According to World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, it is an “extraordinary moment in history”i for Africa. World leaders have made a big step towards debt cancellation. If celebrity involvement is any indication, this is the largest upwelling of public concern in Europe and North America for African poverty in recent years.
There are few issues that have captured the airwaves in Nigeria more than the twin campaigns in favor of debt relief and against corruption. A photograph of Nigeria’s former top cop made the front pages only to be followed the next day by apologies for humiliating the man. The Senate president, the number three man in the government, got kicked out of office for allegedly helping to grease of palms of some Senators, so that a government ministry’s budget could be laced up with bogus figures. The Senate president did not go down alone. He is currently squirming in the dock with the former minister of education and some other senators. Another minister was sacked for underhand dealings in a proposed sale of government houses in the high-brow section of Ikoyi, Lagos . Many of President Obasanjo’s extended family members were scheduled to become owners of these choice quarters built with public funds.
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s surprise announcement on 19 December to commit to “disclose and dismantle all weapons of mass destruction” has furthered speculation that Tripoli may soon be removed from the American list of state sponsors of terrorism. Such a move would bring about an end to U.S. economic sanctions that have been in place in one form or another for the past 30 years. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, the Libyan regime has made significant and progressive steps to rejoin the international community. Tripoli’s desire to emerge from international isolation and end its pariah status now stands at a critical juncture: Does Qadhafi mean what he says and will Washington reciprocate and normalize relations with Libya?
Africa Policy Outlook 2004 By Salih Booker and Ann-Louise Colgan Salih Booker is Executive Director, and Ann-Louise Colgan is Assistant Director for Policy Analysis & Communications, at Africa Action ( www.africaaction.org ).
Fueled by media images of carnage and desperation, a debate has been begun regarding a possible U.S. role in Liberia, but so far it has been all troops or no troops, without adequate attention to the big picture. The initial response of the Bush administration has been to send a military assessment team, which received a warm reception from war-weary civilians.
The appointment of a former top executive of a major U.S. pharmaceutical company and major Republican contributor as President George W. Bush’s global AIDS co-ordinator has stunned and outraged AIDS experts and activists. Bush’s choice of former Eli Lilly & Co. boss Randall Tobias was announced at the White House on July 1, just a few days before Bush’s first trip as president to Africa. The U.S. Senate must confirm the nomination.
As a Liberian living in Zimbabwe, I, like many of my expatriates, have been tying up Africa’s phone lines trying to reach my relatives in Monrovia. The reports of violence in the mainstream press have deep meaning for me, as I worry about the fate of my family, especially my mother, who was just released from the hospital. My sister told me that rocket-propelled grenades fired by Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel forces had landed on the house where she lived. My mother’s house also suffered such an attack. Thankfully, their lives were spared, but immediately after the explosions destroyed the houses, desperate vandals looted them, and my sister and mother are now among the 1 million Liberians who are displaced. They were able to seek refuge at the Faith Healing Temple in Logan Town, about a mile from their homes. As I spoke to them, the voices of others, especially crying babies, were audible in the background.
In the wake of the September 11th attack and the Iraq war, Nigeria’s geopolitical significance to the U.S. has come into sharper relief. In March and April 2003, militancy across the Niger Delta radically disrupted oil production in this major oil supplier nation. News of these actions, following conflict-ridden national elections, has reinforced the notion that Nigeria and the new West African “gulf states” in general are matters of U.S. national security.
This year’s meeting of the Group of 8 (G-8) leaders is being held from June 1-3 in Evian (France). But the preparatory work leading up to the G-8 meeting had already shown that very little would emerge on three key crises that affect global development today–the Third World debt crisis, the African crisis, and the crisis of legitimacy of the global arrangements that drive the globalization process, including the G-8 itself.
In what its supporters hailed as a milestone in the U.S. commitment to fighting the global spread of HIV/AIDS, the Senate approved by voice vote a five-year, $15 billion anti-AIDS package in the pre-dawn hours of May 15th.