Mbeki's indignation at Obasanjo betrayal

Mbeki's indignation at Obasanjo 'betrayal'

• Mugabe pulls Zim out of C'nwealth

By Andy Ike Ezeani
20/01/04
SOUTH Africa's president Thabo Mbeki is reportedly stunned and seething with anger. Across the border up north, Zimbabwe's embattled and calumnized president Robert Mugabe had been stung too and is no less livid. The source of their common discomfort can be found in one location: Nigeria.

For both of these Southern African leaders, something must have gone terribly wrong with a man they used to know as a brother. It is either that or they had been wrong all along in their reading of the real constitution of the source of their present discomfiture. The probability that the latter is the case is obviously more disconcerting. Which ever of the two it is, there is pain in the hearts of the two men.

It is pain made obviously more agonizing by the fact that its source is one from whom they had every cause to expect empathy and appreciation of their history and circumstances. After all, their three states; South Africa, Zimbabwe and Nigeria were co-members of the committed and hand-in arms brotherhood of nations chummily identified as Frontline States in the heady days of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Members of that alliance consisted essentially of countries located within the southern African region. Their vast, rich lands were the hotbed of the apartheid onslaught and rabid colonialism that refused to recede even up to the last quarter of the 20th century.

Nigeria, of course, never shared physical borders and geographical links with the other Frontline States. Nor was its political experience exactly as traumatic as that of the Frontline States on the actual frontline. What it lacked in physical location and internal experience, however, Nigeria made up in empathy and total commitment to the struggle to rid the region of apartheid and colonialism. It was an unwavering brotherly commitment, one that the countries of the Southern African region never failed to acknowledge.

When years after the apartheid struggle some governments in Nigeria acquired colorations and profiles that were as uncomplementary as they deserved total repudiation, the Southern African brother nations lived with a responsibility to maintain fraternal affinity. They never easily took sides against the brother Frontline state on the far west side of the troubled African continent. The responsibility and the duties are reciprocal, or ought to be.

Indeed, it remained a cardinal aspect of Nigeria's foreign policy for years to be on the watch and never to close its eyes to, not to talk of subscribing to, any development in the international arena that sought to erode the gains of the decolonization efforts. That now seems to be then. Nothing in this relationship ever entailed defending or justifying wrong policies of the government of a brother country. Everything in this mutual fraternal responsibility, demands, however, that the countries of Africa as one should understand the challenges of their history. Here obviously lies the source of the pain and perplexity of Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe.

The land redistribution issue in Zimbabwe which has been twisted and added pepper by the West is no more than a critical imperative in the development of Zimbabwe. For the West to refuse to understand the imperative of such a policy amounts to no more than their vote for continued subjugation of Black Zimbabweans.Now that will be worse than anything Mugabe has done.

It is possible that some aspects of the policy came out too heavy on one side or the other. Of course, even the best of policies can be faulted, more so in the realm of politics. To have a country where 80 per cent of the people (Blacks) live in 20 per cent of the land, the wretched part of it, while the rest of the 20 per cent of the people (Whites) live in and cultivate 80 per cent of the good portion is certainly not Mugabe's idea of independence for his country. It should not be any honest person's idea of equity either, whether black or white.

If the European and Western political leaders and societies do not for parochial reasons see the problem Mugabe is faced with, Olusegun Obasanjo ought to appreciate the situation better.

The question of Mugabe being in office for too long or being returned to office by an election that was not free and fair is nothing but charges gathered by the West to give their case a civilized face. The stance of the Commonwealth on Mugabe is premeditated and well nigh insensitive to the history and circumstances of Zimbabwe. That was why South Africa and other countries of the Southern African region easily parted ways with Britain and others on the matter. It is understandable, therefore, that Mbeki and Mugabe are peeved and wondering who exactly Obasanjo is. Is this still their brother? Or is this some lackey of the West?

Indeed, if one of the major charges of the West against Mugabe that he was returned to office through a flawed election were to be taken seriously Obasanjo should be in the fore of Mugabe's defenders for very obvious reasons.

It is bad enough that Obasanjo as Nigeria's president weighed on the side of those who want Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth because Mugabe is pursuing a land policy designed to give his people some more foothold. To now go forward and ask White farmers who are threatening to leave Zimbabwe in protest to relocate to Nigeria as was recently credited to government sources is the height of insensitivity and shallowness. This is one foreign investment Nigeria does not need. Whatever attraction the coming of the farmers of Zimbabwe to Nigeria offers, it should simply be discouraged. Nigeria should be more decent than to seek to make profit out of a problem in its brother's heart.

Nigeria's stance on the Zimbabwean matter at the Commonwealth forum is a testament on the present state of its foreign policy. As it seems, all past policy foundations are gone. In their stead, unfortunately, void seems to reign.

The prevailing skin-deep policy framework cannot but be, considering that much of what passes for Nigeria's foreign policy activities in the last five years has been staccato initiatives of summit hosting and conference attendance by President Olusegun Obasanjo.In all of these, appallingly, there is hardly any evidence of a cohesive, vibrant and abiding policy framework, the type that can help a student of international affairs identify with certainty what Nigeria presently represents in critical global issues.

If the maxim that foreign policy is an extension of local policies still holds valid (and it will always hold), then it is not difficult to understand the basis of Nigeria's foreign policy paralysis. For beyond the paid for and understandable pitches of governmental spin meisters, the truth remains that much of the foundation and thrust of government's policies within the last five years have been at best confused.

Even NEPAD which is presented as a flag of African initiative and which flag President Obasanjo and his lieutenants fly with so much relish seems to come across substantially as an impenetrable policy guide that is still very much on the work.

Now, even that piece of policy peg may come unstuck, courtesy of the awkward policy on Zimbabwe, which the countries of Southern Africa see as a betrayal - Daily Champion
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