Former United States President, Barrack Obama, famously made a
statement that Africa did not need strong men
but strong institutions. Like many, I had swallowed the import of this message
until prevailing circumstances compelled me to see reason on the flip side. On
the contrary, the continent needs both strong men and strong institutions
because it takes strong men to build strong institutions that would endure in
their own spheres of influence.
The general perception of many is that strong
men in power denotes negativity but the experience in other climes that had
similar situations and challenges as Africa showed that the emergence of such
super strong men was the turning point in the history of their countries.
Strong men can be positive too, it depends on how they are skewed; the negative
image of the strong men who dominated
Showing posts with label Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Africa Still Needs Strong Men
By Paul Ojenagbon
Africa
the African political landscape negatively for a long time would make many
perceive and dismiss them as evil.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
The Deepening Crisis In Libya
By Lansana Gberie
As Libya
crisis escalates, the UN and the AU search for solutions.
Perhaps no
major political or humanitarian disaster is as overlooked as the ongoing crisis
in Libya .
For example, although the New York Times in September 2017
published a total of seven articles mentioning Libya , only one of them touched on
the violence ripping it apart. Even the Times’ gesture merely highlighted
the latest permutation of the US
government’s foreign military decisions.
The
article, by Eric Schmitt, cited the Pentagon’s Africa Command and stated that
the United States military had carried out a half-dozen “precision strikes” on
an Islamic State training camp in Libya, killing 17 militants in the first
American air strike in “the strife-torn North African nation” since Donald Trump
was inaugurated as president.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Behold General Buhari's Contemporaries!
By Dan Amor
They were all members of a departed era, apostles of a dying generation — a generation that raped Mother Africa to this pariah and prostrate status. Members of the clan of military dictators inAfrica
were many but for space management, we may mention just a few who were as
brutal as General Muhamadu Buhari was before his regime was halted by General
Ibrahim Babangida in August 1985.
At their commanding height was Gnassingbe
Eyadema who in January 1963 organized the first military coup in Africa to overthrow the government of President Sylvanus
Olympio. Eyadema assumed full power in 1967 and ruled till 2005 when he died.
Before his death, he had groomed his son to assume the mantle of leadership in
that tiny West African country like a dynasty.
There is Paul Biya ofCameroon who
came to power since November 6, 1982. There was a Charles Taylor, leader of the
rebel group known as National Patriotic Front of Liberia(NPFL), one of the groups
that forced erstwhile dictator Samuel Doe out of office. Taylor who committed a
lot of war crimes and crimes against humanity over which he was jailed in 2012
by the International Court of Justice at The Hague, ruled Liberia between 1997
and 2003. Also, there is Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan , one of the most treacherous
dictators in the world today. He has been declared wanted by the International
Criminal Court for crimes against humanity since 2008 having embarked on ethnic
cleansing like the late Adolf Hitler of Germany .
They were all members of a departed era, apostles of a dying generation — a generation that raped Mother Africa to this pariah and prostrate status. Members of the clan of military dictators in
*Gen Buhari |
There is Paul Biya of
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