Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Who among the seven longest serving African leaders will be deposed next?
By Isaac Esipisu
Several African leaders watching news of the death of Africa ’s longest serving leader are wondering who among them is next and how they will leave office.
Three of the ten longest serving leaders have fallen this year – Ben Ali of Tunisia ruled for 23 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt ruled for 30 years and the longest, the Brother Leader of Libya ruled for 42 years – all gone in the last six months.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea (32), Jose Santos of Angola (32), Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (31), Paul Biya of Cameroon (29) and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (25), King Mswati III of Swaziland (24), Blaise Campore of Burkina Fasso (24) and still going strong, and must be wondering whose turn is next.
Teodoro and Jose Santos take the number one spot as the longest serving Presidents with 32 years of ruling Equatorial Guinea and Angola respectively and from what has happened in Africa this year and to Gaddafi this week, it is a post neither of them would be proud off right now.
Although the revolts have so far been limited to North Africa, increasingly there are protests against regimes in other African countries. Whether triggered by economic conditions—food and fuel prices, poor job opportunities or service delivery failures, the mass protests are becoming important and have forced policy changes. Slowly but surely, these revolutions are heading south and, unless Africa ’s long-serving leaders pave the way for inclusive governance and relinquish their power, they are increasingly likely to face the same fate as the North African ones.
Critics pan Africa’s new patron of the sciences
Think scientific excellence and Equatorial Guinea may not immediately spring to mind.
Still less might you think of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, whose 30-year rule over the tiny central African oil producer country has left him with an international reputation for corruption and civil rights abuses.
Yet that did not stop the United Nations’ cultural arm UNESCO from naming an award for life sciences achievement after Obiang, who is funding the prize to the tune of $3 million. The lucky winner will be known next month.
Rights groups are incensed.
“The grim irony of awarding a prize recognizing ‘scientific achievements that improve the quality of human life’, while naming it for a president whose 30-year rule has been marked by the brutal poverty and fear of his people and a global reputation for governmental corruption, would bring shame on UNESCO,” 30 groups said in a May 10 letter to UNESCO.
“We repeat our call for the $3 million that UNESCO has accepted from President Obiang to be applied to the education and welfare of Equatoguineans, rather than the glorification of their president,” they urged.
Obiang is no stranger to controversy.
I commend you on supporting your people. I am living in America and because I asked my Mother to report a White Pastor for stealing my vote during a National Baptist Convention, we were both mis-used for a city’s drug program and neither of us are drug addicts. Detroit’s former Mayor Kwamee Kilpatrick told a union that I was gay and drug dealer when I returned to Michigan from Oklahoma. A man from Michigan had bombed the Federal Building there but this was not considered. Michigan allowed a Mayor in question to come up over both Church and State and make a judgement that ruined my reputation and work. This program is how politicians in America come back after their own sin by using anyone in public as a replacement or sacrafice.
A question of scale
For days now Britons have been regaled with newspaper stories detailing the dubious expense claims of their Members of Parliament.
The Honourable Members, it seems, have been charging for everything from a few thousand pounds for clearing a moat to a few pence for a new bath plug. An outraged nation has risen almost as one to denounce its greedy lawmakers.
But while the various schemes devised by the members of the Mother of Parliaments are ingenious in the way they exploit the generous rules laid down by the “Fees Office” of the House of Commons, they do lack a certain scale.
When it comes to separating the state from its money, politicians in Africa, for example, show none of the inhibitions of their British colleagues.
In Nigeria this month two senior lawmakers investigating corruption in the power sector were detained in connection with a scam involving electricity contracts. How much money involved? $41 million.
In March, Nigerian police arrested a former state governor who is under investigation for misappropriation of funds totalling $170 million.
Enormous sums of money compared with the thousands of pounds involved in Britain, but still small change compared to the billions stolen by Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and Nigeria’s Sani Abacha.
We are entering a new Century and it will be defined as the Information Century.And whether these Politicians sit in the House of Commons or in the furthest frontiers of the Globe, they are set to feel its hot breath on their collar.Aly-Khan Satchuwww.rich.co.keTwitter alykhansatchu
Is justice being done in Simon Mann’s trial?
Eton-educated British mercenary Simon Mann has gone on trial in Equatorial Guinea for his role in a 2004 coup plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. The state prosecutor is seeking a jail term of nearly 32 years for Mann, who has admitted in a British TV interview this year that he plotted to topple Obiang. Mann’s defence lawyer has argued that his client was a “mere instrument” in the plot, but not one of the main organisers. The prosecution has named Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as one of the businessmen conspirators who invested in the coup plot. Mark Thatcher denies knowing about the coup and is not on trial in Malabo. So, with Mann’s trial and the death of notorious French mercenary Bob Denard last year, is the era of the “dogs of war” over in Africa? Or will Equatorial Guinea’s huge oil riches soon tempt others to hire foreign guns for a violent takeover of power? Is justice being done in the case of Mann, or should others be with him there in the dock? The rule of President Obiang, who overthrew his dictatorial uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a 1979 coup, has been sharply criticised by international human rights groups who accuse him of abuses and restricting political freedoms. Some might argue that a “regime change” such as the one plotted by Mann might have been good for Equatorial Guinea. What do you think?
Africa is a joke and corrupt and we (British) need to intervene to get our chaps out ! Africa is Africa enough said!!
Dear Isaac Esipisu and all,
Thanks for your comments, thoughts and views. But in my point of view the fall of northern Saharan countries’ leaders shall rather serve as lesson to the others. I would NOT predict who goes next or otherwise, but if the remaining GREAT and everlasting leaders as they call themselves watched all those events in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Yemen and now Syria then I will rather ADVISE them to change their internal policy.
Because as matter of reality if a leader understand his people by providing them with minimum of needs, jobs, security, good infrastructures and care I can assure them that nothing would happen even if they would like to remain in power for life alike predicted others are now gone…may their souls remain in peace. Unfortunately our African leaders are more likely interested in their power securing rather than the welfare of their populations. Therefore as long Africans eyes are now widely opened by other countries’ developments and grows if they do not act now, then they shall pay the price of their…