The embarrassing grotesqueness of presidents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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