I borrowed this title from Kola Tubosun’s 2003 collection of poetry Headfirst Into The Meddle to exemplify how African leaders, especially those from the south of the Sahara, have been shying away from discussing the crises in North Africa. No diplomatic moves have been made; no pronouncements; no policy statements. The response of many of Africa’s leaders to the uprising in Egypt and Tunisia to me is a way of burying their heads deep down in the muddle.
So far, the revolution spreading through the north of our continent has been labeled as a Middle East /Arab Revolution. There have been mirrors of the upsets in several other Arab countries: Yemen’s President Saleh has vowed not to seek for election any longer when he finishes with his term in 2013 (first elected in 1973); Jordan has replaced its prime minister; Algeria has signaled to repeal the emergency law in force for decades now; there have been minor unrests in Sudan. All these are countries with a majority of Arabs.
There is a pattern to the riots. They have been more profound in countries where the leaders have overstayed their welcome. In the countries mentioned above, the leaders have spent an average of 30 years (that’s a generation!) lording over the people, and refusing to be led! The people are bound to get tired of a one-man show at one time or another.
What happens to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa? The conditions in these places are sometimes not even as bad as what we have down here. Many of these ‘Arab’ countries have great infrastructures that we lack. As their leaders have been maximum rulers, so do we have our own. Egyptians are complaining of the 30 year rule of President Hosni Mubarak; what do we say of the rules of both Robert Mugabe and Paul Biya in Zimbabwe and Cameroon respectively. Both have presided over their countries for three decades now, just like Hosni Mubarak.
The fact that the crises in North Africa are as much our own crises has thus incapacitated the leaders of sub-Saharan African countries from making any comments on these crises. Would Robert Mugabe or Paul Biya for instance ask Hosni Mugabe to stand down and stop the repression of the people, knowing that they suffer from the same syndrome? No. Rather than have a definitive answer to the crises spreading in our northern hemisphere, our leaders have preferred to run underground, headfirst into the muddle!
The popular uprising in the Arab world is not the first time it would happen in Africa (and it will not be the last). In 1993, Nigerians, children and adults from all walks of life rejected the continuing rule of Gen. Babangida. Popular protests, strike actions etc. forced the general to step down, the same way Zine al-Abeedeen Ben Ali of Tunisia did, on the day he would mark his eighth year as Nigeria’s leader.
As it is presently, not many African leaders have the moral upstanding to rebuke Hosni Mubarak or to declare their support for the people as the United States of America has done. Compared to Egypt’s or Tunisia’s speck in the eye, we have a whole log in our eyes, and thus continue to shy away from the truth. And who are we to point out the speck in somebody’s eye when we have a log in ours?
I believe it is not because the social upheavals in much of the Arab world are none of our concerns that we have not had responses to them; it is because the leaders fear a threat to their grip on power and rule. However, the people are bound to see through this deception. Sooner or later, the people would realize that the leaders’ reluctance to issue statements on the crises in Egypt is not an excuse not to meddle in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, but to maintain their hold on power. When this deception is blown, then sub-Sahara Africa could get ready for its wave of uprising. Zimbabwean prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai has already hinted of the possibility of this in Zimbabwe.
The only way that such grand social upheaval could be averted is when leaders realize that there is time for everything, and one of the greatest services they could do for their country is to leave peacefully when their time is up.
