Long live King Kabila

So, the Congo, a country bigger than Western Europe with more solid minerals per square metre is back in turmoil. What is the trouble this time you ask? Elections and how the African ruler perceives it should help him institutionalize democratic monarchy. When Joseph Kabila, the current source of DRC’s troubles assumed leadership without elections in 2001, eleven days after the assassination of his father, he was only 29 years old. For those who have been calculating the geriatric ages of African rulers and attributing its underdevelopment to ossified ideas oozing from tired bones, this is a case study.

After several dribbles, Kabila got an electoral mandate in 2006. In a nutshell, he ought to have finished his presidential term this December. If that had happened, he would have perhaps been the continent’s youngest retired president at 45 years old. You would all agree that 45 is way too young to be banished into political oblivion. 

With relative stability, and propped by western powers, Kabila consulted his crystal ball and found that if elections held, he would lose. Not fancying a midlife of making boring speeches until he turns 92, he spoke to his lawyers. They assured him that the constitution, like all constitutions fashioned in Africa, could help his ambition. It has a lacuna, which is that if elections failed to hold for whatever reason at all, an incumbent could sit tight because leadership abhors vacuum. 

Now in Africa, a sitting president could find every good reason not to hold elections. Such excuses range from the fear of violence to waiting for God to approve a proposal to give the continent four seasons instead of two so that children could see Father Christmas as he approached sledging on frozen solid snow. Long story short, Kabila found excuses not to hold elections this year or next. He cited, inter alia the country’s expansive land mass and the logistical nightmare of getting materials to remote forested parts. In 2001, there were only 300 kilometres of tarred road in the DRC. Here is a good reason to thank God for Naija’s potholes. The Congo is also enduring a crippling recession in spite of its buried wealth now being extracted by the west, which decided long ago in Berlin that Africa and its minerals are common wealth.

Nobody believed his story of course, but the reclusive Kabila who speaks English, Swahili and French believes himself and rarely talks to anybody except to Olive, his long term partner and officially his wife since 2006. Kabila’s heart is filled with good intentions just like Sai Baba, he means well for the Congo; after all he is a practical product of loyalty just like his Togolese twin brother Faure Gnassingbe. 

Although it was his late father, Laurent Desire Kabila who enrolled him in the military, just like Obasanjo enrolled his own son, the elder Kabila could not have known that his son would one-day step into his own shoes at a young age. Like Mama Charlie, Laurent did not abdicate the throne for young blood; he was felled by a loyalist’s bullet prompting other loyalists to conscript his son. Like Yahya Jammeh, young Kabila’s first actions ended the protracted war in Eastern Congo through an alliance with foxy Museveni and wily Kagame, his neighbours. 

Thus far, Kabila has not uttered a word, but his soldiers have been making speeches with their AK47 rifles leaving death, sorrows, tears and blood in their trail. A rich country in turmoil is a magnet for western economic buccaneers and word is out that DRC impacts the lives of one out of every two humans on earth since we all use telephones and other gadgets with gems unearthed from Congo.

It was for this reason that Western media focused attention on DRC and its problems. Western governments have threatened sanctions, which you all know targets the poor and not the despot on the throne. That means more trouble for the hapless citizens of the Congo. By the end of last week, a few dozen protesters had been killed, which is benign compared to those who have disappeared without trace. The UN has troops in DRC but they do not meddle in the internal affairs of their hosts, a clause that Yahya Jammeh quotes to those persuading him from committing seppuku. 

Elections, a wasteful concept as anyone who has ever observed polls in Africa knows. They bring violence, entrench ethnic hatred and make nation building impossible because unity is required for meaningful development. Yet, the West keeps insisting it should be the yardstick for measuring governance and transition. What’s wrong with life presidency? Mugabe has done a good job of it, so have over 30 of his tired but not retired colleagues across the continent. Why not sign treaties with despots and roll on their generosity instead of organizing sham polls? Why can’t Congo’s fractured opposition bow down and say – Long Live King Kabila? I know why, they think they can pull wool over the eyes of Kabila, like Adama Barrow has done in Banjul. It is an arduous task when your neighbours are Museveni and Kagame. But what do I know?