The Putin Way-An Alternative

Something is going rotten.  A fairly big one too, framed around a strident campaign for the current president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, now in his second consecutive term, to be allowed a follow-on third. Mr. President himself has been coyly silent about the matter (sort of), whilst the clamour of his friends thickens the air.

            Not surprisingly, there are others who oppose the idea, whether or not the constitution is amended to accommodate him. I am among these. Ernest Bai Koroma has done a lot to help lift Sierra Leone from where it was seven years ago, although some might see things differently. I believe, they too, are misguided. But that is neither here nor there. What is important is that the country be given a break from the Koroma brand of government, so that “his custom is not allowed to corrupt”.

Mr. Koroma himself has not said that he wants to run for another term. Indeed, at what now seems a distant past, he had declared that he was most definitely a two-term man and at the end of his second, if he was accorded one, he would leave office and revert to another life. What is worrying now, though, is that he has been quite mealy-mouthed about the antics of those who would see him run again. “It is their democratic right, in a free country, to express their views on any subject”, he declares. That right evidently extends, ultimately, to the freedom to tinker with the constitution to permit a run for a third consecutive term. But perhaps we are all getting excited about nothing, because it is by no means certain that Mr. Koroma will necessarily win a third term if he runs. Or is it?

            Anyway, the President’s friends wonder aloud why so much fuss is being made, when Tony Blair, for example and Margaret Thatcher for another, ran and ran and won the premiership of their country for more than two consecutive terms. And now, they say, Angela Merkel is getting set up for a fourth term. They declare that what is good for the European goose must be good for the African gander too. Of course they are missing the point. The constitutions under which these European politicians get to rule for more than two consecutive terms are of the parliamentary type and were not created just so that an incumbent could get their way.

Koroma's apologists should accept that it is technically impossible for him to utilize constitutional means to give himself a further presidential term.  I’m no constitutional expert but, as I understand it, the present constitution (the 1991 Constitution, to give it its technical name) does allow a change in an entrenched clause, such as the term limit for an incumbent. But such a change can only take place legally after the life of the parliament in which the change was proposed, buttressed by a two-thirds approval of the members sitting not only in that parliament but in its successor as well and, furthermore, by an equal quantum of approval in a national referendum. So there is no way that Ernest Bai Koroma can lawfully benefit this time round from a change in the constitution. The obstacles are too many. For him to run again it would require the constitution to be refashioned with a blunt instrument. And that will not do.

Ernest Bai Koroma is a fine man and president, and were it possible I, for one, would not mind being ruled for an extended period by someone like him. But changing the constitution to permit more than two terms (three, four, five, six…?) could, in due time serve up someone else whose style of government is oppressive and tyrannical. Even the most ardent of Koroma’s supporters would not want to bequeath such a constitutional monstrosity, the consequences of which we might come to regret. However, if we think this thing through carefully, we may not have to change the constitution at all.

What about the Putin way? While cynical, it could provide periodic respite from an awful leader or even from the tedium of one who is too bloody goody-goody. The Putin way proceeds thus: Vladimir goes first, for his two terms, followed by Dimitri Medvedev for his one, and then, Vlad follows for a further two... and so on. The constitution is not violated, everyone is more or less happy and Putin’s detractors are silenced. Question for us is who would be EBK’s Dmitri?  He or she can be found, I am sure, but I would suggest that when discussions are held to select him (her), caucus members should be frisked for knives before they enter the room. It could turn out quite bloody, otherwise.

I hope I have not treated the matter with too much levity but, if we do not concentrate on the issues, this thing could go really nasty and set us back decades. None of us would want that, would we?

Tell Fren Tru

Bad Luck

We live in an age of anxiety. In the west what causes sleepless nights the most is whether the next generation will be able to enjoy a richer lifestyle than their parents’. There is near-universal worry that the young will not be able to land a job that pays a living wage or even land one at all. And, as if in mockery of the plight of the struggling poor, the gap between them and the really wealthy 1% is widening by the day.

But the difference between someone in the west who pockets a million dollars, for example, and another who gets only twenty or thirty thousand is not the same as the difference between the minimally employed in a poor African country earning just one dollar a day and their more ruthless brethren who plunder a billion or two from the system.

And the poor in Africa are not only just poor. They lack security of life as well. (Among numerous other deficits).This lack of security may be just local, mediated through the actions of neighbourhood thugs. Dangerous enough. But, too often, the actions of their governments at the centre lead to a more wholesale threat to security. Anyway, however you look at it the governments are culpable for the shocking quality of life that people in these countries have to endure. Governments fail to deliver on promises, misgovern and oppress, and when called to account, over-react and do more mischief to those who dare to protest. Some governments even refuse to go even when they have gone well beyond their use-by date. And wherever they are in the election cycle, if that has not already been rubbished, the people may withdraw their consent to be governed by such incompetent, self-serving kleptocrats.

In the circumstances, all sorts of groups emerge from all quarters of the society, demanding their own slice. Fair enough. But when among them, the very worst emerge with their dubious theologies, the threat to the society becomes elemental. This is what is happening in Nigeria right now. A government, in what is arguably the most corrupt nation on earth and where the gulf between the rich and the poor is one of the deepest, presided over by a man whose performance belies his name, has exposed its people to unspeakable threats. Young men and women, old men and children are being terrorized and captured. Schools, churches and other places of worship and instruction are being targeted, set on fire, their occupants immolated. And now, captured schoolgirls are being threatened with being sold in an ironic replay of the wars that fuelled the transatlantic Slave Trade.

And up to recently, there has been dead silence from Nigeria’s Mr President. The only action of note seems to have been one from a member of the kitchen cabinet, “Her Excellency” Madam President herself, whose quota of testosterone seems to be more ample than that of her husband’s. Too bad that she elected to demonstrate her power by ordering the arrest of those protesting against her husband’s incompetence. Amazing.

Nigeria needs better luck than the measure that Jonathan seems capable of delivering.

Tell Fren Tru