Uhuru: Africa will grow once we fight these three problems

As a son who retired before the father, I look forward to welcoming you, Muhammadu Buhari, to the very exclusive club of former African Presidents. The Club remains exclusive because it only admits members who have willingly retired from office.

It is indeed a great honour and privilege for me to join you when the country is preparing itself to witness the seventh consecutive civilian leadership transition.

This is not a moment to be taken for granted. In every high-stakes contest, there will emerge victors and losers. What has set Nigeria apart from many nations on our continent today is that its leaders have chosen to disappoint the naysayers and the prophets of doom and have opted instead to express their political differences within the framework of constitutional order. This is not an easy thing to do when there are many other ways and means to express disaffection, methods that could easily trigger civil unrest, lead to the loss of life and cause irreparable harm to your nationhood.

I was invited here to speak on the topic of Deepening Democracy For Development, a subject that remains close to my heart. I want to speak to you, not as a Kenyan speaking to Nigerians but as an African speaking to fellow Africans.

The last set of African nations to attain self-rule and independence from the shackles of colonialism and apartheid was 33 years ago in 1990 when Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma took the reigns of their respective countries. One would have expected that three decades on from the departure of those who had oppressed, discriminated and exploited our people for centuries, Africa would find herself to be not only more prosperous but socially and economically stable; that we would have harnessed our immense God-given mineral wealth, our agricultural potential and abundant human capital to propel the wellbeing of our citizens and to strengthen our voice in the global community of Nations.

Today thousands of our children are migrating to Europe on fishing boats, fleeing from chaos and poverty and braving harrowing dangers in search of a better life. Over the last five decades, more than half of the countries in Africa have experienced some form of armed conflict. The African States have either been at war with each other or at war within themselves. Today, as I stand here, there are at least 15 active theatres of non-international armed conflicts on our continent with a few more teetering on the brink.

European boardrooms

When our borders were carved up in European boardrooms in the late 1880s, our societies were torn apart by boundaries that did not reflect how we would have chosen to organise ourselves. Traditional kingdoms were split or destroyed in their entirety; those who shared common languages and other fraternal bonds found themselves on different sides of these arbitrary borders. In some cases, the colonialists imposed one community to superintend over the others as part of the divide-and-rule strategy that would allow them to govern indirectly. In very few parts of Africa was any border drawn to accommodate religious and ethnic homogeny.

As a consequence, we found ourselves inside countries that were somewhat of a mixed bag, but as they say in poker, one must play the cards that they have been dealt. These differences in and of themselves are not fatal, they only become toxic if we let them. We must start to see strength in our diversity if we are really serious about assuming our rightful place in this world as Africans.

Development trajectory

Why do I mention this? Because it is important to understand the genesis of most of these conflicts and what impact they have on our development trajectory as a continent. We must strive to identify the natural fissure lines existing within our societies that make it so easy for conflict to thrive and for democracy to be undermined.

Against this background, we can drill down to what I feel are the three most fundamental issues that are easily weaponized to the detriment of our democratic growth. The first is negative ethnicity or tribalism, followed by religion and lastly economic greed. When you look deeply at the crux of most conflicts within our continent we are either fighting for ethnic or sub-ethnic superiority of one community at the expense of others or we are propagating divisive narratives that have their origins in religious differences or sectarianism.

Incoming leadership

As we sit here today, we know for a fact that some of these elements I have mentioned remain a clear and present danger for the future of Nigeria. The incoming leadership has a unique opportunity to use this inflection point brought about by a peaceful and orderly transition to take stock of what sort of future it wants for the people of this country. Will Nigeria continue fighting for its place on the world stage with one hand tied behind its back , or will it use this moment in time to embrace a brave and new way of doing things and thereby unleashing the full might of the green giant?

As you ponder on that thought, allow me to take you back in time to 2013 when I was first elected into office. At that time I was facing the most serious challenge of my life as an individual and in my capacity as President. I was facing trial at The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity, charges that were later proven to be unfounded.

As I settled in State House, I found myself introspecting more and more as to how I ended up in that unenviable position and what were the deeper issues could be. I surmised at that time that it was as an unfortunate side effect of the deeply contested 2007 elections that led to widespread inter- ethnic violence causing the loss of 1300 lives and the displacement of over 600,000 Kenyans from their homes.

At the centre of this violence was fighting between the tribes ostensibly associated with the leading political actors of the day, my predecessor and third President of Kenya, the late Mwai Kibaki, the leader of the opposition Raila Odinga, my successor and fifth President of Kenya, William Ruto and of course yours truly as the party leader of the Kenya African National Union and a supporter the incumbent President.

Election dispute

What started off as an election dispute over results between political parties very quickly escalated into a full-scale conflict between different ethnic communities whose perceived historical differences were easy powder kegs to ignite.

How did we get to this low point? Whereas what happened in 2007 was unprecedented in its scale and ferocity, election related violence was not a new phenomenon in Kenya per-se. We had seen some different manifestations of ethnic based electoral violence from the early 1990s with re-introduction of multi-party democracy but nothing was like what we were to witness in 2007 and 2008.

In 2002, after what many say was Kenya’s first truly democratic multi-party elections, a new government was ushered in that raised the expectations of the citizenry. Hopes were high that equitable development would impact the lives of every Kenyan without discrimination. During this brief honeymoon phase, the country’s economy boomed with Kenya posting a real GDP growth rate of 6.9 per cent at the close of 2007.

Electoral promises

However, trouble was brewing and the coalition in power started to strain at the seams, the feeling that electoral promises on the distribution of political power amongst different communities were not being honoured came to the fore. The differences came out in the open when the first attempt was made at a constitutional referendum in 2005, the Government sponsored referendum bill was resoundingly rejected and the stage was set for a monumental fight in the run up to the 2007 election.

When the elections came round it seemed that the perfect trifecta had formed. The iniquities in development became more and more difficult to ignore. The feelings of some communities that they had been excluded from the national agenda or outrightly subjugated by the government of the day was palpable. All that was needed to ignite the situation was a closely contested election, and when that came, the tinderbox was lit. The rest, as they say, is history and the start of one of the darkest moments in Kenya’s independent era. When the dust had settled, Kenya was set to experience its most profound constitutional moment yet.

The fear of a return to violence created the much-needed environment for constitutional reforms that would transform the system of governance from that of a powerful central government to that of a devolved system of governance. The premise of the reforms was to find a way to guarantee equitable distribution of development across the entire country as a matter of right and not by dint of any political privilege.

This was a speech delivered by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta during the Nigerian Presidential  Inauguration Lecture in Abuja

To be continued tomorrow