When youve finished eating,pack up your concubines and just go! A constitution is a document that sets out the principles by which a people intends to govern itself, what type of government it wants to be governed by, how it intends to supervise those powers by which it will be governed, the rules governing the interplay among all the actors within the polity, etc. Western countries, at least most of them, have given themselves constitutions for which they struggled for centuries, quite often in murderous and protracted campaigns that consumed lives and set whole countries on fire. That’s why in these countries the fundamental provisions of the constitutions are seared in peoples’ memories, and that’s why these peoples will fight to defend the philosophy their constitutions stand for. Well, even Africans have been playing at constitution-making. For the past two decades, more or less, our countries have gone through the motions of putting in place “democratic” governments, often impelled in that direction by a restive population, but more often because the donors, on whom our rulers depend, say we must look and sound democratic even if we don’t do democratic. So, for the past two decade we have been allowed “multiparty,” which means, quite simply, to have as many organisations as possible that call themselves parties, even if they only comprise noisemakers carrying briefcases or are nothing more than family outfits occasionally coming up with a statement to show they are still living. Our peoples have largely remained oblivious to many of the tenets of our constitutions, even those that purport to give them this or that advantage. So when you hear, as in Tanzania these days, that the proposed constitution mentions everyone, including farmers, fishermen, artists, potters, women, youth, old people and the disabled, you should know it’s nonsense. These are token rights used as talismans by those desperate for approval; these rights are not enforceable because they are not actionable. So, it’s easy to dupe our people across the continent, except in one aspect: Term limits. In Zambia, the people stopped Frederick Chiluba when he wanted to run for a third term; in Uganda, Yoweri had to call in the armed forces to quell disquiet over his plans for an extended stay; in Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo’s supporters had to abandon similar schemes, etc. It is as if in many African countries the people don’t see much that they could do to make their rulers rule them justly. They are kind of resigned to the fact that their rulers are incompetent, ineffectual and nonchalant, apart from being thieving scoundrels who are looting their countries’ resources with abandon. But it is as if the people are saying, okay, rule us as badly as you wish; take all the resources you wish to take from our country and lavish them on your family and concubines, we don’t care, for our country is rich enough to support your gluttony. But when your term comes to an end, go! Go, and let us put another glutton in your place who will do just as badly, but at least it will be someone new, with a new family and with a new set of concubines. In this way, it is possible to spread the proceeds of plunder to as many people as possible, instead of having only one set of plunderers eating alone all the time. If a country of, say, a million families, observes such a principle for a period of, say, a thousand years, there is an off chance that at the end of that period, more than half the families will have tasted some power. And some loot. It’s a principle that Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaore failed to observe, whence his troubles this past week, with his people telling him, go! And go he did!
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 13:33:43 +0000
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