Too often South Africa’s transitional government has been held up as a model for other countries undergoing profound political change.
Usually wrongly.
But this country does offer a good example to Nigeria as its military regime gropes its way in the wake of the deaths of former dictator Sani Abacha and the man elected president in the last elections five years ago, Moshood Abiola.
The army didn’t like the result so it annulled the election and locked up Abiola. Nigeria’s future is still in the military’s hands.
Its new ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, can choose to play the tired old game of promising democracy and then manipulating the process to ensure that someone sympathetic to the army, if not openly collaborationist, emerges as president.
That will result in a discredited government unable, and probably unwilling, to tackle the rapidly deepening economic and social crisis of a deeply divided nation. Ultimately it would probably herald the return of military rule.
There is an alternative. In the military’s mind, Abiola was an obstacle. Even though he had agreed to renounce his claim to the presidency, he may still have been an effective if reluctant stick with which democrats could beat the army. Abubakar said as much to the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
Abiola’s death offers an opportunity to start afresh. The 1993 election is a sad lesson in the dangers of allowing the army too much control over an election. The time has come to establish truly representative government in Nigeria, and South Africa provides the model for a transitional administration to sit for, say, a year while political parties and elections are organised.
There certainly should have been a place for Abiola in any transitional government. He was a rallying point for pro-democracy campaigners and commanded strong support in south- western Nigeria.
But he was also a divisive figure, and he lacked both the talents and mandate to be appointed to the all-powerful presidency of Nigeria. Abiola’s place was as one member of an administration modelled on South Africa’s government of national unity which would also take in not only those who have shown a genuine commitment to democracy but civic and religious leaders from the full spectrum of Nigeria’s divided society – north and south, Muslim and Christian.
Like it or not, a transitional government would also have to include the army, although it should not lead. The military is the unfortunate dominant reality of Nigeria’s years since independence, in much the same way as the National Party in South Africa. The soldiers will not retreat from politics overnight, although it can be hoped that under a new administration they will be sidelined as rapidly as the NP in this country.
Nigeria also needs a fail-safe Constitution which takes account of all its peoples with much power dispersed to its many and diverse regions. In theory that is already the case. But the truth is that at present each region is run by a military governor answerable to the man at the top. Abacha had so much control he even wielded the power of life and death, and used it.
If future Nigerian governments do not only represent the full spectrum of Nigeria but also command the confidence of most of its citizens, they will simply become way stations on the return to military rule.
Too often the Nigerian army has been cheered back into office. It must not happen again.
Marshal Tito
The appointment of Tito Mboweni as Reserve Bank governor is a crucial step in the revamping of South Africa’s civil service, although it also deprives the government of one of its best brains.
Our only quibble is with the manner in which he was appointed. The Mboweni bombshell last Saturday dropped amid the worst currency crisis to hit South Africa in years. If Deputy President Thabo Mbeki had been announcing an established banker or a deputy governor his timing would have been understandable, if not laudable. Markets appreciate certainty, and a statement about Chris Stals’s successor was overdue.
But to suddenly present, in the midst of such a crisis, the labour minister as the new man at the helm demonstrates a worrying ignorance of the conservatism (and racism) of the markets, which clearly disapproved.
Mboweni’s detractors should, however, not be too hasty questioning whether he will be independent, the suggestion being that he, unlike Stals, might conduct monetary policy for the benefit of his political masters.
Stals has an enviable reputation as a central banker, but his track record is hardly free from political influence. Remember the generous rescue packages he quietly arranged for financial institutions controlled by fellow Broederbonders?
Mboweni is one of the Cabinet’s more forceful and independent voices. If it had to be a senior African National Congress politician capable of being his own man, it had to be him. The alternative to Mboweni being selected on merit is that the appointment is supposed to sideline him politically – an even stronger guarantee that South Africa’s first black central bank governor will not turn the Reserve Bank into an arm of government.