US and Europe still rule in Africa

In recent times we have frequently heard this refrain from African leaders and nationalists: African solutions for African problems. It was reassuring to hear this. At least here was commitment to deal with our own problems. We did not need the meddling of strangers. And to give them credit, many African leaders did indeed seek local solutions to local issues. In the last few months, however, this effort seems to have been lacking in the face of some very serious crises. Foreigners have again taken centre-stage in seeking ways to resolve them. Take the case of Nigeria. An armed outfit of Islamic fundamentalists (at least that is what they claim) called Boko Haram has been causing mayhem in Northern Nigeria for a few years now. They have burnt down entire towns, destroyed homes and massacred hundreds of ordinary civilians. The world did not seem to notice. No African country offered to help. And so Boko Haram continued to commit atrocities almost at will. The world took notice when Boko Haram fighters abducted nearly three hundred school girls from their dormitories, burnt their school to the ground and marched them into the bush. Even then it took more than weeks before international outrage could be voiced. French President Francois Hollande seized the opportunity to summon several West African presidents to Paris, including Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, to work out a rescue plan for the girls and how to deal with Boko Haram. The elderly men trouped to Paris and appeared before Hollande, docile like errant children expecting to be chastised for doing wrong. Even the usually colourless and sheepish French president looked a little bemused at the obsequious behaviour of his usually puffed up guests. The presidents agreed to increase cooperation between their two countries and to work together to defeat terrorism. It had taken a European country to get African countries to do the obvious – work together to deal with a common threat. Did it require a trip to Paris to agree such common sense steps? Maybe it needs someone to knock together the heads of our important men for them to do what is expected of them. Earlier in the West African country of Mali, rebels had cut the country into two. Countries from the region talked about sending troops to restore Malian government authority over the whole country. They never got round to doing so. It took French military intervention to restore the unity of Mali. Only then did African troops go in. In the Eastern African region, the South Sudan state is on the brink of collapse. What started as a power struggle between the President and his deputy has turned into a full scale civil war. Since December last year when hostilities broke out, the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional grouping of some Eastern African countries, has held several meetings to try to end the conflict. Solutions included sending in troops to stop the fratricidal fighting. To date no such troops have been sent to South Sudan. Only Uganda sent in its troops and probably saved the government of Salva Kiir. IGAD could not even get President Salva Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar to meet. It took the United States Secretary of State John Kerry to get the two men to meet and sign a peace deal. The persuasion to strike a deal was none too gentle if we are to believe Sava Kiir’s story of threats of arrest by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. It seems you need strong arm tactics to knock sense into strong-headed men. Of course, the agreement has not completely held, but at least there is a framework. So why has it proved difficult for Africans to deal with serious conflicts on the continent? It is clear that to get some stubborn warriors to cease fire and impose order requires muscle – financial and military. Most of our countries lack that. The strong ones like Nigeria and South Africa have not stepped up to the challenge because of internal weaknesses and sometimes selfish motives. Credit must be given where it is due. Nigeria used to intervene in West African conflicts with some degree of success. But when it comes to internal problems, sometimes local politics have stood in the way of decisive action. Regional groupings like IGAD have shown willingness to tackle the South Sudan conflict but clearly lack the financial and logistical means to drum sense into the heads of headstrong fighters. No single country or regional organisation seems to have other forms of leverage on belligerents that can be used to bring them into line. As long as there are no single or regional powers to lean heavily on protagonists in a conflict with the threats of dire consequences, such crises as we are seeing in South Sudan will continue. It will fall on the United States and other countries like France to impose order. For France and President Hollande in particular, African conflicts seem like a godsend. They are an opportunity to re-establish French hold on its former colonies that had been loosening in the last decade or so. Twitter: @jrwagatare

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US and Europe still rule in Africa