Gaddafi and the sundown on Africa’s ‘strong men’
- Nyerere not Nkrumah saw tomorrow
No
one had seen it happening so soon. But eventually it happened and consumed one
of Africa’s oldest dictatorships. If some cynical political writer had predicted
the fall of Col. Muammar Gaddafi in such circumstance as it finally happened,
even his worst opponents would have doubted such a gory end for a man that ruled
Libya for 42 years with iron fist.
Gaddafi’s demise inked the end of an era and signpost a new beginning for
Africans’ long search for national self- actualization in the immediate years
that followed political independence. His passage brings to the fore the solemn
choice much of those that appropriated power on the continent in the 60s had
made. Many of those that came to power either through peaceful means or violent
coup d’état hijacked the state apparatus to institutionalize themselves as the
bases of the state. Not for them the necessity to build institutions that would
secure the growth and perpetuity of the state.
Gaddafi was a totem of this distortion. He and his ilk personified that sad
truth that Africa’s tragedy rests upon the inability of those who have
appropriated power to use their position to build institutions that will
safeguard the growth of the people and the countries that make up the continent;
the same institutions that could also have safeguarded the legacies of such
leaders, if any, and also secure them from a violent end.
This choice, invariably, has always been between Kwame Nkrumah and Julius
Nyerere. One recognized the significance of building his own continuous
relevance and the country he led in institutions that must be fostered; the
other was determined to establish his own perpetuity of relevance in himself as
the institution upon which the state itself can be relevant. Posterity is
proving that Nyerere was one of Africa’s truest leaders. But sadly, it is the
Nkrumah way that most African leaders had chosen to go.
One writer notes: “Nkrumah’s period in power gave rise to a single party state
from 1964 onwards and an authoritarian system of government, which led to an
increasing concentration of power in Nkrumah’s hands as well as undemocratic
government.” Until he was overthrown by the military, Nkrumah had subverted the
common will of the people and by implication the sovereignty that is inherently
in the people. It is instructive that Accra rejoiced at his fall much the same
way Tripoli rejoiced so loudly and so recently at the fall of Gaddafi.
As Professor Mahmood Mamdani remarked (see article inside: What does Gaddafi's
fall mean for Africa?): “Gaddafi was not exceptional. The longer they stay in
power, the more African presidents seek to personalise power. Their success
erodes the institutional basis of the state. The Carribean thinker C L R James
once remarked on the contrast between Nyerere and Nkrumah, analysing why the
former survived until he resigned but the latter did not: "Dr Julius Nyerere in
theory and practice laid the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah failed to
do."
Whether in Kampala, Ouagadougou, Malabo, Gaborone, or in those lands where
‘strong men’ still hold sway in Africa , Gaddafi’s fall rings a warning that
time belongs to institutions upon which people may foist their hopes and
aspirations not ‘verandah power wielders.’ As the rebels beat and pulled Gaddafi
by the hair, the tragedy becomes clearer. Africa needs not strong men but strong
institutions as President Barak Obama clearly said in Accra months back.
Institutions would have defended Gaddafi from that horrific end. He would have
been humiliated yes but not reduced to no more than a political street thug and
shot like a common thief.
Institutions not ‘strong men’ sustain the Majesty of State offices on behalf of
the people. Once the people cannot express or safeguard their own relevance
within state institutions, they would be compelled to see their political
leaders as no more than thugs and be compelled to, once the opportunity arises,
act like thugs to remove a thug-leader.
In the long run and in spite of their other achievements as is the case with
Gaddafi, the ‘African strongmen’ ultimately constitute the obstacles to
democratic accountability and consolidation. Being individuals with mortal
time-frame, they run against the current of the truth in President James
Madison’s (American 4th President (1809-17) assertion that “the safety and
happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim,
and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.”
Strongmen tended to stifle individuality and opposition is deemed a taboo. Where
strongmen flourished, the freedom of the individual is not tolerated and the
liberty society needs to fully express its capacity for growth is stultified. On
the innate right of the citizen, James F. Cooper writes: “Individuality is the
aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action
and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions
render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his
own manner.”
Libyans under Gaddafi never had this. The voices of individuality are still
stifled in Malabo, Gaborone and elsewhere where dictatorship and pseudo
democracy holds sway on the continent. But Baobab Media is convinced that Time
and Necessity will move Africa towards the pathway that Nyerere had envisioned.
For the shrinking tribe of dictators on the continent, there is a lesson to
learn as time runs fast against their narrowed ambition. The Spanish-American
philosopher George Santayana rightly warns: "Those who refuse to learn from
history are condemned to repeat it."
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