FIGHTING THE AFRICAN “HERCULEAN MONSTER” HEAD ON

A PASSIONATE LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT - EXTRAORDINARY EDITION X

FIGHTING THE AFRICAN “HERCULEAN MONSTER” HEAD ON

Your Excellency Sir,

In this piece, I would like to continue our extremely crucial narrative of “inevitably facing and fighting the African Herculean monster” of corruption, head-on, if less and underdeveloped countries in Africa have to make significant progress, without allowing this twenty first century to elude us again – leaving us in the perennial limbo of hope for an African renaissance.

And at this juncture, before proceeding, I would like to prophetically declare that this century belongs to Africa – to move out of the dungeon of self degradation, retrogression and gross under development, and to emerge into global economic, infrastructural, industrial and political boom.  As we approach the end of the first quarter of this century, it would behove our national leaders and public servants especially, as well as our local and international democratic institutions, anti-graft and advocacy organizations, civil society movements and actors, and the entirety of the masses, to do honest, objective and truly patriotic retrospect and introspect of our generally deplorable, but avoidable condition of degradation, since our respective political independence and self determination.

I would further like to opine that even though many vices could be responsible for our pernicious situation, I can propound that our greatest undoing in Africa, is rampant and reckless corruption with impunity. This is because, at certain periods of our histories, when the military and judiciary were not compromised to corruption, even though there were political repressions under certain African dictators, both military and judicial independence served as legitimate check (coupled with some bold and sacrificial press independence). But when the contagious and grotesque selfish phenomenon of corruption in governance and public service overtook our leaders, all our institutions became dysfunctional and incapable of protecting the interest of our respective nations and commoners; and as such they became “white elephants,” incapable of independently and objectively discharging their national responsibilities to their citizenries. Only a few nations, such as Botswana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and the like, have staggeringly tried to meander their ways out of such “mazy-labyrinth” of selfishness, extreme greed and callousness, artificially superimposed on us by our sinister leaders and unscrupulous public servants; as they have invisibly institutionalized corruption and created loop holes within their systems to perpetrate “unavoidable corruption.”        

Moving forward however, our current political leaders and public servants should take queue from the retinue of some of our exemplary founding fathers, statesmen and current leaders, such as Milton Margai, Nnamdi Ezekiwi, Tafawa Belewa, kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Sankara, Jomo Kenyata, Tom Mboka, jerry Rawlings, Maumar Ghadafi, Walter Sisilu, Steve Biko, Winnie Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Mohamadu Buhari, John Magufoli, etc, to forge a general anti-corruption landscape across the continent that would bail us out of this unfortunate, but certainly avoidable anomaly.

The Africa Union must decisively, sincerely, frantically and pragmatically spearhead this crusade; and not just be making empty anti-corruption/”zero tolerance to corruption” clichés. Otherwise, Africa, which happens to be the cradle of invention, civilization and education, would remain a mere passive relic of all and an exploited continent by both the West and its neo-colonialist contrivers, in and out of Africa.

At this juncture too, having recently visited with Sierra Leone, my paternal nativity, let me applaud President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, for taking the humble and befitting step to “declare his assets” to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) of Sierra Leone, without pressure or coercion from the civil society or opposition – and urging all in governance and public service to follow suit. Though I would encourage the Sierra Leone legislature/parliament to further promulgate laws that would require such asset declarations to be made public, for proper accountability and transparency, I consider that action laudable and vital in the fight against corruption because, except the public is aware of what their public servants enter into governance and public service with, they cannot legitimately hold them accountable for wealth accrued during and at their exit of government and public service. So, in actual fact, there should always be public “entry and exit asset and wealth declarations” made by all government and public functionaries, before they assume power and just before they exit power or public service.

Until and unless we begin to constructively and fairly hold all our public servants (including our presidents) legally accountable for their service to our countries, rapid, sustainable and generally desirable economic, political, industrial, educational and sundry progress and development would always remain a dream to be fulfilled, but never attained. And in addition to this, (among other measures,) there needs to be “exclusive fast-track courts” instituted to deal with all corruption cases; with very stringent punitive measures and penalties levelled against all culprits, without disparity.

I would like to end this edition’s narrative by reiterating the popularly known fact that “Africa is not poor, but rather poorly managed” by sinister and greedy leaders, who have “sacrificed our prosperity on their selfish altars of greed and reckless abandon.” Most of our countries in Africa are replete with enormous mineral resources and arable land that could be effectively used to elevate the economies of these countries to astronomical levels, if our leaders are sincere and truly patriotic. And to expunge this vicious killer and retrogression syndrome, very stringent and deterrent laws must be enacted and executed, without “deifying any sacred cows.”  Our leaders need to lead by selfless example and discipline that would compel or forge others into compliance, or otherwise follow laws that would descend heavily upon corrupt public functionaries.

God bless Africa and usher us into our popularly desired African Renaissance and Dream!! Rise up Africans and possess your destiny!! In the cause of the masses, the narrative continues.

Best Regards,

 Apst. Dr. Abraham J. Williams

(Clergyman / Human Rights Advocate & Anti-Corruption Campaigner)