Jamal Khashoggi Murder: Why sitting on the Fence is Dangerous for Africans By Abimbola Lagunju

On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident, a Washington Post columnist walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for some consular papers and ZAP! He never walked out again. After pressure from different quarters, the Saudi Government owned up to have killed him inside the consulate.

What was his offence? The exercise of his rights was his major and probably only offence. His rights as a human being to have divergent opinion on issues; his rights as a journalist to report and express opinion. He was killed because he did not share the same opinion on human rights with Saudi Government. It’s not that journalists and dissidents are not killed by their governments, but this killing is one of its kind. Not that he was run down by a car or shot in the streets or murdered in his home; he was killed inside his country’s consulate in a foreign land.

Many governments have expressed surprise and shock at the strange occurrence and have challenged Saudi Arabia to explain the circumstances of this journalist’s murder. But not a word from any African leader; neither from African Union or from any of the regional bodies. As usual, they have remained silent as they always do when human rights are threatened anywhere in the world. Do they really think it is too far away from their shores to take a position? Are they scared of losing some favors from the abusers of others’ rights? Or have they conceded the right to speak on their behalf to their “former” metropoles?

The emergence and success at the polls of neo-nationalist parties in the West needs to get Africans and their leaders thinking. Neo-nationalist ideology is founded on exclusion which has its roots in denial of certain rights of their targets. Black Africans, who for centuries were forcefully argued out and excluded from history should be particularly sensitive to the narratives and behavior of these neo-nationalists and should firmly denounce this tendency at all times and anytime irrespective of where the infringements are taking place in the world. It cannot be dismissed as internal politics because these states are powerful and their internal problems cause ripples all over the world. Sitting and watching from the fence is a human security risk for Black Africans. The same arguments and attitudes that were used to exclude Black Africans from human community are being revisited today. Conceded small victories should be jealously protected and should never be taken for granted.

The threat from neonationalist ideology as far as it concerns us Black Africans lies in the disregard and disdain for erstwhile “sacred” agreements and treaties between countries. These instruments are being revisited and discarded by these parties in the name of national interests and security. This should be a major cause of concern to African leaders even when it is happening far away from the shores of Africa.

The current administration of United States is the most powerful representative of the neonationalist tendencies and it is showing the way by tearing up different agreements and treaties in the name of national interests and national security. Just to cite a few, in June 2018, the United States quitted the UN human rights council which was set up in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights; in October this year, the US announced its withdrawal from the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights between the US and Iran that was signed in 1955. Just a couple of days back, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that US signed with Russia in 1987. The sanctity of agreements is being gradually violated and Africans are looking on.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was signed in December 1948 in the absence of Africans. Only apartheid South Africa, which abstained from voting was among the 48 countries that voted in favor of the Declaration. Africans weren’t there, but we are beneficiaries as individuals and as States. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966 and came into force in 1976. Article 1 of Part 1 recognizes the right of all peoples to self-determination, including the right to "freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural goals, and manage and dispose of their own resources”.

The same threat from neonationalists that hangs over many treaties hangs over the UDHR and the ICESCR. In the event of take-over of the world by neonationalists, these instruments will be confided to history and Africans will be at serious risk.

If we and our leaders do not want to relive our history of pain, suffering and loss, and be taken not as explorers to Mars, now is the time to act. We must collectively defend the rights of individuals, peoples and communities irrespective of where the abuse is taking place in the world.

Political Transhumance in Nigeria By Abimbola Lagunju

In the last lines of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs under the leadership of Napoleon had invited local businessmen (whom they had chased out of manor Farm in a revolution) to a party on the Animal Farm, the general ideology of which was founded on “four legs good, two legs bad”. Only the pigs could party with the humans; all the other animals were ordered to stay out and at best watch the party from the windows of the event hall. Humans and pigs ate and drank in excess, spoke loudly, joked familiarly and partied wildly until It reached a point where the animals looking from the windows could no longer differentiate between the pigs and the humans. Right before the animals watching from the window, the pigs and human became one and transmogrified into an unfamiliar being, devoid of any ideology and only interested in power and personal economic gains.

Except for students of political science who may be required to painstakingly put together the details of the recent tsunami of defections from one party to the other, from APC to PDP and vice versa, and from other parties to other parties, most Nigerians will only recall that there has been such a wave of defections that has brought to fore the lack of principles, decency or ideological leanings of the Nigerian political class. But for a few well-known names, it is difficult these days to know who belongs where in the Nigerian party politics. Yesterday of this party, tomorrow of another, and day after tomorrow of yet another. Yes! Just like in the Animal Farm, the pigs and human have become one and transmogrified into an unfamiliar being, devoid of any ideology and only interested in power and personal economic gains – a fearful self-economy machine.

Everyone is claiming to be looking for democracy….! They accuse each other of various political and economic crimes that we the people have now accepted that by and large, all Nigerian politicians, almost without exception are guilty of something. They accuse each other of being murderous saints, treasury plunderers, outright criminals, oil “bunkerers”, economic saboteurs and perpetrators of many other crimes that are maybe yet unknown to the Nigerian Criminal Code.

There are two common reasons that defectors invoke when moving on. The two are linked to one another. Firstly, they accuse their erstwhile party of lack of democracy within its ranks and secondly, they claim not to have been considered in the “sharing” of dividends of power, read corruption. This “sharing” encompasses some political posts, which Nigerian media call “juicy posts”, dubious and inflated contracts, as well as bags of money from the Nigerian treasury. The plight of the people, the common people does not figure in the excuses of the defectors.

Power and money are to a Nigerian politician like pasture to the Fulani herdsmen. In the pursuit of power, political party platform can be changed at will, everyone can be corrupted (remember the recent conventions of the major political parties in Nigeria), mandates can be stolen, violence can be unleashed, and people can be crushed and killed. What we see in Nigerian political transhumance is very similar to the Fulani seasonal transhumance which brings tears, sorrow and death to farming communities across Nigeria. It is one and same vicious exhibition of savagery, primitiveness and complete disregard for civilized behavior.  Nothing matters like pasture to the Fulani and power to the Nigerian politician.

In the course of political transhumance, it is the individual that matters. This individual politician, armed with a primitive survival instinct and self-enrichment obsession betrays his erstwhile political platform to join another that will massage his ego and satisfy his greed. He whimpers and sheds tears publicly to win sympathy. He claims to be the father of democracy, the guardian of the rule of law, the savior of the people, a magician with solutions to all the problems of his target constituency. But many years of our existential experience has shown that this politician bears no goodwill to anyone. Democracy is as far from his mind as the skies are far from the earth. His trick is to use the illusion of the horizon to manipulate those that he cannot bribe to reach his political pasture. He is not concerned with the welfare of anyone but himself. The Nigerian State and its peoples do not matter.

And just like their transhumant herdsmen analogues who move from pasture to pasture, the Nigerian politician also seeks new pasture at the expiration of a mandatory term at an elective post.  The Nigerian senate is the favorite further-afield pasture grounds for governors; and to achieve this, he can be as ruthless as a Fulani herdsman with hungry and thirsty livestock.

Voting at any level for any politician that has defected from one party to another at any point in his political history is encouraging political transhumance. It is like making a murderous Fulani herdsman accused of pillaging villages and killing people for his animals the chairman of your Residents’ Association.

PS: Transhumance is the seasonal movement of livestock to fresh pasture far from the original place of the holding.