It is a great pleasure and an honor for me to be here tonight. What was not said in the introduction is that I am an African Muslim Woman, a first generation to be educated in my family. I am sure my cleric father and traditional oriented mother would be wondering up there somewhere above about the transformation that has taken place within their daughter who was going to be taken off from school and married off at the young age of 12.
Fortunately for me and millions of other African traditional Muslim girls and all of you here tonight (something my parents do not know), is that we are the babies of the age of human rights, democracy, and good governance. We have institutionalized into reality the dreams of the framers of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have taken their dream, turned it into reality, and we are marching forward to a better life for ourselves and others. It is only in an age of human rights, democracy, and good governance that you and I can gather here today as brothers and sisters from all over the world, not because we share the same ethnic language, religion or race, but because we share the same principles and values that have created a bond amongst us.
These binding principles and values of Democracy, Human Rights, and Good Governance have spearheaded our determination and commitment; they epitomize our struggles for building true democratic nations. But it has not been an easy battlefield, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. As a generation we are still caught between the clashes of modernity, on one hand—symbolizing the freedom and ability to choose our leaders in free and fair elections on a regular basis, to enjoy a vigorous rule of law, having an independent and non-discriminatory judiciary, the ability to protect our ethnic, religious and cultural beliefs, the ability to participate and express our interests and values and to develop mechanisms to control the state’s ability of coercion—and, on the other hand, that of traditional rule representing autocratic and hereditary rulers, not leaders, chosen by divine power who stay in office until death, the patronage system, which allows our leaders to use state resources only for the benefit of family members or people loyal to them, election officers hired to rig elections, no respect for the rule of law, no impartial police to enforce the law, no impartial judges to decide or interpret the law.
This clash between the building of modern democratic states and retaining the old traditional African empires or chiefdoms that our generation has been caught between has had a very devastating effect on our continent. To quote Tony Iyare of Nigeria,
Our continent has been plunged into a huge theatre of operations, threatening to smother into shreds. From the troubled Horn to the Senegambia region, Mano River, Sahel, Great Lakes and the Maghreb, Africa is bleeding. Virtually everywhere you turn from Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Guinea, Liberia, Morocco, Eritrea, Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan, to Ethiopia, a protracted bloodbath is raging. Some countries like Zimbabwe, Guinea and Togo, owing to the intransigence of a failed vision and a rudderless leader, may just be waiting to boil.
The most ironic aspect of all this is, ladies and gentlemen, that civilization actually began on the African Continent. Our continent was a center of culture and sophistication long before the European arrived. We had one of the oldest civilizations—NOK culture flourished in Nigeria in 500 BC. The Nigerian state of Benin exchanged ambassadors with Portugal in 1486. The city of Timbuktu was a major trading centre of international fame hundreds of years ago.
In terms of resources, Africa has the largest untapped natural resources in the world. 40 percent of the world’s potential hydroelectric power supply, the bulk of the world’s supply of chromium, 30 percent of Uranium, 50 percent of the world’s diamonds, 90 percent of the world’s cobalt, 50 percent of phosphates, 40 percent platinum, enormous petroleum reserves, the world largest producer of bauxite, 3 percent iron ore, millions and millions of acres of untilled land, fertile enough to produce 130 times what it presently yields. The world’s largest producer of cocoa is an African country. There is no other continent blessed with such abundance and diversity.
Yet according to Larry Diamond the statistics tells us a grim picture about sub-Saharan Africa:
The continent is trapped in the world’s worst poverty and stagnation – it is the poorest region. Thirty of the 34 countries ranked lowest in the UNDP human development index are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Poverty, ladies and gentlemen, walks on its legs almost everywhere on our continent. In addition, we have 50 percent of the world’s estimated refugee population of 700,000, and 80 percent of the estimated 500,000 child soldiers in the world. Even nature seems to be conniving against us. Of the world’s 40 million HIV infected people, 27 million are in Africa, creating 11 million HIV orphans on our continent.
The core problem obstructing our development is not a lack of resources, although that is a serious constraint in many countries. Nor is it long years of colonialism; that was more than 40 years ago. The core problem is the lack of democratic states with true democrats as leaders. Our greatest tragedy in sub-Saharan Africa, unfortunately ladies and gentlemen, is that we have suffered from misguided dictatorships and autocratic rule for too long.
Most of our African leaders have bestowed upon themselves god-like qualities and the unquestionable authority of the most powerful chieftain. They are mostly refusing to retire as our continent’s elder statesmen, but keep changing their countries’ constitutions to extend their stays. And yet the longer they stay in power, the more disdain of their people and the greater their power becomes. They have consolidated presidential powers and planted roots of cultism, making it more difficult to get rid of them than it was to get rid of colonialism.
The role of democratic leadership in Africa has been barren for a long time now. Our first generation of leaders governed through their sheer strength and personality. The second generation of leaders, who were younger, less educated, less sophisticated, and less nationalistic mastered power politics, but little else. They silenced all opposing voices but those of the party line and succeeded to plunder our continent’s abundant resources. What we need now are democratically elected men and women with reasoned voices and clear visions to rebuild our badly battered continent.
When the independence struggle began in Africa in the 1960s we produced 95 percent of our own food. Today, every country except South Africa is an importer. Our economies have all gone backwards since independence.
It is not surprising that the two countries in Africa, Botswana and Mauritius, that have been continuously democratic since independence have been the only two countries that have achieved relatively good development performance in the past three decades.
In addition, the bloodbath of civil wars waging across our continent has taken place only in countries with long years of either military rule or one-party dictatorship: Sierra Leone, Liberia, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Uganda, Central Africa Republic, and all the others. We therefore know that the political elites in Africa are as guilty as the rebel leaders for the devastating civil wars that have been devastating our continent. We all know the fact that democratic citizens and leaders do not fight intra-state wars, but learn and accept the arts of compromise. Democracy is conflict resolution. People are inclined to see others as less threatening and more trustworthy.
We have also seen that countries with democratic governments like Botswana, Mauritius, Ghana, Senegal, and Benin tend to be more prosperous. They mostly have market economies, which are likely to prosper. They have fostered education of their people, which has been helpful to innovation and economic growth. They have strongly sustained the rule of law and secured property rights. They have effectively enforced contractual agreements avoiding arbitrary intervention in the economic lives of their countries and citizens. Finally, they have lowered barriers to communication which is requisite for modern economies to grow. Seeking and exchanging information has become easier and far less dangerous in these countries than it is in Zimbabwe, Gabon, Togo, and Cameroon.
My African brothers and sisters here today, I am saying to you without any hesitation that if our continent is to develop and join the global world, our present leaders in Africa must examine their consciences and understand and accept the unique and proud history and circumstances of the African people. They must realize and understand that our first generation of African leaders did not fight for independence to be less free instead of more free, poorer instead of better off, more illiterate instead of educated, permanent refugees, having generations of their children grow up in refugee camps, instead of the stable and prosperous lives they so rightfully deserve, dying of HIV instead of living to a ripe old age and telling their grandchildren about their exploits as youngsters.
I say to you tonight, aluta continua, the struggle continues unabated. There is no turning back. You and I must continue to hold our hands together (that is what the World Movement for Democracy is all about) and move forward in our commitment to building more democratic countries, countries that all of us here tonight will be proud to call home.
I thank you.
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