,” added Dr. Chiukira.

Deepening regional integration and cooperation

Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are central to the AfCFTA agreement’s implementation. However, in every REC, there are one or two cases of internal or intra-state conflicts. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mozambique and the DR Congo are facing upheavals; in the East African Community (EAC), Kenya and Somalia are fighting Al-Shabaab terrorists; in the Economic Community of West African States and the Sahel, military coups, terrorism, and internal conflicts are key characteristics.

The AU and RECs have a common goal of achieving regional integration. However, little progress has been made, and one of the challenges and criticisms of the institutions’ efforts towards achieving the African integration agenda is poor coordination. Achievement or failure to achieve regional integration for the AfCFTA agenda is highly dependent on these supranational bodies.

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's President
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa (left) shares a moment with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa (right) after launching a joint Border Management Authority (BMA) at Beitbridge Border Post in October to prevent the illegal movement of goods, a key principle for AfCFTA. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

Mr. John Bosco Kalisa, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the East Africa Business Council in Tanzania, believes that promoting deeper integration through regional economic communities is a starting point to ensure the success of the AfCFTA.

The failure to silence guns is a concern.

“Every region is grappling with conflicts; these conflicts are hindering the ability of individuals and firms to produce goods and services that are required to stimulate economic growth and prosperity that are aspired to under the AfCFTA. Our leaders need to make concerted efforts to silence the guns, as espoused by the AU, the agenda of an Africa we want.

“Our African economies have been for so long depending on global supply chains, especially on essential food stuff such as rice, wheat, barley, fertilisers and others. The current Russia-Ukraine conflict which we are not party to creates negative spillover effects. This serves as a wake-up call for policymakers to design appropriate policies to build resilience within their systems and RECs,” argues Mr. Kalisa.

So near yet so far

Indications enunciated in the Agenda 2063 and AfCFTA policy documents make Africa appear as if it is progressing. To be so close and yet so far implies that in the AfCFTA agenda, policy documents, plans, and coordination may reflect as if the continent is nearing its goals, but realistically, Africa is far apart in attitudes, emotions, understanding, or meaning of the goals it wants.

“We talk of the AfCFTA, but countries that experience unconstitutional changes of government through coups or other means are automatically suspended from participating in the AU bodies, including the AfCFTA. For instance, the AU and ECOWAS closed their airspace and borders to Niger after the July military coup. Conflict resolution and prevention are essential for creating a conducive environment for trade integration and development in Africa.

“The effects of conflict can have lasting consequences on the skills, capabilities, and opportunities of the current and future generations of Africans,” says Mr. Tanatsiwa Dambuza, an intra-African trade knowledge management expert for Development Dispatch and co-founder of the Zimbabwe Institute of African Integration.

The AfCFTA project is showing signs of difficulties for the AU, and soon, without good political commitment by leaders, it will be realised soon that a miss is as good as a mile.

How The Lagos State Government Demolished Houses Of Low-Income Earners In Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Forced Over Seven Thousand People Into Homelessness

Sanyaolu Juwon
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How The Lagos State Government Demolished Houses Of Low-Income Earners In Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Forced Over Seven Thousand People Into Homelessness

In a sudden turn of events, piles of wreckage became the only remnants of what used to be homes to over 7,000 people, women, and children. Places of worship, churches, mosques, including schools, and businesses were not spared.

After the state government unexpectedly carried out repeated building demolitions in June without prior notice, the residents of Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, a low-income residential community, were forcibly displaced and left to endure immense hardship.

Oworonshoki, located in the Kosofe region of Lagos in southwest Nigeria, predominantly consists of low-income residential properties and is home to over 170,000 people.

Over the past two decades, the Lagos government has torn down various shanties located near the lagoon in order to make space for the rich to construct lavish residences. Low-income communities in Otodogbame, Ilubirin, and Makoko had been earlier victims. However, poor residents of Mosafejo-Oworonshoki became the newest victims of the prevalent forced evictions in Lagos.

Worthy of note is that the affected communities neither received warnings nor prior notice from any government ministry pre-informing them of a possible demolition or that their houses were erected on illegal sites. Many of these people had been residing in these communities for more than four decades.

Since the unfortunate incident occurred, many residents have been forced to live in open shelters and makeshift accommodations, leaving them at the mercy of dangerous animals, harsh weather conditions, and death. No less than five infant deaths have been recorded. Women and girls forced to live under these abject conditions do so at the risk of physical attacks, abuse, and rape.

Picture of demolished site at the Mosafejo-Oworonshoki community
The demolished low-income community in Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Lagos. Credit: Durotimi Dawodu

Needless to say, the provision of security, welfare, and shelter is integral to the fundamental aims and objectives of government. For many years now, the Lagos State government has failed woefully to meet these objectives.

According to a report by Business Day newspaper, Lagos accounts for about 5 million out of a total of 18 million housing deficits in Nigeria. This implies that the so-called commercial center of the country accounts for more than 31% of the total housing deficit in the country. Rather than increasing the already embarrassing statistics of homelessness in the state through thoughtless demolitions, the state should be massively investing in low-cost housing projects.

Unfortunately, the regime is deliberately throwing more than seven thousand of its citizens to the street at a time the country is grappling with an unprecedented level of hardship occasioned by the astronomical increase in the price of energy, including fuel and gas.

The inflation rate is at over 27%, and the cost of food and commodities has increased astronomically, with a wave of fee hikes hitting our various tertiary institutions, forcing thousands of young people out of school. These challenges in themselves are more than bad, as they have forced millions of Nigerians out of social existence; forcing them out of their houses into the streets should not be the priority of the government.

Notably, the affected communities and civil society organizations have organized campaigns and protest actions, calling on the Babajide Sanwoolu-led government to put an end to the ongoing demolition exercise and award compensations, including resettlement of the thousands that have been unjustly displaced, made homeless, and without property. This sharp reaction from the people is apt and must be widely supported by people of good conscience.

We refuse to be the lamb that is sacrificed on the altar of the insatiable greed of an elite minority.

Russia-Africa Relations: Africa’s Entanglement With Politics Of Patronage Without Liberation

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Russia-Africa Relations: Africa’s Entanglement With Politics Of Patronage Without Liberation

There are intense political and intellectual debates unfolding in Africa. Since February 24 last year, when war broke out in Europe following Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the presence of Russia in Africa has been politically extensive through mercenaries from the disbanded Wagner Group (WG) under the pretext of fighting neo-colonialism. Africans have questioned the developments even so, without getting a satisfactory consensus guided by a framework of the continent’s interests.

While abhorred, the occurrence of unconstitutional government changes through military putschs in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso in the past two years and recently in Niger and Gabon has birthed a new fascination towards Russia among the young and old supporting the military leaders in their countries. Russia has embraced these military governments, mainly in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, providing them with diplomatic backing and security assistance.

The backing of the military governments in Africa by Russia is changing the nature of relations between the two parties and has affected Africa’s relations with its former colonizers. To some, it is a partnership of unequals, a coalition with imbalances, and a patron-client relationship advancing the interests of the dominant party. To others, Africa is moving from one global giant to another to influence the operations of politics at a global level. This remains true with Africa’s relations with the United States, the European Union (EU), or China, where most outcomes are tilted in favor of partners other than Africa.

African leaders attending the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Part of the African leaders who attended the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia this year expressed their solidarity with Russia in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

The advancements of Russian interests in Africa are not following the traditional carrot-and-stick policy of the West, but soft power enticements channeled through scientific and technological transfers, knowledge, and expert skills to be acquired through Russian language at schools to be set in Africa. This was agreed at the Russia-Africa Summit held from July 27 to 28 this year in St. Petersburg, Russia. Some African leaders who agreed to this were charismatic Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore, Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, and Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa, among others. This was confirmed by the current African Union’s (AU) chairperson, President Azali Assoumani of the Union of Comoros.

Director of Research, Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Maryland, Dr. Joseph Siegle, has noted that “none of Russia’s objectives are about making Africa more prosperous or stable. Rather, the continent is primarily a theater to advance Russia’s geostrategic interests.”

In light of this, public intellectuals and academics remain divided.

Coloniality and Colonization 3.0

The agreement on a cooperation action plan by Russia and Africa for the establishment of institutions in Africa that will use Russian as a medium of instruction has been interpreted as an attempt to colonize the being of Africans, take away their power, and replace their knowledge.

International relations analyst and principal researcher at the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI), Mr. Bekezela Gumbo, says Africa needs to assess Russia’s actions and measure them on the yardsticks of “being, power, and knowledge.”

Engaging to exchange and share ideas
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa participated in a business conference at the Russia-Africa Summit in July. African leaders called for more collaboration and cooperation in the fields of scientific research and development, technology transfer, and innovation. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

Mr. Gumbo sees Russia as a country keen on enjoying what Africa’s former colonizers enjoyed, but without using brute force.

“When you look at educational institutions, you see that the coloniality of knowledge comes from education systems. When the Russian language is used as a medium of instruction, it means Russian ethics and standards of education will be used.

“This will reproduce Africans that are better placed to serve Russia’s interests. The Russia-Africa Summit was not neo-colonization but was colonization 3.0, where instead of using brutal force, anticipated force is used to effect colonization 3.0, where Russia is now in charge as a new colonizer who uses covert and not brutal force,” says Mr. Gumbo.

The situation presents Africa as a desperate player who needs Russia to protect her from the former colonial system.

Heads of State at the Russi-Africa Summit
President Mnangagwa was welcomed by his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, before the bilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. Besides donating a helicopter, Russia also donated a consignment of 50,000 tons of maize to Zimbabwe to help ensure food security at national and household levels. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

Mr. Gumbo added that “this is not different from what happened during the colonial era. It is either you join Russia or you face the wrath of your former master or colonizer. The impression being built is that without Russian support, you might not be safe, despite being an all-weather friend. They may sponsor a coup and work with the young generation fascinated by pro-Russian ideology.

“Essential pillars of coloniality are in what Russia wants in Africa, that is power. Russia is now wanting to get to power by accessing the mind and being of the African man.”

Assessments by Mr. Gumbo have been reinforced by Dr. Felistas Zimano, who is convinced that what Russia is doing in Africa equates to “100 percent neo-colonialism.”

“This is 100 percent neo-colonialism. The interest that Russia has in pushing its language to Africa is the issue that should make Africa mostly worried. This defeats any stride towards the unification of Africa.

“A people’s glue is in its culture; a people’s culture is retained in its language. Once that is eroded, then there will not be any Africa to talk about. If anything, this reinforces the notion that all they see of Africa are mere pawns,” she said.

Missing the Point

Senior politics and international studies lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), Dr. Prolific Mataruse, believes there is a protracted effort to smear Russia as having imperial designs in Africa. He emphasizes that by engaging with Russia and other countries like China and learning their languages, Africa is subverting the colonial businesses and thought.

Dr. Mataruse concluded by adding that “in all fairness, talking about Russia having imperial designs is missing the point. The whole point of African relationships with Russia, China, Turkey, India, and other countries and learning their languages is an issue of promoting a multiverse approach away from the monoverse dominance of Anglicized language. Learning other languages besides English is subverting colonial systems of business and thought.”

The Tragedy Of Namibia’s Working Poor

Vitalio Angula
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The Tragedy Of Namibia’s Working Poor

At the dawn of independence in 1990, a public servant working in an entry-level position for the state could afford to buy themselves a home, a car, and send his children to school with a lunchbox for break-time. However, the rising cost of living has ushered in a phenomenon referred to as the ‘working poor’ where relatively young people, even those working at supervisory level, cannot afford to buy themselves homes and end up renting apartments in complexes if they are lucky. Many young people, especially in the capital city of Windhoek, have delayed moving out of their parents’ homes because, for them, affording a dwelling of their own is a pipe dream. Houses in Namibia, which are usually financed through a mortgage loan from one of the country’s four commercial banks, are only accessible to the middle class and those with a household income of at least N$35000 (USD 2000) and above.

The average wage in Namibia, according to the Wage Indicator Foundation, is estimated at N$3240 (US$187) per month. Low wages, rising inflation, and high unemployment (which results in black families having the burden of taking care of other family members) are all factors that contribute to the phenomenon of the working poor.

The free-market policies that Namibia’s government assumed at independence can also be seen as a contributing factor to the phenomenon of Namibia’s working poor.

Free Market Fundamentalism

Free market Fundamentalism is a term applied to a strong belief in the ability of unregulated markets to solve most economic and social problems. But what happens in an economy with an oversupply of labor and no industry to absorb that labor?

Well, the principles of supply and demand suggest that labor will be cheap in such a scenario, and employers are spoiled for choice when deciding who to hire and at what cost.

People in Windhoek's Central Business District (CBD) queuing to withdraw money at a local ATM.
People queuing to withdraw money at an ATM in Windhoek’s Post Street Mall. Credit: Vitalio Angula / Ubuntu Times

In the absence of strong labor unions, the ability for workers to get at least a decent, living minimum wage is eroded!

The absence of a minimum wage for Namibia’s working force is one of the main contributors to the phenomenon of the working poor: people who are formally employed but can’t afford the basics in terms of food, clothing, and shelter, let alone school fees for their offspring, transport, water, and electricity bills.

How Did China Do It?

Following the disastrous Cultural Revolution in China, communist party leader Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese government initiated an open-door strategy aimed at achieving economic growth by actively embracing foreign capital and technology, while simultaneously upholding its socialist principles.

On the other hand, Namibia, at the dawn of independence, adopted a free market economy that they labeled ‘mixed’ and allowed capitalism to reign without proper regulation or oversight by the state.

Deng successfully enhanced the economic well-being of the Chinese populace through the implementation of a political framework characterized by a one-party socialist democracy, with the adoption of a market-oriented economic system.

This meant that there was an improvement in the economic status of Chinese people, which translated into a higher quality of life.

Namibian-based economist Robin Sherbourne states that “in spite of moderate real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate averaging 4.3 percent and translating into real GDP per capita growth of about 2.3 per year since 1990, this has not sufficiently translated into substantial reduction in poverty, income inequality, and unemployment”.

This was ten years ago, in 2013, and the status quo prevails.

Why has Namibia managed to have year-on-year economic growth that has not translated into employment opportunities, and in instances where those employment opportunities do not translate into a higher living standard for its working class?

Stalls that trade in arts and craft in Windhoek's CBD.
Small-scale businesses sell arts and crafts in Windhoek’s Central Business District (CBD). Credit: Vitalio Angula / Ubuntu Times

The answer lies in the extractive industries, which are the mainstay of the economy. On the back of a huge mining sector, Namibia exports raw materials to other countries that manufacture them into finished goods.

Uranium, gold, copper, and diamonds are just some of the natural resources that Namibia is endowed with.

The country also has a huge fishing industry that exports jobs to countries such as Spain and Italy.

The lack of labor legislation and strong trade unions also compounds the tragedy of the working poor because there is no basic (minimum) (living) wage, and workers, especially those who are new entrants into the workforce, take the first offer that is put on the table, which is usually not market-related.

Employers take advantage of the plight of those who are desperate for employment and compensate them a pittance for the output and services they provide.

Inequality and wage disparities are man-made, and there is a need for an ethical dialogue on how to protect the most vulnerable of citizens so that they are protected from an unjust capitalist labor system.

Economic Freedom In Our Lifetime

Vitalio Angula
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Economic Freedom In Our Lifetime

A packed FNB stadium with over one hundred thousand supporters demonstrated the mass appeal of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) amongst South African voters at the party’s ten-year anniversary held on July 30, 2023.

The left-leaning party founded ten years ago with Julius Malema as its Commander-in-Chief is described as a radical, pro-poor, pro-black, pro-workers party by its National Spokesperson, Leigh-Ann Mathys, who spoke to Ubuntu Times on the successes, challenges, and future the party holds for its over one million supporters.

She also spoke about how the organization plans to address the issues facing South African youth, such as high unemployment and a lack of access to basic services such as healthcare, quality education, land, and decent housing.

Mathys says the party has seen significant, consistent growth since its inception ten years ago, not only in the number of people attending their rallies but also at the national and provincial level, where the party managed to garner support to grow the number of seats it occupies in the chambers.

The EFF managed to grow its electoral support by seventy percent between the 2014 and 2019 elections. The party increased its seats in the National Assembly from twenty-five in 2014 to 44 in the 2019 elections.

The same upward trend also occurred at the provincial and municipal levels.

“In terms of both membership and in terms of public support, we have seen consistent growth since our inception ten years ago. We have also seen an increase of our seats both in parliament and the provincial legislatures and in the municipalities, which are our local councilors,” Mathys tells Ubuntu Times.

Mathys says the EFF’s party policies and Seven Cardinal Pillars speak to the material conditions of South Africans and how they will be addressed.

“While we may not be in government at provincial and national level, these are the things we have been lobbying for consistently, whether it’s through parliament or whether it’s through the courts, or whether we go on the streets and protest, so that process of us doing that has garnered us support in South Africa, especially amongst the youth. We are speaking their language because we understand where they are coming from, so they want to be part of this movement that is fighting for economic freedom in our lifetime,” Mathys informs Ubuntu Times.

The Seven Cardinal Pillars of the EFF, which the party says are non-negotiable, are:

  1. Expropriation of land without compensation for equitable redistribution
  2. Nationalization of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors of the economy
  3. Building state and government capacity
  4. Free quality education, houses, and sanitation
  5. Massive protected industrial development to create millions of jobs, including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the gap between rich and poor
  6. Massive investment in the development of the African economy
  7. Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of victimization by state agencies

EFF leader Julius Malema has faced criticism for his Pan-Afrikanist outlook on the need for open borders on the continent.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) celebrate 10 years at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg.
The National Leadership of the EFF on stage with the Commander in Chief, Julius Malema, at the center when the party celebrated its 10th anniversary since its founding at a packed Johannesburg stadium in the southern African nation. Credit: EFF

The EFF has a policy on “progressive internationalism,” which seeks the ‘ultimate integration of the African continent through the erosion of unnecessary borders.

According to Mathys, those with an agenda to keep Africa divided frequently misrepresent the integration of Africa in the context of removing borders in the media.

“Our founding manifesto makes pertinent the idea that Africans should have free movement on the continent. The open border policy is propaganda and a term that has been phrased by whites, by the West, who do not want us as Africans to unite. They make us hate each other but come here on our continent whenever they want,” Mathys remarks.

“They want to continue dividing us in Africa, and that is why we are so passionate about the Pan-Afrikan agenda,” she says.

Dumisani Baleni, the EFF Media and Communications Officer for the Gauteng Province, echoed Mathy’s sentiments on the need for African integration through the erosion of borders as a prerequisite for economic development on the continent.

“African borders are a creation and result of the Berlin Conference; for South Africa to prosper, we need Lesotho to prosper, Zimbabwe to prosper, and Eswatini to prosper, and this can only happen if there is economic integration that allows us to piggyback on one another’s strengths,” the spokesperson in South Africa’s largest province by population (and smallest in size) says.

According to Baleni, the people who took land from the indigenous blacks during the period of colonialization are still in possession of the land, whereas those who fought for the land still remain land dispossessed.

He highlights that the EFF, through its policy of expropriation of land without compensation for redistribution, seeks to rectify this economic injustice.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) celebrate 10 years at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg.
EFF Commander-in-Chief, Julius Malema, in the center, wearing black, flanked by the National Leadership of the party with arms raised, waving at the crowd at the 10th Anniversary Celebration at a packed FNB stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: EFF

“The economy of this country has been surrendered to the private sector, but it is dwindling. The state should be in charge of massive industrialization, and that is what our party articulates through its seven pillars when we talk about the nationalization of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors,” Baleni explains.

Baleni says EFF’s growing popularity is a result of its ability to articulate its political program in a manner that resonates with the majority of South Africans, who still experience racism on a daily basis through the unequal distribution of resources and the economic disparity that expresses itself through race.

He informed Ubuntu Times of an incident involving a black learner at a private school who was assaulted and later expelled for having dreadlocks, which is against the school’s hairstyle policy.

He said the ANC, which is the governing party and in charge of the education department, has failed to address the issue of black learners who are forced to adhere to white standards, white culture, and white activities, even in aesthetic expressions such as hairstyles.

“Our ground forces went to the school to confront its leadership, and we are still consulting, but we should be cognizant of racial discrimination, which has not been criminalized, and the harmful effects it has on our society,” Baleni says.

In 2024, South Africans will be going to the polls to elect a new government. The EFF is currently the third-most popular party in the country, and its popularity has grown over the ten years since its inception.

The party, which emerged from the shadows of the Marikina Tragedy on August 16, 2012, where thirty-four miners were killed by South African police during a protest for better working conditions, regards itself as the First Line of Defense for South Africa’s economically marginalized.

Leaders in the party, like Baleni, joined in response to the Fees Must Fall Movement, where tertiary education students protested against the high cost of education as a barrier to employment and upward mobility.

It would seem like the material condition of black South Africans is a primary motivator for the growing popularity of the EFF.

Baleni says EFF resonates with South Africans because it has a clear position and clear direction and provides ideological clarity, which speaks to the hopes and aspirations of the black South African majority.

EFF Confronts Racism In South African Schools

Vitalio Angula
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EFF Confronts Racism In South African Schools

An incident involving a thirteen-year-old girl child at the Crowthorne Christian Academy in South Africa led to the schools’ closure and the re-sparking of debate on black aesthetics in a racially polarized country that still battles with systemic, systematic, and institutional discrimination against blacks, who make up the majority of the population.

Tynil Gcabashe, a thirteen-year-old student, had her dreadlocks on when the school made the racist decision to dismiss her from class, according to a media release from the Economic Freedom Fighters Provincial Communications Officer for Gauteng province, Dumisani Baleni.

This provoked the EFF to stage a picket at the school.

“The school principal is reported to have said the learner will not be allowed back to school unless her dreadlocks are shaved off, on the 14 August when the learner’s parents sought to resolve the issue with the school, a white racist male alleged to be the principal’s husband, acting on the instruction and permission of the school, violently handled both the mother and the young girl and pushed them out of the school. A video circulating on social media bears evidence to this effect,” the statement reads.

Baleni further said the Crowthorne Christian Academy has a policy that allows only learners with natural hair in the school.

“This policy is predicated on the racist notion that natural hair means relaxed and straightened hair inherent to white people, whereas curly hair and dreadlocks, characteristic of black people’s hair, are considered unnatural and therefore prohibited from the school,” Baleni stated.

Hendrick Makaneta, education activist and deputy chairperson of the Foundation for Education and Social Justice Africa, told Ubuntu Times that black aesthetics are not accepted as a universal standard because of the highly entrenched European culture in private schools. He said blacks are expected to accede to policies that were formulated by whites and that such policies do not acknowledge African hair, such as dreadlocks.

Dumisani Baleni seated in a lecture hall at an EFF Gauteng Provincial Plenum.
Dumisani Baleni in attendance at the EFF Gauteng Provincial Plenum, which was addressed by the President and Commander-in-Chief Julius Malema at the beginning of the year. Credit: EFF Gauteng

“Unfortunately, the thirteen-year-old girl was victimized for expressing her African identity,” Makaneta said.

“The fact that the school was allowed to develop policies that are not in line with the spirit of the constitution of the republic (South Africa) exposed the government’s failure to provide leadership,” he added.

Makaneta highlighted that although the autonomy of educational institutions to develop their own policies should be respected, the government ought to put correct mechanisms in place to monitor and evaluate the various policies adopted by the institutions from time to time.

The events that unfolded led to the closure of the school, which was found not to have the proper licenses to operate.

Spokesperson at the Gauteng Education Department, Steve Mabona, told Ubuntu Times that the incident with the thirteen-year-old is an isolated case of discrimination, and the department hardly hears of or deals with such cases.

“All codes of conduct of our schools were reviewed not to discriminate learners on the basis of hair… What is paramount is discipline of learners at our schools,” Mabona told Ubuntu Times.

Mabona said the school has now been closed down due to non-compliance with registration as an educational institute.

“The school was operating illegally because they decided to relocate and changed their name without following proper procedures,” Mabona stated in email responses to Ubuntu Times.

Education activist Makatena said racism is pervasive in South Africa as a result of the economic disparities between white and black South Africans, with the former still being largely in control of the economy.

Dumisani Baleni, addressing the Vaal University of Technology students ahead of the Student's Representative Council election in 2018.
Dumisani Baleni, addressing the Vaal University of Technology students ahead of the Student’s Representative Council election in 2018. Credit: EFF Gauteng

“The fact that the economy is still controlled largely by the white minority means that acts of racism will continue,” he said.

“Of course not every white person is racist, but all whites in South Africa are beneficiaries of racism,” he further highlighted.

Makatena implored the government of South Africa to take practical steps to end poverty and inequality, which affects mainly black South Africans in a negative way.

“As long as the owners of the means of production remain white, we are likely to see a continuation of racism. Even the schools we are talking about now are owned by whites; hence, black children are expected to comply with European norms and standards,” he said.

“Government must also move swiftly to decolonize education by making history compulsory in all schools; children need to learn more about African history as opposed to European history,” he added.

Gauteng is the economic hub of South Africa and Southern Africa and is home to the richest square mile on the African continent, Sandton.

There are over 2200 public schools in Gauteng and 500 private schools.

Although Ubuntu could not independently verify the figures, Gauteng is estimated to have about 2.6 million learners. Twenty-one percent of South Africa’s total estimated learner population of 15 million.

Africa’s Rebirth At 60: Carrying Noble Ideas That Nobody Is Willing To Implement

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Africa’s Rebirth At 60: Carrying Noble Ideas That Nobody Is Willing To Implement

To most academics, intellectuals, and pragmatists advocating for a genuine Pan-African renaissance six decades after the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, later renamed African Union in 2002) in Addis Ababa in 1963, the continent’s aspirations as highlighted in Agenda 2063 might fail to materialise as overwhelming evidence point to Africa’s lack of creative framing, knowledge and thought leadership in global affairs.

Since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, Western global media corporations have put Africa at the tail end of post-industrial development by formulating narratives that befit Western ideology, markets, history, values, and perspectives at the expense of Africa’s existence. Even so, the outbreak of monkey-pox in Western countries got giant media deflecting the source and linking it to Africa.

When Russia launched its special military operation on Ukraine on February 24 last year, DSTV’s Multichoice shut down Russia Today (Russian television) Channel across Africa in the view that Africans must not listen to anything balanced or sympathetic to Russia, and even so, they decide on what information should be made available to Africans across the continent.

In the face of the hegemonic and dominant Western media organisations’ onslaught, Africa’s political leaders have not reacted with relevant material and content to diffuse narratives against the continent. Theirs has been an unresponsive and less committed call to action while thought leadership is needed.

The effect of the failure to provide African thought leadership has now seen African journalists writing stories about Africa without targeting the African audience but writing for a Western audience. The news framing is the same.

Dealing With A Distorted Image

Internal conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and the war in Ethiopia that ended last November give hard lessons on the dangers of leaving foreign media corporations with the responsibility to frame Africa’s events.

African media houses have not done much to tell the African story, in most cases, they have allowed the dominant media from the Western countries to lead the narratives, and because Africa has become a ground of military, political and economic contests between the West and East, media companies such as China Global Television Network (CGTN) and Russia Today (RT) have also taken a side in framing Africa.

Instead of using hard power in Africa, both Western and Eastern countries now prefer soft and smart power, a component that infuses foreign values, principles and norms in which they assimilate and graft Africa into the phenomenon of their narratives.

At the 60th anniversary event to commemorate the founding of the OAU on May 25, 2023, at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed restated a position he made last year before African heads of state that “Africa needs to tell her own story”.

PM Ahmed said, “On this same occasion last year, I called on all of us to tackle typically the negative portrayal of Africa by the global media. I stressed the need for Africa to tell her own story and not allow others to tell it in the service of their own interests.

“In this respect, please allow me to reiterate yet again the need to establish an African Union Continental Media House. Until Africa tells her own story, her image remains distorted. And distortions affect not how others view us, but also how we view ourselves. We owe it to ourselves and our children that Africa’s truths need to be told as they are, untainted with external interests and bias.”

Without a doubt, Africa’s leaders are not oblivious to what they need to do to reconstruct the image of the continent through having a devoted African Union Continental Media House.

Ahmed’s Old Suggestion

Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Admire Mare says the proposal by Ethiopia’s Ahmed is old as African leaders like Ghana’s independence President Kwame Nkrumah and Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi made the same.

“The proposal by the PM of Ethiopia is not new. Similar proposals were made by Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi. It is an attempt to turn the gaze and use technological infrastructures controlled by Africans to speak back and showcase their own stories.

“Similar attempts have been seen with Al Jazeera, CGTN and Russia Today. The role of the media is still seen in instrumental ways, that is, as an enabler to speak back and speak out. On paper, the proposal is appealing but media sustainability and editorial interference are teething problems.”

According to Mare, African governments will face serious challenges in relation to financing models to fund the African Union Continental Media House, at a time when the AU is also failing to fund its operations.

He made reference to the closure of The Southern Times newspaper, an initiative set up by the governments of Namibia and Zimbabwe in 2004 to provide alternative narratives to Western views that targeted Zimbabwe at the height of its land redistribution programme. The Southern Times announced in 2019 that it was closing operations due to “dwindling financial resources”.

Prof. Mare adds, “We have seen the closure of The Southern Times (a Zimbabwe-Namibia) initiative, so there is no guarantee such a proposal by PM Ahmed will not close shop. To make it work, there is need to come up with a solid business model, strong and accountable board of directors and hiring of media professionals from all African countries. The media house should have bureau chiefs or correspondents in all the countries in Africa.”

Media and Journalism senior lecturer at Limkwokwing University in Lesotho, Mr. Tawanda Mukurunge shared similar thoughts with Prof. Mare that PM Ahmed’s proposal is old and documented in the 1980 MacBride Report also known as Many Voices, One World sponsored by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Findings of the MacBride Report were in response to the 1970s New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debate on the non-equitable access to information and media imperialism.

“There is nothing new about this concept. We have the Pan-African News Agency that was formed in 1979, with headquarters in Senegal, to produce content that presents and preserves the voice of Africa. The essence of NWICO was to counter the reports that Global South countries should be in the periphery of information access,” said Mr. Mukurunge.

According to Mr. Mukurunge, the key challenge to the full realisation of this proposal is the lack of unity between African countries.

“Some of the Francophone countries rely too much on their former coloniser, France, to the extent that as African leaders might agree on something, but when it comes to voting and execution they tend to get directives from France, and that is problematic.

“Remember when Zimbabwe was seeking to galvanise African leaders through having support on its land reform programme, it was Senegal’s former leader Abdoulaye Wade who opposed Zimbabwe’s position to please the French. As long as some of our people are controlled by external forces, as a continent we will not go anywhere,” added Mr. Mukurunge.

So Much Work To Do

There is so much work to do. African journalism needs to go beyond the simple problem of news framing to epistemic framing. Epistemic framing is about the locus of enunciation of the story, that is, the body political and geopolitical of the subject that speaks.

When one listens to or reads African print and electronic news, there is no difference to tell whether the news is meant for an African or Western audience. This tends to show that African journalism seems to be preoccupied with lower-order ethics shaped by the social and epistemic location of the storyteller.

Politics and Journalism lecturer at the Africa University in Zimbabwe, Dr. Alexander Rusero says African journalism will never see an authentic framework as long as it remains in the shadows of the West.

“We (Africans) are still hunters and gatherers of information. We have no authentic African journalism or media but rather colonial mimicry,” says Dr. Rusero.

Tinubu’s Inauguration: End Of An Error, The Dawn Of Calamity

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Tinubu’s Inauguration: End Of An Error, The Dawn Of Calamity

“I am confident that I am leaving office with Nigeria better in 2023 than in 2015.” President Buhari ended his farewell speech with this remark on the 28th of May, 2023. Some of us could not help but wonder if perhaps we had been living in an alternate universe for the past eight years. Not surprisingly, the former president supported this fallacious vituperation with a body of argument that attempted to whitewash the disturbing and horrible fact that the Buhari regime is an epic fail; incompetent, despotic, lawless, and very anti-poor.

Many parts of the speech were fraught with boastful remarks, and needless self-adulation that misrepresented many unpalatable facts about the horrible administration. But one of his many lies that particularly stood out was the part that read “to ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.” Former President Buhari better not be speaking about the 2023 elections especially — the same election that was fraught with massive vote buying, voter suppression, violence, result falsification, and mass disenfranchisement. Polling units became transactional centers and a theatre of war. Punch newspaper in fact dismissed the 2023 election as a show of shame, concluding that Buhari and INEC brought nothing other than disgrace and embarrassment to Nigeria with such an unfortunate sham.

How can the former president claim that he left Nigeria better than he met it in 2015 when evidence abound suggest otherwise? According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2015 when Buhari took over was at 14.9 percent, representing a population of 6.1 million people who were without jobs. Sadly in 2023, the unemployment rate peaked at 33.3 percent representing about 23 million people, the highest in thirteen years. This is almost four times higher than what it was before Buhari took over.

In addition to leaving behind a country that now ranks as the poverty capital of the world, the administration left behind a huge population of over 133 million people who statistics show are living in multidimensional poverty.

Whereas in 2015 when Buhari assumed office, the inflation rate was at 9 percent. Fast forward to 2023, the regime is leaving behind a very high inflation rate at 22.22 percent, and a debt profile of 77 trillion naira: a very significant and highly exponential increase from its initial value of 12.22 trillion naira in 2015. It is unfortunate that Nigerians have nothing to show for the borrowing spree the regime embarked upon — no schools, hospitals, or any meaningful infrastructural development that may justify the humongous debt burden.

Needless to say, the problem of insecurity also worsened under the past administration. It is on record that the Buhari campaign in 2015 had been very vocal about ending insecurity and bloodletting that had taken the lives of about 18,260 Nigerians, and also displaced many more. Sadly, the Buhari regime worsened the situation. More than 53,000 Nigerians had been gruesomely murdered by bandits, killer herdsmen, and Boko Haram insurgents between 2015 when Buhari took power, and October 2022. This is in addition to numerous others that have become IDPs. States like Kaduna, Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Plateau states became killing fields for bandits, killer herdsmen, and numerous insurgents; hunting their victims like games, kidnapping many more.

In addition to the utter lack of respect for the judiciary, and serial violation of court orders, Buhari also presided over a country where the armed forces, police especially act with impunity, lawlessness, and are responsible for many extrajudicial murders. It was indeed an administration that from its first tenure had expunged the concept of human rights from its dictionary of governance.

No doubt, the previous administration was not only incompetent, inefficient, and anti-poor, but also it was a government that left behind a tragic legacy of sorrow, tears, and blood.

As though determined to commit the people of Nigeria to eternal damnation, Buhari, and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), superintended over a very shabby and highly fraudulent electoral process that imposed one of the worst political characters in Nigeria’s history — Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Unlike most candidates in the race, Tinubu in the course of his campaign said very few words and made limited promises to electorates. He had relied largely on vote buying, intimidation, voter suppression, hooliganism, violence, and his vast access to state institutions to manipulate electoral outcomes right from the polling units.

Bola Tinubu despite making little or no campaign promises was however very clear and loud about his plans to attack the welfare and livelihood of his electorates once he emerges.

Tinubu’s declaration of war and hardship against the Nigerian people didn’t happen on May 29, 2023, the date of inauguration. He didn’t do anything that he had not said to our faces during the course of his campaign. The man dared us to our faces, and boldly said during campaigns that he would remove fuel subsidy, and that not even our protests will change this. And with a kind of courage that derives unusual confidence from impunity, he declared his victory before the date of the election.

With the above, it is crystal clear that the Bola Tinubu Presidency is coming with planned and premeditated attacks against the Nigerian people. Removing fuel subsidy is only the beginning, the coming days will not be any easier. Tinubu’s inaugural speech was very clear on this. And just like he bullied his way to power, the president’s major strategy will be to bully the entire country into total submission.

Although Buhari may have come off as the worst in Nigeria’s history, Tinubu’s May 29 inaugural speech however gave us an unforgettable omen. The sufferings endured under Buhari’s eight years of horrific rule might be nothing compared to the challenges ahead.

The government of Tinubu has openly declared itself to be a regime of bullies. Less than one hour in office, it has taken decisive action to attack the living conditions of Nigerians majority of whom are living in multidimensional poverty. The regime had by its action declared war on the Nigerian people. Fighting back remains the only decision available to the millions of poor and suffering majority who will be victims of these attacks.

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!

2023 Elections: A Street Robbery

Sanyaolu Juwon
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2023 Elections: A Street Robbery

If you can relate with the kind of mood you’d meet when on a visit to a street that had just experienced a robbery of a very violent dimension, then you may be able to connect with the atmosphere of gloom that descended on the country at the pronouncement of Mr. Bola Tinubu as (s)elected president of the country. The Nigerian people felt cheated, and robbed.

But needless to say, the street was indeed robbed — it was violently dispossessed of its hard-earned democratic right to choose for itself, a leader: votes were stolen at polling units and collation centers, ballot boxes were snatched, voters were intimidated, electorates and electoral officials were bought, the polling units did not only become a theater of war, it was equally drowned in blood: votes generally did not count. The street had been robbed of the right to free and fair elections.

The 2023 elections were no doubt the usual tales of sorrow, tears, and blood: the sad triumph of impunity and money politics over the democratic will of over 200 million people.

Whereas voters turnout at every election cycle since 2003 has decreased progressively, the recent polls had an unprecedented number of first-time voters who are largely very young people — those you will categorize as the children of Democracy aka Gen Zs. It was a generation that had been forged in the furnace of one of the biggest youth rebellions in recent history: the EndSARS rebellion.

Sadly, the EndSARS generation may be the last generation of Nigerians who will hold any manner of confidence in Nigeria’s electoral system due to the inability of the electoral umpire to manage the high expectations ignorantly reposed on it by the millions of this young, and highly enthusiastic voters. Whatsoever illusions anyone may have left in Nigeria’s so-called democracy, the charade conducted in 2023 may have successfully shattered such illusions.

While Bola Tinubu’s party, the ruling APC used money, and all instrumentalities of the state to suppress voters, and steal votes, the so-called front-runners — Atiku Abubakar’s PDP, and Peter Obi’s Labour Party weren’t any different. The duo equally stole votes, and repressed voters at their respective strongholds. Sadly, this is how Nigeria’s ruling class have conducted themselves every election year. This accounts for the steady decline of voter turnout at every election cycle. The loss of confidence in the system continues to increase exponentially.

At the just concluded Presidential polls, only 27% of the over 87 million eligible voters — voters with PVCs, turned out to vote. Also instructive is the fact that the supposed winner of the (s)election, Bola Tinubu, was able to secure only about 8.2 million votes, representing a very small percentage of 10.08% of the total number of eligible voters.

In all, a huge population of over 63.1 million eligible voters completely boycotted the elections. This is in addition to over 100 million Nigerians who did not even register to vote at all. Generally, Bola Tinubu’s government will be presiding over a country where over 170 million people have handed his administration a vote of no confidence even before it began.

And for such infamous administration starting off on a note of illegitimacy, and mass rejection even in the midst of daunting economic crises capable of pitching even a relatively popular Government against its people, he will in the coming period be left with the option of two extreme choices if he must hold onto his Government which by the way may have failed even before it began: an option of granting huge political and economic concession to the already discontented and disillusioned majority, or the use of brute force to suppress dissent and keep his unpopular regime in power. This in fact is the fate that awaits any government that emerges from the 2023 charade. For Bola Tinubu of the APC, which will it be? Your guess is as good as mine.

The coming days will no doubt be challenging and highly tumultuous. As such, we must do away with all manner of needless divisive narratives targeted at dividing us along ethnic lines. It is in the interest of the ruling class of all political divides to keep us isolated from one another through religion and ethnicity. We must not allow for these distractions. Only as a united front can we pose a formidable challenge to the looming danger the Presidency of Bola Tinubu and APC represents to the ordinary and suffering people of Nigeria.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s Son Eyes 2026 Election Challenge

UbuntuTimes
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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s Son Eyes 2026 Election Challenge

Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the eldest son of Uganda’s long-serving autocratic leader, is set to contest in the 2026 presidential election in a gambit that could potentially see the military officer take full control of this soon-to-be oil-producing nation that has been under the firm grip of his father for nearly four decades.

His bid for the presidency has shaken structures in the ruling National Resistance Movement party and military. Last month, General Kainerugaba who also serves as the presidential adviser on special operations launched a campaign team comprising notable politicians and other key personalities as part of his campaign efforts. He has also begun appearing at rallies for his supporters.

“I will stay in touch and engaged with you in regards to the next steps of my campaign,” he told a cheering crowd of mainly youthful supporters known as the MK movement, who constantly interrupted his speech with clapping, ululations, and chanting at a rally held in Kapchorwa, northeastern Uganda in January.

But veteran opposition leader Kizza Besigye says that what Muhoozi is attempting to do is create a new power base that will attract the attention of young people who have lost interest in the ruling party and its leader.

“He wants to create something that appears new, although it is exactly the same thing,” Besigye told Ubuntu Times.

Mr. Museveni has long been suspected of grooming the 48-year-old general to be his successor in order to establish what opponents call monarchical rule in Uganda. This follows a playbook by other authoritarian dictators in Africa, such as Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Cameroon’s Paul Biya’, who have attempted to anoint their sons as the next presidents.

General Kainerugaba’s rallies are also against Ugandan law, which prohibits serving army officers from participating in politics. The 1995 Constitution and the Uganda People’s Defence Force Act – UPDF 2005 bar or prohibit serving army officers from dabbling in partisan politics.

“He is perpetuating the abuse of the constitution, abuse of the law and this disqualifies him from being considered a leader,” says Besigye. “He is acting against the country and cannot aspire to lead it at the same time.”

General Kainerugaba has also earned himself the name “the tweeting general” with his controversial tweets. Just like former US President Donald Trump, the general uses Twitter to promote his profile. He once tweeted that the Ugandan army might invade Kenya.

“It wouldn’t take us, my army and me, two weeks to capture Nairobi,” he tweeted.

This prompted Mr. Museveni to relieve him of his then duties as commander of the UPDF’s Land Forces and denounce his controversial use of Twitter. However, Museveni still promoted Kainerugaba to a five-star general and retained him as his adviser on military affairs.

Last year, Kainerugaba held a spree of lavish birthday celebrations across the country. The celebrations were attended by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. Political analysts contend that these are all clear signs that Kainerugaba is being maneuvered into place to succeed his father.

General Kainerugaba joined the army in 1999 after graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in England. He rose through the ranks to command the presidential security unit, which has now been expanded into an elite Special Forces Command SFC group. The SFC protects the president, his family, and critical assets including oil fields.

With an estimated 10,000 men, the SFC is Uganda’s most powerful branch of the army. Kainerugaba led the SFC from 2008 to 2017, and later from December 2020 to July 2021, during the tumultuous presidential election season.

In July 2021, he was promoted to lead the Uganda land forces, the army’s main component but later demoted by his father-the commander in chief, following a string of divisive tweets that sparked domestic and international uproar.

Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, Member of Parliament and the spokesperson of the main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change FDC, says that Museveni is merely seeking to create an uneven playing field for anyone attempting to oppose him come 2026.

“This is again another tactic Mr. Museveni is using to prolong his rule,” said Ssemujju.

Many Ugandans continue to decry the controversial rule of President Museveni who has been in power for 37 years now. In 2021, Mr. Museveni secured for himself five more years as president in a general election that was marred by violence and claims of vote-rigging by his main challenger famous musician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu well known by his stage name Bobi Wine.

Because of the 2017 constitutional reform that removed the age limit, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents Mr.Museveni from standing again and again. Presidential term limits were also removed in 2005. Museveni’s new term ends in 2026 and by then he will have ruled Uganda for 40 years.

On January 24, Museveni launched Uganda’s first drilling rig for the Kingfisher oilfield, operated by China’s CNOOC company and estimated to bring in more than $50 billion. A local NGO organized a public debate on the East African Crude Oil Pipeline at a city hotel on the same day. Opposition leaders Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi were among the invited speakers, but a military squad barricaded and sealed up the hotel entrance, denying the public access to the venue and canceling the event.

“I don’t mind Kainerugaba’s intentions to run for president, but I’m concerned about the vulgarization of national institutions like the UPDF army. He should first quit the army,” said Sarah Bireete, the executive director of a local think tank, Center for Constitutional Governance.

Students’ Loan: We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Students’ Loan: We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay

On November 22nd, 2022, Nigeria’s 9th National Assembly successfully passed a Students’ Loan Bill, a move that has now incited reactions along varying interests and ideological lines. The bill, sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila purportedly seeks to ease access to public education by providing tuition loans to students whose family’s annual income is less than five hundred thousand naira – over 133 million Nigerians are in this category.

Students who are eligible for this tuition loan are expected to apply through their respective tertiary institutions, and the tuition will forthwith be paid directly into the account of the applicant’s institution of learning.

Beneficiaries of this student loan are expected to begin repayment two years after National Youth Service Corps.

While the speaker of the house had argued that the bill is in the interest of the students and the people of Nigeria, critical analysis of the loan bill reveals the contrary. Aside from the fact that experiences from other countries have persistently shown how a student loan program has turned out to be synonymous with offering a poisoned chalice to the “beneficiaries” of such a program, we also note that this bill is a deliberate ploy by the irresponsible Nigerian state to distract the public from the real issues of education underfunding.

Against the background of numerous attempt to institutionalize the commercialization of public education in Nigeria, the government in different instances have developed various initiatives targeted at placing the burden of education funding on the shoulders of Nigerian students and their poor parents. One of the most recent of such attempts is a Steve Oransaye Committee inaugurated in 2012 by the administration of former President, Goodluck Jonathan. The committee recommended the introduction of very high tuition to the tune of 450- 525 thousand naira in Nigerian tertiary institutions, starting with the first Generation Universities. The committee argued that tuition of such magnitude is a necessity if our universities must stand a chance to compete minimally with the rest of the world. In short, the committee’s recommendation was that government hands off education funding and allow students to bear the burden of the stupendous resources needed to fund tertiary education.

In 2014, it was reported that the Jonathan administration had issued a white paper on the report of this committee.

Upon emergence in 2015, the Buhari regime continued on these neoliberal foundations of the Jonathan administration by inaugurating a committee of 16 headed by the former University of Lagos Pro-Chancellor, Professor Wale Babalakin. This committee, like Oransaye, proposed an astronomical increment in tuition, this time to the tune of One million naira. In addition to very high tuition, Babalakin also argued for the establishment of an education bank that will grant loans to students for the purpose of paying for this high tuition. Commendably, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) rejected this recommendation, describing it as an attempt to hand over public universities to private interests.

Recall that in 2009, ASUU, again made a case for increased funding of public education starting with the immediate injection of 1.3 trillion naira into public Universities. It proposed in its 2009 agreement with the federal government that this funding should be paid to the universities in three tranches. It took the Union to go into another six months of strike action in 2013 to compel the government to release the first tranche of 220 billion naira in the latter part of 2014. This is close to five years since the agreement was signed.

Meanwhile, just two years before the 2009 agreement, the Nigerian government bailed out their friends in the banking system with a whopping sum of 3 trillion naira. The same government will later find it difficult to bail out public education with 1.3 trillion naira two years after.

No doubt, the Students’ Loan Bill represents the institutionalization of education commercialization with an overall aim to effectively consolidate an ongoing neoliberal siege against public education in Nigeria.

It is on record that in places like the United States of America, where this policy may have been adopted, beneficiaries of such loans spend their entire adult life repaying loans. In fact, President Obama couldn’t complete his repayment until he became America’s President. Millions of American citizens are living in heavy debt accrued from this sort of draconian policy. The implications in Nigeria are bound to be much worse.

In addition to the problem of mass unemployment and massive de-industrialization, Nigeria also struggles with increasing poverty with over 133 million Nigerians living in abject poverty.

Whereas the bill states that beneficiaries of this loan must begin repayment two years after completion of Youth Service, it fails to put into consideration the obvious reality that most Nigerian graduates are unable to find jobs years after leaving school. And those with the initiative to start small businesses aren’t availed with an enabling environment for a thriving business.

It is rather unfortunate that of many western education policies, Nigerian leaders have always opted for the ones that have proven to be a monumental disaster. It remains a wonder that they have chosen to ignore great examples of other Western countries like Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and many Scandinavian countries that have a culture of giving free and qualitative education to its citizens.

The problem we face isn’t the fact that the Nigerian state is incapable of funding free and qualitative education, it is that Nigerian leaders are unwilling to commit to massive investment into education. Monies that should have been committed to funding public education are either looted or committed to white elephant projects. It was in this same country that Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were unable to account for a whopping sum of 1.2 trillion naira. We have seen how the accountant general of the federation stole 150 billion naira. These are just a few of many cases of mindless looting in the country. This is in addition to unremitted taxes from big corporations running to several billions of dollars.

While we continue to commend the education unions, especially the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for rejecting this Greek gift, and insisting that the Nigerian government must abandon this distraction and genuinely commit to funding education, it becomes very imperative to call public attention to the urgency of resisting the cruel attempt to place an unfair burden of eternal debt on the strained shoulders of over 133 million poor Nigerians who already are finding it difficult to even afford to eat.

Oil Money Heralds Trouble For Uganda’s Indigenous Bagungu Tribe, Environment

Diana Taremwa Karakire
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Oil Money Heralds Trouble For Uganda’s Indigenous Bagungu Tribe, Environment

BULIISA, Uganda — Baboons wander through shrub-lands that line the sides of newly built roads straddling Uganda’s wildlife reserves close to the shores of oil-rich Lake Albert. Across the border in Congo,  magnificent lush green hilly countrysides stand out. If you’re lucky you can catch a glimpse of elephants too. Wildlife is abundant here, but such scenes might be no more in a few years, as oil companies embark on multi-billion projects to pump as much as 6 billion barrels of crude oil from Uganda’s biodiversity-rich Albertine Rift Graben.

Baboons crossing the newly built Hoima-Buliisa road in Buliisa District
Baboons crossing the newly built Hoima-Buliisa road that straddles Bugungu wildlife reserve close to the shores of oil-rich Lake Albert. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

This territory has also been occupied for generations by the indigenous Bagungu people, who tilled the land to cultivate millet and sorghum and gather medicinal herbs and fish on Lake Albert. The Bagungu have over the years used traditional techniques to conserve the lands. From restricting access to sacred areas to designating wildlife sanctuaries, owing in part to a traditional belief that nature and its resources are guarded by spirits.

But planned development of hundreds of oil wells that dot the shores of lake Albert poses new threats to the pristine environment and has come at the expense of indigenous people’s rights. The Bagungu have been uprooted from ancestral grounds and their once revered cultural sites destroyed—including shrines and grazing lands.

Alex Wakitinti a chief custodian removes his shoes at Wandeko sacred natural site in Kasenyi village Buliisa district
Alex Wakitinti the chief custodian removes his shoes at Wandeko sacred natural site in Kasenyi village Buliisa district. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

“We have lost our grazing lands. Our people wish oil had not been discovered in this area,” Alex Wakitinti the chief custodian of sacred sites of the Bagungu, says, pointing at a newly built highway. “We no longer have access to medicinal herbs and sacred trees where we worshiped.”

French oil giant TotalEnergies operates the Tilenga oil project in the remote districts of Buliisa, Hoima, Kikuube, and Nwoya near the ecologically fragile Murchison Falls National Park and the Nile Delta in western Uganda. The project consists of six oil fields and is expected to have 400 wells drilled in 31 locations. It will also house an industrial area, support camps, a central processing facility, and feeder pipelines. The project necessitates the acquisition of 2,901 acres of land across the districts, as well as additional land within the national park.

TotalEnergies Tilenga project located near Lake Albert, Western Uganda
A map showing the TotalEnergies Tilenga project located near Lake Albert, Western Uganda. Credit: Petroleum Authority Uganda

According to Petroleum Authority Uganda, the process of acquiring land for the Tilenga project is still underway and has displaced 5,523 families. Residents and local officials, however, say that this process has been marred by inadequate and delayed compensation and resettlement.

Three years ago, TotalEnergies, approached Kaliisa Munange, a peasant farmer in kasenyi village, in Buliisa district, near the shores of lake Albert with a proposal. They would take over his 6-acre piece of land for project developments, in exchange for a bigger chunk of land, complete with a house, in a nearby village. With the promise of a better life, Mr. Munange consented to a relocation that he thought would be life-changing.

“When I arrived, I was so disappointed all the promises were empty, yet the company had already taken over my property,” he said, frowning his forehead with anger. “It was very far, there wasn’t a nearby school that my children would attend and the hospital is ten kilometers away. I decided to take them to court but up to now there is no decision.”

A notice board for Tilenga project-related information updates in Kasenyi Village, Buliisa district
A notice board for Tilenga project-related information updates in Kasenyi Village. Locals say these haven’t been effective due to the language barrier. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

Kaliisa’s is not the only case. His plight is shared by thousands of peasants in this lakeside village, which will soon house one of the largest oil processing facilities in Africa. Many have been waiting for compensation for several years since they were ordered not to plant any perennial crops and erect permanent structures on their land.

Fishing on Wanseko landing site on the shores of Lake Albert in Buliisa district
Fishermen at Wanseko landing site on the shores of Lake Albert in Buliisa district. Most fishing sites have been cordoned off due to oil developments. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

locals are nostalgic of the good old days when they had a source of livelihood tilling their land and fishing freely from L. Albert. When the land was communally used for grazing, worship, herbal medicines, and building materials.

“Community involvement and participation in the land acquisition process and environment impact assessment processes has been limited,” says Wakitinti “Our people were not involved in the identification of cultural sites and a number of medicinal herbs and trees were not assessed for compensation.”

Total executives deny the allegations insisting that the company is addressing the complaints of the affected people and has even been providing them with supplies, such as food.

A tamarind tree, one of the sacred trees central to Bagungu worship system, Kasenyi village,Buliisa district
The tamarind tree which is one of the sacred trees central to Bagungu worship system, Kasenyi Village, Buliisa district. Custodians say that a number of these trees were not assessed during the social and environmental impact assessments for Tilenga oil project. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

Pauline Macronald, head of the environment biodiversity at TotalEnergies Uganda says that the project is taking measures to ensure the socioeconomic stability of project-affected persons.

“TotalEnergies is committed to developing the Tilenga project while observing human rights standards and International Finance Corporation performance standards,” she said, adding that the company has been in close contact with project-affected people to minimize the projects’ impact on locals.

The constitution of Uganda safeguards property rights and land ownership. It affirms that everyone has a right to possess property and offers strict protection against unfair property deprivation. This states that everyone whose private property or land must be acquired for a public project should get prompt, fair, and reasonable compensation.

The International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 7 aims to guarantee that corporate operations minimize adverse effects and promote respect for indigenous peoples’ cultures, rights, and dignity. A fundamental criterion is the free, prior, and informed permission of indigenous peoples, as well as informed consultation and engagement with them throughout the project development process. The Bagungu, however, contend that these rights and standards have been violated by oil project developers.

“The land acquisition processes for oil projects have been shrouded in secrecy, no transparency. The processes have not been participatory and consultative in nature and any project resistance has resulted in costly formal court proceedings to the indigenes,” says Enoch Bigirwa, the former chairperson of the Bagungu Community Association.

The Bagungu Community Association BACA is a local group championing the rights of Bagungu amidst oil developments in their territory. It exists for the sociology-cultural and economic development of Bagungu. BACA is part of the environmental groups that filed a lawsuit against TotalEnergies in France over human rights violations and environmental harm in its Uganda oil project.

Who are the Bagungu

The Bagungu are an indigenous tribe native to Uganda and totaling around 83,986 according to the 2014 population census. They are mainly found in Buliisa, Hoima, and Masindi districts of western Uganda-Albertaine Graben. They belong to the historical Bunyoro Kingdom led by an Omukama, their King.

Bangungu people of Uganda
A map showing the location of the Bangungu people of Uganda. Credit: Bugungu Heritage and Information Centre

They are agricultural and fishing folk. Bagungu are the guardians and custodians of Lake Albert, a large freshwater lake that is the the source of Albert Nile, a branch of the River Nile that flows through Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, and DR Congo.

Oil Developments in Uganda

In 2006, oil and gas reserves were discovered in Uganda’s Albertine Graben.TotalEnergies and China’s CNOOC recently reached a final investment decision to inject $10 billion to kick start oil developments in partnership with the government of Uganda through Uganda National Oil Company which will subsequently lead to production in 2023. Output is expected to peak at 220,000 barrels a day of crude, Uganda consumes around 15,000 barrels a day of crude. Part of the crude oil will be refined to supply the local market while the remainder will be exported through a 1,443km buried East African Crude Oil Pipeline EACOP from Uganda to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania for export to the international market.

Uganda envisions the development of the oil and gas industry will accelerate economic growth, and job creation, improve the general prosperity of Ugandans and catapult the country into middle-income status. Petroleum Authority of Uganda estimates that about 200,000 people will be employed in the oil and gas sector.

However, climate campaigners have been opposing oil developments in the country citing environmental issues, climate change, and community rights violations. As a result, financiers of fossil fuel projects like banks, insurers, and other financial players have been urged to refrain from providing financial support for oil projects.

“Biodiversity is seriously threatened by Total’s oil operations. Government should encourage green economic investments in clean energy. These are inclusive and have the greatest multiplier effects on employment,” said Diana Nabiruma, the communications officer, at Africa Institute for Energy Governance.

This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network’s Indigenous Story Grants

Aiding Poverty By Smuggling A Rare Black Stone For 30 Pieces Of Silver

UbuntuTimes
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Aiding Poverty By Smuggling A Rare Black Stone For 30 Pieces Of Silver

For Claudious Murungweni (not his real name), a 35-year-old bus conductor plying the Zimbabwe-South Africa cross-border route, the corruption and smuggling of a low base mineral has turned around his economic fortunes.

From a paltry equivalent of US$90 dollars as a monthly salary, Murungweni now has a new avenue that is financing his livelihood running into thousands of US dollars.

Since October 2021 when the government relaxed the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that enabled cross-border buses to carry passengers, Murungweni says he has been approached by “good guys with great deals.”

“I carry raw granite stone slabs cut from the main blocks. These black granite slabs are movable by bus so for that job we get ZAR25 000 rand (US$1 600). First transaction is just a fifty percent deposit that I use to pay (bribe) the police and revenue collection officials at the Beitbridge border post.

“When we get to South Africa that is when I am paid the balance,” says Murungweni.

For the trip, Murungweni shares the money with the bus driver, and also bribes Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) officials at the Beitbridge border post and their South African counterparts.

Zimbabwe is a country richly endowed with useful diverse mineral resources. Despite this vast mineral resource base, more attention has been placed on highly valued minerals like gold and diamonds when people talk of smuggling.

The illicit financial flow in the mining sector according to the government through Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe costs the state US$100 million each month in lost revenues, a total of US$1.2 billion annually.

The issue of illicit financial flows affecting Zimbabwe’s struggling economy has moved from highly precious minerals like gold to low minerals like the granite stone, now known as “the black gold.”

From where the granite stone is mined by the Chinese, in Mutoko, a rural area about 140 kilometers east of the capital Harare, villagers have little to show off the mineral mined in their area, except bearing the brunt of environmental damage.

Granite mining damages the environment
The mining of Granite in Mutoko has left a trail of environmental degradation. Mining companies have not come up with initiatives to protect the environment. Credit: Ubuntu Times

A 2019 investigation conducted by ZELA on the financial and social impact of black granite mining in Mutoko revealed that less than ten percent of Zimbabwe’s granite is cut and polished locally with the bulk of it being exported in its raw form as “granite merely cut into blocks.”

Because issues of smuggling are not treated with precision in courts, a close associate to the country’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Ms. Henrietta Rushwaya, was in October 2020 intercepted at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International airport with six kilogrammes of gold worth an estimated US$366,000 in her handbag en-route to the United Arab Emirates.

She was arrested, spent days in prison and later released from custody in January 2021 on ZWL$100 000 bond. However,  her case is now collapsing after anti-corruption advocates hinted that the way her case is progressing has been engineered to collapse because of her close links to the Mnangagwa family.

“If I get arrested I will just know I am a small fish, and those heavily involved in smuggling are walking scot-free. That means our system has broken down and people can just do all they can to earn a living. I do not even ask where the granite stone is going,” adds Murungweni.

According to Shamiso Mtisi, the spokesperson of the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association (ZELA), from where the black granite is mined “environmental damage and lack of community benefits for the people of Mutoko” are key characteristics.

“We hear there are issues of the smuggling of the black granite stone from Zimbabwe specifically because of its fineness and being a great quality mineral. Unfortunately, there is a failure to have it benefit the communities from where it is mined.

“What is procedural is to have granite exported through formal procedures by going to the Minerals Marketing Cooperation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ), but the money that these mining companies pay as a mining levy is inadequate. Those levies deny the communities opportunities for development,” said Mtisi.

Export cumulative figures by the Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (Zimstat) revealed that in 2020 Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, China, Greece and Spain are among the top export destinations of unbeneficiated granite.

The Black Gold, the new name for Granite stone
A heavy machine seen atop the huge Granite boulders mined in Mutoko. Credit: Ubuntu Times

Mutoko is not an exception regarding general environmental, economic and social challenges resulting from the mining of black granite.

To curb smuggling syndicates and plug illicit financial flows, the Zimra border controls say the upgrading of the Beitbridge Border post into a “world class” center is one that will help break the stranglehold of smuggling syndicates.

Zimra head of corporate communications Francis Chimanda says the authority is working to improve security to reduce instances of smuggling by improving the bus terminal that will see all travellers.

“The new bus terminal (at the border) will provide facilities where all buses will have their goods offloaded and checked before authority to proceed will be granted by revenue officers through scanning of gate passes to activate the opening of boom gates.

“This will go a long way in ensuring that the buses are checked and authority to proceed is granted. The upgrade will also generally improve security and reduce instances of smuggling at the Beitbridge border post as the new measure for traffic control and movement have improved the checks and balances,” Chimanda says.

Chimanda also pointed out that Zimra officials have embarked on random searches of buses to break the smuggling syndicates but they have not intercepted any with black granite stone.

“Currently random searches are being done on exit buses and to date, no interceptions have been made on granite being smuggled. Having said that any instances of possible smuggling will be thoroughly investigated” Chimanda adds.

Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) spokesperson Dosman Mangisi says as long as government and policymakers in Zimbabwe do not come up with a Minerals and Metals Beneficiation policy, the country’s minerals will continue to be smuggled out.

He says the value of beneficiation should be explained to the communities where the minerals are being mined in order to empower locals.

“Basically we are lagging behind as a country because Zimbabwe has no legal and policy instruments that enable value addition of our minerals. We have no metal beneficiation laws.

“Our principals should come with beneficiation policy frameworks that govern this. The ones we have speak of mining on a touch-here-touch-there basis,” Mangisi says.

For example, sample surveys conducted by the ZMF since 2016 have concluded that Zimbabwe is sitting on US$30 billion worth of iron ore but the country is currently importing 70 percent of its iron requirements.

“For this country to unlock value, granite beneficiation should be done at community level through a formulated Minerals and Metals Beneficiation policy. These minerals should therefore be classified so that we know their uses and value.

“As long as we do not have beneficiation policies we will never know the value of what we have,” adds Mangisi.

He also urged the government to start beneficiation awareness campaigns at community level so that locals know what value their minerals have.

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.

Potential Security Risks In Southern Africa As Zambia Hosts AFRICOM

Gibson Nyikadzino
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Potential Security Risks In Southern Africa As Zambia Hosts AFRICOM

The United States of America’s military footprint has been felt in Southern Africa after a security pact signed between Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema and the US embassy in Lusaka on April 25 received both condemnation and commendation across the regional political divide.

There are fears the presence of US forces through the Africa Command’s Office of Strategic Cooperation in Zambia will create new insecurities for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region than those that existed before, both traditional and non-traditional threats.

When AFRICOM was formed in 2007, two African countries, Botswana and Liberia, considered hosting it before Thabo Mbeki, then South Africa’s president and his Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota opposed the idea.

“That would constitute an unacceptable violation of Africa’s sovereignty,” Mbeki said then.

On August 29, 2007, SADC announced its position “that it is better if the United States were involved with Africa from a distance rather than be present on the continent.” Then SADC Defence and Security Ministers further stated “that sister countries of the region should not agree to host AFRICOM and in particular, armed forces since this would have a negative effect. That recommendation was presented to the Heads of State and this is a SADC position.”

Then Zambia’s president Levy Mwanawasa reaffirmed Zambia’s stance on October 2, 2007, when he stated “none of us is interested” in hosting AFRICOM forces.

The move by Hichilema, nine months after winning the presidency in 2021, is the first by a SADC member state to go against the bloc’s strategic culture.

“We are pleased to announce that US Africa Command will open an Office of Security Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Zambia. Visiting AFRICOM Brigadier General Peter Bailey made the announcement during a meeting with His Excellency President Hichilema,” read the tweet on the embassy’s official handle.

The US military footprint in the horn of Africa and its central command’s military operations in the Middle East, Asia and South East Asia and North Africa have exacerbated, not ameliorated insecurity and instability.

Disclose Contents Of Cooperation Agreement

Political leaders have called on Hichilema, who campaigned on a ticket of transparency and accountability, to publicise the contents of the cooperation agreement entered into between his country and the US.

Setting the record straight
Following the furore created by Zambia’s decision to allow the US’ Africa Command to open an Office of Security Cooperation at its embassy in the Southern African country, on May 3 at the World Press Freedom Day commemorations President Hichilema defended Zambia’s position by telling the press to stop “spreading falsehoods.” Credit: Joanne Mwale / Ubuntu Times

Acting secretary-general of the former governing Patriotic Front (PF) party, Nickson Chilangwa, in a statement on May 1 demanded “that President Hichilema and his Government make full disclosure of the content and nature of the agreement he has made with the Americans.”

Chilangwa said president Hichilema acted unilaterally without constitutional authority, consultation and consensus from the citizens.

“Why were the Zambian people not consulted before such a monumental decision with far-reaching consequences was made? America is at war with several nations and allowing them to set up a military base here in Zambia directly puts Zambia in harm’s way with all those fighting with America.

“We demand that the President rescinds his decision to allow America to set up a military base or a military command centre on our soil.

“Allowing a foreign power to establish a military base on our soil does not only put us in grave danger of deadly repercussions from those opposing America but deeply compromise our own national security and leaves us bare to attacks and manipulations by others,” said Chilangwa.

Chilangwa said the speed with which President Hichilema and his United Party for National Development (UPND) government are “turning Zambia into a colony or appendage of the West is a great source of concern to all well-meaning Zambians.”

The PF’s position and reprimand on president Hichilema have also been buttressed by Zambia’s Socialist Party. A statement by the Socialist Party rejected the establishment of the Office of Security Cooperation with AFRICOM citing five reasons.

“There is a real danger of the country’s military doctrine being hijacked through this form of security cooperation. It will be extremely dangerous and fatal to turn the Zambia military into some extended arm of the American military.

“The US military operates not only to provide an advantage to the United States and its ruling elites, but it functions, along with the armies of the other NATO nations, including France, as the guarantor of Western corporate interests and the principles of capitalism,” read the Socialist Party statement.

Firefighting! No Smoke Without Fire

Both the President and Zambia’s ministry of defence have come out dismissing claims that there are no AFRICOM bases soon to be set up in the southern African country.

No military bases to be established by America in Zambia
Zambia Defence Minister Mr. Lufuma said his office will work with the US Africa Command force to enhance military to military relations, expand areas of cooperation in-force management and modernization, as well as military professionalism. Credit: Joanne Mwale / Ubuntu Times

“There are only Zambian military bases in Zambia. Let’s not be debating falsehoods,” tweeted president Hichilema two days after his defence minister Ambrose Lufuma played down the talk of AFRICOM military bases in Zambia.

Said minister Lufuma: “The AFRICOM being referred to on social media platforms is based in Germany and the Zambian government has not at any given time agreed to move to Zambia.”

Lufuma also warned those fanning misinformation.

“The ministry of defence would like to take this opportunity to warn all perpetrators of such misinformation meant to tarnish our existing cordial relationship with our neighbours and strategic partners to desist from issuing alarming statements which hinge on the security and territorial integrity of our nation,” he warned.

Who Can Turn Down US friendship?

Zambia’s governance expert McDonald Chipenzi argues that the position taken by Zambia is within her national interest in the face of an ever-growing threat from Islamist militants in neighbouring Mozambique. He says no country would turn a blind eye to partnering with the “mighty US.”

“The hard fact is that there are very few countries in the world that would not like to partner with the mighty US in broad daylight or in the night (daylight or behind the closed doors).

“Let us not only look at security from the physical aspect, but also logically too and we have to ask ourselves a few questions such as who controls the space? Who controls our technological portals, our cyber highways? Who controls the Electronic City?

“We use the Windows on our computers as our operating systems in our offices or even in Vulnerable Points (VP), our would-be High Valued Targets (HVT) but who has the back door details of these gadgets if it is not America?” asked Chipenzi.

Chipenzi added Zambia’s interests are a priority in an ever-changing global environment.

Security Headache For SADC

University of Zimbabwe International Security and Strategic Studies lecturer Dr. Lawrence Mhandara said the presence of the AFRICOM in SADC is the continuation of the US pursuit of influence in the midst of competition from other global powers through other means.

“The competition is expanding in spatial terms. International influence can be achieved through economic, diplomatic, military and informational means. In this case, the US is making a rational decision to use its military capabilities to impose itself on Southern Africa, in particular extending its approach of international basing, and security cooperation.

“The bilateral arrangement validates the long tradition of US statecraft whose cornerstone is a militarized foreign policy. History has ineffaceable evidence showing a proclivity by the superpower to implement foreign policy through coercive instruments in a sequenced fashion,” said Dr. Mhandara.

The anticipated presence of the AFRICOM in Zambia leaves regional leaders with more to think about, given the affluent history of American interventionism and its colourful brand of intrusive politics.

In this regard, the militarization of US foreign policy is seen as the substratum of its status as a superpower yet an agonizing and tragic reality with the potential to supply complicated security risks and instability in Southern Africa.

SADC, indeed Africa, is likely to be afflicted by a host of security challenges as great power competition for influence and control intensifies.  The move by America is likely to elicit responses in kind from other global powers keen on counteracting the undesired influence.

The US is furthermore attempting to regain influence in a region dominated by Chinese allies. But the choice of the military instruments to mediate this competition may have cataclysmic outcomes.

Despair Has Become The Daily Bread Of Ghanaians Amid Cost Of Living Crisis

Delali Adogla-Bessa
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Despair Has Become The Daily Bread Of Ghanaians Amid Cost Of Living Crisis

Regardless of the circumstance, the average Ghanaian’s favorite platitude is “we are managing.” Be it a rough patch in school, scraping for the rent or struggling with a rickety car, the ordinary Ghanaian is likely to still point to the light at the end of the tunnel. The first months of 2022 have changed that.

You needn’t point to the 13-year high in inflation (23.6%) or other data points to know that. All you require is a quick trip through town, where the hike in fuel prices, transport fares and food prices are pummeling Ghanaians into submission. For example, Ghana’s Statistical Service noted that in April 2022, rising food prices accounted for 50% of inflation.

Ghana’s cost of living crisis isn’t just about rising prices. It also has to do with static incomes and depreciating savings. Everything is going up except salaries. Then there’s the small matter of a government that has not helped ease the misery of Ghanaians with its insincere posturing.

While key factors driving up the cost of living are global, Ghanaians are frankly tired of officials that hold up the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently, the war in Ukraine, as the reason for the prevailing despair.

What would be a change of pace will be for the government to acknowledge failings in critical areas during its six years in power. We are a far cry from the days when Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo, proclaimed that his administration had “the men” to protect the public purse, secure an economic turnaround and usher in an era of industrialization and prosperity.

Now, all Ghanaians have are slogans like ‘One District, One Factory’ and ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ that elicit scorn instead of hope. For most Ghanaians, we live in a utopia of development and progress – but only on paper, because we are great at identifying problems and formulating inspiring manifestos and development plans. The reality, however, feels like a gyre of curses and misfortune.

The buck always stops with leadership. What Ghanaians see when they look to theirs for empathy and direction is a complete lack of it. Consider the picture of citizens commuting in chunks of tetanus on a daily basis as President Akufo-Addo came under fire for obscene amounts spent on a luxury jet for travel.

The symbol of government insensitivity in recent months has, however, been the new and controversial 1.5 percent tax on all electronic transactions above 100 Ghana cedis ($13). For those already paying income tax, one understands why the levy is considered cruel double taxation. But the government’s commitment to the taxes on fuel is the bigger cruelty for me.

Fuel is viewed as having the most consequential ripple effect on the cost of living. Part of this is because the tax build-up of finished fuel products, sometimes described as nuisance taxes, make up about 29% of what Ghanaians pay. When fuel prices go up, so do transport prices, and then food, and then commerce becomes the wild west.

In one of the more infuriating recent developments, public school feeding caterers, who serve vulnerable and poor kids, have had to protest to demand an increase in the current daily allocation of 0.97 Ghana cedis ($0.13) per child. Unconscionable.

Just when Ghanaians thought things could not get any worse, the utility companies distributing electricity and water popped up like horsemen of the apocalypse, indicating they want a 148% and 334% increase in tariffs, respectively. With a lot of Ghanaians and businesses already stretched thin, this could be a killing blow.

Ghana’s social emergency is all too real, and it is high time the current government acknowledged how false promises have intensified this crisis. Flagship programs that were supposed to address fundamental issues like food security are bearing rotten fruits. Ghana wouldn’t be depending this much on imports and crippling the Ghanaian cedi if a policy like ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ was working.

Because of this, Ghana’s main agricultural worker’s union talks like Ghana an Old Testament famine is about to befall Ghana. Who can blame them? As the weeks go by, I doubt them less.

But as Ghanaians hold the government to the fire and demand accountability, they must also hold a mirror to themselves. Perhaps it is time Ghanaians finally prove Kwame Nkrumah right for saying “Ghanaians are not timid people… They may be slow to anger and may take time to organize and act. But once they are ready, they strike and strike hard.”

Like the distressing scenes in Sri Lanka, we must not swat at this crisis with despair. Instead, our feet should become one with the streets as we voice our anger at the government’s incompetence and demand a leadership that treats its people with dignity.

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