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.

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.