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Nigeria’s
crippling Eyadema syndrome
I was not part
of those who made merry when Togolese President, Gnasingbe Eyadema
graced the swearing-in ceremony of President Olusegun Obasanjo on
May 29. If anything I almost began to sense some trouble of contagion.
Eyadema’s recent victory in a flawed election process after his
36-year reign, in one of West Africa’s tiniest countries, reinforces
my fears. With a renewed six-year mandate, Africa’s longest ruler
may eventually hold on to power for 42 years. This will shame the
record of former Malawian President, Hastings Kamuzu Banda who ruled
for 30 years or that of President Muamar Ghadafi who has been in
power for 34 years. Although Eyadema is basking in a phyric victory,
he could also be on the path of harakiri in a continent almost torn
apart by growing rebel activities. And where Private Military Companies
(PMCs) from Executive Outcomes, Sandline, MPRI and others are reaping
gold and diamond and having fun in a raging huge theatre of operations.
If poor stricken
Sierra Leone could contract Executive Outcomes for $36 million to
rout the RUF from Freetown, you can imagine that the PMCs with headquarters
in Europe and America, are doing big business profiting from the
numerous conflicts in different parts of Africa. No one is sure
whether Eyadema would heed the counsel of former Nigerian Head of
State, General Yakubu Gowon to leave after getting tired of wielding
power. Since he overthrew President Sylvanus Olympio in 1967, Eyadema
has held forth like a rock of Gilbratha. Short of providing any
new ideas to re-energise the economy of Togo and sowing the seed
of a rebel movement sympathetic to his main political opponent,
Gilchrist Olympio, there’s a ring of enigma about Eyadema’s future.
He certainly appears not in a hurry to leave power.
He also does
not pay his perceived opponents gladly. Eyadema must be indebted
to the French president, Jacque Chirac for brokering a piece process
between his government and rebels resolved on smothering the country.
But how this infamous grand master of Togo became a regular face
at peace conference tables in Africa is intriguing. A man who gave
a tacit consent to the subversion of the country’s constitution,
shut the door against Olympio and conducted a kangaroo election
to legitimise his rule has no moral basis mediating in conflicts
in Africa. I do not understand why belligerent groups in Africa
would prefer to trust Eyadema, who’s still largely haunted by the
ghost of Sylvanus Olympio with their crises and cross. But we live
in a continent where logic walks on its head and all semblance of
morality have been thrown asunder. Back to my great worry. Shortly
after his moon slide victory in the April election, President Obasanjo
had allayed fears that he plans to come back via the democratic
road the third time. A friend was not amused by this resolve from
Baba. “Who is asking him about that?’, he queried. But who says
that the Eyadema syndrome is not beginning to cripple in here.
The president
may just be prodding us to read his lips. We have just gone through
an election that many would prefer to call a selection process.
By 2007 it may not make any meaning spending huge funds to print
posters or canvassing for votes. People will be declared winners
almost without lifting a finger. Everyone tells you we are in difficult
times, which require taking the bile and other excruciating steps.
I suspect the drummers of this model are not intent on selling their
bogey of the powerful and strong leader. General Pervez Musharraf
who transmuted to President in Pakistan is now sold as the deliverer
for opening a door for American onslaught against the Taliban in
Afghanistan. Afterall they contend that Franklin Delano Roosevelt
presided over the US, spending an unprecedented four terms in office
between 1933 - 1945.
If this author
of the economic programme which revamped the harrowing depression
years and also presided over the affairs of the Second World War,
thereby serving the longest term by any American president, some
say why not here. Quite frankly, Obasanjo is being sold as the strong
and powerful leader poised to take us out of our prevailing economic
mess. Some say the president has demonstrated with his dogged commitment
to a programme of privatisation and commercialisation that he can
be trusted to mind the interests of international finance agencies.
Others also argue that he needs to be given enough time to fix the
intractable and dithering Nigerian project. It would depend on the
president whether he wants to be swayed by those angling for a romanticisation
of the strong leader.
I think he
would concur and stay only at his own peril. This permutation game
will however not be new. Many African leaders have experimented
with the Eyadema syndrome. President Muluzi of Malawi almost railroaded
his countrymen into a third term against the principles of the constitution
until he was rebuffed by popular revolt. Unknown to many, former
Ghanaian President, Jerry John Rawlings toyed with the idea of sustaining
a dynasty until it blew in his face. After his botched attempt to
amend the country’s 1992 constitution to pave way for a third term,
Rawlings opted for what appeared as the ridiculous. According to
African Confidential, the former Ghanaian leader as part of the
game plan to concretise a Rawlings dynasty rallied his party to
present his wife, Agyemah to succeed him as president.
When this met
a brickwall, Rawlings made a detour by supporting his vice president,
Professor John Attah Mills. The African Confidential revealed that
Rawlings contemplated being running mate to Mills in his determined
effort to keep his dynasty afloat until he was ridiculed to abandon
the idea in the court of public opinion.
First published
in the Sunday Punch on June 29, 2003.
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