Big headache for standing on the podium of Africa

The morning of 27 April 1994 brought energy and anticipation to South Africa. It was a watershed moment. The older generation of frail, sickly, overworked, wretched and downtrodden people were looking forward to casting their first ever ballot for a democratic dispensation.
 
At that very moment, the people of Rwanda were gripped by fear. It was a 20^th day of bloody skirmishes which saw people hack their own kind to death in a 3 month genocide.

Forget that the south neighbouring Burundi was directly affected. In fact, this form of genocide between the Tutsi and Hutu people had been going on in Burundi for as long as 24 years already. South Africa hardly knew about this because we were permanently distracted by our own apartheid monster. And when Rwanda genocide happened, we were momentarily distracted by the hype of the first democratic national elections.

In Uganda, owing to its proximity to Rwanda, the situation was different. In 1994, Yoweri Museveni took to the tilting national podium. Uganda faced the prospect of plunging into another political crisis. Museveni held the pieces together through a 284 non-partisan assembly which managed to beat out a constitutional road map.

Without warning, the bodies of the Rwandan people, gushing with blood from gaping wounds impaled by machetes, rammed into the Ugandan podium from the south. The horror was demoralizing when the three districts on the shore of Lake Victoria had to be declared disaster areas because of the pollution cause by thousands of bodies floating down the Kagera River from Rwanda. When the drunk, high-on-drugs and brainwashed Ba-Hutu gang chanced upon anyone who was taller, finer and thinner than their collective self-image, a “cockroach” had to be clubbed and hacked to death.
 

South Africa is a part of this melting pot of Africa. As we await formal announcement of the election results, the podium which Jacob Zuma is standing on is on the skids. The IEC’s reputation as a competent and neutral institution is at stake. The protests over notable election irregularities in some parts of the country, including in Alexandra, is gripping the nation. The presence of the army in the area suggests a worrying stand-off.
 

The ANC 62% electoral performance is possibly affecting President Jacob Zuma’s leadership confidence. The growing desperation of people is showing through the emergence, and surprise performance, of a robust Julius Malema-led EFF.

As was the case with the podium which Yoweri Museveni stood on in 1994, Jacob Zuma faces the hail storm gripping the South African people who voted as peacefully as they could. The constitutionality of our democracy is facing a test. How the leaders of political parties handle themselves during this time will be crucial, including COPE’s Mosiuoa Lekota who must finish eating that hat.
 

The posture of the State in resolving the electoral disputes is under scrutiny. We are about to pop the champagne to celebrate the free and fair election period. The IEC personnel are about to switch off their computers to head for holiday. The opposition parties are saying Not yet!
 

As if that was not stressful enough to our president, the snobbish armed forces from U.S.A, U.K and France are intent on landing in Nigeria to “help” (render the African leadership incapable.) In their spirit of “helping” to subdue the marauding pro-Islam Boko Haram, and to rescue the abducted girls, the powerhouse trio are deliberately reminding the African mind that the West is in charge of the world. As long as the West can pin the smell of Al-Qaeda on the trail of Boko Haram, the Western army is not leaving any time soon.

 

Curiously, the mass action instigated from West, with Hilary Clinton, John Kerry and Michelle Obama leading the charge, is gaining such a momentum that the women in Nigeria, clad in red cowls, are practically hitting the streets.

 

The people of South Africa, hobbled by a stormy election campaign, are dragging themselves to the streets, brandishing the placards, in a show of latent solidarity. We will try to save face, but to what extent? Is there still time to do so? President Zuma, what options do you have available to you? You only have two hands and a big headache. President Goodluck Jonathan, Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and all your African peers, what’s on your stressed up mind right now?