At the recent UN meeting Gadaffi’s buffoonery was legendary. A Chinese diplomat was seen undiplomatically laughing at him. Venezuelan Hugo Chavez noticed the absence of the smell of sulfur sans Bush around! The octogenarian Mugabe had a shinny face and a noticeably colored pate to camouflage the white hair. What about Museveni who fancies himself as the chief spokesperson for Afrika? There was no creativity. He harped on his born-again capitalism mantras: Uganda’s economy is growing at a clip of 7 percent per annum; we (meaning the latter-day crop of Afrikan leaders) have discovered the secret to resuscitating our moribund economies; we shall manufacture our own raw materials instead of exporting at desperate poor man’s prices; if you can help us with our infrastructures, we are ready to take off; and yada, yada, yada.
When the ruling class of Afrika is shaken it screams about interference, sovereignty, neocolonialism, racism and the likes. While, most of them failed miserably, at least, the first crop of Afrikan presidents and prime ministers came up with bold, quasi-original ideas—Ujamaa, Move to the Left, Common Man’s Charter, Negritude, etc. The new crops of presidents show no creativity in solving the challenges of Afrika.
Can a Singapore be achieved without destroying communities and the environment? Can the unbridled quest for trinkets bring happiness and contentment? The president of Uganda boasted of having viable consumer population now. The last time around we were sold into slavery because the chiefs were excited about the trinkets shrewd European adventurers dangled in their faces. There is a need to go to the drawing table to redefine the premises of development and progress not based on greed, jungle laws and aping the West uncritically. The survival of the race depends on it.
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