/ 12 October 2008

Beyond the machine gun

In a week when the headlines were dominated by the hide-and-seek over the state of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s health, many Nigerians missed the story about how Jonathan Shapiro’s cartoon stirred a hornet’s nest in Johannesburg.

The cartoon strip was a blow aimed below the belt and delivered through the Sunday Times. In the strip Shapiro, famously called Zapiro, depicted ANC president Jacob Zuma undoing his fly and about to rape a woman labelled as the justice system.

Zuma supporters said the last time they checked there was no woman by that name. Zapiro was only dredging up memories of Zuma’s rape case; a case from which the court had discharged and acquitted him.

The cartoon, coming days before Zuma was due to return to court over charges of corruption, was criticised by Zuma supporters as defamatory and lacking in taste. They saw it as yet another low water mark in the desperate attempt to stop Zuma from becoming South Africa’s next president.

Nonsense, replied the pro-Zapiro crowd. What is freedom of expression worth if every caricature is received with the fanaticism of the Danish cartoons?

I’m not sure what Zapiro would have made of the run-up to the April 2007 elections in Nigeria, but there was a lot from it that foreshadowed Zuma’s odyssey.

The bitter squabble between Zuma and his former boss, Thabo Mbeki; the salacious rape case; and on top of it, the long-running corruption trial, which was finally dismissed by Judge Chris Nicholson on September 12 — all remind one of the slugfest between former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar.

No weapon in the arsenal was spared, except, perhaps, the machine gun. Obasanjo swore that Abubakar would only succeed him over his dead body and since he wasn’t kicking the bucket just yet, he kept Abubakar so thoroughly busy at the courts that the former deputy president wasn’t sure his name would be on the ballot on voting day. The odds against Zuma may not be so stark and, yes, his chances of succeeding Mbeki have improved remarkably after his last court victory, but not a few top people in Nigerian government circles may be wishing him rougher days ahead.

Since last January when Zuma criticised the April 2007 election in Nigeria as unworthy of Africa, he has been in the bad books of the ruling government. The thinking inside government is that a man who is beset by multiple legal battles is hardly qualified to preach about the integrity of elections in another country. Let him first remove the log in his own eye. I figure that the latest controversy over Zapiro would also be regarded as just desserts.

Is Zuma good for Nigeria? The answer is Nigeria doesn’t seem to have much of a choice now. Except if something tragic happens, Zuma is almost certain to become the next South African president even though he might assume office bruised, and perhaps, chastened. Business between Nigeria and South Africa is good. Trade between both countries is in excess of R4-billion and South African companies in Nigeria have grown from four in 1999 to more than 100 today.

When Obasanjo assumed office in 1999 he granted South Africa state rights to sell 50 000 barrels of Nigerian crude oil a day, a figure that was increased to 120 000 barrels in 2003 and passed off under the name of a shadowy South African company. MTN, with a current subscriber base of nearly 20-million, grossed R2,4-billion in 2004; R14,9-billion in 2006 and R20,3-billion last year. Telkom has bought over Multilinks for $200-million. Ophir Energy, owned by Tokyo Sexwale’s company, Mvelaphanda Resources, has drilling rights.

It was, therefore, not a surprise that Mbeki’s government was the first in Africa to declare the April election in Nigeria free and fair even though it did so covering its nose and mouth. In a sense, therefore, the question should not be whether Zuma is good for Nigeria, but rather, whether a president Zuma can afford to call the bluff of the Nigerian government.

Apart from applauding the post-election protests in Kenya and criticising Mbeki’s soft policy in Zimbabwe, Zuma has been largely silent on his African policy. In an article published in the Nigerian Guardian, a respected columnist, Reuben Abati, wondered what kind of president Zuma would make. ”I don’t think that being popular is enough,” he said. ”He carries heavy baggage — is morally dissolute and full of contradictions. I don’t share the optimism of people who think that what is happening in South Africa is good for the country. Zuma’s future government of gunslingers and rabid ideologues, dancers and singers may win the votes and the mind-game against Mbeki, but the implications for the South African region could be dire.”

After Kenya and Zimbabwe, the main character in Zapiro’s cartoons knows better than to let South Africa travel the same road.

Azubuike Ishiekwene is the executive editor of the Punch newspaper in Nigeria