Soldiers, Egypt, Snowden and matters arising

Like skilful hunters, these guys know when and how to strike with deadly force and accuracy. African soldiers are uncommon patriots much like vultures. If you ask them, they have done nothing but defend the nation from ravenous political wolves and have become legends.When it was fad to be royal, they stood behind their kings. […]

Like skilful hunters, these guys know when and how to strike with deadly force and accuracy. African soldiers are uncommon patriots much like vultures. If you ask them, they have done nothing but defend the nation from ravenous political wolves and have become legends.
When it was fad to be royal, they stood behind their kings. At the height of his popularity, methinks Queen Victoria must have been envious of Emperor Haile Selassie. Then there was Jean Bedel Bokassa and the Last King of Scotland. When the season was right, they kicked out the braggarts and found out that the seats were not reserved for civilians only. This continued gradually, until there was hardly a nation without a khaki boy calling the shot. Not until the international inspectors of governance decided they have had enough of their shenanigans and pulled the rug under them.
Then the boys reinvented themselves shedding their khakis for civil clothes. And by the time Jerry Rawlings the first purveyor of this brand was tired of ruling, he had made enough impact to inspire Yahya Jammeh to bite the apple. Jammeh was a revolutionary until he found that his citizens could do with democratic monarchy. He has sworn to make Robert Mugabe envious of his record if his marabouts can keep him on for 1,000 years. If he said his rosary well enough, Jammeh might break Methuselah’s record. The khaki boys are like hungry snakes, they lay in ambush using existing camouflage. They strike with deadly accuracy and are masters of survival.
With their deadly strike, the khaki boys of Cairo have reinvented the wheel of governance – staged an altruistic coup d’état with no strings attached. What’s more, no shots were fired, except against those who chose to stand in front of mortar tankers. They gave an ultimatum to Mohammed Morsiand when he failed to heed their deadline, they made him kiss his electoral mandate goodnight and have now quarantined him in the same cooler they kept his predecessor.
In the art of making coups as the Naija masters might confess, there is no need to hurry if you read the timing right. These guys kept their distance from the presidential palace and only detained Morsi for his own safety. They did not have to run over the radio and television station allocating political positions to their ranks, no, they simply surrounded the presidential palace perhaps to secure its pots, plates and pans from looting. Then, they called a learned judge and handed him the keys to the palace leaving him to figure out what to do with his new found aphrodisiac.
The question is no longer whether the khaki boys of Cairo have saved their country from certain civil war, but whether this cool move might birth a new era of salvation for those wondering if democracy, especially in view of its recent foibles is the road to take. The international trendsetters and inspectors of democracy have been caught off guard and are reacting rather tongue in cheek.
These are not good times for those peddling the drug of democracy as a cure all for all the world’s troubles. We have always had this sneaky feeling that this new drug is like the wonder drug peddled in Lagos molue. Its marketers look like specimen of frustration themselves but it doesn’t stop them from advertising its omnipotent credentials.
Haven’t we all thought that big brother was watching our every move except that we had no hard evidence? Well, in an era when the slogan is – sack your workers and outsource their jobs, Edward Snowden is a perfect example of what loyalty means to contractors with no physical or emotional attachment to their jobs. Nihilist Snowden apparently did more than cleaning at Langley. He found files that once downloaded made him a worthy rival of the most wanted since Julian Assange and took off to Tokyo where he vomited a bit before jetting off to Moscow to continue exhibiting his treasures.  
Beyond that, Snowden is polarizing the world after the big boys believed they have unipolarised it and with unexpected comic relief. Unwittingly, Snowden is exposing the pretentious weakness of democracy, the cure-all medication that the west touts as the missing link between human rights and unbridled freedom. This guy is turning allies against each other. At a point, European master spies thought they had the global police where they wanted them until Le Monde, without giving out the identity of the Gaelic clone of Assange and Snowden exposed the double standard of its home government.
Before then, Britons might have been forgiven for thinking that only Rupert Murdoch eavesdropped on their conversation. They now know better and are reminded of Saddam’s magical weapons of mass destruction. In Africa, kleptomaniacs are wetting their pants watching the inspectors’ reaction to events in Egypt.