Ivory Coast crisis a stain on Africa's progress

As Africa marks 60 years after the first wave of independence hit the continent, it was begging to ask what was there to celebrate? Other than claims of sovereignty, Africa remains a sea of misery and despondency, with a few sprinklings of hope and progress.

In many African countries, false dawns have shrivelled the great hopes that people had at independence.

And it was therefore that Ivory Coast, once the jewel in anarchic West Africa went up in smoke after the death of former strongman Felix Houphouet-Boigny after 43 years at the helm in 1993, followed by a coup and civil war in 2002.

Run-off elections held on November 28, saw an opposition lose after a peace deal was hammered out in 2007. Elections had been put off several times over before and the world held its breath as the country of 21 million went to the ballot on November 1. There was no clear winner prompting the run-off three weeks later in which the electoral body declared former Prime Minister and opposition leader Alassane Ouattara the victor by 54 per cent of the vote to the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s 48 per cent.

The Constitutional Council, pushing the world’s top cocoa producer further to the precipice, overturned the results. Efforts to mediate a deal in the former French colony have failed. There is no doubt who the winner of the elections is, and the international community, including the Economic Community of West African States, want Gbabgo out. Though advocating for homegrown solutions, the African Union is feeble with no standing army meaning there is little it can do to force him out other than suspending the country from its membership. There is no doubt that ultimately, it will be up to the Ivorians to chart their own destiny, but for now it must accept foreign intervention. As a start, Gbagbo, who obviously lost the election, must listen to the voice of the people and step down.

The international community has stepped in with the European Union, and particularly the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying Gbagbo must go before the end of the week or risk being slapped with sanctions and asset seizures. The United States has made similar threats. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said letting Gbabgo to stay on is a mockery of democracy. Many hope he will heed those calls and step aside as his country lurches into another bout of civil war.

In his first visit to Africa as US president last year, Barack Obama remonstrated with African leaders and governments for letting down their citizens. He was right: Africans have inured themselves to bad governance. And Africa remains the laughing stock of the world and nothing good seems to come from the world’s poorest continent. Africa’s march to prosperity has been a totter because of misgovernance and corruption.

Something positive news came from Guinea after the military under General Sekouba Konate organised an election that many deemed free and fair, ending 26 years of military rule. That is a drop in the ocean.

Despite making the right steps, over all Africa has almost half a billion people stuck in pits of poverty — the highest in any continent. The world’s poorest continent is strewn with dreadful levels of frustration and anger caused by needless poverty, misgovernance and corruption.

There are far fewer selfless leaders in Africa. All over the continent, the leaders are preoccupied with all manner of shenanigans. Crooked elections where the Executive leans on electoral bodies for favourable results and therefore propagates the status quo or the abolition of presidential term limits or where like in Kenya and Zimbabwe, the losers and the winners share the spoils is the rule rather than the exception. Even if Gbabgo were to leave, it is important that institutions of governance are strengthened to avoid a recurrence where rogue presidents as in Ivory Coast now, use state power to suppress democracy and the rule of law.

To quote the Africa Progress Panel, a Kofi Annan advocacy group, "Africa’s future is in its own hands. There is no lack of resources, no deficiency of knowledge and no shortage of plans."

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