How about former Heads of State in Europe? Ivo Sanader was the Prime Minister of Croatia (2003-2009). He was arrested late 2010 on charges of corruption, embezzlement and abuse of power. He was later convicted and sent to prison. Jose Socrates was the Socialist Prime Minister of Portugal (2005-2011). He spent almost one year in temporary detention, then, placed under house arrest, having been charged with bribery and other crimes including money laundering, tax fraud and falsification of documents. Adrian Natase was the Social Democrat Prime Minister of Romania (2000-2004). He was sentenced to four and a half years for corruption in 2012. Svetozar Marovic was President of Serbia and Montenegro (2003-2006). He was sentenced to three years jail in 2016 for corruption and related offences. The list goes on, but I think you understand what I am saying.
When it comes to the continent of Africa, Banana Canaan was the first (ceremonial) President of Zimbabwe (1980-1987). In case you are wondering, “Banana” was truly his name; Canaan Sodindo Banana was charged and convicted of sodomy in 1997, following the murder trial of his bodyguard. He fled to South Africa, but was persuaded to give himself upon meeting and having an audience with Nelson Mandela. He served term in an open prison from 1999 until 2001, and died two years later in 2003. Ahmed Ben Bella was President of Algeria (1963-1965). He was placed under house arrest from 1965-1980, no charges filed. Jean-Bedel Bokassa was President of Central African Republic (1966-1976), and the country’s “Emperor” (1976-1979). Bokassa was a megalomaniac personified, he turned the country into his own personal fiefdom, maiming and killing anyone with a contrary view to his. To say that he was corrupt would be a misstatement. He owned the country and could do no wrong. The French finally launched an invasion of the country and got rid of him in 1979. He fled into exile in France, was tried for treason and murder and sentenced to death in absentia. Just recently, Jacob Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa (2009-2018), has been charged with involvement in a multi-billion dollar arms deal from the 1990s, alongside a string of bribery and embezzlement charges that have dogged his Presidency almost from the start. If convicted and sent to jail, he would be the first of such leaders to go to prison for corruption-related crimes on the continent of Africa. My guess is that the 75-year-old rugged politician would not be incarcerated; it is simply not the African way. Here is why.
The colonial legacy. For those who may have heard me make this point before, I apologise, but it is worth re-stating. During the independence struggle across the continent, the nationalist leaders were bundled into colonial jails in their dozens on a daily basis. Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Sekou Toure (Guinea), Ahmed Ben Bella (Algeria), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) etc, were all inmates in colonial jails, as were numerous more like them. The irony, of course, is that the more the leaders were thrown into jails, the more popular they became. They were all fighting a common enemy: European colonial presence on African soil. Over time, incidents of political leaders going to jail lost its shock value. It even became a badge of honour (and a rite of passage) for the prisoners, who later assumed the mantle of leadership in their respective countries.
During the long independence struggle, the state in Africa was the archetypal colonial state; foreign to the subjects upon whom they exercised authority. ‘The state’ was therefore conceived of, and related to, as the tool of exploitation, subjugation and harassment that needed not only to be resisted, but ultimately brought down. Government property, money, investment, infrastructure and the like, became legitimate targets for ventilating anger and people’s frustration. Stealing from the state became a patriotic obligation on the part of those with the means so to do. Anyone returning to one’s village with a horde of loot from the government would be met with a dance troupe and a chieftaincy title to match. The tragedy is though, that almost 60 years after independence in most African states, attitude to the state does not appear to have changed in any appreciable degree. Again, here is why.
The post-independent leaders who took over the reins of power throughout Africa did so as if they had just acquired their own kingdoms. Rather than dismantle the apparatus of oppression represented in the colonial state, they simply took it over and used it to suppress their own people with even more vigour than the colonial masters did to them. Consequently, people’s alienation from the oppressive state intensified despite now having indigenous Africans in the seat of power. One more time, here is why.
The state is an essentially problematic instrument in Africa for a very important reason. The colonial partition of Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1885 completely disregarded historical and cultural affiliations of the indigenous people, and carved out areas of land that merged and lumped people together in the artificially created colonial state. The state was created before the people’s national consciousness could be established. Modern states such as the Palestinians see and feel themselves as a nation first, before fighting for an independent state of their own. So too, is Taiwan, Catalan, Scotland etc. In Africa, we got the state first before getting to know who we were to share its structure and powers with. And, in many cases, fighting broke out once people found out the gulf in cultural disparities and ambitions of the various ethnic elements that constitute the new state. Consequently, there is still no sense of ownership of the established state in much of Africa. Very few people conceive of their state as being worth dying for in Africa, the concomitant of which is that its commonwealth is not worth watching over by active citizens. When political leaders steal in Africa, they do so in their own name, but when faced with a charge for stealing, their ethnicity immediately becomes the issue. They get succour from their kith and kin with some absurd ripostes such as: “Yes, they may have stolen money, but others have stolen money too”, “even if he is indeed a thief, he is, nevertheless, our son”, “they are using the charges to persecute, suppress and humiliate his ethnic base”, “at least, he used the loot well for his people”, “is he the only corrupt leader out there?” etc.
The state is still the alien enemy to devour and strip of its assets. Corruption has become so ethnicised that there are many ex-corrupt Heads of State and Government across Africa, who no prosecutor dares touch for fear of igniting an ethnic war, or for fear of “heating up the polity” as they say in political elite circles in Nigeria. Many such corrupt leaders have streets named after them; they go about leading delegations to promote reconciliation and democracy as ex-leaders in other countries, rather than spending time in jail as other people would have them do. In Africa, if you are a political leader and found yourself unlucky to be convicted and sent to jail, rest assured, your ‘pardon’ is being negotiated even as you take the first step into detention. If not, your time in jail will soon be reduced so drastically on appeal that you will be released for time already spent in custody. The opprobrium other people attach to jail in respect of high level officials does not apply in Africa, since colonial use of indiscriminate detention for political leaders all those years ago has desensitised the public to elite prison ‘shame’ to this day. What works in Africa is the loss of assets. Given the choice, a public official found guilty of corruption would accept a temporary loss of his liberty than a loss of a single kilogramme of his assets. As an alternative to a custodial sentence, therefore, it is time to consider asset-stripping those who wantonly asset-strip the state in Africa.
Concluded
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