We need some people like Nuhu Ribadu in Zimbabwe. Our health care system is in tatters yet Mugabe gets the best medical treatment. His children are in the best schools. His house could house a thousand homeless. Here’s an interview from Monocle magazine . . . really worth a subscription.

Clean Start

Nigeria’s first anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu was so effective he was sacked and fled the country, fearing for his life. Now he’s back running for president.

When Nuhu Ribadu launched his presidential campaign at the end of last year, he took to the stage clutching a broom. This was a symbol of his pledge to clean up Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s biggest oil and gas producer, where vast energy revenue have mostly been diverted into the pockets of the elite.

Ribadu says he is the country’s best chance for reform in an election due on 9 April (Since delayed to 16 April). Yet just one year ago, Ribadu felt unable to set a foot in Nigeria, let alone lead it. As the first head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, set up in 2003, Ribadu had pursued corrupt politicians, civil servants and the country’s “419″ internet scammers.

But challengers to Nigeria’s “big men” are rarely tolerated for long. He was soon forced to take a year’s leave, suffered death threats and fled to the UK. He only returned home last year after the unexpected death of President Umaru Ya’Adua. He speaks to Monocle about his political ambitions.

Monocle: Nigeria is Africa’s giant, yet it is widely considered to fall short of its potential. What is holding it back?
Nuhu Ribadu: Corruption is at the root of everything. If the money that belongs to the state ends up in a few hands and is used for negative purposes, there will certainly be no money for development. Our presidential fleet has more than 10 aircraft, but the country doesn’t have a single good hospital.

M: How would you reform Nigeria?
NR: I would be an honest leader. This is a very top-down place, where corruption happens simply because leaders are doing it. Second, I will open up the oil industry and follow the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Third, I will clean up the justice system and police force and create laws to protect whistleblowers.

M: Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party has won every poll since army rule ended in 1999. Is there any chance for opposition candidates like you?
NR: The PDP has never won a proper election and this year we are taking steps to ensure that you cannot steal elections easily. This is a real chance for the opposition and the country.

M: How should the international community react if the poll is rigged? After the last polls in 2007, they criticised the widespread fraud but accepted the results.
NR: The time has come for the international community to insist that things are done correctly. If the outcome is not to their standards, they should not recognise the winner.

M: How will you run a clean campaign in a political system that relies on corrupt god-fathers and sponsors? Will you probe your own backers?
NR: I’m not a policeman anymore. I’m trying to lead. So I won’t say that, if you donate a car to me, I’ll start probing and checking and saying I must know where you get your money. But that also doesn’t mean that I’ll take big money from anyone who brings it.

M: Do you still fear for your life? What security measures do you take?
NR: It’s not my nature to travel in an armed convoy. I’m not 100 percent safe but neither is anyone who lives in a country like Nigeria. My situation is only a little worse than that of others.

Source: Monocle

Upenyu Makoni-Muchemwa recently interviewed Farai Muguwu a Zimbabwean activist working in the area of natural resource extraction and its effect on local communities. Here’s an excerpt from the interview but please visit this link to read and listen to more.

What do you foresee in the future for Marange and by extension Zimbabwe’s natural resources and their extraction?

I think Marange diamonds are the tip of the iceberg. It’s revealing the secretive nature of the extractive sector in Zimbabwe whereby you have the political elites getting into some dirty partnerships with some foreign business people to milk these resources under the guise of black empowerment. There is really no transparency, no accountability and no political will to ensure that these resources have downstream effects on the ordinary Zimbabwean. It’s not just about diamonds. There are many funny companies, which just arrive in these rural areas and start mining. There is no consultation with the local leadership, there is no participation of the local population, and there is no tangible benefit to the local community. It’s something that our government has allowed and they have participated in this corruption. We can’t expect Zimbabweans to benefit from these natural resources. They have been corruptly acquired by individuals and groups and they are not willing to let go, and therefore there is a need to see this natural resource extraction as a serious human rights issue which is contributing to further impoverishment of rural communities

In Cote d’Ivoire, it looks like it’s military power, not people power or diplomatic pressure, that’s beginning to make a difference after a 4-month stalemate following November’s presidential elections.

According to the BBC GlobalNews podcast yesterday:

Alasan Outarra is looking increasingly confident. He already knows he has the combined support of the international community behind him. But that’s turned out to be much less useful than a loyal and efficient fighting force. Having such an army has at least put him on the verge of making his presidency a reality and forcing Laurent Gbagbo to step down.

In Kenya and Zimbabwe, a disputed election led to the defeated incumbent negotiating his way back into government. So is it any wonder that Gbagbo hasn’t been listening to diplomatic pressure asking him to leave. What use then are concepts like “diplomacy” and “international community” when it’s actually force that’s a lot harder to ignore?

The SADC Troika Summit of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation met in Livingstone, Zambia yesterday. The Summit was chaired by Rupiah Banda, President of Malawi, and attended by the heads of state and government of Namibia, South Africa Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The purpose of the meeting was to consider the political and security situation in the region, in particular the republics of Madagascar and Zimbabwe.

On Zimbabwe, the Summit received the report on the political and security situation in the country from President Jacob Zuma. He was commended for the frankness with which the report was presented and also on the work that he has been doing on behalf of SADC.

The Summit noted with disappointment the insufficient progress in the implementation of the GPA, and expressed its impatience with the delays. It also noted with grave concern the polarization of the political environment, characterised by a resurgence of violence, arrests and intimidation in Zimbabwe.

Among the resolutions made was a commitment to the full implementation of the GPA and another to the immediate cessation of violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit of the GPA.

The Troika Organ also resolved to appoint a team of officials to join the Facilitation Team and work with the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) to ensure monitoring evaluation and implementation of the GPA.

While it is heartening to see that Mr. Zuma’s candid report on Zimbabwe was endorsed by the Troika, previous meetings of regional heads of state and government have made similar resolutions on Zimbabwe without them being translated to reality.

Both the President and Prime Minister have made repeated calls for an end to violence and intimidation with no effect. In fact, the violence has greatly increased. In an article published in Newsday on 22nd February 2011, co-Chairperson of JOMIC is quoted as describing the Committee as a “toothless bulldog” with no legal or statutory powers to implement its resolutions. It will be interesting to see how and if this will change with the appointment of SADC officials to the Facilitation Team.

The first time I heard about sanctions, back in 2005, I thought it was a lie fabricated by Gono et al to justify his heavy handed printing of currency and the resultant inflation as a necessary evil.

No one can deny that this worked in the favour of those with connections and in high office to profiteer off the situation without regard for the plight of the general mass of Zimbabweans. My resentment was always especially directed at ministers and such who casually drove past me in their government issue air conditioned Benz as I stood in a round-the-block queue waiting to get my money from the bank for the Kombi home.

Later in the evening, they would be on ZBC news, well dressed and rotund, emphatically telling a ragged, sinewy audience just in from their drought-stricken fields that ‘we live in poverty because of sanctions”… some of us more than others.

Last week a newsreader on radio was saying that hospitals and are ill-equipped because of sanctions and let loose a diatribe about the effects of poor health care on Zimbabweans. There was little mention of the facts: diagnostic machinery has fallen into disrepair because the companies that sold it to us cannot or will not honour their service agreements because their home countries either make no effort to encourage trade with Zimbabwe, or at worst actively discourage it. A little while ago Natpharm declared that they had run out of stocks for the Malaria TB programme in the height of the malaria season. Again without reference to the fact that the programme is largely funded by the Global Fund, which is heavily influenced by the US government and has for several years rejected applications by Zimbabwe for funding of this and other programmes because of mismanagement by the government and the effects of ZIDERA.

Much has been made by the government of ZIDERA. But the strategy of speaking the name of its demon possessor fails government again. They do not explain that while the act does makes provision for targeted sanctions against individuals, it also empowers the US to use its voting rights and influence (as the main donor) in multilateral lending agencies, such as the IMF, World Bank, and the African Development Bank to veto any applications by Zimbabwe for finance, credit facilities, loan rescheduling, and international debt cancellation. This basically means that the Government of Zimbabwe is not only broke but it is in massive debt, following not only from the governments own over expenditure, corruption and mismanagement but also from the structural adjustment programmes it was ‘encouraged’ to implement by the IMF and the World Bank in the 1990s.

For the ordinary Zimbabwean this means that the government is unable to carry out it’s essential services. It is unable to bring electricity to rural houses, fix potholes in the roads, supply clinics and hospitals with drugs, build dams or increase the capacity of the water delivery system. This in turn means that we have places in Zimbabwe that saw better times in the stone age, and health crises such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and cholera will always be a rainy season away.

Land reform may have been successful, but there is no way to protect people from random acts of nature. In times of drought, such as this year, sanctions mean that the government cannot buy maize to feed its own population. Even without an act of nature the government is unable to fully support farmers as is the policy in more developed countries.

The anti sanctions propaganda fails to explain how exactly sanctions affect the average person living an ordinary life. Our government in its poor application of propaganda fails to understand that they have educated their population beyond their simplistic reasoning, and the contradictions and omissions in the information they liberally propagate on the state broadcaster are not lost on us. Reading Marko Phiri’s blog on the views of the people in Gwanda, I am not surprised to find that many people understand the sanctions to be merely about travel bans.

I was in Gwanda the weekend when the anti-petitions roadshow was in town with “party youths” in full swing enjoying alfresco rides in party trucks busy risking life and limb. I found long distance commuter omnibus drivers mad as hell as they had been forcibly removed by police from their usual pick-up points because – the drivers were told – they were interfering with people who were heading to the open space where the signatures were being collected. As we sat in the kombi impatiently waiting for it to fill up, the irascible driver could not stop complaining about “how unfree” Zimbabweans still are despite independence. Siyahawula elizweni leli. Abantu laba bafuna senzeni nxa singafuni ukuyasayina? Akusamelanga sisebenze? (We are suffering in this country. What do these people want us to do if we do not want to go and sign? Are we not supposed to work?) . . . the driver complained and it went and on and on. Then one chap who had been silently sitting, lost in his reverie suddenly said: Ungatshiswa lilanga usiyasayinela ukuthi omunye umuntu ahambe amzweni? (How can anyone stand the scorching sun just to sign something so that someone may travel overseas). That was how he understood all the ruckus about petitioning America and Britain to lift sanctions “that are hurting ordinary Zimbabweans.” It somewhat captured the mood among some people about this latest crusade to garner the support of ordinary folk ahead of elections. And obviously it would be asked if the people of Matebeleland who have suddenly become favourites of Newsnet vox pox understand the gibberish they are made to utter on national television about how sanctions are affecting their lives. The other day a bloke in Plumtree speaking in SiNdebele spoke about the removal of sanctions as if they were something that had been left at the border that needed urgent removal and one couldn’t help laugh out loud but still be ashamed at how the intelligence of rural folk was being mocked by the anti-sanctions lobby. It suspiciously looks like these Newsnet hacks simply persuade these obviously unsophisticated folks to stand in front of the camera “and say anything against sanctions” but the result is clumsy propaganda. You come to understand that old cynicism that if you tell a lie for a long time you sure end up believing it to be true, and many wish to be around to see the anti-sanctions propaganda turned against its sponsors.