Robert Mugabe is no African Hero

After the unexpected but entirely justified withdrawal of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai from the just concluded presidential election run-off in Zimbabwe, a Nigerian Newspaper, The Daily Trust published a cartoon which I found rather offensive. This prompted me to email the following letter to the Editor of the paper. Not that I expect my lonely voice to influence perceptions in Nigeria, but I now believe that every bit of noise contribute to resolving the ever deepening crisis in Zimbabwe.

The cartoon in your publication (Daily Trust, Tuesday June 24 2008 - page 12) cannot go unchallenged because it is extremely misleading and portrays a distressing and disturbing misunderstanding of the events and developments in the recent Zimbabwean electoral process. In case some of your readers missed the cartoon in question, it depicts an elderly and confident Robert Mugabe triumphantly romping across the finishing line of a 400 metre race track while his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai flounders on the ground appealing for assistance.

One of the features which I have most admired about Nigeria is the fiercely professional, candid and independent media, especially and particularly your newspaper which I read often. I have always observed a remarkable depth of critical analysis in both the news articles and features and irrepressible but objective exposition of current issues regardless of who is involved or their status and level in society. However the cartoon in question has planted a seed of doubt that your editorial department fully appreciates the nature and severity of the events taking place in Zimbabwe, otherwise they would not have passed this utterly deceptive and offensive illustration.

On the somewhat positive side what the cartoon does, however, is to accurately reflect a general sentiment which I have observed in my interactions with many Nigerians including the educated professionals. The sentiment is that Robert Mugabe is a great African hero who has socked it up to the whites by reclaiming the land which was taken from them during colonialism. In this context, the events is Zimbabwe are cast as retribution against him by the former colonialists for that very noble act. This is quite misleading and a misconception of the facts on the ground and it is important that this impression is corrected especially in the minds of Nigerians because of two main reasons.

First, as Africa’s largest country (in population terms) and the second largest economy in black Africa, Nigerians have the greatest capacity to positively influence change in Zimbabwe. Second, Nigeria is still grappling with their own traumatic election experiences and are still deeply scarred by the events of last year and it is therefore not in their interest to either ignore or promote incidents of electoral malpractices. It is also important that Nigerians get engaged in what is happening in Zimbabwe and actively help to promote a solution for that problem because the tragic events there have an effect on the peace and security not only of the Southern African region but of Nigerians as well. By way of example, Nigerians have very recently been victims of the xenophobic attacks of migrants in South Africa which events were directly precipitated by events which have been taking place in Zimbabwe over the past decade.

The problems in Zimbabwe, far from being a manifestation of the machinations of neo-colonialists, reflect a sad failure of African democracy, diplomacy, good governance and sound policy judgement. More than four million of its people (a quarter of the population) are now exiles and refugees in neighbouring and other far flung countries. (In Nigerian terms that would amount to about 40 million citizens!). Inflation is estimated in millions of percentages – there are no official figures because the office responsible for providing such information gave up doing so a long time ago when the rate had hit sextuple figures. Unemployment is well over eighty percent; more than seventy percent of the people are classified as poor and depending on some handouts for sustenance. The shops are empty, the hospitals are in dire shortage of drugs and qualified staff, schools are limping towards extinction. And the Zimbabwe dollar which was stronger than the US$ at independence in 1980 is being exchanged at a few trillion to a US dollar (it is actually about 7 billion to a US$ but I have factored back the three zeros which were knocked off the currency in 2006).

The cartoon also conveniently ignores the real issues behind the withdrawal of Tsvangirai from the election which are clearly articulated in various articles in the very same newspaper (on pages 3 and 23). Amongst some of the key reasons for the withdrawal were a) the unprecedented levels of vicious violence perpetrated against the opposition supporters – over 90 brutally murdered by Mugabe’s army and supporters, more than 2000 tortured and severely injured, and an estimated 200,000 displaced by the violence (to give you a sense of proportion in relation to Nigeria again multiply these figures by 10); b) illegal arrests, detentions and harassment of the candidate and most of his senior officials and overt disruption of all campaign activities – rallies banned or disrupted, campaign vehicles impounded by the police, campaign advertisements banned from the state owned (and only) media; c) highly compromised electoral processes – a subjugated, incompetent and ineffectual electoral commission, restrictions on election monitors, polling stations staffed by Zanu-PF militia. And so on and so forth.

Such conditions would not be acceptable for an election in Nigeria and anywhere else in the civilised world. Tsvangirai was obviously correct to pull out of this sham of an illegal electoral process, not because he is a coward or because he was worn out (it is still quite conceivable that he may still have won the vote despite and in spite of all these irregularities!) but because it was just not right to continue to participate to legitimise a patently illegitimate process particularly given the ever rising costs in deaths and injuries to his supporters. The UN Security Council on Monday, 23 June passed a resolution condemning the violence which anyone around the world with satellite TV has witnessed and averring that conditions were not in place for a free and fair election.

I would suggest that your readers should learn as much as they can about the events in Zimbabwe and, in this regard, I would invite them to read my weekly blog on the internet at http://pragmaticinsights.blogspot.com. For more analysis, reports and features on events in Zimbabwe I would also recommend the website www.zimbabwesituation.com. Finally, sir, your paper should continue to educate and encourage the Nigerian people to pressure your government to take a firm stand and strongly speak out against the unacceptable brutality that is being meted to fellow Africans by Mugabe’s despotic and now illegal regime. The government of Nigeria should demand that the wishes of the Zimbabwean people for Tsvangirai and not Mugabe to lead them should be respected.