Let them eat cake. That is one of the likely headlines after an all-night birthday gala for Robert Mugabe, the autocratic president of Zimbabwe, which was due to finish in the early hours of Saturday. Mugabe, who last week turned 86 in a country where average life expectancy stands at 45, is the eldest statesman on a continent where age is seldom a barrier to power.
But events confronting both Nigerians and Nigeriens in the past week have demonstrated that the next generation of African leaders might find it somewhat harder to crush all comers.
President Mamadou Tandja of Niger, who had rewritten the Constitution rather than quit when his term expired, paid the penalty when soldiers stormed the presidential palace and spirited him away in a military coup. Diplomats were ambivalent about whether to condemn the means or praise the ends.
President Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria, who created a power vacuum when he disappeared in November for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, returned at dead of night to a country where politicians, lawyers, media and ordinary citizens have made their demands for accountability and transparency clear. Yar’Adua’s deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, remains at the helm while questions linger over the president’s health.
In recent times, the objections raised to the likes of Menzies Campbell and John McCain in recent British and American election campaigns rarely keep politicians awake here.
Africa’s club of leaders of pensionable age includes Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (81) Cameroon’s Paul Biya (77) Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia (73) Moammar Gadaffi of Libya, believed to be 67, Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, also 67, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, thought to be 66, and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, believed to be 65.
Together these men have ruled for close to 250 years combined and none seems in a hurry to bend to free and fair democratic will. It took the grim reaper to part Gabon’s Omar Bongo, at 41 years the longest-serving president in African history, from the levers of power last year at the age of 73.
No sign of going quietly
It is hoped that the rise of civil society organisations across Africa, flourishing on the internet, will prove a powerful counterweight to future big men turned old men. But optimism should be checked. The Mo Ibrahim prize for African leadership, intended to honour good governance, was not awarded last year because no worthy candidate could be found.
Mugabe, for one, shows no signs of going quietly. In April, he will mark 30 years in power since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain, making him one of the world’s longest-reigning leaders. Urban myths abound about how the 86-year-old retains the zeal of a man half his age.
Many wish that he had followed the example of Nelson Mandela, now 91, whose decision to step down from South Africa’s presidency after one term guaranteed his special place in posterity. – guardian.co.uk