Africa: Out of Many, One People

Traveling across Africa can be very hectic, logistics of travel visas aside; transit hours can be cumbersome and at times outright ridiculous. For some of us the consolation is that travelling across Africa is more often than not an enriching experience. As you travel across Africa you soon realise that out of the continent’s huge cultural diversity, Africans are after all one people. It is not at all difficult to identify with one another’s experiences.

Of course this is not to say that what works in one corner of the continent will also necessarily work elsewhere. The point is that Africa’s shared experiences are real. There is no better group of people to demonstrate this point than politicians. African leaders behave like a wolf pack; they are very good at copying each other’s ways – mostly bad ways. Apparently there is a word for it: benchmarking.

The prominent thing at the moment is how to control and restrict the spectrum of acceptable opinion on the Internet and through ICTs. The last few years the continent has seen increased cases of Internet shutdowns, which is now giving way to social media tax, and licensing of bloggers. These efforts have followed a wholesale adoption of cyber security laws, especially in SADC region.

There is nothing wrong with benchmarking; the problem is that African leaders are not copying each other’s good habits. It is difficult to find African countries benchmarking on each other’s good ways. This is one of the reasons why is it difficult to find positive stories from the continent.

I was in Accra recently, attending UPROAR Workshop and State of Internet Freedom in Africa 2018 Conference. The first impression I got on my arrival at Kotoka International airport was its cleanliness and order; the terminals are new and modern.

I arrived at the hotel around mid-night so I went straight to bed. I exchanged some money into local the local currency, Ghana Cedi and I realised that the currency is very strong – about 1 – 5, US Dollar. This is about 3 times stronger than the currency of Africa’s most industrialised economy, the South African Rand.

A visit to Osu Market in Accra later that week, it became apparent that amid the seemingly thriving economy and happy friendly people in Ghana, there’s also that “typical African” stereotype where chaos, dilapidated infrastructure typifies the informal businesses that feed majority of our people on the continent.

I was in company of so many African comrades, all of us eager to buy some Ghanaian fabric and to taste Ghanaian food outside the hotel. Kuda Hove, a comrade from Zimbabwe got somewhat the same impression as me. He wondered why thriving African economies like Ghana and South Africa elsewhere were still struggling organise its informal sector and uplift the living standards of its ordinary citizens who make up the majority of the population.

Thinking about all this, one wonders whether not enough of us across the continent are demanding better service provision from our leadership? Or perhaps just like the continent’s leadership ordinary citizens are also good at benchmarking on each other’s habits? I am sure about all this.

Yet, as an African I know I am longing for a day when Africans will benchmark on each other’s strengths and positive ways. This is the only way continent can start forcing positive narrative about Africa and its people. Those who know better must do better; economies doing better must lead the way in uplifting Africans so others may follow.

How Malawi’s Leaders Keep Choosing Optics Over Justice

Malawi’s leaders have perfected the politics of evasion. Faced with complex national problems, they reach for quick fixes that seem decisive but solve nothing, much like bandaging a boil instead of treating the underlying infection. Problems are not confronted; they are wished away. Crisis after crisis, Malawi survives not through resolution but through delay. The result is a country permanently suspended between emergency and exhaustion, always living to fight another day.

Recent events expose this failure with brutal clarity. First came the barbaric killings of people with albinism for their body parts. Then, in the middle of a collapsing economy, the University of Malawi Council announced a steep hike in tuition fees. Predictably, students protested across the university’s four colleges. Predictably, the state responded with force, clashes with police, destruction of property at Chancellor College, and the closure of the campus.

These are very different crises. But the political response to both reveals the same governing instinct: suppress the symptoms, manage the outrage, and move on.

Punishment Without Justice

Public debate on the killings of people with albinism has been reduced to one loud demand: harsher punishment. Calls for the death penalty have dominated social media, rallies, and parliamentary corridors. A ruling party MP, Boni Kalindo, even organised a “naked” protest to pressure Parliament into legislating capital punishment. Parliament responded by amending the Penal Code to impose life imprisonment.

This approach may satisfy public anger, but it is intellectually lazy and politically dishonest. These killings are not acts of madness; they are acts of commerce. People with albinism are murdered because their body parts are believed to have market value in ritual practices. Where there is demand, supply will follow. No sentence, death, or life will stop a trade driven by belief, money, and desperation.

Yet the state refuses to ask the most dangerous question of all: who is buying these body parts? When someone is arrested with bones, the public debates whether the sentence is long enough, not whether the crime was committed, who profits from it, or why these networks remain intact. Anger replaces investigation. Vengeance replaces strategy.

If Malawi were serious about protecting people with albinism, it would focus less on symbolic punishment and more on dismantling the demand side of the trade, through intelligence-led policing, regional investigations, and confronting the political and economic interests that keep these networks alive. But that kind of work is slow, difficult, and politically unrewarding. So it is avoided.

Education as a Privilege, Not a Right

The same cowardice defines the university fees crisis. The standoff between students and the University Council is not fundamentally about MK400,000 versus MK100,000. It is about whether higher education in Malawi is a public good or a private privilege.

Even at lower fees, thousands of students would still be locked out of university because their families are poor. Malawi’s leaders, many of whom benefited from heavily subsidised public education, now preside over a system that quietly excludes the very people it claims to uplift.

This is not a new problem. For years, the media has reported rising dropout rates due to unaffordable fees. Instead of structural reform, the state has offered theatrical interventions: ordering students back to campus, promising temporary funding, and issuing statements. The boil was covered. The infection spread.

Today, the crisis has returned in a new form, more explosive and more violent.

A Crisis of Leadership, Not Events

What links the killings of people with albinism and the university fees standoff is not a coincidence; it is a governance failure. Malawi is ruled by leaders who fear long-term solutions because they do not fit into election cycles. They prefer gestures over justice, punishment over prevention, force over dialogue.

Activism must reject this politics of distraction. Malawi does not lack laws; it lacks courage. It does not lack faith; it lacks accountability. Until the country demands leadership that confronts root causes rather than manages outrage, crises will continue to multiply, and the most vulnerable will continue to pay the price.

Bandaging boils may stop the bleeding for a moment. But untreated infections eventually kill.

Africa Needs a Collective Thinking Space

It has become very common in the increasingly narrow global sphere to hear people correcting one another that Africa is not a country. Indeed, Africa is a continent with 50 plus countries; countries with distinct cultural traditions, regional and national dialects. There are estimated 1,500 – 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. These are important issues if one wants to fully understand Africa, let alone making decisions and/ or conclusion about it.

Yet, as an African from Malawi, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, I understand that apart from the above-pointed issues, there is also a lot that Africans have in common. In fact, the stated issues that make-up African continent are just as true within African countries. My own country, with estimated population of 16 million people has more than 12 tribes and more then 15 languages are spoken. Yet it is called it a country.

I recently reflected on this while attending Re:publica conference in Berlin, Germany along with my fellow African political bloggers, blogging at Africablogging.org and a group of wonderful Africans working with Global Innovation Gathering (GIG). We had fun; even though some of us – Africa Blogging and GIG members were meeting for the first time.

Discussions with these fellow patriotic young Africans over meals and in our hotel rooms for a week we were in Berlin got me thinking: “so Africa is a country after all.” African countries have a lot in common in terms of its socioeconomic and political make-up. I am not just talking about our shared colonial and pre-colonial period but contemporary Africa as well. Today what happens in one African country is most likely to replicate itself elsewhere.

And here is where my general reflection on Re:publica lay. I found the conference a huge collective thinking space where like-minded people converge, not just to share ideas but also to inspire each other. The diversity of a largely nerdy yet sociable group of presenters and participants at the conference was a true reflection of our own group – Africa Blogging and GIG.

Here I realised that the Re:publica-type of gathering is something that Africa needs – in Africa we need what I call “collective thinking space.” Yes, the internet has opened up discursive platforms and spaces such as blogs, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter etc. These decentralised networks have opened up a useful cross-boarder and trans-national interactions yet we know discussions and reflections on these spaces are very random and often lack focus, something the Re:publica handled extraordinary well.

After all, internet shutdowns are becoming common in Africa. Telecommunication companies in Africa, in pursuit of favourable deals and operating conditions are colluding with African governments, eager to strengthen their hold on power, to shutdown social media whenever they feel their grip on power is threatened.

As pointed out earlier, what happens in one African country is likely to reappear in another country. At the time of writing, Ugandan government was at pains trying to limit social media use in the country as Yoweri Museveni was being sworn in following elections, which the country’s opposition are disputing. This trend was a topic of discussion by members of Africa Blogging at the Re:publica.

Apart from individual presentations, which I hugely benefited from, as a blogger, and an academic, Re:publica has convinced me that as great as the online spaces are, they are insufficient and they are not a substitute to the old-fashioned physical gathering of like minded people determined to get things done. Spaces like Re:publica may just be what young generation of Africa needs, in order to shape its socioeconomic and political feature.

Social Media is Alright

The question of whether social media should be regulated is steadily getting traction on the continent as well as here in Malawi. The issue gained even more attention in recent weeks following the arrest of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) members who were subsequently charged with treason over a WhatsApp group conversation.

What is fundamental here is a move to limit the space of unacceptable opinion and instilling fear in people that they are constantly being watched: panopticon. The equivalent of the Big Brother idea: Those in the Big Brother house always have this sense that they are being watched at all times even when no-one is watching, therefore, you must regulate your own behavior at all times. It is antithesis of democracy and civil liberties — an effective weapon for authoritarianism.

The ironic thing is that among the key features that social media has brought is the decentralized forms of communication. Social media is social equaliser, giving voice to the voiceless, letting common people whose voice is always represented into the mainstream media; the voice of the people who only make news when they are victims of hunger, domestic violence etc.

Yet, it is understandable that social media is making groups of individuals, government organisations and others uncomfortable. Changes in society always threaten the status quo—it has always been the case. Those in a position of authority and power always fear change and new developments because they must protect their own privileged position. An informed society is a very difficult society to manage and govern for those whose primary goal is to steal from the common folk.

It makes sense then when it is government calling for regulation of social media, they do not want decentralised networks of communication; they want the top-down traditional centralised systems of information flow in which they are in total control. Yet, it makes very little sense when it is journalists asking whether social media should be regulated or not. I have come across such conversation on social media. Journalists seriously arguing for social media regulations—something they should all be defending.

Never mind the important question of who is to police the social media. But you must always be careful what you wish for, you might get it. It is a world of possibilities. There is a common defence slogan when journalists and their work is under attack—often from the powers that be: “do not shoot the messenger”. Journalists calling for social media regulation argue that there are a lot of lies and false stories on platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, yet these platforms are used by people, if anything, the blame lies with the users — not the platform. You do not shoot the messenger, remember?

People lie every day, all the time, including those in journalism and all the gatekeepers. How do you regulate a lie anyway? There were lies before social media and there will be lies whether social media is regulated or not. There are laws protecting innocent people from such lies, you do not need to regulate the media. Why would a journalist call for social media regulation? Surely, no journalist would be afraid of enlightened society.

If anything journalism in its traditional form of finding news, editing, fact-checking and report is important more than ever in the day of social media because those discussing issues on social media are not professional journalists.

Yet, this does not mean journalists have monopoly over information. The earlier journalists realise that no-one, including them, has monopoly over information the better. Instead of calling for social media to be regulated, we should instead be calling for more social media—it is good for democracy.

No, Mr President, You Don’t Need 26 Years in Power to Become ‘an Expert in Governance’

After over two and half decades in power, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda recently boasted of expertise in governance – brought by his 26 years of presidency. 26 years in power is a very long time, by any measure. There is a whole generation of Ugandans that have not known any other leader but Museveni.

Yet history recalls that President Museveni’s remarks contracts what he said when he initially came to power in 1986:

“The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.”

And here is President Museveni 26 years later (2012):

“Some people think that being in the government for a long time is a bad thing. But the more you stay, the more you learn. I am now an expert in governance.”

That is the difference presidency make. Yet Museveni is not a lone in this, it is a continental problem. Malawi’s former president, Bakili Muluzi once believed that African presidents, Malawi in particular, should not be in power for more than a decade. This was in the aftermath of the fall of Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s 31 years of dictatorship.

After winning a re-election for a second and last term in office, Muluzi saw things differently. Now he need more than two terms in office “to finish his development projects.” Muluzi launched a ferocious campaign for a constitutional change to allow himself more time in power. Fortunately, parliamentarians vetoed the motion and democracy carried the day – credit to Muluzi for accepting the defeating though.

President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal must have learned from Muluzi’s failed attempt. Wade came into power in 2000 for a 7-year term and got re-elected in 2007 under a new constitution, which reduced the term limits to five years. In 2008 the constitution was changed again to allow for two 7-year terms. This would be from 2012. It is important here to notice that these constitutional changes happened on Wade’s watch. Now Wade has refused to step down after two consecutive terms in office. He has argued that the constitutional changes allow him to run again. The Senegalese courts have backed him, and bar Wade’s most formidable opponent, musician Youssou N’Dour.

After fracas and political unrest that has followed these events, Nigerian former president, Olusegun Obasanjo tried in vain to talk Wade into stepping down. Ironically, Obasanjo himself tried in vain to extend his term limits in 2007.

Surely there is something about African presidential seat that only people like Museveni, Muluzi, Wade and Obasanjo can explain. However, it has nothing to do with experience or development, as Museveni and Muluzi, respectively, want the world to believe. It has everything to do with self-serving politics of the continent.

While in the West politicians are not corrupt-free, UK’s MPs expenses scandal is the best example. Yet if people in the West want to get filthy rich they get into banking, stock trading, hedge funds etc., in Africa you join politics. This is what incentivise African politicians, particularly presidents to cling on to power.

Yes, experience is desirable in many aspects of our lives and activities but not with governance. Unless if we decide to ignore traditional forms of democratic governance, and adopt chief executive style of leadership – with one man calling the shots. Presidents come to power without experience of that position anyway, unless it is a comeback, which is unlikely in places where term limits apply.

To have good governance and functioning governments you need a vibrant and independent civil service and civil society, independent police, in the service of the people not the state, separation of powers between the arms of government and respect for the rule of law. It’s presidents like Museveni who have convinced themselves of their expertise that compromise good governance because they do not listen to anyone and this underestimate the rule of law.

Why Unrecognised Somaliland is a Model for African Democracy

Anyone who has followed African politics, especially the last fifteen years when most countries turned democracy, will be familiar with the pattern of African democracy. Its processes is well standardised across the continent and it is very predictable.

Here is the pattern: elections take place, a ruling party and its candidate are declared as winners, opposition parties protest and refuse to recognise the results; they go to court; they lose the court case and wait for another election to repeat the same process.

Recently, Ghana broke with the tradition and it has become an exception to the standard. In 2008 an opposition party led by Ghana’s incumbent president, John Atta Mills, came to power after a closely contested elections that needed a re-run to decide the winner. Ghana had managed what no democratic African country had done before: change governments peacefully through the ballot.

The Economist in 2009 observed that elections in sub Saharan Africa only change the elite. Indeed, the statistics on African elections confirm this observation. In 2009 alone, there were 24 scheduled elections across sub-Saharan Africa, none of these elections resulted in a change of government.

Sadly one African country that will not appear on the African elections calendar is Somaliland, an unknown but a thriving country in the horn of Africa that broke away from Somalia in 1991. Somaliland has managed to match Ghana’s feat by becoming the only second African country to peacefully change governments through the ballot.

This is a feat that has eluded some of the influential and model democracies in the sub-Saharan Africa including South Africa and Botswana. In South Africa only the ANC wins elections and they have no credible challenge, which puts the whole democracy theory to a test. Botswana is still ruled by the party that won the country its independence, under Sir Seretse Khama in 1966, and now the country is ruled is by Ian Khama, Sir Seretse’s son.

We all witnessed post elections violence that erupted in Kenya after the December 2007 elections. Yet unrecognised Somaliland has just conducted elections that all observers, including its neighbours, Djibouti and Ethiopia have admitted were “free and fair” and the losing parties have accepted defeated.

Meanwhile, Somaliland’s incoming president, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo has vowed to fight for recognition from the international community. He told AFP: “during my tenure as president I will vigorously fight for the recognition of Somaliland. The world must recognise our democracy.”

Conspiracies theorists and cynics will argue that Somaliland is only conducting itself this way to buy the recognition from the outside world and everything would change after getting their wish. Well I believe it is good to be cynical after all it is a human nature that we are mainly motivated by self interests. This may be true; after all, the age of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Ghandi, who will suffer for others is long behind us. But is is only a conspiracy and it cannot be dweled upon.

Somaliland ought to be recognised. If Ghana is accepted as model of African democracy, why not Somaliland when it is the only country that has achieved the same feat as Ghana? Why is the international community, and yes, including the media, are so quick to accuse when things go wrong but they will not give credit where it is due? If anyone thinks democracy is taking roots and thriving in Africa then on this evidence, Somaliland alongside Ghana, are the torchbearers of it.