Reconstructing Liberia: Agenda for Conciliation

P.M. News (Lagos)
ANALYSIS
December 23, 2003
Posted to the web December 23, 2003

By Tunde Oladunjoye
Lagos
Viewed from the eyes of the western press, crises, civil unrests and wars in
Africa are always prompted by intra and inter-ethnic rivalry, ethnic-
displeasure and competition for power among ethnic nationalities.
The fact, however, is that the gleefully reported ethnic reason is but at the
surface level, a tip of the iceberg, an excuse or catalyst that propels
disturbances from a boiling point. There is what is known in the insurance
industry as "proximate cause." For example, if a car hits a pole, and the pole
falls on a house, which collapses and kills a bystander, the driver of the car
is the proximate cause of the death of the bystander.
Before proceeding further, it is important to state that the multi-dimensional
and seemingly intractable hydra-headed civil crises and conflicts in Africa are
the outcome of the divisive foundation laid by the colonialists and bequeathed
to the African elitist inheritors who in many or countless instances behaved or
misbehaved like real undertakers.
Among real and deep-seated reasons which most European and American journalists
overlook due to laziness or deliberate mischief or both, is the total collapse
of the state and its infrastructure.
A situation where a state cannot guarantee basic necessities of life like food,
safe drinking water, electricity and sound health care delivery system to the
citizenry calls the legitimacy of such government into question. The
beleaguered citizens would capitalise on one excuse or the other, ethnic,
religion, politics or even sports,to vent their spleen on the state, its agents
or any semblance or perceived (real or imaginary) representatives of the state.
It is, therefore, not surprising to see many African leaders supposedly serving
the people shielding themselves heavily from the same people they are
"serving;" a paranoid security arrangement that practically turns them to
prisoners!
Corruption could be said to be, the root, problems in Africa and the
cornerstone of unending conflicts. The corruption that comes in different sizes
and shades manifest in nepotism, favouritism and unequal access to economic
opportunities, uneven development or location of social, economic and political
infrastructure and not the least, the misadventure on white elephant socio-
economic and political projects.
When Liberia hosted African leaders during the regime of President Tolbert, the
government spent over $200 million to construct a grand hotel and opposite the
hotel, 53 choice guest houses were constructed for each of the 53 African heads
of state expected at the meeting. This was done at a period when Liberia was
groaning under debt burden and negative economic indices.
The government also demonstrated lack of feeling for the masses when the price
of rice, Liberia's staple food, was increased in 1979. The mass protests that
ensued heralded the 1980 coup that brought Master Sergeant Samuel Doe to power.
People actually trooped to the streets to celebrate the Doe coup, though as
events later turned out, their hopes were misplaced and their celebration cut
short (similarities...).
Inflation, unemployment and brazen repression of the civil society, jailing of
activists, rapidly deteriorating economy, nepotism in private and public
employment are the other contributory factors to the violent scenario in
Liberia. While Doe repressed labour unions and students movements and closed
down newspapers, Charles Taylor (wanted now by the Interpol) hated journalists
with a passion.
Of course, the power elite unable, ill-equipped and lacking in focus and
commitment to improve the standard of living of the people, resorted to the
divide and rule antics of the departed colonialists by fanning the embers of
disunity, using ethnicity, religion and so on to play one segment of the
society against another. Where such divisive strategies failed, again like the
colonialists, utter brute force was employed.
The poverty-stricken masses, preoccupied with the struggle for food and
survival, are unable or unwilling to dissect the machinations of the leaders'
devilish plans let alone fighting against them. The situation has always been
typically everybody for himself and God for us all, divided we fall.
The active and subversive collaboration of the international community and its
agents as represented by international financial organisations such as World
Bank, International Finance Corporation, Paris and London clubs of creditors,
is too endemic to be overlooked.
These international organisations give out loans with impossible conditions to
African leaders, and make little or no supervision on the uses, to which the
loans are put. In fact, the hypocrisy of the talk about fight against
corruption and for transparency is underlined by the fact that these financial
institutions and so-called developed countries open the vaults of their banks
for looting African leaders to keep away stolen funds in coded accounts. Doe
was said to have kept about $250 million (Two Hundred and Fifty US dollars) at
the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). The same groups are
willing to give more loans even to be repaid decades after the contracting
spendthrift leaders would have left office.
The gullible, inelastic economic appendage and dependence facilitates the
manipulation of social and political events in the 'developing' countries by
the western nations.
The Way Forward The new transitional government headed by businessman, Gyude
Bryant, would only succeed if he is able to carry along all the segments of the
society (this is a yeoman's job). Honesty and transparency are no doubt the
watchwords that Bryant must hold on tightly to.
The civil society must seize the prevailing opportunity to push reformative
agenda as they affect their areas of specialisation such as education,
environment and gender, human rights and labour. It must be borne in mind that
when dictatorship reigns, it is the civil society that suffers most.
Another important prerequisite is the fashioning out of a workable
constitution. The problems with constitution making in Africa has always been
that the elite vaingloriously assume that they know the problems of every
section or interest of the society. If Nigeria is used as a yardstick, what we
have had is Obasanjo's Constitution, Babangida's Constitution, Abacha's
Constitution, and Abdulsalami's Constitution. We have never had Nigerian
People's Constitution. Though the preamble of the 1999 Constitution reads: "We
the people of Nigeria," the legal iconoclast, Chief FRA Williams (SAN)
described the constitution as a forged document. "From my early days, I have
been taught to treat any document that tells lies about itself as forged
document (Keynote Address in Burning Issues in the 1999 Constitution, NBA,
Ikeja, 2000).
A lot of African writers and political scientists have espoused extensively on
constitutionalism in Africa (the problem is that African leaders do not read
books). Julius Ihonvbere (2002), in Constitutionalism and Democratisation in
Africa: Lessons for Nigeria, posited that for constitution to be acceptable to
the people, it has to be people-oriented: "We must draw lessons from other
nations on the centrality of the people in the political process and how to
build ownership and legitimacy through the mobilisation, education of and
involvement of the people and their communities. We must learn how to use the
constitution-making process to promote dialogue, constructive restructuring of
power and politics and engaging the national question." Ihonvbere listed other
steps for acceptable constitution to include: "maximum involvement of the civil
society, representative, inclusive and autonomous commission or committee,
deadlock breaking mechanism, involvement of Nigerians in the diaspora,
involvement of women, involvement of the youth, and final legitimisation
through a referendum that would give the people a final say and the process of
constitution making the final stamp of legitimisation." Claude Ake rightly
stated in The Political Economy of Crisis and Underdevelopment: Selected Works
of Claude Ake in Africa (Julius Ihonvbere ed, Jad Publishers, Lagos 1988), that
the necessary stabilising factors that can oust conflicts and wars in Africa
are: political and economic empowerment of the people, constitutional
engineering - supremacy of the constitution in law and practice; respect for
the judiciary; respect for fundamental human rights; workable and transparent
multiparty system and equitable sharing of power between central and local
government.
In a layman's words: The provision of basic human needs like food, shelter,
clothing, gainful employment and efficient health care system, effective and
accessible justice delivery system founded on the sacredness of the rule of law
are the greatest and most enduring barricades against incessant conflicts not
only in Liberia but also anywhere on the surface of the planet Earth.
Tunde Oladunjoye is the Executive Director, Centre for Media Education and
Networking, Lagos.

   

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