OBASANJO LAMENTS MUBARAK’S FATE

          While attending an African Leadership Conference in Mombasa, Kenya, former President Olusegun Obasanjo expressed anger at the treatment meted to the former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak at the commencement of his trial. Mubarak and his two sons were brought to the court in a cage, and the former President was himself lying on bed even while caged. The entire court appearance was televised to an international audience, obviously in an effort to cause further humiliation to the man who ruled Egypt for decades. While he was President of Egypt, Mubarak himself had arraigned some suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood in cages.

          Former President Obasanjo insists that President Mubarak deserves a better treatment and that his arraignment in a cage is not good for the image of Africa. Obasanjo said that as a former Head of State, Mubarak is entitled to be treated with a level of dignity befitting his status. He also indicted the African media for failing to police good governance because corruption had eaten too deeply into its ranks.

          The image of an obviously sick and frail Hosni Mubarak on a bed in a cage with his two sons who themselves wore prison uniforms being arraigned in a court would obviously have been designed to shock the Egyptian and international viewers, and humiliate the former leader. An act of this nature, calculated to exact maximum media coverage and to demystify the once all-powerful Mubarak family can only be the result of intense bitterness around the record of the former President and the current manoeuvres for supremacy going on in Egypt. Even as a caged Mubarak was being arraigned, clashes between his supporters and opponents were taking place outside the court. Beyond the court cases, there are intense struggles between the military administration and the rump of the protesters who brought the Mubarak regime crashing down so spectacularly. Egypt is indeed at a crossroad, and the fight for supremacy between those who feel that the gains of the successful protests are being frustrated by the post-Mubarak regime on the one hand, and those who worry that Egypt is headed towards anarchy on the other will take time and many casualties.

          It is difficult not to feel some disgust at the sight of anyone who is brought into a courtroom in a cage, on a sick bed, and in full view of cameras beaming the image to an international audience. Security considerations may explain the extreme circumstances in which suspects are brought to a court in cages necessary. President Mubarak while in power himself had tried caged suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood, using security as an excuse. But the trial of Hosni Mubarak in a cage and the manner his humiliation was publicised has only one clear motive, and this is to dehumanize and demystify him. In the manner the authorities are trying Mubarak, they have also destroyed their claim to a higher moral ground. They cannot claim to be better than him, and this is saying a lot for a man whose record of ruthless response to opposition knew no boundaries.

          The pathetic image of Hosni Mubarak beamed across the globe may give some Egyptians some pleasure, or satisfaction but it is likely to offend the rest of the civilized world which still holds firmly to the values of respect for human dignity. The treatment of Mubarak is also providing people like former President Obasanjo an opportunity and a platform to claim some moral high ground for himself. When the rest of Africa has turned its back on events in Libya and Egypt, leaders with a nose for opportunities like former President Obasanjo will easily find them occasions to draw attention to themselves.

          President Obasanjo governed Nigeria for eight years, and would have secured more for himself if the third-term project had not been scuttled. Who can tell what would have happened if Nigerians had conceded to the falsehood that only Obasanjo could have ensured the unity and progress of Nigeria beyond 2007? This was the falsehood perfected and foisted on Egyptians by Hosni Mubarak, and today they are parading him before the whole world on a sick bed, caged in a court. Obasanjo enjoyed a close personal relationship with Hosni Mubarak, and had even floated the idea that Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa together were to spearhead a programme for Africa’s Renaissance. Perhaps Obasanjo was too blind to the fact that Mubarak ruled his nation with an iron fist, and Egypt was not, by any yardstick, a good example of a democratic African nation. Even out of office as president, Obasanjo is still battling to maintain his grip on Nigeria’s  politics, and only a few days ago, he decreed that the speaker of the House of Representatives, who was validly elected by legislators, must give way in the near future over a party arrangement which President Obasanjo himself had helped to discredit.

          Many African leaders have treated their people with contempt and disdain, perhaps in the vain and dangerous belief that they can stay in power for ever. President Mubarak is paying the price for his decades of defiance of the will of the Egyptian people to live under legitimate leaders, but the authorities who are parading him in a cage are no better than him. The world should tell them that, and not allow people like former President Obasanjo, whose record in office and outside it will not stand rigorous scrutiny, to make capital out of a nation’s misfortune.