Photo credit: the Africa report
I doubt if the coup d’etat in Mali on the 20th of August surprised close watchers of the African continent.
One of the questions I should ask the various bodies who have woken up to condemn the coup is where were they when the dethroned government was messing up?
I should be quick to say I don’t support any military government in whatever circumstances. But then, is the African society serious enough to be trusted with democracy?
I talk of the society because it produces the citizens. Not only that, each society has its core mores and values.
Take the simplest of values like queuing for example. There are some civilizations in which lining up is taken for granted. If anyone fails to queue up, they’re looked at as if something must be wrong with their brains.
That’s a function of the society!
When it concerns Africa, some people are quick to say we’re suffering from the effects of colonialism. For crying out loud, on the average, African nations have been independent for fifty years.
Is it not about time we got our priorities right?
But no!
We are satisfied with having nonentities as our leaders. We even participate in their enthronement through our non participation. A few do participate by selling their birthright for a morsel of gari.
I’m still interested in what came over the brilliant columnist in a prominent newspaper who later became the spokesman for a former president of Nigeria. He ended up being a deputy gubernatorial candidate for a person who, in normal times, he wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole.
The long and short of it is that I very much doubt if African nations are ready for ANY modern means of governance!
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