Africa farming diplomacy

The summit’s celebration of its freeing President Uhuru Kenyatta from trial at the International Court of Justice (ICC), and election of President Robert Mugabe as its new Chairman matched the season. Mugabe continues to be a frightening example of African resolve to fight bitter struggles for the rich land and mineral resources of Southern Africa […]

The summit’s celebration of its freeing President Uhuru Kenyatta from trial at the International Court of Justice (ICC), and election of President Robert Mugabe as its new Chairman matched the season. Mugabe continues to be a frightening example of African resolve to fight bitter struggles for the rich land and mineral resources of Southern Africa from Mozambique to Angola.
The summit launched a force of 7,500 troops to fight ‘’Boko Haram’’ in Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria. The eastern African countries ignored an Obasanjo-led committee on peace in Southern Sudan probably on suspicion that it would be guided by American interests. A well coordinated attack my militants in the Sinai Desert forced the imbroglio in Egypt onto the continent’s security arena; while low-intensity conflicts in Mali, Somalia and DR Congo festered.
The people of Greece gave the summit a valuable gift by voting ‘’against austerity’’. Africans suffer dictates by the World Bank and IMF over payments of horrendous debts; denials of free education, healthcare, agricultural services and inputs to peoples long impoverished by colonial socio-economic genocide. Over 300,000 Greeks had electricity cut from their homes. Greece’s elected officials surrendered the welfare of voters to dictates by the European Central Bank, the IMF and the German Chancellor. Africa’s leaders heard the explosion of this historic Greek economic rebellion. Impoverished European peoples have heard.
 Elections in Africa deserved AU’s attention. Kenyatta’s troubles had roots in Kenya’s post-2007 election violence. Blaise Compaore fled while Burkina Faso’s parliament was roasted by angry mobs denouncing his wish for re-election. Joseph Kabila’s police killed demonstrators angry over his plan to contest elections in 2016. The American Council on Foreign relations hung up a curse that Nigeria shall shatter like Syria following the 2015 elections. The AU heard it.
Violence under colonial rule was rooted in the robbery, neglect, decay of local economies and sabotage of legitimate community governments. From Sierra Leone, to Nigeria, and Tanzania’s ‘’Maji Maji War’’, rural people rebelled against impoverishment by colonial officialdom. After independence, educated elites grabbed national political offices and jobs in government ministries located far away from local communities. Local governments remained as orphans: with staff unable to plan, undertake industrial growth, including processing agricultural produce. Only the ANC’s government in South Africa is posting highly qualified personnel to work in villages.
Senegalese President Macky Sall praised the ‘’African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)’’ – the organ for mutually designing good policies and all presidents assessing their implementation by governments. He was, however, focused on constructing ‘’infrastructures’’, notably: roads, rail transport; bridges; airports. He ignored governance at the village level based on aroused local geniuses and material resources for building development.
In Nigeria, a 1995 study by UNDP found that in the Northwest Zone local communities had lost faith in, and respect for, government officials in local, State and federal administrations and political offices. During military dictatorship, local and state government officials were protected from muscular reviews by local communities. Budgets allocated from the federal treasury were stolen with impunity while the people suffered in silence and abandonment. When electoral democratic politics resumed in 1999, political parties did not train party members to review state and local officials; and animate voters to demand funds for projects they demanded. Nigeria’s federal regime lacks the vibrancy from people monitoring local and state government officials. Corruption brews and sustains frustration, poverty and crouching violence in local communities.
Many elected executives of local governments often relocate to state capitals to   consume funds distributed by the federal treasury before travelling back to pay salaries to selected staff. Teachers, nurses in rural clinics, and agricultural extension staff receive salaries up to six months late. Federal anti-corruption agencies lack the staff strength to fight corruption in all the 774 local government jurisdictions in Nigeria. The post-2007 election violence in Kenya had similar roots. The AU’s security agency must focus on non-industrializing; illiterate; corrupt; extortionist and decayed local governance as roots of communal violence from Burkina Faso, Central African Republic to Somalia.
 A  Jewish leader insisted that: “We must forgive but not forget’’. The African Union Commission must farm diplomacy of recalling genocides against Africans; and produce histories of Euro-America and Asia from African eyes, ears and genius.