The Couch, the Church and Chatham House

Ramaphosa, Akufo-Addo and Tinubu as metaphors for Africa’s misplaced priorities

The largest basilica in the world is in Africa. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is bigger than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, which was once the biggest in the world. Some people have branded this basilica “An African Vatican,” except the Pope doesn’t live there. It is just a fancy title and apparently, most people just call it “The Basilica in the Bush.”

That is because this basilica is located in Yamoussoukro, the administrative capital of Cote d’Ivoire. Then again, Yamoussoukro hasn’t always been the administrative capital of that country until a local man, a certain Felix Houphouët-Boigny, became president and decided to move the capital to his hometown. This was in 1983. 

As if that was not enough, he decided that he had to build the biggest basilica in the world in his hometown, now the capital, and spent billions of Ivorians’ commonwealth to build it on 30,000 square metres of land as compared to St. Peter’s 23, 000 Square meters. Paradoxically, the basilica itself cannot contain as many people as the one in the Vatican. That is because, this being a vanity project, the president had built himself a massive villa on the church ground. He even had a painting of himself and Jesus Christ ascending to heaven together on one of the stained-glass windows of the basilica. Did his country need such a massive project or was it for his ego?

Soludo urges Church to confront idolatry in Anambra

Child labour worrisome in Benue – Stakeholders

Well, Monsieur Houphouët-Boigny is long dead—he died in 1993, three years after Pope John Paul had commissioned the basilica—and cannot, therefore, answer this question. What is evident is that the money could have been applied to building schools, and hospitals or even roofing the already existing schools.

You cannot divorce African leaders and their penchant for such vanity projects and misapplied priorities. Ghana is still in the middle of an intense debate over the construction of a national cathedral amid a huge national economic crisis. 

After running for president twice and failing, Mr Nana Akufo-Addo decided he needed to make a vow to God so God could make him president. So, he knelt and prayed. “Dear God,” he might have said, “if you make me president of this country, I vow to build you a national cathedral the like of which has not been seen.”

He won elections in 2016 and since he was sworn in as President has committed himself to keeping his promise. To do so, he decided to demolish newly commissioned government buildings in the Accra City Centre because the cathedral has to sit there. The massive project is chugging to completion and some Ghanaians have been asking themselves if the country really needed this. Should that money not be committed to developing the country by building much-needed infrastructure?

Ghana’s economy is in shambles, Ghanaians are being heavily taxed and are groaning over this but the president insists that the cathedral must be built “at all cost.” It is his priority project. Any hope he had that the Black Stars’ exploit at the World Cup in Qatar could distract his compatriots with a shot of national pride has been short lived.

This is not a critique of religion. This is about misplaced priorities. If you spread out a map of Africa on a table and randomly place a finger on any country, you will find a vanity project one president or tyrant decided must be built, one that would not aid the country’s development but would massage one man’s ego.

In the DR Congo for instance, in the late 1970s, when the country was still known as Zaire, the flamboyant dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko decided he needed to build a monstrous lavish palace in his village. The problem was that his village of Gbadolite was remote, nestled in the heart of the rainforest. Regardless, Mobutu must have his palace and he did at the cost of 100 million dollars as of then. It was luxurious. One of the guards said at its height, if one entered the master bedroom, “one would forget death exists.” 

Mobutu even built an international airport in the village with a runaway long enough to land a Concorde. And a Concorde landed there once and spent two days on the runway. Every month, the palace blew through a budget of 15 million dollars.

Mobutu died in 1997, a year after he was ousted. He was 66 but had ruled one of the world’s most resource-rich yet paradoxically poorest countries for a whopping 32 years. In the end, he died in exile in Morocco, unable to return to the country he had misgoverned. Priorities.

This pandemic is all over the continent. Instead of building countries, African leaders are busy hoarding money and stuffing them in all sorts of places, including sofas.

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa has been accused of looting millions of dollars in public funds that had ended up stuffed in a sofa in one of his houses. Somehow, a Namibian man gained access to the house, cut open the sofa and stole the money that the president might have stolen and fled the country.

What did Ramaphosa do? Report to his country’s police? No. He placed a call to his Namibian counterpart and in l’esprit des présidents (don’t mind me, I made that up), asked him to arrest the culprit and return his money.

The story leaked and now the president, along with eight federal bodies, is being investigated for money laundering.

African leaders have always had their priorities mixed up. Is Nigeria spared from this? Of course not. Nigerian leaders, or aspiring leaders, have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the people they govern or aspire to govern.

The candidate of the ruling APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, turned down every invitation to be quizzed by Nigerian journalists or engage with other candidates on their plans for the country. 

It seemed like a great opportunity to discuss policies and plans for the country and have these policies and plans sharpened by questions and feedback from the people he aspires to rule. Instead, he preferred to travel to the UK to speak at Chatham House while other candidates were holding a town hall meeting in Nigeria.

The people Mr Tinubu spoke to in London will not be voting in the February elections. They are not even Nigerians. At best, they could be described as potential investors. In a way that may make sense, but don’t you need to have the job first before trying to invite investors? And the way to that job, if all is fair in war and politics, would be to sell these ideas and your competence to the electorates and get their mandate. 

Nigeria sits on a huge oil reserve and that is about the only commodity of significance that we export. I have not seen presidential candidates of India and Spain, Nigeria’s leading export destination, or even candidates from Niger Republic or Chad, coming to explain or attempt to explain their ideas about their countries to Nigerians at the Merit House. Not to even talk of the shockingly embarrassing fiasco of delegating questions answering to people who are not running for office.

When a presidential candidate prefers to scream party slogans at presidential rallies, dance and wave brooms, umbrellas or whatever at campaign rallies, rather than address issues and policies, it is a misplacement of priorities. As much as it is to avoid meaningful engagement with the electorate in favour of foreigners resting in their countries.

The APC and its presidential candidate need to stop playing this tiresome boju-boju with Nigerians and talk to the people, not talk over them. At this point, Tinubu needs to sell himself to Nigerians, not sell Nigeria to ‘investors.’ At least not yet.

If Africa is a mess today, it is because the people who lead the countries on this continent have had their priorities mixed up. It has been six or seven decades since independence and Africa and its leaders need to grow up.