At the Commissioning Ceremony of the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ajomugobia lamented the hypocrisy of the Western World which is now involved in a full assault on Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, while an impostor in Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo is shooting down defenseless old women. This one sentence comment on what is going on in two important parts of Africa is all that Nigeria can make, when, in fact, it should have led the way towards a more comprehensive intervention in both Cote d’Ivoire and North Africa long before the shameful tragedies unfolding in both Libya and Cote d’Ivoire.
As if taking a cue from the feeble comment of Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, leaders of Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe have also issued statements condemning the West’s air strikes in Libya. The leaders of Uganda and South Africa were members of a five-member African leaders group set up by the African Union to find a solution to the Libyan crisis, before the western nations used their usual muscle in the United Nations to bomb the initiative out of existence, and impose their own version of a solution to the Libyan crisis. In fact, South Africa actually voted for the United Nation’s resolution which authorized military action in Libya ostensibly to protect civilians. Now President Zuma accuses the Western powers of exceeding the mandate of the U.N by adopting regime-change tactics, and seeking the outright removal of Ghaddafi. Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe says the West is not bombing Libya to save Ghaddafi’s civilians from him, but is after Libya’s oil wealth. The African Union itself has called for an end to the military intervention in Libya.
Events in Libya and the belated and ineffective lamentations of the African Union and a few African leaders will remind Africans and the world how tragically weak Africa is today. It is beyond doubt that Muammar Ghaddafi should have stepped down weeks ago, as has been demanded by his people, after 42 years in power. He defied the legitimate demands of his people, unlike the Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, and therefore deserved to be pushed out. But Africa should have taken the initiative to lend a hand in this direction, and not allow the West to do so. Africa’s shame and weakness is now being exposed by its leaders through belated and embarrassing condemnation.
Today, hundreds of thousands of Libyans are fighting each other, and many more will die before Ghaddafi is ousted or killed. Hundreds of thousand more citizens are in hiding from both Ghaddafi’s troops and the bombs of Western powers. Many will be caught in the crossfire and die, after suffering many years of Ghaddafi’s misrule and the hostility of the same western powers. In the end, Ghaddafi will almost certainly die or lead his country into a bitter civil war. The West would have finally achieved a long-sought for objective of removing an irritant in the form of Ghaddafi, and of re-asserting itself into the affairs of Libya and Africa. The Libyan people will have to chart a future largely on the terms of the Western powers who will claim credit for removing Ghaddafi, and who will demand their price in allegiance and oil, as they do in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And all these because Africa doesn’t have the political clout and will to have been decisive in demanding, at all cost, that Ghaddafi left when his people demanded that he did. Africans are left to watch daily bombardments of another African country, the killing and maiming of thousands of fellow Africans by French, US and British bombs, and our leaders, who themselves do not differ much from Ghaddafi in terms of their records or commitments to their people. Africa is back to the dark days of naked imperialism, when foreign weapons and armies will invade at will and affect whatever changes they desire. If it is Libya today, it could be Zimbabwe tomorrow or any other African country.
The Libyan tragedy is even more painful when we remember that in Cote d’Ivoire, there is a criminal impostor who is using government troops to kill women, and keep himself in power, while the elected leader of the country is running from pillar to post in his hotel room trying to get Africa and the international community to help him actualize the mandate of his people. We have not seen western planes bombing Laurent Gbagbo’s strongholds. We have not seen African leaders sending troops to help Alassane Outtara. The U.N Security Council has not authorized use of force to protect civilians in Cote d’Ivoire from the rampaging troops of the impostor, Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire.
Ghaddafi has brought death, pain and suffering on the Libyan people because he believes he is greater than their will. Africa has allowed the Western powers to exploit its weaknesses and poverty to re-establish its control over our affairs. African leaders are guilty of unpardonable irresponsibility, perhaps because they are also afraid of their own people. Ordinary Africans now realize that they cannot rely on corrupt and weak leaders to protect them. They will continue to rise against these leaders, and they will rise against the western powers who maintain the leaders, and then turn around and bomb them when the people rise against them. The lessons from Libya are many; but the most important is that bad leadership will collapse under the weight of popular opinion, and the hypocrisy of western powers will not be lost on the African people.
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