The Sunday News
Khumbulani Vodloza Sibanda
FIRST Prime Minister of independent Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, pointed out a very pertinent point that Africa, due to its traditional societies was better off run as one party states.
Nyerere’s assertions were further backed by the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, who stated that democracy and multi-party states were divisive hence unfit for the newly independent African States.
It has thus become clear with this background that the West made deliberately sure that Africa would be in continuous conflict by forcing western “democracy” down the African system. It remains that despite Africa having attained independence, the imported democracy mechanism has been such that Africa remains in perpetual conflict.
Due to this borrowed “democracy” Kenya fell into turmoil and a lot of people died due to disputed elections, Zimbabwe was thrown into a conflict zone due to premeditated opposition skirmishes and most recently, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has also fallen into the same trap, while trying to follow the so called democratic processes.
It would appear that the African opposition political parties are following a template script of how they should conduct their politics. Their political operation has ensured suffering on their fellow countryman, leaving one to wonder if this is for the nation of they are puppets representing the West’s interests in Africa. In the case of Kenya in 2017, when Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of the elections on 11 August 2017, opposition leader Raila Odinga made it his mission to unleash anarchy against the Kenyan government and its people, a well-orchestrated mayhem that left 28 people dead and numerous others wounded.
His reasons ranged from, challenging the Kenyan Electoral Commission accusing them of a hacked electoral system, rigged election results leading him to declare the election null and void. Odinga further called for civil disobedience, an occurrence he knew could throw Kenya into a civil war.
Does the script sound familiar? Wait until you hear the Democratic Republic of Congo’s just ended election event. After opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner, DRC runner-up Martin Fuyulu jumped to contest the election result citing irregularities from the DRC Electoral Authorities.
He accused the electoral authorities of deliberately blocking people from casting their votes and for a foiled voter’s registration. He further blamed the government for logistical problems, although he knows that the DRC has no proper road network, a county as huge as West Europe, with well over 80 million people and he still expects the process to be smooth.
Another part of the DRC was under Ebola shut-down and so elections couldn’t be carried out in that part and in the other part there is an ethnic civil war raging and for security reasons elections couldn’t be carried out in that part, and for that Fuyulu claims government rigged an election.
Fuyulu took up the case to the DRC Constitutional Court that ruled in favour of Tshisekedi, immediately Fuyulu rejected the court ruling, adding that it was just confirmation that the Constitutional court was serving a dictatorial regime by validating what he calls “false results” and enabling a constitutional coup. In his own words, Fuyulu declared himself president-elect, “I am now considering myself as the sole legitimate President of the DRC, as such I ask the Congolese people not to recognise any individual who would claim this authority illegitimately or to obey any orders that would emanate from such a person,” said Fuyulu.
The two scripts above are a replica of the same situation obtaining in Zimbabwe, where the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance Nelson Chamisa has played out the same script to the last dot.
Playing a western game that he has no clue about, Chamisa and his MDC called for sanctions that have damaged his own motherland and caused insurmountable suffering on his fellow Zimbabweans, just so the Todd Moss of this world would give him a pat on his back. Just as Raila Odinga, Chamisa blamed the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of rigging the election and working with Zanu-PF faking temporary amnesia to the fact that he single headedly contributed to the selection of ZEC members, how is it that he would turn around to accuse them of working with Zanu-PF.
Chamisa further blamed Zanu-PF for rigging the elections, a situation that prompted his fellow party members to declare his party to have won elections leading to the August 1 skirmishes that saw six people losing their lives. In a bid to declare the election null and void, he took the case to the highest court of the nation the Constitutional Court, which after a widely broadcast court case proved that the MDC Alliance had no leg to stand on.
Similar to the Fuyulu script, Chamisa has instructed his party members not to recognise, a Constitutionally elected President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. They have disrespected the Chief Justice accusing him of biased judgement, the MDC A Members of Parliament have on numerous times walked out of Parliament when President Mnangagwa is addressing.
Just recently, MDC A and its affiliates took advantage of the fuel price adjustments to call for a nation-wide shut down forcing people to stay away from their sources of livelihoods by burning and destroying properties. They caused a lot of mayhem and anarchy, a situation that has again led to the death of six people. All this they have done to place Zimbabwe on the international spotlight, to force the international community to tighten its sanctions screws on Zimbabwe. They are playing into the hands of the imperialists who are still salivating over the take-over of Africa. Just recently in the British Parliament, Lord Palmer called for the re-colonisation of Zimbabwe.
It is about time the African opposition leaders realised this is not about them, but they are just pawns to a bigger picture to subject Africa to perpetual neo-colonialism. They should realise like Raila Odinga and God rest his soul Morgan Tsvangirai, that this is about their nations and the citizens thereof.
Having realised the stupidity of fighting against one of your own, Raila Odinga joined hands with Uhuru Kenyata, affirming his realisation that political differences have an ability to divide more than unite, while declaring his dedication to ending the differences that have divided four Kenyan generations. In his own words, Raila said “the differences must now come to an end.” President Uhuru agreed to put the interests of Kenya and Kenyans first and went on to form a task force to implement joint agreements on devolution, election processes, corruption and inclusivity. They both agreed to rise against hate, negative ethnicity and division against the imperialists.
Unless such negotiations are arrived at, African opposition politics will continue to evolve into something despicable, shameful and very disgraceful, forever playing into the hands of the imperialists.
