The Arab Uprising in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as well as the recent deadly civil war in Ivory Coast have shown the paradoxes within the Africa military establishment. The uprising and wars have brought to the fore how the military in Africa could be a force for peace, stability and prosperity and at the same time a force for destabilization, chaos, mayhem and destruction. In Egypt the army won the respect of not only Egyptians but also the entire world when they refused to slaughter their countrymen in their thousands. They realised that it would be sensible for Hosni Mubarak and his sons to leave the throne of power rather than butcher thousands of their own people. However, in Libya and Ivory Coast the army chose to side with the powers that be and subjected their own people to extreme brutalities. When the military in Africa is critically examined not too many positive things can be associated with it.

The role of the military everywhere, Africa included, is not to rule but to secure the democratic institutions; protect the territorial integrity of their nations; and prevent outside predators from preying them.

Unfortunately in Africa the armies have ignored their traditional mandate of safeguarding the territorial integrity of their nations and have adopted positions that have been detrimental to Africa’s development and progress. Like the German army that raped, tortured and killed six million Jews in the 1940s, the armies in Africa have been associated with extreme barbarity, massacre, rape, torture, genocide, summary executions, economic sabotage, infringement of civil liberty, dictatorship, corruption, pillage, force imprisonment, social havoc, brute force, political instability, usurpation of constitutions, reversal of democratic values including the overthrow of constitutionally elected governments.

According to Patrick J. McGowan of the Arizona State University, between January 1956 and December 2001 the African military carried out more than 80 successful coups, another 108 failed coups, and 139 attempted and reported coup plots.

It is difficult to find a single country in Africa where the armed forces and the security institutions have not had excesses against the country and the civilian population. From Algeria to Zimbabwe, the militaries in Africa have become a destabilising force preventing Africa from catching up with the rest of the world. In South Africa and Namibia where apartheid was brutally and religiously enforced for by the white minority government, the armed forces were the enforcing power. The genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 which resulted in the death of some 800,000 people could not have taken place without the strategic involvement of the armed forces. The horrors of the Biafra war in which tens of thousands of Nigerians especially Igbos died was made possible by the incursion of the military into civilian rule.

Throughout the continent the military sees itself as alternative to civilian rule, a wrong notion that has had profound and devastated impact on Africa’s development and progress.

Immediately after independence many of the armies in Africa joined forces with American and European intelligence agencies to forcefully overthrow governments that they were mandated to protect. Throughout the 1960s,1970s, 1980s and even 1990s the armies in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, DRC and Algeria among others took their countries hostage and reversed decades of economic, social and political progress. In Ghana despite the massive economic and social infrastructural projects carried out by Kwame Nkrumah’s government the military connived with Western imperialists and abruptly stopped Nkrumah’s effort to industrialise the country. In the process they helped to reverse the many successes that were chalked under Nkrumah’s presidency. Ghana today is still struggling to attain a middle income status while her contemporaries like South Korea and Malaysia enjoy one of the best standards of living in the world.

Since Egypt became a republic in 1953 the army has been in power most of the time with Gen Hosni Mubarak in charge for 30 years until the people’s revolution swept him aside in 2011. During his 30 year reign Egypt, its leadership and its institutions became more corrupt, and inequality between the people and the ruling elite and their cronies widened exponentially. In the early years of her independence the Egyptian army adhered to its original role and fought aggressively against British, French and Israeli invasion but after Mubarak came to power the army as they have done everywhere on the continent, increasingly turned its attention to its citizens treating them as if though they were an invasion force. Although there appears to be a revolution in Egypt that effectively ended the dictatorship of Mubarak, but a closer look at the country suggests that there has not been any revolution at all. The army headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, a longtime ally of Mubarak is still in charge. There are reports that the number of civilians tried in military courts has increased under the supposed revolution and that the army is unwilling to relinquish power which is a clear indication that the army still have a disregard for democracy and civil institutions.

The Nigerian armed forces have done more harm than good to their country. The harm which begun in January 1966 ushered in a period of brutalities, assassinations, coups, counter coups, civil war, official corruption, human right violation, economic decline, and impunity that the country has still not recovered from. Dubbed Africa’s sleeping giant because of her economic and political potential, Nigeria is often ridiculed in international circles and is now considered a failed state thanks to the role of its military. Since independence in 1960 there have been six major coups in the country with most of the country’s 50 years of independence being ruled by corrupt military dictators. By metamorphosing and constituting itself into civil and political power and entrenching corruption and impunity the armed forces of Nigeria helped to lay the foundation for what has become a hopeless and desperate security situation in the country. Since oil was discovered, the armed forces have backed corrupt multinational corporations like Royal Shell that are destroying Nigeria’s environment and endangering the livelihoods of millions of people in the Niger Delta region. The threat of the military taking over power was heightened when Omaru Yar’Dua died and even the current administration lives in fear of the armed forces as is indicated by a recent speech by Nigeria’s vice President. In the speech he pleaded with the army to respect the constitution and remain loyal to the government.

Col Al Gaddafi of Libya toiled for 42 years to develop Libya into the Switzerland of Africa but used seven months to destroy what he painstakingly helped to build. Despite the good works he did in Africa he also supervised a government based on terror, fear, intimidation, torture, imprisonment, assassinations, terrorism and killings. In the spring of 2011 the Libyan army under the command of Gaddafi and his sons were in fact ready to slaughter their own citizens in order to maintain their grip on power until they were crashed by the rebels but not until 25,000 Libyans have been sacrificed. In Ivory Coast, Gen Robert Gay and Laurent Gbagbo both used the military to achieve their political ambitions and succeeded in plunging one of Africa’s successful economies into civil war that killed about 3000 people and shattered the economic successes of the country.

The security forces in the Horn of Africa remain one of the feared armies on the continent. Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaiah Afeweki of Eritrea and their security architecture continue to engage in wars, kidnapping, assassination, torture and imprisonment of people critical of their regime. Many Eritreans and Ethiopians are freeing their countries in their thousands to escape the brutalities of the forces. In Cameroon the feared military unit called Jean Damme has been used by Paul Biya to intimidate and terrorise the civilian population rather than protecting them from the dictatorship of Biya.

Uganda’s Iddi Amin and his henchmen seized power and begun deporting Asian business owners destroyed the country’s economy. Museve’s 25 year dictatorship has not helped to place the country on the path of economic prosperity, social cohesion and cultural advancement. In Ethiopia Mengistu and his army officers succeeded in turning the country into a country of hunger, famine and total destitution. The sad story of Somalia where a brutal civil war is still ongoing was the making of Siad Barre and his military dictatorship that begun in 1969 and ended in 1991.

The military in Togo and Guinea have had their faire share of the atrocities suffered by Africa and her citizens. The military in both countries have engaged in repression, massacre, corruption, and reversal of freedoms. In Guinea for example Lansana Conte and his bunch of military officers ruled the country as their personal fiefdom for more than two decades and succeeded in reducing the country to a beggar state despite being rich in gold, bauxite and other minerals. In September 2009 the Captain Moussa Camara military government that took over power when Lansana Conte died succeeded in shooting, stabbing, assaulting, raping women and massacring 157 innocent members of their own population. The New York Times describes Guinea as a “lush coastal nation of 10 million, rich in minerals and tropical fruits”. The country is “dark at night from lack of electricity, has known harsh dictators and army shooting sprees in its 51 years of independence”. In Togo also Gen Eyadema retarded the country’s development for 32 years until his death in 2005. The army quickly installed his son as his successor to ensure that the legacy of corruption of the father continues.

Gen Mobutu Sese Seku’s Zaire (now DRC) suffered the same fate as any of the African countries mentioned above. Backed by his country’s armed forces, the United States and her European allies, Gen Mobutu made poverty and corruption one of the entrenched symbols of his country. For 32 years he led the armed forces to turn their guns on Zairians killing as many as he could and stealing billions of dollars worth of DRC assets and stacking them in American and European banks. The DRC army has been accused of rape, extortion of money from civilians and killing them. The DRC armed forces are considered one of the most indisciplined armies in the whole of Africa. Since the late 1990s more than five million Congolese have perished in the hands of the military, the various rebel groups, and Rwanda and Uganda armed forces.

The brutal and dictatorial regimes of Blaise Campore of Burkina Faso, Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Dos Santos of Angola, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic; their abysmal economic performance; and the inability of the people to raise their voice have been made possible through their alliance with the military who have been used as war dogs to pounce on the populace and deny them economic, political, social and cultural freedom. The so called strong men of Africa have been able to bring Africa to economic and political standstill because of their use of the armed forces and other security institutions to instill fear in the population. Today Africa remains the only continent where military dictatorship and dictatorial regimes backed by the army is still dominant. In other words the military in Africa have been largely a distracting force. In the name of national security which can be interpreted as regime protection these military governments implemented oppressive dictatorial laws that turned their own citizens into slaves without rights.

Surrounded by their kind these army officers like Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida, Hosni Mubarak, Gaddafi, Jerry Rawlings, Iddi Amin, were never and have never been concerned about the welfare of the people but rather their stomach and there is enough evidence to proof it. The evidence about how Africa has suffered in the hands of the military is clear when countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Libya are considered. From Sani Abacha who stole more than 3 billion dollars in five years, to Mobutu who bankrupt Zaire, to Hosni Mubarak whose ill-gotten wealth was pegged at 75 billion dollars, to Omar Bongo who stole Gabon’s money to financed French political parties, to Obiang Nguema, Paul Biya, Blaise Campore, Denis Nguesso, Omar Bongo and Dos Santos accused by civil society organisations of corrupt, flamboyant and extravagance lifestyle the evidence of why Africa is a paralysed continent is clear.

Some of the periods in which the army took over power remain one of the darkest and wasted years in Africa’s effort to fight illiteracy, poverty, hunger and diseases. In many of these military takeovers many businessmen and women lost their investments as businesses were confiscated, sold or given to their cronies. In countries like Ghana state owned businesses were sold to cronies and allies of the regime. In Nigeria for instance Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha among others succeeded in draining the country’s coffers by using money meant for electricity, education, health, water, roads to buy expensive military machines for their own protection. Gaddafi for example bought several billions of dollars worth of weapons from France and the United Kingdom while cities such as Benghazi were crying for infrastructure.

In most of the countries like Ghana the armed forces have never fought external aggressor rather they have often been used as instrument through which external aggressors (particularly Belgium, Britain, France and United States) get their hold on Africa’s resources and their people. The armies in Algeria, Gabon, Egypt, Rwanda, Tunisia and Uganda have been the main instrument through which countries like United States, France, Belgium, have achieved their foreign policy objectives in Africa. France for instance used her troops stationed in Gabon and Senegal to gather intelligence and used the armies in Africa to carry out more than 40 coups against the people of the continent. The billions of dollars that Egyptian armed forces receive from the US annually is the main reason why the armed forces protected the regime of Hosni Mubarak for 30 years because he was seen as useful weapon and counter force against Iran and Iraq.

From a closer look one can easily see why and how Africa (one of the resource endowed continent in the world) has been reduced to a beggar and a desperate hopeless continent. The Armed forces incursion into civil power destroyed economic progress that was made in the early periods of independence. Political, economic and social institutions were destroyed as the armed regimes implemented policies without thinking about their impact. The army backing of the dictatorial regimes such as those in Zimbabwe, Algeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola has endangered Africa’s economic growth as well as her social and political progress.

Wind of Change
There is no doubt Hosni Mubarak and his sons would have been in power and amassing wealth to the detriment of the Egyptian masses if the armed forces had chosen to back them. Unlike Libya where an estimated 25000 souls have perished, the refusal of the armed forces in Egypt to kill protesters at Tahir’s Square helped to avoid a possible bloodbath. The armed forces’ refusal is a sign of how the army can be a force for good, a force peace, stability and positive change. In Ghana the armed forces are seeking a different role that will not only contribute to improving the overall security situation but also the economic development of the nation. The armed forces in Ghana are considering entering into business ventures. This new concept is an indication of the positive thinking that is emerging in the African security command. These ambitions by the army should be nurtured as it has the potential of helping the armed forces to generate extra money outside the traditional sources. In Rwanda and Uganda the United States is helping the armed forces with training and reorganisation. Though many doubts the real intentions of the United States, it is hoped that such training will inculcate a sense of discipline and professionalism in the psyche of the army and help protect the countries from the instability that have come to defined them.

Conclusion
The 21st Century has come with new security challenges that demand new strategies and tactics. These challenges also demand an army which is well trained and well resourced to respond to the threats and challenges. The emergence of Boko Haram in Bauchi and Borno States in Nigeria, Al Shabaab in Somalia; the threats posed by pirates in West, East and Southern Africa and its impact on the safety of international maritime transport all demands that the army in Africa undergo serious transformation and reorganisation to respond to these emerging threats.

Therefore many of the armies in Africa need reforming to reflect their role in this 21st century and also to respond to the emerging security threats such as piracy and terrorism. Democratic values, human rights, and respect for contitutional order must be at the centre of any training offered to the men and women in uniform. This will help them to understand the need not to derail the wheel of democracy and economic progress being made in Africa. It will help them to be on the side of the people always and not back dictators and power hungry individuals who seek to perpetuate their rule through violence and intimidation.

Rather than seeing itself as an alternative to civil power, the army in Africa must work closely with other security agencies to protect the institutions of governance, democracy, civil liberty and rule of law. Therefore they must not allow themselves to be used by unscrupulous politicians to the detriment of the security and wellbeing of their countries. And they must adhere to their mandate as the protector of the territorial infrastructures of the countries and refrain from acts that destroy the very nations they are supposed to protect. The military must do more to improve their relationship with the citizens of their respect countries. It is not in the interest of the army that they are feared rather than respected by the people. The 21st century global security arrangement demands that the armed forces become more professional, less power hungry and ready to protect the interest of their countries.Africa is bigger than any single individual and the armed forces must ensure that they will not be a bastion for insecurity, but rather a force for economic and political stability, peace, prosperity and positive change.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

War crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes no matter where they are committed and no matter who commits them, but for the International Criminal Court and Luis Moreno-Ocampo war crimes and crimes against humanity become crimes only when they are committed in Africa and by Africans.

Since the beginning of 2011 Moreno-Ocampo and his ICC have renewed their assault on Africa arresting and demanding arrest of the leadership in Africa. In September 2011 six Kenyan politicians arrived in The Hague-Holland to face charges for their role in the post election violence that rocked Kenya in 2008 and led to the death of about 1,300 people. In October of 2011 the Moreno-Ocampo visited Ivory Coast and held talks with the government of Alansan Quattara. One month later former president Laurent Gbagbo was sent to The Hague under the cover of darkness to answer charges for the three thousand Ivorians who died during the conflict. Similarly in November, 2011 Moreno-Ocampo made a trip to Libya to demand that Seif Islam be handed over to the ICC for prosecution. In the first week of December Mr. Moreno-Ocampo requested the arrest of Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, Sudan’s Defence Minister for the alleged war crimes he committed in Darfur between August 2003 to March 2004 while he was both Interior minister and Darfur’s representative.

Charles Taylor former Liberian president, Al Bashir sitting president of Sudan, former DR Congo warlords Thomas Lubanga, Germaine Katanga, Mathew Chui, and Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) Joseph Kony, and four of his senior deputies and many others are among the over 30 Africans who are in detention or have been indicted and yet to arrested.

Many in and outside Africa have made the allegations that the ICC has a calculated and hidden agenda for Africa and is unfairly and deliberately targeting Africans. Jean Ping, Africa Union commission president accused the ICC of having Africans in mind when the ICC was set up. He accused the ICC of double standards and discriminatory practices and said the ICC is only interested in pursuing cases in Africa while ignoring horrific crimes committed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has rejected the allegations. In a BBC interview Ros Atkins, the host of the programme, asked Moreno-Ocampo the ICC appears to be targeting Africans. His response was that: “The crimes committed today are in Africa and that is why I should not ignore African victims. I cannot ignore the women raped in Darfur or the children abducted in Congo or girls transformed into sex slaves…Because the crimes committed are there [in Africa]. I cannot mitigate in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, in Iraq because they are not signatory parties. If your listeners want me to be involved in Sri Lanka, in Zimbabwe, in Lebanon, in Iraq they have to convince these countries to join the treaty [Rome Treaty] or they have to convince the Security Council to refer the cases to me”.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo’s interview responses are part of the misinformation typical of the stereotypes we often read and hear about Africa and Africans in the Caucasian dominated countries of the global north. His assertions that Africa is the epicenter of the world’s crimes smack of the hypocrisy and the double standards that have dominated all global institutions including the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the United Nations Security Council. The inference of Moreno-Ocampo argument is that he cannot indict and prosecute the sinners in Europe and America who sent their soldiers to Iraq to destroy it because he Ocampo does not see anything wrong with Britain and US invading a sovereign country, overthrowing its leaders and killing innocent children and women. We know that Libya like United States is not and has never been a member of the ICC yet Mr. Moreno-Ocampo demanded that Gaddafi, his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi and Seif Islam be arrested and prosecuted.

The arrogance with which he makes his case is a semblance of the practices of the colonial and the post colonial order where Euro-Americans like Cecil Rhodes and Von Trota committed heinous crimes in Africa and around the world and never accounted for it.

When we say colonial and cold war crimes we are talking about the thousands of Kikuyus in Kenya who were killed or imprisoned by the British in the 1950s. We are also talking about French criminality in Algeria in the 1960s that resulted in tens of thousands deaths. We also mean the slaughtering of Angolans and Mozambicans by Portuguese forces in the 1970s. We mean the 1904 German genocide and enslavement of the Naqua and Herero people of Namibia; the forceful seizure of the native lands by Germans and later white South Africans, the effect of which continues to affect the Black population in Namibia today. When we say colonial and post colonial crimes we are also talking about King Leopold II and Belgian atrocities against the people of Congo in the 1900s. We are referring to the apartheid policies in South Africa which were strongly supported by United States (Presidents Reagan and Nixon) and the Netherlands whose territory the ICC is now headquartered.

The people of Africa know they cannot get justice from the ICC because its terms of reference have been deliberately downgraded to protect Euro-Americans from the appalling treatment of Africans during and after colonialism.

Like the World Bank and the IMF that inflicted Africa toxic economic policies on Africa in the 1980s and rendered the continent uncompetitive for decades, the ICC has become a tool through which the hegemonic and imperialism ambition of the West is being carefully implemented. While Moreno-Ocampo is busily prosecuting Africans it is very horrifying and disheartening that the ICC has decided to gross over Euro-American colonial and post-colonial crimes in Africa and instead chosen to go after the soft target and the foot soldiers.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has completely ignored Euro-American leaders and the atrocious crimes they have committed especially since the beginning of the 21st Century and particularly the post 9/11 era.

Why can’t the victims in Iraq, Afghanistan and the detainees in G’mo get justice?

When we hear of the hundreds of thousands of children, women, men and civilians who have been slaughtered in Iraq and in Afghanistan in the name of war on terror, democracy and new world order, we know they are never going to get justice because the same unjust system that prevented Namibians from getting justice after their lands were seized by invaders the from is still being implemented by the ICC.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo continues to make the case that the ICC only seeks to indict and prosecute offenders in countries where governments are unwilling or are incapable of doing so. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has argued that once a country has legal and stable political climate to deliver justice the ICC will allow the country to do the prosecution herself and will only provide help when needed. This line of thinking appears to be the case of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. The US and Britain according to Mr. Moreno-Ocampo have the institutions to deliver justice and bring the perpetrators of the Iraq war to book.

But we know that is fallacy. It is obvious that United States is not willing to let Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, the generals and the CIA operatives answer for their crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the torture camps, rendition and secrete prisons they operated in Guantanamo and around the world. It is also obvious that Britain is not willing to prosecute Tony Blair and the hawks in his administration who massaged intelligence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tony Blair is still a free man and is going round the world delivering speeches and cashing in on the sins he committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush however has been very reluctant to travel for fear that he will be arrested and prosecuted. In February 2011 Bush was forced to cancel a planned trip to Switzerland after human rights groups threatened they would seek his arrest and prosecution for his conduct of the Iraq and Afghan wars and his administration’s treatment of detainees.

Despite their catastrophic invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan we are told that there is nothing the ICC can do about it and that the victims and their families in must keep quiet and suffer. Dick Cheney still justifies his actions which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unfortunate thing is that the Euro-American human rights cartels (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) continue to champion the arrest and prosecution of African leaders while Bush, Tony Blair and their dogs of war live in European and American cities and enjoying life outside prison.

Africans do not reject or dispute the allegations that Gaddafi, Laurent Gbagbo, Al Bashir, Charles Taylor and their cronies are murderers. Africans therefore welcome the prosecution of African leaders who have tragically mistreated, killed, looted and mismanaged their countries. However, we strongly believe that judging from the magnitude of their crimes many of them are better than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, George Tenet and Blair. Therefore so far as Bush and the war mongers in Washington continue to live their life outside prison, whatever the ICC does will be nothing more than a mockery of justice.

On June 21st 2010 Ms. Christine Lagarde, former French Finance Minister and current IMF Chief and Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank Group’s Managing Director and former Finance Minister of Nigeria wrote an article which was posted on Project Syndicate website captioned ‘No Safe Havens for Dirty Money’. In their article they argued that tax havens, looted funds, bribery, and corruption hurt poor countries more and that the global financial crisis has served to show that there is little tolerance for people who cheat. To them both high income and particularly low income countries will benefit if everyone plays by the rules adding that ‘Corruption – under any form or circumstance – is a cancer that cripples developed and developing economies alike. It undermines economic growth. It is a crime that produces particularly damaging consequences in the developing world’. “Everyone must play by the rules” in order to save the world from the current difficult economic and financial situation.

The people in low income countries, according to Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala, want to see an end to the corrupt financial havens that allow corrupt officials to steal public money and stash it abroad. They submitted that the impunity for this type of global crime can no longer be tolerated: ‘Abuse of public authority for private gain is not acceptable’. They added that there is the urgent need to foster openness and transparency in financial transactions and to ensure accountability at the global level.

In March 2010 Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington based anti corruption group published a report titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development”. The report estimated that between 1970 and 2008 Africa lost about $854 billion through trade mispricing. The GFI report added that the figure of the illicit financial outflows could have gone as high as 1.8 trillion dollars if components such as mispricing of services and smuggling had been included.

Global Financial Integrity has argued that a large portion of this massive illicit money leaving Africa finds its way into Europe and North America through a network of opaque global financial system comprising tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations, trade mispricing, and money laundering techniques. A key component of this huge illegal money transfers is the stealing of public money by corrupt officials. These public monies, usually proceeds from sale of natural resources, loans contracted from World Bank, IMF and grants are meant to help the poor countries fight and end human suffering, end poverty; put children in school; end energy poverty; build hospitals; provide potable water; promote food security and provide badly needed retroviral drugs to people living with HIV and AIDS.

The stolen monies are welcomed by the banks in Europe notably those in France, Switzerland, Britain,and Luxemburg. In most cases little or no due diligence is followed and most of the banks appear to advise and encourage their so called clients on how to invest their monies in order to avoid being detected. The Levin Report of 2010 prepared by a committe of the the US Senate revealed that Britain, Switzerland, United States and France are known to be major recipients of these stolen public monies from Africa. These rich countries have been seriously involved in shady deals with Africa’s political elite who are amassing wealth at the expense of the welfare of their populations. The conditions of secrecy created in countries such as France, Switzerland, Britain and Luxemburg enable African leaders to steal with impunity and deposit their ill-gotten wealth in these jurisdictions. Thus when corrupt African dictators, public officials and top civil servants dishonestly empty the treasuries of their poor countries they find western allies who are willing and cooperative to hide the looted funds. The case of Alpine nation of Switzerland as a safe haven for Africa’s looted funds is known worldwide. Switzerland has been described as a parasite feeding on poor African and Third World countries because for more than half a century it has ‘built a reputation as the world’s centre for tax evasion, fraud accounting, money laundering, racketeering and a staunch ally of corrupt third world leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption’. Over the last six decades or more various categories of persons including presidents, popes, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business men, and drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland’.

However, when it comes to France very little is known about how it has successfully milked African countries and created massive poverty in its former colonies. Very little is known because of the eagerness of the French media and the judiciary to protect illegal financial operations of French politicians and members of the business fraternity. The French media, the French prosecution office and the judiciary have all turned a blind eye to the adulterous relationship between French politicians and French business leaders on one hand and the political entities in Africa on the other. Since the 1960s France has connived, aided and abetted African leaders to plunder the treasuries of their countries for safe keeping in France and to buy luxurious properties in French cities.

This corrupt behaviour of the French establishment is what makes the article by Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala on ‘No Safe Havens for Dirty Money’ is interesting. It is interesting in sense that while the content of the article and its conclusion are in the right direction it is also laden with hypocrisy, double standards and pretence on the part of the authors and the entities they represent. For example in their article Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala praised France and the United States for pushing G-20 countries to adopt tougher financial regulation, and for promoting governance, and accountability aim at safeguarding the world’s economy. However, while praising France Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala failed to tell the world about how France has encouraged corruption and mismanegement in Africa and continues to do so despite the fact that such corrupt activities are hurting the poor in Africa.

Christine Lagarde for instance was the Minister of Finance in France and a key cabinet member in the President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. As a Finance Minister she was in a powerful position to fight corruption and bribery and end the practice where her country has become a safe haven for Africa’s looted assets, but she and her government did nothing to stop France from becoming the deposit box of Africa’s dirty money. French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised in 2006 to change the adulterous relationship between France and her former colonies in Africa so as to bring an end to the massive corruption and dictatorship sometimes engineered and supported by the French state, but almost four years after taking office he has done little if not nothing to follow through his campaign promise.

France continues to serve as a haven for looted African resources with the encouragement of French politicians, businessmen and banking officials. They continue to encourage corrupt African leaders to steal from their poor countries and hide their loot in French Banks. France continues to serve as a paradise for corrupt African leaders where they enjoy their loot after leaving office and the French authorities are quick and too willing to entertain them despite the growing call for France to take action against them.

France and the Bongos of Gabon

The most important discussion on how France has served as Africa’s angel of death devouring African economies and turning rich resource countries into pariah states could be seen from Gabon. The late Omar Bongo of Gabon who ruled his country for 41 years was considered one of the corrupt African leaders and was known worldwide to have used his country’s oil wealth to buy mansions and other properties in France and to buy political influence and favour from the French ruling class. In 2009 French police investigation uncovered a huge number of properties that were bought by Bongo and his family. In all 33 mansions and other luxurious properties were uncovered. One of the mansions a 21,528 sq ft is located at Rue de la Baume near to the Elysee Palace the home of the French presidency. According to the Sunday Times in UK, the investigation also uncovered nine other properties in Paris, four of which are on the exclusive Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe. Bongo was also reported to have a further seven properties in Nice, including four villas, one of which has a swimming pool. The late Edith and wife of Omar Bongo, until her death still had two flats near the Eiffel Tower and another property in Nice.

Omar Bongo together with his family had 70 bank accounts in France from which several properties worth millions of dollars were bought from. Omar Bongo and his relatives also bought a fleet of limousines, including a £308,823 Maybach for Edith. Payment of some of the cars was directly taken from the treasury of Gabon. The Sunday Times in UK reported that until her death Edith had over 75 million dollars stashed in banks in French Monaco. The same Edith used a cheque drawn on an account owned by Gabon treasury to buy the £308,823 Maybach in February 2004. “Bongo’s daughter Pascaline, 52, used a cheque from the same account for a part-payment of £29,497 towards a £60,000 Mercedes two years later. Bongo bought himself a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti F1 in October 2004 for £153,000, while his son Ali Bongo (now Gabon president) acquired a Ferrari 456 M GT in June 2001 for £156,000”. French police investigations indicate that this lifestyle of profligacy was supported by leading French banks.

The current President of Gabon Ali Bongo, son of Omar Bongo has continued the corrupt empire his father created with French politicians and the business elite. Canard Enchainé, a French satiric newspaper reported on the eve of the 2010 France-Afrique conference in Paris that Ali Bongo had purchased a hundred million euro property in Paris. The property located on the University street has been described as “one of the most beautiful” in the heart of Paris. Canard Enchainé noted that the building covers a space of 4,500 square metres with the garden covering 3,700 square metres. “The 100 million euros does not include other expenditure to be made for the renovation and maintenance work which could take a third of Gabon’s GDP”.

The sad thing is that major investigations uncovering huge financial irregularities in France on the part of the Bongos have been shelved. The investigations have been shelved because French authorities believe that if they move against the Bongos they (the Bongos) may retaliate by punishing French businesses in Gabon and deny them access to the lucrative oil deals. Till today not a penny of the millions of dollars of Gabonese money believed to have been stolen by Bongo and hiding in French banks has been returned. This is what brings the hypocrisy of French politicians like Lagarde out clearly. While shouting ‘No safe havens for dirty money’ at the same time they are keeping billions of such monies in their banks with no indication that they are ever going to return them.

One of the most notable quotes of Omar Bongo was: “Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel”. That is how Bongo saw the corrupt relationship that existed between him and his international friends in France.

Apart from directly stealing money meant for the development of Gabon and stashing it in French banks with full knowledge and support of French elites, the Bongos also showered French business elites with business contracts in Gabon, and as if that was not enough Omar Bongo also showered French politicians with financial gifts that only came to light after his death. Bongo is believed to have used proceeds from his country’s oil to finance the election campaign of a number of French politicians and then used those politicians to help him secure his dictatorship in Gabon and also to protect his stolen assets in France. According to Henry Samuel of the Telegraph newspaper in the UK, former French Presidents Jacque Chirac and François Mitterrand are among a host of French politicians who are alleged to have received illegal payments from Bongo. According to former French president Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, the late Omar Bongo spent years building up a very questionable financial network with politicians in France. This financial network deprived the people of Gabon access to the basic necessities of life including food, water, housing, electricity, health and education.

In 2001 Pierre Mario, former head of French intelligence acknowledged that Bongo used money stolen from his poverty stricken country to pay subsidies to French political parties and politicians. He noted that “the subsidies of Bongo serve everyone at the time of French elections and create a sort of backward colonialism”. The irony of the situation is that while Omar Bongo saw nothing wrong with how he mismanaged Gabon oil revenue to enrich himself and his cronies, France also saw nothing wrong on how a president of its former colony squandered money on properties and on politicians in France.

To achieve their so called foreign policy objectives French politicians and business elite encouraged Bongo to amass wealth meant for the development of his country. France also used the entire arsenal available to her (including military and intelligence) to make sure her so called national interest was not threatened. France offered military, political and other support to Omar Bongo which effectively enabled him to remain a dominant figure for 42 years in Gabon. The French military base in Gabon for instance was not used only to protect the Bongos but was also used to gather intelligence which France used to effect regime change in her former colonies.

Thus despite his reputation as a corrupt dictator, French politicians routinely entertained and openly showered praises on Bongo for his enthusiastic support for French dubious policies towards Africa most importantly the encouragement of African tyrants to loot and deposit their dirty money in French banks.

Mike Jocktane former aide to Omar Bongo will on Thursday 24th November 2011 publish a book titled “The Scandal of the Ill-gotten Gains”. The yet to be published book contains details of how Omar Bongo sent briefcases full of money to Nicolas Sarkozy to help his presidential bid in 2007. According to Mike Jocktane “Omar Bongo helped finance Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign” and provided him money after the 2007 elections. The financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign by Bongo underscores why he made Gabon his first point of call in Africa apparently to thank Omar Bongo for his financial support. Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy described Bongo as a ‘great and loyal friend of France’ but he (Bongo) has been denounced for working for, himself, his family, France and local elites and not for Gabon and its poor people. Eva Joly, European Union Member of Parliament and a former French investigating magistrate who investigated the Elf corruption scandal has argued that Omar Bongo represented only himself and the interest of his associates in France and not the people of Gabon. “He (Bongo) was a president who didn’t care about his citizens. He served France’s interests and French politicians well. The oil boom did not benefit the Gabonese. It benefited us (French citizens). France has a great debt toward Gabon for having kept Bongo in power all these years”. According to Eva Joly despite an oil-led GDP per capita which was equivalent to that of Portugal’s GDP, Gabon built only 5 km of freeway a year and still had one of the world’s highest infant mortality rates by the time of his death in 2009.

France and other African dictators

However, it is not only the Bongos in Gabon who have used France as a safe haven for their ill gotten wealth and who are being protected by the French state. Paul Biya of Cameroon, Dos Santos of Angola, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic, Blaise Campore of Burkina Faso and Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea have made headlines in recent years for using France as a fortress for their corrupt dealings. For example Denis Sassou Nguesso, according to French police investigation has 24 properties, one hundred and twelve (112) bank accounts and fleet of cars in France. It is believed that these numerous bank accounts contain hundreds of millions of dollars of money siphoned from the coffers of his resource rich but economically impoverished country.

In 2011 French police seized 11 luxurious cars worth $5 million from the home of spoil-child Obiang Mangue son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator Obiang Nguema. The point is that there are so many stolen African assets hidden in France if when returned to the countries of origin could make some of them the richest countries on the planet.

Like Switzerland, France has carved a name for herself as a protector and supporter of corrupt African dictators and a beneficiary of their illicit activities. However, unlike Switzerland which has embarked on a journey of image rehabilitation by repatriating some of the money deposited in her crook banks, France has shown no interest in doing such a thing. The military support France usually provide her client dictators in Africa has not only promoted dictatorships, human rights abuse, conflicts and corruption but has also undermined democracy, good governance, rule of law, economic development, food security and poverty reduction. Thus France’s obscure and deadly African policies have produced a situation where the people of Africa have been deprived of resources that could have enabled the citizens to enjoy good standard of living.

Through the actions of its military, the courts, politicians and business leaders, France indirectly and directly has encouraged dictators in Africa to loot the coffers of their poor countries and deposit the loot in French banks. French cities are washed with properties bought by corrupt African leaders using monies they have stolen from their impoverished countries. French political and business leaders consider these African leaders as friends and allies. The corrupt French political and business establishment annually throw lavish parties at the French presidency for their African friends while the corrupt African leaders reciprocate with banquets during which African resources are auctioned to French corporations without a price. France has been a willing accomplice to the day light robbery taking place in Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Mali, Guinea, Chad, and many parts of French-speaking Africa and has become a deposit box for dirty money and assets stolen from the African people.

Therefore the chorus ‘No Safe Havens for Dirty Money’ being sung by Christine Lagarde of the IMF and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala must be played to French politicians, business elites, the banks, the property sector and the corporations, for charity they say begins at home.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
The author is a political activist and anti corruption campaigner

Oil Import and Debts
Historically oil, gas and coal have been the mainstay of the economies of European, American, Japanese and other members of Organisation of the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These energy resources, particularly oil, enabled them to reach and maintain their current levels of development and lifestyle. Many countries wishing to transform their economies and societies have tended to go the line of fossil fuel.

However, many energy experts agree that the current oil driven development is unsustainable due to several factors including dwindling global reserves, impact of fossil fuel consumption on the planet (global warming and climate change), cost and security associated with production and transportation of fossil energy.

The transportation and industrial sectors of many African countries rely on oil import. These countries including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Kenya, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia spend huge percentage of their GDP on oil import. This has led to huge debts being incurred with serious ramification for the performance of their economies. For example the debt incurred by Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in Ghana made it difficult for the company to import crude oil leading to several shutdowns which affected economic activities in the country. Government of Ghana was forced to settle the arrears before TOR could lift crude into the country. These debts are linked to high global oil prices. The high prices mean that oil importing African countries will have to use their limited foreign exchange to compete with the likes of United States and China.

With China’s demand for oil expected to grow from 8 million barrels a day in 2010 to 17.5 million barrels a day by 2030, coupled with demand from Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey, and the OECD countries the competition for access to the remaining global oil reserve will increase. The increase in demand will undoubtedly have impact on energy prices worldwide which will adversely affect African economies currently struggling to remain competitive.

Energy Poverty
Africa in general and Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) in particular remains one of the energy poor regions in the world. It accounts for more than a quarter of the 2.5 billion people globally who are without access to convenient, reliable, efficient and modern cooking technologies that can help meet their basic needs and support economic development. It also account for the larger share of the 1.6 billion people globally who are without electricity.

In 2008 a report by Anton Eberhard noted that Africa’s electricity infrastructure capacity remains the lowest in the world. In the study Eberhard noted that the 48 Sub Saharan African countries with a combined population of more than 800 million produced about 68 gigawatt of electricity, almost the same amount of electricity generated by Spain with her population of 45 million people. When South Africa is taken out of the equation, the total power generated fell to 28 GW, equivalent to the installed capacity of Argentina.

Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) report authored by Vivian Foster, studied business activities and energy infrastructure in 26 countries in SSA and found that “for an important subset of countries, power emerges as by far the most limiting factor, being cited by more than half of firms in more than half of countries as a major business obstacle”. The firms reported losing 5 percent of their sales as a result of frequent power outages. The figure rises to 20 percent for informal sector firms unable to afford backup generators. TaTEDO, a Tanzanian non-governmental organisation, points out that more than 40 percent of agricultural products go waste due to post harvest losses and lack of appropriate energy to process or preserve it. However, it is not only businesses that face energy challenges, households are also confronted with electricity problems.

Studies show that only Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo Republic, Cote D’Ivoire, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have national electricity coverage of 20 percent or more with huge gap between rural and urban areas.

In Tanzania for instance while about 12 percent of households in the country have electricity coverage, only 2 percent of those in rural areas have access to electricity. That is 98 percent of rural households constituting 75 per cent of the population have no access to electricity. Ethiopia also has 12 percent national coverage and 2 percent and 86 percent for rural and urban areas respectively. The picture is no different from what pertains in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Niger, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

The IEA’s 2010 Energy Development Index which tracks progress in a country or a region’s transition to the use of modern fuels shows that SSA countries are not moving fast enough to tackle energy poverty and to increase the use of modern fuels. According to the World Bank the more than 580 million Africans who are without access to modern forms of energy spend more than 10 billion dollars annually buying low quality energy services such as kerosene, candles and firewood. Figures from the World Health Organisation indicate that death associated with the use of these services in Africa runs into four-hundred thousand annually.

Firewood and Charcoal as main Energy Sources
The lack of electricity and other forms of modern energy mean that firewood and charcoal for cooking and kerosene and candles for lighting remain the primary source of energy in most households and there is every indication that the dependence on low forms of energy is growing. For instance in 1986 about 66 percent of energy used in Zambia came from woodfuel, however by 2010 the figure had risen to 76 percent. In Democratic Republic of Congo, 92 percent of energy used annually comes from biomass especially from woodfuel.

The Minister of Energy in Ghana, Dr. Oteng Adjei, acknowledged in November, 2010 that 65 percent of energy use in the country annually comes from woodfuel with oil and hydroelectricity providing the remaining 35 percent. In Tanzania woodfuel is the main source of energy in the country accounting for over 90 per cent of the 15 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) of energy used in the country annually. In 2008 about 92 percent of the 32 million (toe) of energy consumed in Ethiopia came from combustible and waste materials specifically from woodfuel in the form of charcoal and dry wood while Kenya has about 78 per cent of energy use based on biomass.

The use of charcoal, firewood, candles and kerosene as the dominant source of energy effectively classifies Africa as one of the least energy intensive economic regions, heavily constrained by both low quality of fuel type and low per capita energy.

The Renewable Energy potential
While globally, attention is being focused on developing renewable energy resources (such as hydro, bioenergy, solar, wind and thermal among others) as a way to promote sustainable development and contain the threat posed by climate change to the planet, progress at developing the abundant renewable energy resources found in Africa as a viable alternative to fossil fuel has been slow. About 93 percent of Africa’s hydro power potential remains undeveloped. Ethiopia for instance still spends millions of dollars importing oil each year despite the fact that she and Democratic Republic of Congo possess about 61 percent of Africa’s untapped hydro power potentials.

But given the global demand and competition for fossil fuel coupled with the associated price increase and debt burden for oil importing African countries, it is obvious that Africa cannot take the development path driven by fossil energy. Renewable energy must be the way because it has the potential to help African countries invigorate their economies, wean themselves from dependence on fossil fuel and reduce the debt burden associated with oil importation. Renewable energy can also help increase households access to modern energy services; reduce energy poverty; improve the livelihood of the people; empower women; improve performance of students in schools; create jobs and bridge urban-rural inequality. It also has the potential to meet Africa’s energy security needs; protect the environment; reduce natural resource conflicts (e.g. firewood collection); slow down rural-urban migration and associated urbanisation; and reduce carbon emissions and hence the negative impact of climate change.

The influential global energy outlook report prepared by British Petroleum in 2011 shows that the contribution of renewables to global energy growth will increase from 5 percent (1990-2010) to 18 percent (2010-2030) but Africa’s share in terms of production and consumption of this growth is very small. There is therefore the need for African governments to begin to work seriously with the private sector and other relevant bodies/agencies to aggressively develop the necessary policies, institutions, and infrastructures to take advantage of Africa’s huge renewable energy resources. Effort must also focus on addressing the human, financial and management capacity challenges associated with the renewable energy sector so as to make sector a catalyst for achieving economic growth, development and prosperity in Africa.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Officially Africa is known to have 10% and 8% share of the proven global oil and gas reserves respectively. According to the 2009 U.S. Energy Information Administration records, Libya is home to Africa’s largest oil reserves with about 43.7 billion barrels in total, followed by Nigeria with 36.2 billion barrels, Algeria 12.2 billion barrels and Angola with 9 billion barrels. Other countries like Sudan, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Mozambique, Ghana and Uganda have huge deposits of oil and gas which are either being exported or are being developed for export. Moreover, there is growing recognition among energy experts that Africa may be home to unknown quantities of oil and gas reserves making it what experts refer to as the ‘New Gulf’ in reference to the oil-rich Persia Gulf. Tapping these reserves is very important for the energy dependent economies of U.S., China, India, and the E.U.

Available information indicate that Africa has overtaken the Middle East as a major oil supplier to the U.S. Data from U.S. Energy Information Administration indicate that in 2010 U.S. total oil import from Africa amounted to 21.7% of U.S. total global oil import. In the same period U.S. oil import from the Middle East was 18.5% of US total global oil import. It is projected that U.S. oil import from Africa will reach 25% in 2015 and will grow even further as Ghana begins to export some of its oil to the country.

Europe’s dependence on Africa energy is also growing. Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria in particular have become very important energy suppliers to the European Union. France for instance is the single largest EU importer of Angolan oil. The 27 EU members together buy three-fifths of Algerian Liquefied Natural Gas exports.

Nigeria with its 3% share of global gas reserves, exports nearly two-thirds of its gas to the EU making her the EU’s fourth largest major natural gas supplier. A $10 billion Trans-Sahara Pipeline from Nigeria through Niger and to Algeria is expected to boost gas export from Nigeria to the European market and solidify the continent as a major gas exporter to the EU. Similarly the EU is expected to secure about 15% of its power needs from the planed $550 billion solar power project in North Africa dubbed the DESERTEC Project.

New comers in the global energy consumption league including China and India have also focused their attention on Africa. Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, and the Republic of Congo have become China’s major oil suppliers providing China with 30% of its annual oil imports. According to Jeffrey Henderson, in 2003 about 41 per cent of Sudan’s exports and 23 per cent of Angola’s mostly oil went to China. Vivian Foster of the World Bank notes that since 2006 two Chinese companies: China National Oil Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation have committed to invest about $5 billion in Nigeria, $3 billion in Angola and $1.5 billion in Sudan. Jeffrey Henderson notes that in 2005, China’s Export–Import Bank had investment portfolio of US$15 billion in Africa mostly in the energy, mining and construction sectors.

Thus whether analysed from the perspective of the United States, the European Union or China, there is growing recognition that Africa is on a strategic transition to become a major geostrategic powerhouse for the maintenance of the global economic system. As a matter of fact Africa now features in the international calculus of many of the major global energy importers indicating the growing significance of the continent to maintaining a healthy global economic system.

Several other factors also buttress Africa’s rising strategic importance to the global energy security architecture. They include among other things higher oil prices; the peaking of energy production in the North Sea; the unpredictability of Russia as energy supplier to the EU; climate change; rising energy consumption in China and India and the ensuing competition with U.S. and the EU for the remaining 1,114 trillion barrels of global oil reserves; and the arms race, conflicts and instability in the Middle East which together controls 60% and 41% of global oil and gas reserves respectively.

For example for the United States, due to the arms race, conflicts and instability in the Middle East, now appear to favour energy imports from Africa more than the Middle East. Part of the reason is that there is stability in Africa now than it was in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The internal civil wars that ravaged Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Congo Brazzaville in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have been resolved and democratic governance is taking shape in a number of the countries, making security of production and transportation less a problem than they used to be.

Additionally, the prospect of major inter-state conflict in Africa involving the use of deadly weapons that could destabilise oil and gas supply looks relatively distant. Few African countries possess the destructive war machines that Middle Eastern countries have acquired over the last 10 to 20 years. In 2010 for example Saudi Arabia purchased $60 billion worth of U.S. military hardware which experts believe is geared towards countering Iran’s arms build up. Again most of Africa’s oil is located offshore and could be exploited and transported relatively easily with very little contact with the local population. By way of distance the parts of Africa where most of the oil and gas are located is relatively closer to the U.S. making cost of transportation and the security associated with it relatively less expensive. These factors make oil and gas from Africa more reliable than say the Middle East and remain some of the main reasons why Africa’s strategic importance is growing among oil and gas importers.

Two things are worth mentioning here about Africa’s rising strategic importance. The first is that the growing strategic importance may help Africa to enjoy economic growth, gain diplomatic respect, and secure influence on the global stage. Currently the increased investment from China, India, US and European Union is fuelling growth in energy export economies such as Angola, Ghana and Nigeria. The Economist magazine has predicted that between 2011 and 2015 seven of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world will be found in Africa. This economic growth if well managed may help lift millions of people from poverty i.e. if the growth and the revenue are redistributed.

The growing demand for Africa’s energy resources could also increase the bargaining capacity of the governments in Africa vis-à-vis energy buyers. The demand could mean more revenue to the governments which in theory could be used to reduce their dependence on aid and loans from the World Bank and IMF and hence correct the power imbalance between them. In other words the rise in demand for Africa’s energy resources if better managed could alter the balance of power between Africans and their international creditors.

The second point is that as African countries become major oil and gas suppliers and as U.S. China, France, Britain, India, Russia, and Brazil increasingly compete with each other for the continent’s energy resources, there are fears that the region is becoming a cockpit of superpower rivalry. Observers have indicated that rivalry is slowly leading to militarization of policies by energy importers towards the continent. It is believed that Libya became the first casualty of this rivalry in 2011. Critics of the war argue that the US-EU-NATO invasion was a strategy to scare away their rivals and competitors particularly China. As evidence, they point to the more than 35,000 Chinese oil and construction workers who were forced out of Libya during the invasion.

In 2008 during a meeting with oil and gas multinationals in London, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, then NATO Secretary General announced that NATO would use its air, land and sea capabilities to police and protect the energy security interest of its members. That policy, it is argued, was implemented in Libya where NATO played a key role in overthrowing the Gaddafi government. As another sign of the growing militarisation of the continent, in 2007 President Bush Jr and the Pentagon, launched what they call Africa Command (AFRICOM) a military project which (although denied by U.S. officials) is intended to protect U.S. energy and other interest in Africa. The invasion of Ivory Coast (a small but significant oil exporter) by France in 2011 after the Ivorian electoral dispute also shows the increasing use of the military by foreign powers to achieve their national interest objectives in Africa.

African governments and their peoples need to guide against the superpower competition and the associated rivalries and ensure that the attention the continent is receiving does not lead to exploitation, instabilities and proxy wars but rather opportunities for the masses. Therefore African countries should take a unified and coordinated approach vis-à-vis the major buyers to ensure that Africa’s political and economic stability, long term security and prosperity of its citizens are not jeopardised.

Secondly, while African countries deepen partnership with energy multinationals they should formulate and implement policies to influence negotiation outcomes, and get the best commercial deals for their resources, so as to ensure that the people of Africa become the ultimate beneficiaries of their resources .

Finally, there is perception particularly in Europe and America that Africa is both economic and political dwarf that can be manipulated to suit their interests. That perception ought to be corrected. Therefore, Africa should use its revenue to build economic and political power to influence and shape the current world order to its advantage. In other words Africa should harness its growing strategic importance to pursue agenda relevant to its interest.

The governments in Africa, the oil and gas industry, the academia, the media, civil society, and the think tanks all have a role to play in making Africa benefit from its growing strategic importance.

By Lord Aikins Adusei. politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

There are many strategic thinkers who believe that Africa’s underdog position in the world stems from the fact majority if not all the countries do not pursue policies that put the interest of their countries and people first. That is each of the countries in Africa does not work for the interest of its people by putting the interest of the nation and its people ahead of all other interests. There is a consensus among policymakers that if each African country should work for its own interest while coordinating with other countries in the continent on issues such as free trade, energy and human security, and political stability among others there will be more successful economies in Africa than we have seen over the past 50 years. The lack of ‘Africa first’ as both an ideology and as a strategy has been one major factor that has delayed the continent’s development.

Every country in the world works for the interest of its people. US, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, Korea all work to develop their economies for their citizens to benefit and these countries do not care what means they use to achieve those interests. But here in Africa governments sell resources and don’t account to the people. Politicians only campaign for votes but not for development. There is complete lack of policies that articulate the concerns and interests of the countries and their citizens. In the 1980s and 1990s many national assets were sold under Structural Adjustment Program to foreign entities without considering the interest of the countries and their citizens. Today there are countries in Africa where multinational corporations have major shares in mining, oil, and timber, firms while the nations and their peoples who own the natural resources get very little.

Africans are quick to sell raw materials to countries in Europe, North America and Asia without asking what they could do with those natural resources themselves. It looks as if African governments do not have any specific interest in the world. They have not projected themselves as nations that matter in any sectors of the world affairs. It is not that these countries do not know what they must do; the problem is that the leaders have often tended to serve the interest of other nations rather than their own.

The governments always give their support to countries trying to get a platform in the world and seeking their interest in Africa and some have done so even to the detriment of their own countries. One clear example is the announcement by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and President of Liberia that her country is willing to host AFRICOM even though she has not consulted her people or the countries in the West African sub-region. In her article published by allAfrica.com titled “AFRICOM Can Help Governments Willing To Help Themselves,” Ellen Johnson Sirleaf horned AFRICOM as a Marshall plan for Africa’s development and encouraged African nations to ‘work with Africom to achieve their own development and security goals’. This attitude is part of the reason why nations like Liberia and Nigeria have not developed. There is no collective national interest, neither is there any effort to do so rather they tend to support others whose interest is to exploit the continent to benefit their citizens.

The Guardian newspaper in Nigeria quoted Sanusi Lamido, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria as saying: “As an economist, I have done and looked at the input and output content of the Nigerian economy, and I have never seen an economy with a kind of black hole like that of Nigeria. We produced cotton, yet our textile plants are not working; we produce crude oil, we import petroleum products; we produce gas and export, yet we don’t have power plant. We have iron ore, we don’t have steel plant; and we have hide and skin, we don’t have leader products”.

There is a black hole in Nigeria and other African countries’ economy because for decades the leadership in these countries have deferred their countries’ interest to entities such as multinational corporations and foreign governments as is in the case of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

In 2009, US, China, Russia, France, Britain, Iran, and Israel all sent presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and other powerful government officials to Africa to pursue their interests. United States has been urged by the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies and Africa Oil Policy Initiative Group to declare the Gulf of Guinea a strategic interest and US under AFRICOM is seriously lobbying African governments to allow her to establish military bases so as to achieve her strategic goals.

A declassified document of the US Defence Department regarding the strategic importance of West Africa states that: ‘West Africa is a swing production region that allows oil companies to leverage production capabilities to meet the fluctuating world demands.. . .West African oil is of high quality, is easily accessed offshore, and is well positioned to supply the North American market. Production in two major oil producing states (Nigeria and Angola) is expected to double or triple in the next 5-10 years. Already Nigeria and Angola provide as much oil to the U.S. as Venezuela or Mexico, making it of strategic importance.

Walter Kansteiner, the US assistant secretary of State for Africa speaking about what Africa oil means to his country said: “African oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward.”

The United States is not hiding her strategic ambition in Africa, however, I am yet to see Nigeria or Ghana or Senegal, Angola, and Namibia saying wait a minute what is our strategic interest in the Gulf of Guinea, how do we want to see the oil wealth in the Gulf of Guinea exploited and utilised to benefit our peoples and how do we contain the powers that are seeking to exploit the region’s vast mineral wealth.

How do we coordinate to ensure that our peoples get the lion share from the oil deals; or how do we work together to strengthen security and prevent terrorists from getting foothold in West Africa? Such issues as the economy, energy security, political stability and infrastructure do not appear on the radars of the countries in Africa. There are few role model countries in Africa where the rest can learn from. The kind of competition that we saw in Asia that led to the industrialisation of countries like Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, which has given them a sense of national pride has not occurred in Africa. I am yet to see the foreign policy of Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, DRC, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya that put the interest of their people first. To me it looks as if each of these countries does not have interest that has to be articulated through their foreign policies.

Nations around the world are launching satellites to strengthen their economies, boost their communication capabilities and to police their countries, others are building a new generation of technologies to help propel and give their nations good footing in the increasingly competitive global economy. You don’t see such aggressive efforts in Africa. Nigeria is sleeping, Angola is still reeling from decades of war, DRC lacks a strong central government to formulate and implement any policy at all. The end result is that a vacuum has been created which is being filled strategically by the United States as in the case of her military base Djibouti.

The lack of strategic interest on the part of African nations means that they will have to rely on countries like US, Britain, France, and China for their security and economic needs, but for how long? How will they win the fight against poverty, hunger, diseases and illiteracy if they do not champion their own interest and how are they expected to be taken serious if they continue to champion the strategic interest of others rather than their own?

By Lord Aikins Adusei

The West African sub region and indeed the African continent is no stranger to conflicts and disputes over natural resources. The diamond conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s and the recent Niger Delta oil and gas conflicts in Nigeria are few examples of how resources have fuelled conflicts in the sub-region.

In the 1980s and 1990s Nigeria and Cameroon clashed several times over oil and gas resources in the Bakassi Peninsula. The conflict was later settled by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but not after several people have been killed. The conflict over gas and oil resources emanated from among other things the need by both countries to keep their territorial sovereignty intact, ensure energy and human security, economic survival including the need to benefit financially from the sale of the resources.

Recently in Ghana the media have reported that Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), which shares maritime border with Ghana, is making claims to parts of the sea where Ghana has recently discovered oil. The report saw Ghanaians pouring in on online chat rooms and radio discussions in solidarity of their country. They condemned the Ivorian claims as opportunistic.

Mr. Collins Dauda, Ghana’s Lands and Natural Resources Minister buttressing the point that Ivorians are being opportunistic argued that there was no maritime dispute between Ghana and Ivory Coast, and that both countries had always respected the median line until oil and gas was found in the Ghana part of the maritime border. “All of a sudden, with the oil find, Ivory Coast is making a claim that is disrespecting this median line we have all respected. In which case we would be affected or the oil find will be affected” the Minister claimed.

Mr. Dauda was right about his ‘no maritime dispute’ statement. Ghana and Ivory Coast have been good neighbours ever since both countries gained independence. Both nations are trading partners. There is no memory of a major armed confrontation between the two sister nations. In 2011 Ghana even torpedoed efforts by regional bloc ECOWAS to invade Ivory Coast after the disputed elections. The government of Ghana argued at that time that war was not necessary and that dialogue should be used to settle the electoral dispute. When conflict finally erupted after France and UN joined the Alassan Quattara forces, Ghana became home to Ivorians who fled the conflict. Recently when I visited Sekondi-Takoradi, I was told stories of Ghanaians and Ivorians refugees dining and drinking together, confirming that both countries are like one big family.

Yet the recent discovery of oil and gas (both vital strategic commodities essential for the well-being of the global economy) is raising voices in both countries. Some of the hawkish voices are encouraging their governments to protect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the national interest of their countries using every possible means including the use of the armed forces.

However, I believe that those with moderate voices should let their voices be heard. Of course moderation does not mean that Ivory Coast and Ghana should ignore their national interests. Far from that, however, I believe that such national interests can be pursued democratically and diplomatically without agonising the populations in both countries and endangering the fragile peace in the sub-region.

Fortunately, both Ivory Coast and Ghana are leading and respected members of ECOWAS as well as the Africa Union and could use these regional institutions to peacefully settle any disputes they may have.

Additionally there is international framework of rules, regulations, conventions, laws and institutions which determine who is entitled to which asset on land and on the sea bed. Such regulations and framework also provide clear rules and guidelines as to how disputes could be determined or settled in international courts. I am sure both Ivory Coast and Ghana are signatory to some of these international conventions and should use them to address their concerns.

Aside using diplomacy and international legal system, both countries can choose cooperation: joint exploration, joint development and joint management of the disputed area(s) for the benefit of their countries. There are many examples of such cooperation and joint management around the world including that of China and Japan, and the European Union.

In fact the current European Union was born out of the need to cooperate in pooling and sharing energy and other resources together. In May 1950 Robert Schuman, as French Foreign Minister, proposed that to perpetually eliminate devastating wars from Europe, archrivals France and Germany should pool their coal and steel production together and place it under one High Authority for the benefit of both countries and the rest of Europe. That proposal and its adoption have brought 60 years of political stability and economic prosperity to members of the European Union. Prior to the formation of EU, European countries fought several wars over resources including two world wars which were partly fought over access to resources.

The West Africa Power Pool and the West Africa Gas Pipeline coming from Nigeria to Togo, to Benin and to Ghana also serve as good examples on how the countries can share resources for their common good. There is nothing that prevents Ghana and Ivory Coast to follow these examples of cooperating to share resources for their own good.

In other words no matter the scale of the maritime boundary dispute, it can be settled by means of arbitration, negotiation or cooperation.

Besides, Ivory Coast and Ghana live in an interdependent region with common non-traditional security threats including militancy, piracy, drug and human trafficking, terrorist attacks, poverty, food and health insecurity, environmental pollution, climate change, and deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS. These problems demand a common, unified response and should make war between the two countries undesirable.

Ivorians and Ghanaians must remember that resources do not necessary bring conflict, people do and the people who advocate for conflict do so because of their interests. Much of the effort to solve the dispute will depend on the political and the military leadership as well as other groups (companies and individuals) with interest in the oil and gas resources in the area.

Therefore the leadership of both countries must demonstrate mutual political trust. They must show their commitment to dialogue and respect for international law and political structures within their countries and the sub-region; and they must discard any realist zero-sum perceptions they may have and approach the border dispute with openness, fairness and mutual respect.

One critical element vital to avoiding any conflict or preventing conflict from escalating is communication. Ghana and Ivory Coast must establish communication at the ministerial and possibly at the presidential level. Similar communication and hotlines should be established at the military level and between the military chiefs of both countries so that should any skirmishes accidentally happen between the armies at the border the confidence could quickly be restored.

The citizens in Ghana and Ivory Coast also have a major role to play. While they may be the ultimate beneficiary of the resources, they may also be victims should the dispute become confrontational. Therefore the citizens must encourage their political leaders to use the available international laws, conventions and channels to resolve the differences peacefully. In short both countries need not waste vital human and material resources to engage in conflicts that can be resolved diplomatically or through arbitration and cooperation.

However, if both countries choose to war-war instead of to jaw-jaw then it is important to point out to them the ramifications of having to engage in a dangerously competitive and ruthlessly conflictual exercise. For example such conflictual exercise has potential to send West Africa back to the days of low investment, low economic growth, high inflation, huge external debts, human displacements and poverty.

Unnecessary military adventure will not only lead to human casualties, but also lead to huge military expenditure which will be a drain on the economy and may lead to huge external debts whose payment will have negative impact on the performance of both economies.

From a regional perspective a war between the two countries will have a strong adverse effect on economic performance of the entire sub-region, particularly the neighbouring landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which rely on the transportation systems of Ghana and Ivory Coast for most of their export and imports. In other words regional trade, economic growth and stability could be disrupted and might take the region decades to recover.

This is why dialogue, diplomacy, arbitration and cooperation should be seriously considered.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

Corruption has become an intractable disease in Ghana. Evidence of ongoing, large-scale corruption within the judiciary, police, customs, the various ministries, departments and agencies of the state abounds. About two weeks ago Ghanaians woke up to a story where a substance tested as cocaine mysteriously turned into soda leading a suspect being set free by the court. Corruption filters through every part of the public sphere. It also permeates in many facets of private life.

In the Christian holy book i.e. the Bible, we are told that the people of Israel believed in the Temple built by King Solomon so much so that even when they were involved in adultery, idol worship, murder and all kinds of corruption they still believed that God was with them and that nothing would happen to them. They continued to believe it until God swept them into captivity. In Ghana today there is strong believe among a section of the population that war and conflict are meant for certain countries and not Ghana. They claim that Ghana is a Christian country and that the violence that has made the Niger Delta ungovernable cannot occur in the country. But that is an illusion. In every society where corruption is rampant, where justice is denied, where politicians become rich at the expense of the larger population crime and insecurity become the order of the day.As the following story shows, there is not one single entity where corruption has not taken place, however there is always danger for societies ridden with corruption. Below are some of the corrupt practices currently going on in Ghana.

Politicians and political parties: Of all the corrupt individuals and institutions in Ghana the case of the politicians and political parties is the saddest. They are supposed to make laws to protect the country. They are supposed to formulate policies that will lead to ending corruption. They are supposed to lead the nation and to end poverty which breeds crime and violence in our cities. But they have failed in all of them. They have become the Mafias in Ghana. They control the nation’s oil, gas, gold, timber, diamond and other resources and use the institutions of violence to protect themselves. To them their interest is more important than that of the state and so they have placed their interest above that of the state. When they make laws they do so because that is where they could continue to profiting from the nation without working for the nation. In their attempt to make themselves the overlord of Ghanaians and to steal from the nation, our politicians, including those calling themselves Saints, employ all manner of fraud tactics including intimidation of voters by thugs such as Azorka Boys; ballot box stuffing; multiple voting; alteration of official result forms; stealing of sensitive polling materials; vote buying; under age voting; employing macho men to disrupt voting procedures and to cause violence.

Since 1993 our elected politicians have protected their own interest and thwarted the effort of the state to develop. They have failed to take measures that will stamp out corruption in the ministries because doing so will expose their own corrupt illegal behaviours. Doing so will also threaten their own corrupt empires. They prefer that the people of Ghana will live in ignorance so that they can continue to perpetuate their own parasitic behaviour. The politicians like the police and the court, refuse to act to protect the state against corrupt elements within their ranks.

Since 1983 beginning with Jerry Rawlings almost all Ghanaian assets have been sold to their cronies, associates and foreign entities, and the money squandered. Information from the Divestiture Implementation Committee website indicates that between 1990 and 2000 more than 194 state owned enterprises were auctioned by the Jerry Rawlings’ P(NDC) regimes. Between 2001 and 2003 the Kuffour administration also sold the 31 viable national assets to nobody knows who. Ghana Telecom now Vodafone was also sold before he left office. And the money? It is better to ask them. These people are so corrupt to the mind that they do not understand anything called national interest. As the adage goes: it is easy to destroy than to build and because these men did not spend time thinking about how to establish enterprises they never thought twice when selling them. These are the crooks who have stolen from Ghanaians, and have made most of the people destitute and yet are being called ‘Honourables’ and ‘Excellencies’ by the people.

The freedom of information Act in Ghana is still yet to be passed into law because the politicians do not want the people to know how corrupt they are, how they are amassing oil, gas and gold money at the expense of the state and its people. They do not want to act to stop the corrupt element within their ranks from perpetrating corruption against the people of Ghana because doing so will also mean no money for their election campaigns.

We are told that President Mills is the most honourable man on earth. It is very difficult to comprehend how a morally upright man could preside over a corrupt nation. In many of his investigations, Anas Aremeyaw Anas has exposed many illegal and criminal activities being perpetrated by state officials and the president has failed to act on each one of them. How come an incorruptible man cannot fight corruption? If a person is not corrupt he will fight corruption whenever he sees one but if he is corrupt he will just close his eyes and move on. Could that be the case for Mills? It is difficult to hide or deny the truth. The political parties in Ghana thrive on corruption: they are paid 10% of every contract awarded including roads, schools, hospitals, and other infrastructures.

There is conspiracy by politicians acting in the name of the state to dupe the nation and its people as the case of Alfred Woyome the NDC financier indicates. Recently NDC financier Alfred Woyome has been awarded ¢52 million judgment debt and our President and his agents have paid the money to him without questioning it. Why will they question it when Alfred Woyome will dish out part of it to help the campaign fortunes of the NDC?

The NPP is desperate for power but is it really to help develop Ghana as they are saying or they are seeking power to protect their interests? Mills and the NDC are asking Ghanaians to return them to power but is it really to develop Ghana? Where is the oil money? Where is the money received from selling gold, diamond, timber, and cocoa? And where are the billions of dollars that the government has taken as loans? They have all been stolen. Yes they have been stolen by the same people who are asking Ghanaians to pay more for fuel while they drive in Land Cruisers without paying anything.

If the monies have not been stolen as their response will likely be, can there be any justification why the people of Ghana do not have access to good drinking water, electricity, hospitals and doctors to take care of them? Can there be any justification why children in rural areas have to study under trees and in darkness, without access to computers, electricity and learning materials? Can there be any justification why universities, polytechnics, nursing and teachers’ training schools do not have adequate learning facilities? Can there be justification why children are selling in the streets and young men and women are working as Kayayos carrying loads of goods in order to survive? Can there be any justification why hospital equipments have to break down and people have to die at Komfo Anokye and Korle Bu hospitals?

Customs: CEPS officials who earn a little more than 300 new Ghana cedis a month are able to buy cars, build houses and acquire other properties within months of being employed. In the CEPS it is common knowledge that officials fight to work at the nation’s borders and at the harbours because that is where they can easily dupe travelers, exporters and importers. At the Aflao border, Kotoka International Airport, Tema Harbour, Takoradi Harbour and indeed most of our borders Custom officials have entered into agreement and alliance with criminals who import all kinds of goods into the country without paying taxes. They have also built alliances with corrupt importers and exporters who instead of paying duties and taxes on goods imported or exported pay bribes and are allowed to go. The nation has lost trillions of cedis through the complicity of CEPS officials.

The media: The media is in alliance with the politicians to propagate falsehood and to hide the true predatory and parasitic behaviour from the people. The media is in league with the police, judiciary, CEPS, politicians and political parties, not only to dupe the people but to help them to live in ignorance. Journalists help the politicians to defend their lies, their corrupt cocaine ridden behaviours, their ill-conceived economic policies, and their mismanagement of state resources. The old colonial and tribal mentality that has characterised Ghana’s politics has been transferred to the field of journalism. This has resulted in three sets of journalists and three groups of media outlets in Ghana. One of them belongs to the NDC, another belongs to the NPP. The third one is owned and controlled by the NPP or the NDC depending on who is in power. I am referring to the so called state media: GBC, Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times. The media houses spew nothing but propaganda messages devoid of truth and issues that have any bearing on the socio-economic development of the people. The people of Ghana are suffering yet the media houses are saying everything is excellent.

The police: The detention of the deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police DSP Gifty Mawuenyegah by the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) in connection with “cocaine turned soda saga” shows how far corruption has become institutionalised in Ghana. For if the deputy head of the main institution with responsibility to investigate crime could be involved in cocaine then it shows how far the nation has gone in institutionalizing corruption. Do I need to say more about the police at all? Do we not see the MTTU taking money from the drivers and yet our politicians pretend nothing is happening? Ordinary drivers’ everyday encounters with the police especially the MTTU unit are often frightening and expensive. Everyday taxi and trotro drivers are given a horrible experience as they are unable to avoid the checkpoints that spring up across key roads in towns and cities all over the country. Their sales are taken away from them by officers who claim to be maintaining law and order. J. N. C. Hill notes that “by either breaking the law themselves, or acting in a heavy- or high-handed manner, or failing to respond in a timely and appropriate fashion, individuals and agencies within the police, judiciary, CEPS and other systems exacerbate the insecurity endured by those they are supposed to protect.”

The judiciary and the court: In the are cases where cocaine barons have been set free despite mounting evidence. There are cases where officials of the judiciary have connived with criminals and to cheat and dupe the nation.There are cases where court officials have tempered with evidence in court in order to set criminals free as is indicated by the cocaine saga in both the Kuffour and Mills administrations. Drug barons and criminal syndicates with their criminal networks are intact and operating without fear because judges whose duties it is to punish them have comprised their position through corruption.

Accountant General’s Department: Very few Ghanaians have not fallen victims to corruption and the robbery perpetrated by officials in our institutions. At the Accountant General’s Department pensioners are made to part with 10% of their pension before their monies are released to them. Some who fail to agree on such terms or who fail to pay die and leave their money behind. The Accountant General’s Department is infected with people who have no morals and it came as no surprise when they refused to pay teachers during the Christmas celebrations after the president has given them directive. One victim commented: “if you decide not to pay they will frustrate you till you die”. That is what is happening. That is what the men and women who go to Mosque on Fridays and church houses on Sundays are doing to Ghanaian pensioners.

DVLA, VAT, and IRS: VAT and Internal Revenue Service officials and other tax collectors are involved corruption. There are reports of tax officials conniving with business men and women to defraud the country. The Drivers, Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) is corrupt to the bone.

Education: There is no institution in the country that is not touched by the curse of corruption. In the educational sector parents seeking admission for their children in secondary, nursing, teachers training, polytechnics and universities are made to pay huge bribes before their wards are offered admission. In the Universities and other institutions of higher learning there are reports of lecturers sleeping with female students in exchange of higher marks.

Scholarship Secretariat: When was the last time the Scholarship Secretariat publicly announced the availability of scholarship? Yet we know that there are Ghanaians studying abroad on Ghana government scholarship. How those students got the scholarship is everyone’s guess but merit is out of the question. Under the NPP and the NDC scholarships are awarded to party members and not Ghanaians. There are cases where officials at the Secretariat have demanded 20 million old Ghana cedis before one could be considered for scholarship.

The Implications

The people of Niger Delta were not born with arms in their hands. They were pushed to grab it by circumstances imposed on them by the corrupt politicians, the corrupt police service, the judiciary, the military, and the oil companies. It is the suffering of the masses, the corruption of politicians, civil servants, state security institutions that have helped create and sustain insurgent and terrorist groups in many parts of the Nigeria, including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). A comment by an expatriate engineer sums up the reason why militancy became the last resort for the people: “I have explored for oil in Venezuela, I have explored for oil in Kuwait, I have never seen an oil-rich town as completely impoverished as Oloibiri”. Oloibiri is the town where oil was first discovered in Nigeria but has seen none of the benefits that the oil has brought the country. But Oloibiri is no different from Obuasi or the Western region in Ghana where for 100 years gold, timber, and all kinds of minerals have been exported yet the people still live in abject poverty.

I know how states with such predatory people and institutions always end up. They always end as failed states. Nigeria is one of such states. Mexico is another. Wherever corruption thrive violence, insecurity and conflict always abound. Whenever the poor are denied what is due them there is always popular uprisings. Whenever civil servants put their own interest before that of the nation and cheat old pensioners out of their money is always bound to be hostile response. Whenever politicians feed on the state there is always bound to be a backlash. It may not come today but it will always come. Whenever the court and the judiciary fail to act, injustice dominates and mob justice becomes the order of the day. Whenever police and other security agencies are corrupt insecurity and infectious crime take hold and ethnic militia and private security companies replace them as the legitimate force. Whenever politicians fail to defend the interest of the state poverty, lawlessness takes hold. Whenever corruption is democratized in parliament, in the court, at the presidency, at cabinet meetings there is always bound to be total break-down in law and order as well as intractable political, economic and social problems. Whenever state officials think they can connive with oil, gold, diamond and timber multinationals to dupe the people they can always be sure of one thing: they will live in fear of their lives and at the mercy of private security companies as it is happening in Ghana.

Ghanaians may continue to tolerate the excesses of the corrupt and lazy executive. They may not say a word for the missing cocaine. They may continue to put up with the corruption and greediness of the NDC and NPP. They may for now put up with the antics of the MTTU, CEPS, Accountant General’s Department, DVLA, VAT, IRS, the media, the judiciary, and the bureaucracies of the ministry of education, finance and health. But a time will come that they will make the nation ungovernable for those failing the state and its people and make them suffer the same ordeal that they are putting Ghanaians through.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Supporting developing countries to scale-up access to sustainable energy for cooking will not only bring positive effects for climate change; it will improve the health and economy of the world’s most vulnerable households. What’s more, the cost of achieving universal energy access in the coming decades is surprisingly low.

It is difficult to imagine, but right now approximately two billion people, one third of humanity, do not have access to energy for their most basic needs such as cooking, lighting and heating. Not coincidently, this is the same one third that is currently living in extreme poverty. Access to clean and safe energy for cooking is essential for human development. No country in modern times has managed to reduce poverty and achieve economic development without increasing access to modern forms of energy. Without a massive scale up in access to clean and safe energy, the world’s poorest regions will remain trapped in poverty.

For most Swedes, cooking is an enjoyable pastime and something that is normally taken for granted. We just flip a switch; turn a knob, and the stove turns own. However, for two thirds of the worlds’ population, this fundamental task is both a tiresome burden and a major health risk.

In Sub Saharan Africa, four out of five households do all their cooking over an open fire or using an inefficient wood or charcoal burning stove which exposes them to high levels of smoke and health damaging chemicals. They cook this way because they have very limited choice. Electricity is either unavailable – only 28% of SSA (excluding South Africa) is electrified – or unaffordable. Since the task of cooking usually falls to women and girls, it is they who face daily exposure to levels of pollution which are estimated to be the equivalent of consuming two packets of cigarettes a day (WHO, 2006).

The health impact of this exposure is devastating. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) smoke from domestic fires kills nearly two million people each year and sickens millions more. This is more than three people per minute. It is a death toll almost as great as that caused by dirty water and poor sanitation and AIDS, and greater than malaria. Without systematic changes, household biomass use will result in an estimated 8.1 million Lower Respiratory Infection (LRI) deaths among young children in sub-Saharan Africa alone between 2000 and 2030 (Bailis, Ezzati, Kammen, 2007, p 6).

These are indeed startling figures. So why isn’t more being done to tackle this problem? If indoor air pollution is responsible for more deaths globally than malaria each year, why don’t we see a global push for energy access similar in profile and funding to the global anti-malaria campaigns?

One answer is that until recently, there has been a marked lack of political will to acknowledge and tackle this glaring problem. This was made blatantly clear in September 2000 when heads of state from all over the world met to agree on eight specific targets for combating poverty, disease, illiteracy, hunger and environmental degradation. The deadline for achieving these eight ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is 2015 – just five years from now, but we are far from on track to meeting these targets. A major reason for this is that Energy Access was completely left out of the picture. Amazingly, there is no Millennium Development Goal on Energy, despite the fact that lack of access to clean and safe energy, especially for cooking, is a major impediment to meeting every one of the MDGs.

Now, with just over five years to go, we are beginning to see some momentum and a new global push to get energy access firmly on the development agenda. One major reason for this about turn is recognition of the enormous potential for so called “co-benefits”– additional or “bonus” opportunities for tackling climate change through projects designed to address the household energy problem in developing countries.

Cooking stoves and climate change
The same tiny particles from cooking fires that are linked to more than two million deaths annually are also contributing to climate change. Black carbon or soot is thought to be the second biggest contributor to global warming after CO2, and although dirty diesel engines, power plants and other more advanced technologies also produce black carbon, cooking fires appear to be the largest source of soot in developing nations. Several studies have indicated that reducing black carbon emissions may be among the most accessible, quick and cost effective actions to mitigate climate warming over the coming decades (e.g. Hansen et al.; Jacobson, 2002; Bond and Sun, 2005).

Replacing inefficient cooking devices with cleaner stoves and fuels, while immediately improving the health and well being of the users, could also have a significant positive impact on global warming in a relatively short time frame. This is because, unlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the atmosphere for many decades, black carbon particles generally fall from the sky in days or weeks.

A wide range of new and improved cooking stoves, as well as cleaner fuels are currently being field tested – many of these show great potential for addressing the climate and health problems. One success story is that of the ethanol fuelled “CleanCook” stove, originally Swedish technology, in Ethiopia. Ethiopian NGO, Gaia Association has pilot tested these stoves in households in Addis Ababa and in a number of refugee camps with very positive results. Households are ready to switch completely to ethanol (which is locally produced from sugar cane residues) and the project will soon enter a commercial phase where the Swedish stoves will be produced and sold locally. See the attached photo.

Although a global effort to roll out improved household energy programmes poses a number of challenges, relatively speaking, it is not an expensive project. The IEA, in its recently published World Energy Outlook estimated that universal access to clean cooking facilities could be achieved through additional cumulative investment on $56 million in 210-2030 (IEA, 2010). This investment is equivalent to 0.2% of the total projected global energy investment to 2030.

There is now widespread consensus among policy makers and the development community that addressing the energy access problem is a matter of urgency. In September 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was officially launched by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is a $60 million dollar public-private partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s goal is for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.

2010 also saw the launch of the Energy for All 2030 Project, an EU-wide initiative aimed at raising policy and public awareness about the issue of energy access for meeting the MDGs in SSA. In Sweden, Energy for All 2030 is being led by the Stockholm Environment Institute which is playing a leading role in highlighting these issues for Swedish and European Policy makers and supporting a platform for dialogue between African and European civil society. The SEI, together with UK partner, Practical Action recently met with the EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to push for more policy focus and financing at the EU level for the goal of universal energy access. This political momentum is set to continue over the coming years and particularly in the run up to 2015 and the deadline for meeting the MDGs.

It remains to be seen if the energy access targets can be met within the given timeframes. But there is hope. Prioritizing energy access as a key driver of social and economic development is undoubtedly the first step towards achieving universal energy access and there, at least, we have agreement. Now we need to see this consensus and support translate into action for the worlds’ poorest.

Energy for all 2030 is a Europe-wide project calling for more and better funding from the European Commission for energy access projects in Sub Saharan Africa. Support the Energy for All 2030 Project. Go to http://practicalaction.org/energy-advocacy/makethecall and pledge your support to make universal energy access a reality by 2030.

The authors are Associate Researchers at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in Stockholm Sweden. They can be contacted through their e-mails: Fiona Lambe (fiona.lambe@sei.se) and Patricia Tella (patricia.tella@sei.se)