At The World Bank, and In Lebanon

The announcement yesterday by US president George W. Bush of his replacement for Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz at the World Bank may not be the last word that the world will hear in the days ahead about that multi-lateral lending institution, its activities, and governance. The fact that the man, Mr. Robert B. Zoellick, who will replace Mr. Wolfowitz was a principal in the Bush administration during the first term, might still raise a red flag in some quarters where the concern over the radical rightist ideological positions of the Bush presidency is strongest. People, particularly in Europe and at the Bank who hold such concerns may not deem it prudent at this point to express it.

The fact that Mr. Bush and his advisers would still find it difficult to reach beyond the inner circles of their administration to select Mr. Wolfowitz’s replacement even after the turmoil that embroiled his brief stint at the Bank might still be another big cause for worry amongst some of the Bank’s employees, and others elsewhere. Their preference could not have stemmed from the lack of competent Americans who are not directly associated with the Bush White House. There’s certainly an ideological streak to it. In which case, some people would rightly wonder why ideological posturing is more important to the Bush administration than far-reaching and concrete achievements that could stand the test of time at the Bank and in the poor parts of the world where it funds and oversees different projects. The degree to which Mr. Zoellick will attain a successful tour at the Bank will depend a lot on how he plays his hands ideologically. From his initial interviews to reporters, it does seem like he will try to dust up some of the China issues he pursued during his tour as US trade representative. If he does, it will not be lost on the Chinese that his quest will be to check-mate their growing economic reach in the world, but it will still be up to the Chinese to deal with that if and when he gets on their case. He may not get into trouble at the Bank over that. But he will definitely get into trouble if and when he decides to act with imperial impunity.

The approval yesterday at the UN Security Council of a resolution that will establish an international tribunal, which will try those who have been implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Rafik Hariri may likely over-heat politics in Lebanon further. Abstention by China,Russia, Qatar, South Africa, and Indonesia from supporting that resolution and the clarifying statement released by their ambassadors on their countries' decision are proofs of that assertion. The question that must be raised at this time is: Would such over-heating further US interests in Lebanon and the Middle East at this time? Mr. Hariri’s assassination is a cowardly and unconscionable act, but the quest to prosecute those who have been implicated in his assassination right now might not even yield much particularly in a situation that Syria has continued to deny its involvement. They could still be prosecuted, but at a later time.

Ms. Cindy Sheehan

Anyone who prefers to gloat over the ‘resignation’ of Ms. Cindy Sheehan from the protest campaign she started in August 2005 over the Iraq war after her son Casey, an Army specialist lost his life in an ambush in Baghdad, Iraq the previous year, does not actually understand some of the issues at play in this war and why it hasn’t generated and may not ever generate a de facto protest movement. Going by the angry tone of her blog posting in which she announced her ‘resignation’, it doesn’t even seem like Ms. Sheehan understands some of those issues any better herself.

Ms. Sheehan is obviously distraught over the way the Democrats who won control of the Congress with a slight majority last November approved a no-strings-attached funding for the war last week. One would wish that she understands that her efforts to galvanize America to protest the war in large numbers failed not just because she is not loved by America and its politicians. Or that they do not feel her pain. Love and feeling someone else’s pain are radically different from feeling one’s own pain. It's mostly because only a tiny insignificant number of Americans have suffered a loss like hers.

At the most, even as George W. Bush’s troop surge is still underway, the total number of US troops in Iraq at this point in time does not exceed 160,000. The expectation is that the number will come to about 179,000 when the surge attains a peak. In a country of 300m people, one would not need a fortune teller to conclude that 179,000 soldiers do not constitute a significant proportion of that population. Even if you were to multiply 179,000 by ten and use the quotient to represent the network of family, friends, and peers in the general US population who are connected to the troops serving in Iraq, you will not have difficulty to conclude that such a network is indeed highly confined. There’s no critical mass there at all. The other thing is that because of the present all volunteer force, AVF structure, most Americans do not feel the imminent threat of having a family member, friend, or peer shipping off to Iraq on military service duties. It wouldn’t therefore be illogical to infer that as an AVF, the US military is technically a ‘mercenary’ force that lacks the demographic peculiarities of the society it serves. It is composed in the main of the sons and daughters of poor families from America’s inner cities and the hard-scrubble midlands of America who opted for military service particularly because it seems to be their only ticket out of the grim economic situation that stands in their way in a globalized economy that evaporates well-paying manufacturing jobs to Asia and Latin America, and brings low-paying Walmart-type jobs in return. This military hardly contains and is not meant to attract the children of upper middle class and rich families in great numbers. Most, if not all of what happens in Iraq comes through to the larger society as a story, which is watched on television with the detachment that is associated with Hollywood thrillers. It is therefore because of some of these reasons that this war in Iraq is not like the one that was fought in Vietnam. No matter how long it lasts, no matter how much the casualties mount, it may not hit home as Vietnam did, if at all.

Ms. Sheehan’s greatest undoing in her struggle to rekindle an anti-war movement over the death of her son stems directly from the AVF. The AVF is also George W. Bush’s greatest benefactor in his unflinching resolve to achieve what he calls victory in Iraq. One does not want to be misunderstood, but the harsh truth is that in the light of the AVF, the mounting casualties in Iraq will not even resonate in the larger population sufficiently to threaten political careers in the Congress. Although people are pained by the mounting casualties in Iraq, the pain is still not theirs. That feeling of relative deprivation that stems from Iraq war casualties is still restricted to the handful of grieving parents like Ms. Sheehan who have already lost or who will loose a child in Iraq. These do not in any way imply that the lives that are being lost in Iraq are worthless. One wouldn't go as far as echoing someone who recently opined that given a population of 300m people, those lives are indispensable. It's just that rebellions are not made out of restricted feelings of relative deprivation. There has to be that critical mass, the AVF structure would not allow that critical mass to evolve and coalesce into an anti-war movement.

The Real Solution

The on-going exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York that show-cases “a grasp of the depths of world poverty and ingenious ways to attack it” is an eye-opener particularly with the seeming novel ‘inventions’ that are on display. The exhibition is an eye-opener in another but related regard as far as the issue of world poverty and how it can be attacked in Africa is concerned for instance. It’s probably only the starry-eyed Westerners who will quickly presume that the solutions that could emanate from the ‘inventions’ being show-cased at the exhibition would be far-reaching enough to bring about the much-desired dent on world poverty in any culture where some of the inventions are adopted.

This is because some of those ‘inventions’ may not rival some of the age-old methods that villagers in say Africa use to preserve whatever harvests they bring in each year, build durable homes to respond favorably to their tropical environment, etc. without being caught in traps that bind them to the whims and caprice of a Western manufacturer or their failed state structures at home. The items that are featured in the exhibition might look good and trendy, but some of them seem to have the potentials of creating new levels of dependency for the rural dwellers. Take the Lifestraw drinking filter as a case in point. Although it is capable of killing bacteria in the water that is sucked through it, it does raise issues of dignity of use as well as affordability. Stooping down to use it doesn’t seem dignifying at all. Are people supposed to carry it along with them everywhere they go? Where will it be manufactured and fabricated? A device that purifies water from source would be a more appropriate tool for rural African dwellers as far as solving the problem of unhealthy drinking water supply is concerned.

A visit to local universities in Africa will reveal that poverty remains endemic on the continent not because Africans have been incapable of devising credible ways to attach it themselves. The continent’s greatest undoing can be traced to the state structures that plague the lives of its peoples. There was an invention sometime ago at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, which delivered photocopying by capturing solar power. The inventor of that device refused to pitch it for fear that he’d be penalized by jealous individuals in the University administration. In Kenya’s Kenyatta University, professors are being compelled by the University authorities to submit the outcome of their research for vetting prior to submitting it anywhere else for publication. The ploy is to ascertain if they have funding that they University can cream 15% from.

The complexities of poverty in Africa should be properly understood. Westerners who are keen on helping Africans break out of poverty must coordinate their efforts with locals to ensure that they don’t deliver them into another bind altogether.

Over-Kill in Venezuela

Reports today that the oldest privately owned television station in Venezuela has gone off the air for good and has been replaced by a government-owned public station don’t hold well for diversity in that country at all. RCTV has for long incurred the ire of President Hugo Chavez beginning from the time when it sided with the coup that ousted him from power for a brief period of time. But its existence is a necessary element in a society which is striving to attend to the welfare of a vast population of underprivileged citizens. It could serve as a check on reality for the government. Where does Mr. Chavez want the category of Venezuelans whose views are represented by the RCTV to go to? Underground? They will pose a serious danger from underground than they could have ever posed if they were left alone.

There’s no doubt that RCTV is the victim of the ideological tangling which has been going on between Caracas and Washington since that failed attempt to oust Chavez, who believes that the US was involved. Although it is not a secret that there is no love lust between the George W. Bush White House and Mr. Chavez, it doesn’t seem like it is in the interest of international co-existence for either side to be constantly engaged in acts that over heat the hostile relationship between both countries. Chavez has been unrelenting in accusing the US of planning to overthrow his government. Washington has denied that all the way. Proceeding on acts that polarize society in Venezuela will not in any way amount to long-term good. The government has the resources to counter whatever propaganda that the owners of RCTV are capable of inflicting on Venezuelan society. Compelling the station to go off air by refusing to renew its license is an over kill. One would have hoped that Chavez and his government were more realistic and reasonable.

It's Still About the Palestinian Question

It may not be so, but the fact that another high intensity war has broken out in Lebanon almost a year after the one that broke out between Hezbollah and Israel last summer is sufficient cause to infer that the present conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam fighters in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, near the Lebanese port city of Tripoli might be the continuation of last summer’s war this time by proxy. Logic for this inference is made stronger when one factors the speed with which weapons and other military supplies have been arranged for and flown from the US and some Arab sources to the Lebanese army in the equation. There could be other indicators that support this inference.

However, what I think is the main issue at play here is that both violent flare-ups derive from the unresolved Palestinian question. Some people, including elements in the coalition government in Lebanon will dispute that there’s a link between the current flare-up involving Islam al-Fatah and the Lebanese army, and the Palestinian question. Such elements will back their argument up by saying that Islam al-Fatah is composed of fighters from the Arab world including Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Syria. In fact, authorities in Lebanon have already asserted that Islam al-Fatah is Syria’s proxy, even though Syria has denied having anything to do with the group.

The leader of Islam al-Fatah is a Palestinian, even though the group does not seem to have popular support amongst Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who number an estimated 400,000. Islam al-Fatah, which even some elements in the Lebanese authorities acknowledge lacks links to al-Qaeda could not have settled so easily in Lebanon if there were no Palestinian refugee camps. The circumstances that created the camps in the first instance, and the agreement between Lebanon and other Arabs that prohibits the Lebanese army from entering the Palestinian refugee camps are some of the variables that aid and abet the likes of the current flare-up. Islam al-Fatah will have no sanctuary if there no refugee camps. Apart from 33 Lebanese soldiers, 27 Islam al-Fatah militants, 18 Palestinian civilians are included in the number of lives lost so far in the fight.

Not withstanding how the current flare-up, which elements in the Lebanese coalition government, the Hezbollah, and other stakeholders in the area agree would not require a military solution, is resolved, it will not be the last. Rushing military supplies to the Lebanese army is therefore misplaced. The more logical option will be to fashion out a just resolution of the Palestinian question. That resolution which could have been realized the day before yesterday will save the world the continuing bloodshed in that part of the world.

Sanity in Zimbabwe At Last

At last, it seems that sanity is about to prevail in Zimbabwe between Mr. Robert Mugabe’s regime and its opponents in the two factions of the MDC. There are indications that both stakeholders in the crisis that stem from Mr. Mugabe’s misrule of the country are beginning to engage each other in South Africa-brokered talks behind the scene. Although the talks do not involve prominent regime and MDC elements at this time, the fact that they are taking place at all is cause for hope. The MDC has obviously become more realistic particularly by putting aside its unrealistic demand that Mr. Mugabe must first acknowledge that he is an illegitimate president before it would accept to talk to him.

Considering the circumstances under which he emerged as president in all the elections that have taken place in Zimbabwe since his misrule triggered the current opposition from the MDC, no one is saying that the issue of Mr. Mugabe’s illegitimacy as Zimbabwe’s president is devoid of logic. What one is saying is that considering the weaknesses that riddle the MDC and the fact that the objective conditions in both Zimbabwe and the sub-region would not be conducive for the kind of armed resistance that some elements in the MDC might prefer to adopt against Mr. Mugabe’s regime, digging deep and firm on the demand for Mr. Mugabe to acknowledge the obvious before talks is not only unrealistic, but is also foolish. That demand is foolish because it will at best achieve the opposite by buying Mr. Mugabe the time to foment more intransigence, adopt more repressive tactics against the opposition even as he continues to ruin Zimbabwe in every sense of the word.

Talks between the MDC and the regime will open the necessary avenues for the eventual resolution of the crisis. Zimbabwe has been ruined enough already. The time to begin its resuscitation can no longer be shifted. Let the talks continue.

How About Nigeria?

As the people of Pakistan get increasingly restive in their protest against the dictator, General Pervez Musharraf who has straddled their political landscape since he kicked out the last nominal democratic government in their country, alarms are increasingly being sounded in some US print media channels to warn the policy makers in the US foreign policy establishment of the dangers ahead. Suggestions are clearly on the side of reigning in the general at least if not nudging him towards an alternative which will usher in another nominal democratic government that will include his secular opponents. Although, it shouldn’t have gotten to this point, but it’s unfortunate that the foreign policy establishment gets US foreign policy into this kind of situation every time and again for reasons that clearly boil down to short-sightedness.

Nigeria is one country that has continuously stumbled through an endless transition as a result of the over-bearing influence of short-sighted US foreign policy. Rather than take sides with the people in their quest to resolve the issues that emanate from unfinished state building, US foreign policy prefers to take sides with interests and actors in the country that spawn instability. US support to install and sustain Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo as president in 1999 was obviously the direct cause of the madness that gripped him over the last eight years. The initial promise for responsiveness he showed in 1999 simply varnished almost immediately when he realized that the US would help him reign in the military to render it incapable of intervening in the political process through coups. The immediate outcome of that was that he went on a field day that translated to running the country into the dust literally. That madness got the greater part of him to the degree that he proclaimed himself a messiah and stated to plot to succeed himself as his second term was about to come to an end. When his desires in that regard couldn’t materialize, he embarked on the project to self-anoint his successor. He schemed and scammed and manipulated the electoral process much to the chagrin of the many at home and in the international who condemned the stage-managed charade that took place in April in the name of elections in Nigeria.

Although, he successfully produced a winner-beneficiary from that manipulated process in the person of Mr. Umar Yar’Ardua, there is no doubt that Mr. Obasanjo has saddled Nigeria with yet another crisis which will consume the attention of everyone even as the country continues on the path of economic degeneration. It didn’t have to be that. Genuine democratic progress that will never undermine US interests is still possible in Nigeria. That alternative can only be realized by lending support to Nigeria’s political actors who are basically keen on resolving the question of state building amongst the nationalities that colonialism made to constitute Nigeria once and for all. Such actors abound in Nigeria, and Chief Anthony Enahoro is the most prominent of all of them. Bringing him close and consulting him will be the beginning of that genuine democratic progress.

Africa's Crumbled Universties

The story in The New York Times, May 20 about the decrypt condition in which universities in Africa struggle to educate the continent’s younger generations is as tragic as it is disturbing. The story portrays the decrypt and over-crowed classrooms, libraries, laboratories, and living quarters as the norm in Africa’s universities. But the most unfortunate issue in that story which show-cased Senegal’s Cheikh Anta Diop University, in Darkar, is the one that wasn’t mentioned. That issue is the views of the political class in Senegal, whose ineptitude and blatant corruption render what used to be an excellent education system a mere caricature of its past.

One is only saying that the views of a government official could possibly provided the necessary insight to prove that the unfortunate situation of affairs in the Cheikh Anta Diop University is likely to persist for an indefinite period. Senegal is not alone. The rest of the continent except perhaps South Africa and Botswana, are in similar conditions. In most of the continent, the situation may be even worse than it is in Senegal. There are places on the continent including Nigeria, which realizes stupendous amounts of dollars daily from the sale of hydrocarbons, where the educational system has all but collapsed. In Nigeria, universities stay closed longer than they stay open in any given year. So much that a course of study meant to be completed in four years take more than six or eight years to be completed. The reason being that aggrieved professors are perennially on strike action aimed at pressuring the government to improve their conditions of service. Yet, everywhere, the political class in each society continues in their evil ways to run the future of their societies into the dust.

If the story in Senegal is scratched a little deeper, it will reveal that the children of Senegal’s political class are all in universities abroad where they study in comfort. Their parents prefer to steal the public coffers dry, and use the money not only to educate them abroad in comfort, but to also buy real estate abroad. At the same time, the health and education sectors where the money is meant for are left in the decrypt conditions portrayed in The Times story.

All said and done, the harsh conclusion that can quickly be drawn from the unfortunate conditions that obtain in African universities is that the continent will remain in dire straits for a long time to come. A continent that ignores the education of its young generations is simply destroying itself by the slice.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

One cannot help but wonder why US foreign policy establishment and the individuals who run it make the decisions that back-fire on US national interests so quickly. Let’s take Pakistan as a case in point here.

It is not out of place to infer that the US may have looked the other way while Pakistan acquired its nuclear weapons for the sole reason that a nuclear Pakistan will counter-balance its Indian neighbor, which acquired its own nuclear weapons earlier. Although Pakistan acquired its nuclear weapon while it was under a nominal democratic government, it is not lost on the world that it was indeed the Pakistan military that spear-headed the quest for and its realization, perhaps as a possible chip to white-mail the US to condone its ambition to intervene in governance whenever it pleased the generals. It wasn't long after Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons that the nominal democratic government which was in power at time was ousted by the generals led by Musharraf.

There’s little doubt if at all that since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks gave the US the justification to embark on the current endless War on Terror, the men and women who make and implement the policies that drive the campaign seem quite comfortable with Pakistan’s dictator, General Pervez Musharraf. The US staunchly stands by him on the logic that his ouster might put US interests in the sub-region in jeopardy, especially if his replacement is close to Islamists. Musharraf has been the recipient of a generous $2 billion plus worth of aid each year, most of which by war of reimbursements for what his military spends as US proxy in the War on Terror, fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in that neighborhood. But there is no guarantee that Mr. Musharraf is playing straight with the US at all. It wouldn’t be illogical to argue that he may not last a day longer in power if he goes close enough to where Osama Bin Laden and his inner circle might be hiding in the so-called tribal areas of Pakistan.

Musharraf is no fool. He understands the US dilemma, i.e. he is needed by Washington for fear that his ouster might jeopardize US interests. The extensive aid that the US showers him with gets the worst of his autocratic tendencies out of him. He can afford to repress his opponents with the strong conviction that the US will not easily withdraw support from him.

In predominantly Muslim Pakistan, US dilemma over what to do with Musharraf cannot be easily resolved given that the perception in most of the Muslim world is that the current War on Terror is targeting Muslims. It may not be easy at all to nudge Musharraf out of power, and he is not likely to relent in his autocratic tendencies. But he will certainly get to the point when he will run out of options. Things will come full cycle then for the US, because some other autocrat or group of autocrats will assume power in Pakistan at that time. Who knows, they may not be amenable to Washington's overtures. What then would the individuals who call the shots in US foreign policy establishment do?

There’s More On the Way On Mr. Obasanjo From Mr. Atiku

The statement attributed to Mr. Abubakar Atiku in some Nigerian newspapers today that Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo is experiencing “disengagement trauma” may not be the last damnable thing that he will have to say about the latter in the next few weeks following their stand-down as vice president and president respectively May 29. Mr. Atiku, who is currently visiting Washington, DC in a private capacity, has disclosed to some people that he is privy to a dossier of damaging information on Mr. Obasanjo.

This is part of their continuing feud. According to one of the individuals who has been meeting with him during his stay here in Washington, DC, Mr. Atiku believes that the information that he has on Mr. Obasanjo is so damaging that aspects if not all of them could land Mr. Obasanjo in jail. He disclosed to this individual who is also related to his running mate in the last presidential election that he is simply waiting for Mr. Obasanjo’s hand over May 29 before he will begin to release the dossier in a systematic manner.

The specifics of the contents of the dossier are still unknown. So also are the logistics and conduit through which he will release whatever is contained in the said dossier. But if one were to go by the trend and the pattern of events in Nigeria’s judiciary, the enormity of the dossier’s contents may not necessarily earn Mr. Obasanjo even a night in jail. The most likely sanction against him will come by way of public opprobrium. Much of the land is already abuzz over the reckless statements that he made over the last week. The one that he made that Mr. Bola Ige, who he appointed attorney general in his first term, may have been assassinated by drug barons drew the immediate ire of Mr. Ige’s daughter, who proclaimed that his late father’s ghost is haunting Mr. Obasanjo. The suspicion in some quarters in Nigeria is that Obasanjo may have been involved in Mr. Ige’s assassination.

People are predicting that Mr. Obasanjo has very difficult years ahead of him because of the enormity of the misrule he inflicted on Nigeria in the last eight years. The fact that he capped that misrule with the most outrageous election rigging in Nigeria’s history wouldn’t make the situation any better for him.

Did They?

As the scandal in the US Justice Department involving the firing of nine US attorneys unfolds and makes things look clearer to the lay public, it does seem like Mr. Olusegun’s out-going autocracy and his PDP in Nigeria borrowed a page or two from the scripts written by whoever has been the hidden architect in the workings of the Bush White House in the last six years plus, to achieve their desire to retain power. In the case of Nigeria, the process has been predictably brazen particularly for the reason that Nigeria is an autocracy. But the nature of the system in the US has compelled the actors to be insidious.

In today’s editorial, The New York Times has argued that: “A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.” The editorial insists that: “It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove”, the acclaimed architect of Mr. George Bush’s electoral successes, in the unfolding scandal. In other words, the firings constitute a chapter in the scripts written by Mr. Rove as a manual that would help him build the permanent Republican majority that he once boasted he would establish in Washington, DC. Some people who still recall how the then Bush-Cheney campaign tenaciously fought to achieve victory over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election have had no problem seeing the logic in The Times editorial. The tactic is to use the Courts and the Justice Department to sway elections if they don’t favor Republican candidates. The Atlantic Monthly did a story some time ago that showed when and how Mr. Rove invented that tactic and tried it out before 2000 in parts of the country.

It will not be impossible for the swarm of lobbyists who service Mr. Obasanjo from Washington, DC to have copied a page or two from Mr. Rove’s script. Going by the nature of US political system, dismantling the architecture for a permanent Republican majority in Washington, DC is possible and can be achieved by the Congress, which The Times insists must be done by compelling the attorney general, Mr. Alberto Gonzales, who is currently embattled by the scandal to resign, and restoring the Justice Department’s “traditions of professionalism and impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does not work to advance the interests of a political party”. In Nigeria, the task can only be accomplished through means that are more innovative. But it is a task that must be accomplished in order to imbue politics in Nigeria with relevance and sanity.

Mr. Jimmy Carter on Bush

Former US president, Mr. Jimmy Carter’s statement Saturday on the impact of George W. Bush’s presidency on US in the eyes of the world is nothing new. According to Mr. Carter who occupied the White House in the period 1977-81, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, the Bush presidency “has been the worst in history”, on the “overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including (those of) George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others”.

Apart from former South Africa president, Mr. Nelson Mandela, Mr. Carter is the other prominent world personality who did not mince words from the outset in his disapproval of Bush’s determination to launch his pre-emptive war on Iraq. Mr. Carter wasn’t as prophetic as Mandela, who predicted that the invasion of Iraq would plunge the world into a holocaust. His criticisms rest mostly on the damage that the policy of pre-emptive warfare has inflicted on US leadership in the world. As he puts it: "We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

The White House’s description of Mr. Carter’s latest criticism as one that renders the former president "increasingly irrelevant” pales in the face of reality. The latest proof of that can be found in Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz’s recent failure as president at the World Bank. When everything that transpired in the course of the tenacious but failed efforts made by both the White House and Mr. Wolfowitz himself to make the latter retain his job at the Bank is put together, it wouldn’t be difficult to infer from the total package that even America’s age-old European allies are at best very lukewarm believers in the relevance of its leadership role in the world. The story is similar in the traditionalist regimes that dot the Arab world. They appear to be increasingly irrelevant to situation of things as they unfold each day in their neighborhood. Although the situation of affairs as far as the impact of the invasion of Iraq on US leadership role in world affairs is still unfolding, anyone who decides to argue that the over all outcome will be favorable to the US might be running a huge credibility risk. Sharp rhetorical rebuts to one like Mr. Carter who had simply reiterated some of what he had said in the past may not earn the White House the much needed points where they count, i.e. restoring America’s much damaged credibility in the world.

The Same Shilling and One Penny?

In The Decline of American Power, the book that he authored in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, Immanuel Wallerstein argues that the continuing crisis which the world capitalist economic system slipped into in the 1970s will not easily be resolved because of several reasons. One such reason is that everywhere and in all ideological spheres, the state, which has been the system’s age-old stabilizer, has continued to loose legitimacy in the eyes of the people. The erosion of faith in the state is the push factor responsible for the upsurge in non-governmental organizations, NGOs. But mark you, it's not all the time that those NGOs will operate according to the expectations of all. Some of them, as we've seen already are bound to be deviants. Society must therefore accept the responsibility of creating the void that enabled the emergence of deviant NGOs whenever they emerge.

People no longer sustain faith in the state and the actors who assume power on its auspices and fail to meet the expectations of the former. The upsurge in political corruption and dwindling trend in leadership responsiveness evident in western Europe and North America in the present time has placed societies in those areas almost at per with African, Asian, and Middle Eastern societies that are often seen as the traditional bastions of political corruption and zero leadership responsiveness.

Assessment of reports and analysis in most US media indicates that Americans strongly see the Bush White House as an institution that refuses to acknowledge wrongs and mistakes by its operatives, and prefers to reward them instead, and by so-doing, puts them in the stead to make fortunes and careers out of their dismal record of public service when they leave office.

The other day, on his campaign trail for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2008, former New York City Mayor, Rudolf Guiliani praised and disclosed that former US Defense Secretary was busy writing his own book. Even though he has been described as “the most comprehensively excoriated man in America” because of his obvious failures as a public servant, former CIA director, George Tenet racked in four million dollars from his. Mr. Douglas Feith, the former Under-Secretary of Defense for policy who is implicated as a major actor in the Iraq war is writing his own book too. There is no doubt that Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz will embark on writing his own book now that he has failed to retain his job as World Bank president.

Someone indicated the other day during a conversation that people in public positions in the US seem to have perfected the art of going out of their ways to embark on disastrous policies all in the bid to enhance their chances of landing multi-million book deals when they are done. If that is the case, the only difference between them and their counterparts in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East is that the latter use their positions to feather their nests even as they occupy them. Is it then not the same one shilling and one penny?

Finally?

The announcement late yesterday that World Bank president, Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz would bow out as president may not end the crisis that began with his presence at the Bank if the Bush White House appoints a replacement who will try to continue to implement what many staffers see as an ideologically motivated right-wing agenda. From the very outset when the scandal over Mr. Wolfowitz’s role in the transfer of his girlfriend to the US State Department from the Bank on a spectacular salary scale broke out, Ikengacomments has consistently indicated that his problems at the Bank has very little to do with the scandal. His antecedents were grounds for the dislike that Bank staffers developed for him prior to his arrival. He basically confirmed their worst fears when upon his arrival he energetically used what they saw as the same arrogant, insensitive, and high-handed management style that they associate with the Bush White House to implement an agenda that the staffers felt unbecoming of the Bank.

A Bank staffer who spoke to Ikengacomments then disclosed that several Bank employees resigned very quickly because they couldn’t deal with his outlandish style. In a chat with Ikengacomments yesterday, the same Bank staffer emphasized that although reports in the media have focused mostly on the scandal, the biggest concern in the Bank is Mr. Wolfowitz’s emphasis on and preference for anti-terrorism projects in the non-European parts of the world where they believe the Bank should focus on anti-poverty projects. The staffer specifically mentioned education, health care related, and other such projects that have been defunded or over-looked by the Bank ever since Mr. Wolfowizt became president.

The crisis may not be over yet if Mr. Wolfowitz is replaced with another individual who will want to proceed like him. The Bank staffers’ insistence that Mr. Wolfowitz does not need to wait until the end of June to depart is a signal that they would want the Bank to quickly return to its established mission as a catalyst in the quest to eradicate world poverty, as opposed to becoming another mega-tool in the ‘War against Terrorism’.

Evidence of Things in the Offing?

The indication late yesterday that beleaguered World Bank president, Paul D. Wolfowitz and his handlers in the Bush White House are about to throw in the towel in their hard-nosed drive to help him retain his job may have come as a surprise to only the most ardent of his fellow neo-conservatives, and of course the editors of The Wall Street Journal who claim that he is a victim of European conspiracy to assume control of the Bank. What seemed like a sudden change in the combative tone that characterized Mr. Wolfowitz’s engagement with the Bank since the scandal over his role in the transfer of his girlfriend from the Bank to the US State Department and the run-away salary scale that she was awarded was indicative that together with his handlers, was reported to have even robbed some members of the Bank’s board of directors sorely because of his refusal to admit that his role in the affair qualified as conflict of interest. Even then, his plea to the Bank's board of directors is somehow humbling: "I implore each of you to be fair in making your decisions, because your decisions will not only affect my life, it will affect how this institution is viewed in the United States and the world". So is the admission by the White House "that he made mistakes". They are now striving to exploit their only option, i.e. negotiate his exit from the Bank by asking that he be exonerated of any wrong-doing by the board in exchange for his voluntary resignation. Whether or not this demand will be acceptable to the board is still uncertain.

It’s rather sad that Mr. Wolfowitz and the Bush White House seem oblivious of the issues that underlay the problem that they are dealing with at the Bank. Their antecedents had alienated many people in the world long before Mr. Wolfowitz was appointed to head the Bank. Those antecedents were to the degree that Mr. Wolfowitz wasn’t much liked when he arrived the Bank as president two years ago. His arrogant and high-handed style of administration compounded and even sealed his fate at the Bank subsequently.

The tendency in the ranks of US neo-conservatives who hold considerable sway in the policies of the Bush White House to be selective in their perception of global realities seems to be part of their greatest undoing in their unparalleled determination to dominate world events. It’s therefore fascinating that they still believe that the character of the alliance that the US entered with West European states at the end of World War II when the latter’s economies were in tatters, and presided over throughout the course of the Cold War when the fear of soviet invasion pervaded Western Europe would remain the same in the post-Cold War era. For one, Europeans have come into their own economically. Also, the threat that the Soviet Union represented to them has completely disappeared. Why then must they subscribe to America’s arrogant world leadership especially when it tends towards robbing their citizens of their desire to reap the dividends of peace by plunging them into a cycle of endless international hostility?

Some people attribute the continuing difficulties being experienced by the Bush White House in most of their domestic and foreign policy engagements to incompetence. At the same time, it is not very difficult to discern that it is the same lack of wholesome calculation that got the Bush White House into Iraq that is also responsible for their troubles at the World Bank. It seems increasingly clear as the days roll by that the only way that they will get out of the difficult situation that Iraq has become for them is the way that the situation in the World Bank is compelling them currently to follow, i.e. bow to the reality of humility and the recognition that the rest of the actors in the global arena deserve to be acknowledged.

Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007

Never in my life have I seen such provocation of deeply expressed resentment and disapproval of an individual from so many within such a snippet of time. In less then two hours from the time—1:57-3:31pm—when The New York Times.com announced his death yesterday and asked its readers to comment on “what will be his legacy, and who might take his place as a spokesperson for the religious right?”, Jerry Falwell, who is regarded as the man who ignited the passionate fire of Judaio-Christian fundamentalism in the US and directed it at the kind of partisan political activism which enabled the likes of Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and George W. Bush and the Republican Party to win elections into the White House in 1980, 1988, and 2000 respectively, provoked 50 passionate responses from readers. There is no doubt that the number of Americans who miss him will be as many as those who will not.

The rationale that underlay such passionate expressions of resentment can partly be assessed from the fact that Monica Goodling, who is in the center of the unfolding scandal over the firing of nine US attorneys, is a graduate of Regent University, the bastion of Christian fundamentalist faith that Falwell founded and charged with the obligation to educate a cadre of people who will turn America into a society that reflects his brand of Christianity in every sphere.

There was no single one of those comments that have something positive to say about him. When the fact that The New York Times goes out of its way to moderate and edit comments from readers to the forum before they are posted, into your assessment of the flood of negative-only comments on Jerry Falwell, you will quite appreciate that he was indeed, an individual who will not be missed at all by millions of people here in the US. One reader simply said: “Legacy?—Evil often hides in plain sight”. The one that follows him said: “Finally, one of the biggest bigots and hypocrites in American history is dead! I’ll raise a toast in celebration tonight.” But it was the second comment that seems to capture the irony and negativity that all the comments associate with Falwell: “Falwell’s legacy will be bigotry and hatred. How sad that a person with such a powerful voice used it for such negativity and divisiveness.”

Throughout the course of his active life, Falwell was an individual who willingly exploited Christianity and used it to champion the cause of what many believe is racial bigotry in America and elsewhere. He was an ardent advocate of US hegemony in the world. He is one of the few prominent individuals in the world who openly opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from jail. He was a passionate supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa. But today, not only that Mandela is free, apartheid has been dismantled, and Jerry Falwell is dead!

The Bandwagon Effect?

The report yesterday by a committee of the World Bank that its president, Paul D. Wolfowitz’s role in the reassignment of his and award of salary package to his girl friend is in violation of the Bank’s ethics and governance rules should not surprise anyone. The same is also true of the Bush administration’s reported stepped-up efforts to forestall his ouster as Bank president.

Some people are beginning to link what they see as the aversion for responsiveness on the part of the Bush White House as a beckon of bad behavior for autocrats in Africa and elsewhere in the non-European world. Ever since the start of the war on terror, every autocrat in Africa and elsewhere has been quick to label opponents of his regime as terrorists. In Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo’s degeneration into a raving autocrat took a dramatic turn right after Bush’s war on terror began. He capped it with the most brazen manipulation of the electoral process in the country last month. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe often calls his opponents terrorists. The on-going turmoil in Pakistan started when the dictator, Musharraf removed a judge who is seen by many as an obstacle to the dictator’s resolve to use the war on terror to silence opponents of his regime.

Without the People

In 1983 when the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo announced on the heels of the electoral fraud that returned the National Party of Nigeria, NPN and Mr. Shehu Shagari to power, that his party, the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN and himself were not going to the so-called election tribunals to context what they felt was the theft of the electoral victory that could have been theirs, he probably was thinking and talking about just the futility of a court fight. Their experience in 1979 when they tried and failed to prove in the same tribunal that victory was rigged from their hands and handed to the NPN and Shagari had sufficiently proved that to them.

In perhaps his last major interview to a media outlet, he told the editors of The Guardian that he had retired to his country residence in Ikenne to await the day when the people will come for him to lead them: “When the people want me”, he said, “they will come for me”. Whether or not he meant it, that assertion implies that he believed that there is such an entity, a polity capable of inspiring the kind of consciousness in “the people” and make them “come for” a leader like him, capable of leading them sufficiently well. There was of course a military coup on New Year’s Eve the same year, but no people came for him. He died the next year.

The only reason the people never came for Chief Awolowo in the way he expressed his belief that they will when they needed him is that they don’t exist in that regard. A common consensus on Nigeria is grossly lacking. Reasons abound for that. There will be another day to recount some if not all of those many reasons. But it’s the absence of that common consensus that one like Olusegun Obasanjo takes advantage of knowing that he will get away with whatever he does to retain control of proceeds from the hydrocarbons that are extracted from the Niger Delta. I have heard that Nigerians are resilient. They may be so, but they do not yet constitute the people.

If there were the people in the true sense of the word, tell me what could have stopped them from pouring out in huge numbers to protest and stop the fraud that took place in the name of elections last month in Nigeria. The absence of the people is not only real in Nigeria. It’s evident in most of Africa. Wherever the people exist, it’s often difficult if not impossible for anyone to steal elections and get away with the theft. The sort of autocracy that pervades Africa derives from the absence of the people.

Different Strokes for Africa

The editorial in The New York Times Sunday, May 13 on “Hunger and Food Stamps” in the US, has, even without saying it, still said a lot about the problem of hunger in Africa and elsewhere in the South. It is cheerily clear in the editorial that although the ranks of the objective conditions of poverty-stricken households and individuals who reside in them in the US are anything but shrinking, no one can justifiably argue that all hopes of bringing the right efforts to bear on finding solutions to problem of hunger are lost. The institutional structures required to tackle both poverty and hunger abound in the US. The task, as the editorial makes clear lies in getting those institutions and their structures to rise up and play the roles for which they were established.

From Angola to Zimbabwe, no one can say anything similar about poverty and hunger in Africa. In reality, Africans face a double bind on poverty and hunger. The state and the autocrats who preside over them are out of control as they rampage all facets of society, throttling society and exacerbating poverty and hunger. The irony about that is that in its infinite strength—say weakness—the African state exists as a shameless bulwark that ravages the remnants of Africa’s age-old traditional institutions and structures that provide safety nets for the poor and hungry on the continent. Almost everywhere in Africa, the state keeps stretching its hands out to lenders and multilateral agencies abroad to receive anti-poverty aids but quickly retreats to barricade itself from society. The state readily bolsters its military and security forces and ignores the rest of society. It hardly forgets to bully society and its vulnerable members though.

Orthodox narratives on poverty and hunger in Africa are tied stories. But as diplomats in African embassies and missions here in the US read the Times’ editorial during breakfast this morning, one would hope that it tickles something in those of them who still have the wisdom and conscience. It’s understandable that those of them who feel that tickle might lack the courage to raise a cable home on the subject of the editorial. At the same time, the editorial must serve as yet another reminder to them and the rest that the state and leaders they serve are manifestations of irrelevance on the continent.

How Much of the World Bank Did Wolfowitz Understand?

The landscape of history is littered with the skulls and bones of actors of all type who lacked sufficient understanding of their arena of activism prior to getting involved. That is why in the realm of politics for instance, there are dictators in the mold of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and those in the mold of Mr. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. In the case of Castro, in spite of all the constraints that he has been faced with from the US ever since he came to power in 1959, he continues to pile one success after another that helps him retain support from a majority of Cubans. Zimbabwe under Mugabe is a contrast. Mugabe’s greatest undoing was his inability to appreciate that the land question in Zimbabwe involves more than possession. There’s also the issue of economics. It is indeed, that issue of economics that makes the difference between possessing the land and tilling it in such ways that would entail productivity.

A close look at the travails of Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz at the World Bank would reveal that he hardly understood that institution sufficiently when he got there. He may have understood that the Bank is a presidential institution, but his belief that everything else will fall into place there for him on the grounds that he represents the US was completely off mark. It seems like that same assumption has been a crucial aspect of the drag on the Bush administration that he came from in most of its endeavors. The outcome in case after case is impeccably clear. Is it the UN, the War Against Terror, Iraq, Katrina, the termination of the eight (now nine) US attorneys, one can go on and on. Ideology hasn’t been and wouldn’t be sufficient in each of these cases. There has to be a clear and proper understanding of the issues at steak beyond the conviction that it is the might of the US that will make the difference and translate to success.

If he succeeds in retaining his position as president at the Bank, or goes to another arena of human endeavor, Mr. Wolfowitz must realign his style of engagement in a way that makes understanding the first act in his play.

They Keep Dropping Off

If former CIA director, George J. Tenet’s book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, and his arguments and assertions therein were a multi-legged stool, it doesn’t seem like it will be left with any leg to stand on before long. A set of the legs fell off even before the book’s actual release April 30, because both The New York Times and the Associated Press that bought advance copies were whole-hearted in their declaration that it raised more questions than it answered particularly on Mr. Tenet’s candor over his role in the intelligence on which the Bush White House based its case for the invasion of Iraq. In its recent issue, The New Yorker magazine dubbed the book an episode in the Bush administration’s almost perfect score in “perfecting the art of unaccountability”. But Mr. Tenet still cleared a hefty four million dollars from his publishers for the book.

Not withstanding that, the legs keep falling off the book and its author’s arguments and assertions. Yesterday, British Prime Minister, Tony Blair who has been called the only man who could have single-handily prevented the invasion of Iraq by insisting on the need to be a little more circumspect in the handling of the intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, WMD announced his resignation as from June 27. Some people including The New York Times are convinced that his resignation is another casualty of the decision to invade Iraq. The Times is even unequivocal that “Mr. Blair’s once boundless prospects and personal credibility imploded after he became Mr. Bush’s most articulate enabler on Iraq”.

In this same week too, came news of the arrest of six men in New Jersey who have been indicted for plotting to inflict terror on a US Army formation in Fort Dix. The more shocking aspect of the crime that these men are alleged to have been plotting is the fact that although they are all Muslim, the investigation which trailed them in a period of more than a year before their arrest claims that their plan is home-grown. The other aspect is the fact that they are not of African or Asian extraction. When these two facts are stood side by side with some of the forceful assertions made by Mr. Tenet in his book and in his promotional interviews in the media to the effect that the next terrorist attack on America is more likely to come from people of Asian and African descent already here in America, who are connected with al-Qaeida, it becomes one additional shade clearer that he lacks valid knowledge of the possible sources of existing terrorist threats being faced by America right here at home. There goes some more legs of the book by Mr. Tenet.

The danger in such unguarded assertion by Mr. Tenet is that it might throw vigilance off certain sources of threats while concentrating it elsewhere. Highly placed public servants who are reluctant to be candid in he discharge of their duties posse as much threats to the security and well being of society as those who go out of their ways to plan and inflict harm on innocent people in pursuit of ideological motives.

East Timor, Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Reports today indicate that the second round of presidential election that took place Wednesday in East Timor was a success. Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta is headed to a victory, having bagged 70 percent of the number of votes counted so far.

The news worthy aspect of this story is that his opponent, Mr. Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, a former combatant leader in the struggle that freed East Timor from Indonesia’s occupation in 1999 had indicated earlier that he would abide by the outcome of the election. That position has been confirmed today by his spokesman who said, "In a democracy whoever get (sic) the most votes wins”. Mr. Ramos-Horta is currently the prime minister. But it doesn’t seem like he took advantage of his current office to manipulate the election to favor him. The UN special representative in East Timor proclaimed that the election was free and fair, without intimidation.

As recently as last year, East Timor has been wracked by post-independence political violence. The outcome this election which began last month when none of the eight candidates failed to achieve an outright victory can without doubt qualify as success in a new nation. When you compare East Timor’s with what took place in Nigeria last month in the name of elections, it’s like night and day. There is therefore cause for optimism in East Timor as it braces itself for another try under the guidance of a new leader without the cloud of illegitimacy hanging over his head. No one can say the same about Nigeria and Mr. Yar’Adua.

Zimbabwe!

The continuing internecine schism in the ranks of the opposition to Mr. Robert Mugabe’s destructive regime in Zimbabwe is to say the least, heart-breaking. At a time when they should close ranks against their common foe, the factions of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC have preferred to sustain their self-destructive activities against each other. The more damning is the increasing evidence that the ranks of both facts of the MDC are filled with individuals who prefer to lend their efforts and resources to destructive factional engagements.

It has gotten to the point now that many people in Zimbabwe and abroad are beginning to presume that the opposition, indeed the MDC is part of the problem in Zimbabwe. As erroneous as this presumption is, it is still reasonable to infer that the task of compelling Mr. Robert Mugabe to shift his stance on his conviction that his regime is good for Zimbabwe cannot be realized in this situation of internecine fighting in the MDC. One does not want to resign to the defeatist option of blaming the state of affairs in the ranks of the MDC on the fact that factionalism was also evident amongst actors during the struggle to abolish Minority rule. Even then, it will not be out of place for the one to ask present day actors in the struggle to free Zimbabwe from Mr. Mugabe’s regime if they think that the only elements that they can borrow from the history of resistance against autocracy in their country are those that give respite and joy to their common enemy!


It is not unlikely that the ranks of the opposition have been infiltrated by Mr. Mugabe’s bogeymen. That is to be expected, but that infiltration would not have occurred to the extent that is currently evident if the MDC hadn’t exposed itself to factionalism. The disagreements over power, ideology, and prestige that resolved the MDC into factions were misplaced. Democracy is about compromise, the kind that involves give and take. The expectation is that advocates and activists of democracy must subscribe to the tenets of democracy: the willingness to compromise and live by the give and take that is involved in the practice of democracy. On at least two occasions, the leader of a faction of the MDC, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai failed that expectation. First when he allowed himself to be caught in a sting by Mr. Mugabe's regime where he was alleged to have discussed what may have amounted to violence against the person of Mr. Mugabe. The second time was when he refused to accept the vote by the majority for the MDC to participate in the November 2005 Senate election.

If both factions of the MDC cannot at this stage find the will to heal themselves and come together to continue the fight to salvage what is left of their country from Mr. Mugabe's misrule, then the most honorable thing for them to do is relinquish their claim on being the opposition. In which case, their leaders must truthfully make it known to the peoples of Zimbabwe, indeed the world that they are incapable of the struggle. Anything other than that amounts to milking the goodwill of their benefactors abroad while throttling the peoples of Zimbabwe who are bearing the brunt of Mr. Mugabe's misrule most. I know that it is hard to talk about honor when it comes to the pattern of public activity in Africa, but the option of disengaging from the struggle is the only honorable thing left for the two factions of the MDC and their leaders to do if internecine squabbles are what they are only capable of. I have no doubt that when that happens the peoples of Zimbabwe will take it upon themselves to mobilize themselves more properly to engage Mr. Mugabe’s regime properly.

A Fool's Paradise

It is only a fool who will buy into the conviction being expressed by British and other European leaders that accepting the charade that took place last month in Nigeria in the name of elections is worth getting rid of Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo who stage-managed every step of that process to retain control of the status-quo in Nigeria’s power establishment when his attempts to alter the even flawed military imposed ‘constitution’ to perpetuate himself in power beyond May this year failed. What they forget each time when they spring one of the band-aid type solutions to avert the threat of implosion in Nigeria is that two wrongs can never make a right. It's only in a fool's paradise that such a wish can obtain. Nigeria does not seem to be such a place.

The crisis that Nigeria’s unitary political structures represent is gradually and consistently limping out of control. The consistent interest in the quest to keep Nigeria the way it is even when it remains clear that Nigeria as it is lacks equity and justice for the distinct nationalities that constitute it is the cheap hydrocarbons that the West receives from the Niger Delta. But the state of affairs in the Niger Delta today has radically shifted from what they used to be in the decades before the 1990s. Its inhabitants have signaled their unequivocal resolve not to stand by and watch the unmitigated rape of their environment for those hydrocarbons even as they exist in dire poverty while the rulers of Nigeria loot and share the proceeds from those hydrocarbons.

Although the West may have succeeded in keeping Mr. Obasanjo out of power by accepting his brazenly rigged elections to install his hand-picked candidate, Mr. Yar’Adua, it had better think twice. I don’t see the chances of getting the inhabitants of the Niger Delta to back down in their resolve to engage the Nigeria state where it is most vulnerable. They will sustain their efforts to disrupt the extraction of hydrocarbons from their land. Their resilience in those regards will deepen the crisis and time will come when there will be nothing left to salvage out of Nigeria.

Now therefore is the time to do the only right thing capable of solving the crisis. That one thing is the restructure of the Nigerian state to reflect its composition. Nigeria as a true federation is the answer. To accomplish that will not translate to the disruption of the supply of hydrocarbons to the West. It will simply guarantee it.

Predictions

In the course of our conversation the other day a friend of mine expressed his concern that Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo will still teleguide the activities if the man he selected to succeed him when he returns to his abode in Ota come May 29. There’s no doubt that it’s Mr. Obasanjo's desire to do just that. But my prediction is that he is in for the shock of his life. That he made such a presumption at all is indicative of his limited sense of realism. The other time when he was out of power every one witnessed how helpless he was after one of his wives was slain like a dog on a Lagos street. His inability to bring whoever that killed her in broad day light to account is indicative of his powerlessness. Just tell me why it’d be different this time around.

The only thing that he can be sure of the day he vacates the seat of power in Abuja is whatever amount of cash that he was able to stash away from the money that accrued from the sale of petroleum. Even that too would run out if he doesn’t invest it in productive economies elsewhere in Western Europe or North America. The political economy of the entity called Nigeria revolves around just the sale of crude petroleum. Only those who have direct access and control over the sale of that crude petroleum the way he did in the last eight years are likely to successfully pull off the tricks that are required to steer things the way he did during the period. His imminent by-stander status will become real beginning from May 29. Although he personally installed Mr. Charles Soludo as the Governor of the Central Bank, he will notice that his command for cash from Mr. Soludo will seize to be automatic.

The neglect that Obasanjo imposed on all ramifications of the basket economy in Nigeria will begin to afflict him too the day he returns to Ota. All those equipments that he imported with money that he simply took from the CBN from all parts of the industrialized world for use on his Ota farm will begin to break down one after the other. At first, it will be possible to use the likes of Andy Uba to replace them. But with time the decrepit economy will be unable to service and even repair them and he’ll find himself once again at that point that he was when the farm was making a mere twenty thousand naira a year as was reported in the media the other time. The economy is not production oriented at all. Where will the electricity to run the farm come from? Where would the work ethic come from? Where are the roads? Is he going to return to Ota with a helicopter that he will be allowed to keep for good?

Similarly, no one should loose too much sleep about what role the PDP will be used for again by those that Obasanjo will leave behind. My prediction is that the PDP will wither in the course of the next four years. You will witness the speed with which they will fall over each other as they scramble for proceeds from the sale of petroleum. The absence of a mandate will make it difficult if not impossible for Yar’Adua to keep them in line. After all they all know the tricks, lies, and theft they used to bring him in. Where then would he find the moral courage to call them to order? It’s going to be only a matter of time before the cookies Mr. Obasanjo baked will begin to crumble.

Why They Continue To Come

From his roost in Johns Hopkins University’s the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studiesin Washington, DC where he teaches American foreign policy, Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a recent op-ed piece in The Washington Post in which he decried that one of the major follies of US president George W. Bush’s foreign policy is his determination to achieve colonialism abroad in a post-colonial era. Mr. Brzezinski who was former president Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser is in the best stead to make such a charge and be taken seriously for it.

The thrust of Mr. Brezezinski’s piece is that the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq under what has turned out clearly to be false pretense by Mr. Bush does not have the least chance of achieving any of the fantastic desires that its architects have continued to brandish since their earlier rational of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, WMD has fallen flat on its face. Mr. Brezezinski’s argument has been made by many other thoughtful analysts and public figures before and after the invasion five years ago. Former South Africa president, Mr. Nelson Mandela was one of the first prominent personalities who publicly castigated Bush on the eve of his invasion of Iraq in the speech where he called him somebody “who does not and cannot think properly” who is intent on plunging the world into a holocaust. Although Mr. Bush satisfied his desire and invaded Iraq, it is abundantly clear that his occupation of Iraq has been anything but effective.

The intriguing thing about Mr. Bush’s invasion and occupation of and Iraq is that the more the American public disapproves of it, the more Mr. Bush and those who think like him in the Republican Party seem to be convinced that it is the right thing to do. When news that Mr. John McCain who was considered the front runner in the Republican Party for the nomination in next year’s presidential election was out-raised in funds in the first quarter of this year by Mr. Romney, who only declared his interest to be president last year, some close observers attributed that to Mr. McCain's unwavering support for Mr. Bush's invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. Someone that I know even joked that Mr. McCain has let George Bush to destroy his tenure in the White House even before he could win it.

These not withstanding, in their first debate, which took place in Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in California last week, every one of the contenders for the nomination in the Republican Party endorsed the invasion and occupation of Iraq. With all that has become crystal clear to the world about the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq today, the Republican White House hopefuls have clearly shown that they are all die-hard colonialists. At the same time, it’s lost on them that it’s unrealistic to achieve colonialism in a post-colonial era.

Can Buhari Be Trusted?

I find it difficult to believe that Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) can be trusted on the issue of resolving the nationality question in Nigeria. At the core of that question is the issue of compelling Nigeria’s unitary state to relinquish monopoly control of the revenue that is realized from the petroleum which is drilled from the Niger Delta. More than anyone else, Buhari has been extensively involved in that monopoly first as a petroleum minister, then as a military dictator, and under Sanni Abacha as the chairman of a task force that was in charge of importing and allocating pharmaceuticals.

His quick rejection of the suggestion by the other opposition parties to boycott the April 21 farce did not come as a surprise to many people. His reason then was that the farce must be allowed to proceed and that voters must then defend their vote. Well, the farce has been concluded and his kinsman, Umar Yar’Adua has been declared the ‘winner’ as everyone expected. Since Yar'Adua did not receive votes from real people, there's no one to defend anything at all. What does Buhari have in stock now that all has been said and done?

Obama's Is Really Genuine

The news this week that Senator Barack Obama has been given Secret Service protection is yet another indication that his bid for the White House is as mainstream as any other serious campaign in the history of the US. The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Mr. Michael Chertoff who authorized the Secret Service protection for the junior senator from the State of Illinois, a spokesperson for the Secret Service itself, and even the Senator’s campaign aides have all denied that the decision to extend Secret Service protection to him this early in the campaign was not prompted by any specific threats. The observation made in an interview yesterday by the Senator’s wife, Michelle Obama to the effect that “we are moving to the next level” of the campaign which entails “unusually large crowds and attention” is clearly an allusion that underscores the weight of the Obama White House bid.

From the very outset, beginning with his formal announcement in February, Obama’s bid has consistently continued to generate considerable support and attention that cut across America’s racial and economic divides. The announcement last month by his campaign that he brought in more than 24 million dollars in the first quarter of this year is yet the other clear indication of the continuing reception of his bid in America’s mainstream. It is not just that the amount of money that he raised was clearly close to the 25 million dollars raised by the other Democratic contender, Senator Hillary Clinton, also, the spread of Obama’s donors indicates that his support is more extensive and more mainstream than Mrs. Clinton’s. His senior colleague, Senator Dick Durban of Illinois, may have triggered the protection that he received when he expressed the concern to the Senate leadership that the large crowds that Mr. Obama is drawing on his campaign trails are sufficient grounds to extend protection to him. “I love this guy”, he is quoted to have said, “and I never want to see anything happen to him”, he told the Chicago Tribune.

There is hardly any doubt at all at this stage in the current run for the US White House that Mr. Obama’s campaign is indeed real.

There’s No Viable Alternative

It only takes a little scratching of the surface for any objective analyst to appreciate that the on-going immigration reform debate here in the US encapsulates two crucial issues that knock at the heart of much of what America is all about. The one is about border security while the other is about the accommodation of those who are already here into the mainstream of an immigrant society.

On the first, it will amount to irresponsibility for anyone to even imagine raising opposition to the suggestion that it’s the legitimate responsibility of every state and its citizens to uphold and secure the integrity of its borders. It seems oblivious that the camp in the debate that spews the more strident rhetoric is composed of those who were either responsible for or in support of the House Bill that passed last December, which would have criminalized the act of being in America without proper documentation.

On the second, supporters of the position in the bill do not seem to realize that it will be impossible to dredge out and deport the estimated 12 million people who reside in America currently without documentation. Most of them are Hispanics. The more certain outcome of that piece of legislation would have been that most of the 12 million will go underground. That would have been another way to create another permanent underclass in America.

Back tract to that era in the history of the US sequel to the emancipation of slaves, and pull out all that we know about efforts made by some prominent individuals in society at the time to repatriate those who had just been emancipated from slavery back to Africa. The rationale that underscored the convictions of advocates of repatriation of emancipated slaves was their presumed in-assimilability into the mainstream of American society. When the quest for repatriation failed, advocates of repatriation embraced policies and an unaccommodating mindset that produced a permanent underclass of citizens who still constitute a continuing burden and drag on society and its members. Anyone who is in doubt about the burden and drag of an underclass of Black citizens on America needs only pay a visit to the penitentiaries where most of the confined are Black and male. If the one factors the amount of public dollars (127 billion in 1998 alone) spent yearly on incarceration into the social costs of incarceration, the one will have a better idea of what I’m talking about. When history repeats itself the outcome is often farce or tragedy.

For a nation of immigrants, there’s no viable alternative to a whole-hearted absorption of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants who are already present in this country. The fact that most of them are Hispanics has no bearing on the practical logic that calls for their absorption.

Why do I believe so? Those who clamor for criminalizing the presence of 12 million people lack the logistics of getting rid of them. They also lack the higher responsibility of permanently locking them out. Any measure that drives such a stupendous number of people underground and pave the way for creating another underclass of non-citizens and citizens, because it will make it impossible for 12 million people and their children to position and prepare themselves adequately for life in this society. A permanent underclass of 12 million people will establish an extensive legacy that will haunt America today and beyond.

An experience that I had three years ago gives me cause to conclude that the alternative to absorbing these twelve million undocumented people would amount to suicide for America. The experience began when I deposited a check into my account in the ATM at a branch of my bank located in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. My check got missing for a long time, and was almost lost due specifically to the limited literacy of the Hispanic employee of the bank who processed checks deposited in the ATM that day. An investigation revealed that she was unable to decipher the digits of my account number as I wrote them, but rather than call the attention of her supervisor she left it unprocessed and simply bundled it along with the rest. The shortage of a well educated Hispanic work force played a role in my ordeal. Like all the other businesses, my bank was driven by the quest to attract and retain Hispanic customers in that neighborhood to hire and deploy an all-Hispanic staff in that branch. No one can condemn such a practice, but at least one of them lacked sufficient English language skills that were needed to process my deposit.

The day will come when the dictates of liberal politics in a liberal democracy will enable Hispanic Americans to elect one of their own into the highest office in the land. To presume that such a day will not dawn will be wishful. America will have itself to blame if it doesn’t ensure that when that day dawns, the individual who will be elected will be qualified enough to discharge his duties credibly. A punitive immigration bill will not be part of that preparation.

Nigeria’s Grossly Flawed Elections Hold Continent-Wide Implications

Not that Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo would care about this in any way. But the fact is that his blatant rigging of the general elections in Nigeria last month in his over-zeal to retain his party, the PDP in power holds continent-wide implications for Africa. For one, Obasanjo has once again confirmed for any skeptics out there that Africa’s path to true democratic political development will not be paved by the manner of elections that he recently conducted in Nigeria. Thanks to Mr. Obasanjo, events in Nigeria may once again help to warp efforts made elsewhere on the continent for democratic transition.

One is talking about Zimbabwe as a case in point here. Just this morning a story on the wires indicates that Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe has stepped up his brutalization of members of the opposition to his regime using the police. He is reported to have even extended the brutalization of the opposition which he began in March, to ordinary Zimbabweans. The unofficial curfew that his police enforce in some the suburbs around Harare, the capital continues to take its abusive toll on ordinary people. A just released report by Human Rights Watch quoted one Zimbabwean who it interviewed as saying: “Right now, no one walks about after 7 pm unless you want a beating”.

With the cloud of illegitimacy hanging over his head, as the beneficiary of Nigeria’s rigged election, one like Mr. Musa Yar’Adua cannot in any way be in the position to lend a voice of rebuke at Mr. Mugabe or a beneficiary of a flawed election anywhere on the continent. It’s therefore time for Africans to rethink the hope they repose on the mere conduct of elections. Elections cannot be worth the faith of Africans until they liberate the process of conducting it from the clutch of the likes of Obasanjo and Mugabe.

What Mr. Wolfowitz Doesn't Acknowledge

From the vigorous self-defense mounted by Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz yesterday in Washington, DC before the World Bank’s board of directors, it does seem as he’s in self-denial over the real issues at stake in his troubles at the Bank. My informed conviction is that the allegations of misconduct leveled at him over his role in re-assigning his girlfriend from the Bank to the State Department on unusual salaries constitute a gift that he handed Bank employees most of whom were uncomfortable and even averse to his presence at the Bank.

His fate at the Bank was sealed long before he even got there by his prominence in the ideologically-driven presidency of George W. Bush’s administration and what many see as the muscular style that characterize its policies. One is talking about the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is seen by many people in the world as an outright over-reach and violation of international law. Mr. Wolfowitz compounded the aversion that many of the Bank employees had already cultivated for him when he brought some aides along with him from his previous job and they proceeded to behave in ways that gave Bank employees cause to believe that those aides had been unleashed on the Bank to implement the administration’s ideologically-driven worldview on the Bank’s auspices.

The charge he made that “a conscious campaign to undermine his effectiveness as president” at the Bank is therefore off mark. So is the one that his ouster will send a “terrible message” that would make “an impossible situation for any successor”. Bank employees did not want him around as president from the very outset. He quickly confirmed their worst fears upon arrival when his aides brandished the same muscular administrative style that Bank employees associated the Bush administration with.

My other suspicion is that both Mr. Wolfowitz and Bush are quite aware of what got them into this trouble at the Bank. Their refusal to throw in the towel amounts to the stubbornness that many people associate them with. Two things are certain here: His continued stay as president at the Bank will have a negative impact at the Bank. The declaration of good faith that he seeks from the board to pave way for his ‘voluntary’ resignation may not be enough to salvage him from the damage from his previous job for any future appointment to Bank-type multilateral institutions.