The dramatic year 2008 has finally come to an end. We are now into the year 2009 and, unlike this time last year, there is more fear than enthusiasm.
For us in Africa, 2008 has been a year of unmitigated disaster. Our barbarism was brought to the fore in the charade of elections in Zimbabwe and the cannibalistic drove of the Tutsi rebels in the rich Congo. The pictures coming out of Africa are still bad- not just made up.
Then, came the shame and shame of the xenophobic violence of South Africa. It is quite convenient now for South Africa blacks who were fed, armed, sustained and sheltered by other black Africans, now see their brothers as threats. What sort of threat? The answer is equally ridiculous. Taking away the menial jobs, which the wretched of the Earth in South Africa believe belongs to them. The y dont think that they should have serious benefits from the rubbles of apartheid, which all Africans joined to demolish.
The judiciary has told stakeholders in the electoral process that it is not the last hope of the common man. It has in the main upheld the fraud of 2007 elections, putting a seal of approval on a process that was fundamentally flawed. Anyone seeking an elective office needs to prepare to snatch the result sheets, bribe the police, INEC and all the people interested. Afterall, the Nigerian legal system presumes that any, and every document emanating from the authority is regular.
The only good thing and perhaps what should define the future for Africa are the twin events of the elections in the United States, which Barack Obama, Kenyan father won decisively. Had the Americans done the way Mugabe and Obasanjo did, Africans would not be celebrating Obama today.
Ghana gives us another glimpse of hope. Let the Ghanaian elections bring shame to Mugabes and Obasanjos of Nigeria.
No matter what, the economic down turn would not diminish our hopes. Africa will triumph and all the detractors ruling Africa today would be put to shame.
Click here to read all the news and information about Nigeria