Museveni is in Africa's Club of Shame

No wonder Museveni was the only African head of state to recognize Kibaki's win. Even his sponsor, the US, backtracked after rcognition on auto pilot. I am sure he is eager to have a neighbor to join him in Africa's Club of Shame--11 so-called leaders of the African Union who have served/imposed themselves for twenty years and counting-- with Omar Bongo of Gabon clocking 40 years. http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2235161,00.html

Does this phenomenon say anything about who we Africans are? The leading heading on the online article says "Africa's stalwarts," suggesting an undercurrent of sarcasm. If anything, these long-serving leaders reflect the dirth of any established institutions to carry on social,economic and political growth and stability in a rapidly changing world. Even in Africa's Arabs countries where it should have been an established institution to help guarantee continuity, Islam is in a state of turmoil with fundamentalists struggling to gain control and take these nations back to the dark ages. In Black Africa there is hardly any established institutions to speak of. The indigenous institutions having been destroyed by colonialism, Christianity and Islam, what can provide a sense of continuity for the alien notion of nations are the autocratic Big Men.

Around these Big Men are the forces of handlers and hangers-on who perpetuate the status quo for their own benefits. Any means other than the gun will take years to oust these demigod leaders because the masses, burdened by the need for physical survival, are aneasthetized by a sense and need for continuity. It will take years for those who have liberated themselves from this mental slavery to develop a critical mass to get rid of the big-man cult.

Already people like Raila Odinga, through cheer grit and organization, has achieved much. He was the chief architect and tactician in ousting Moism. His putting together of ODM is pure genius. The calculation behind the numbers for the Coast, Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza was pure textbook political alignment that is the future of Kenya power axis. What happenned with the stolen election is a temporary dliectical setback.