Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

31 January, 2011

It would be funny if it wasn't sad ...

In a recent post I asked why the Nigerian government is so keen on military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire when there are far more strategic issues closer to home.

People(including the so-called "international community") defend military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire by claiming it would install democracy (it won't; in their hearts, none of the three major candidates believes in democracy, rule of law or constitutionalism). But if spreading stable democracy is a good enough reason for a military intervention, I asked why Nigeria didn't just intervene in Niger Republic, Chad, Cameroun and especially Equatorial Guinea, that oil-rich African version of North Korea.

Now comes news that Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Dictator of Equatorial Guinea, has been named the new Chairman of the African Union, replacing the president of Malawi.

This is ridiculous.

And don't forget the current chief executive of the AU Commission is Jean Ping, himself a product of Bongo Family dynasty that has made Gabon its autocratic private possession.

That is the problem with politics in Nigeria, in Cote d'Ivoire and at the continental level. For all the pretence otherwise, we are not really presented with a choice of believers in democracy. It is a question of which undemocratic, autocratic, authoritarian, dicatatorial, election-rigging Big Man we'll have to suffer under for the next few years.

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