The recent unfortunate death of Mohammed Morsi on June 17 in an Egyptian court once again brought to the fore the danger facing prominent opposition figures in Africa. Like Morsi, our own M.K. O. Abiola too died while in incarceration. Before analysing the sordid treatments being meted out to opposition politicians in Africa nowadays, it is pertinent to document here brief, details of events leading to Morsi’s programmed death in the hand of an unrelenting dictator called Abel Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt.
The late Mohammed Morsi was a well-educated man who had a Ph.D. degree in engineering. Before his foray into the murky Egyptian politics, that had been dominated by military dictators for decades, he was a professor in one of the top universities in USA. On returning to Egypt, he had a stint as a lecturer at Cairo University before his political activities. Through his party known as the Freedom and Justice Party, which was aligned to Muslim Brotherhood, he became a member of Egyptian parliament. He was a well-respected parliamentarian reputed for his oratorical skill and deep insight into issues.
After the Egyptian revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, the sit-tight dictator that ruled Egypt for 30 years in 2011, his party became the largest party in the 2011-2012 parliamentary election. With this victory, Morsi became the fifth president of his country and the first to be democratically elected.
Mohammed Morsi was in power for barely a year, when he was toppled by the military led by the present president of the country, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, because of the deteriorating political situation in Egypt. Morsi’s one year rule was turbulent as he wanted to introduce some of the policies of the Muslim Brotherhood which many people felt abridged the democratic rights of the people. Four months after leaving power, he was put on trial with some members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood for murder and incitement. He escaped death sentence but he was sent to prison for 20 years. After this, he faced numerous other charges and was on trial for espionage when he collapsed and died in an Egyptian court trying him in June. Many people regarded him as a martyr. If his regime had not been truncated, he would have changed ‘the liberal’ Egyptian society to a very extreme conservative society desired by the Muslim Brotherhood for the Arab countries. Whether this change would have solved myriads of socio-political problems of Egypt is now left to the realm of conjecture. It has to be recalled here that in the nineties, the Muslim Brotherhood won free and fair election in Algeria as Morsi’s party did in Egypt but the party was not allowed to rule by the Algerian military because of the party’s extreme policies. This action of the Algerian military led to many years of civil war in Algeria.
The plight of Morsi in Egypt is a pointer to the fact that presently in Africa, there is a high level of intolerance to opposition figures and parties, as was the case when most of the African countries were practicing the retrogressive one-party system of governance immediately after independence. The continent is now littered with dictators who molest and harass opposition politicians. Few bad cases where opposition figures are victimized and harassed as documented in Republic of Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroons, Rwanda and Uganda are highlighted in this piece.
In the Republic of Benin, our western next door neighbour, Patrice Talon who took over power in 2016 has been trying in a very subtle way to reintroduce the discredited one-party system of governance that led to economic and political doldrums in his country for more than 30 years. This action of his has generated a lot of protest and social disobedience by the people who do not want to lose their democratic rights again. For leading this protest, he has put the former president, Thomas Boni Yayi under house arrest and his has also threatened another former president of his country Nicephore Soglo, who was one of the architects of the present democratic dispensation in the country. All efforts to get Talon to release Boni Yayi have fallen on deaf ears. It is unfortunate, that France under the progressive President Macron appears to be giving tacit support to this upstart in the Republic of Benin.
In the central African country of Equatorial Guinea, there is blood-thirsty Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a dictator who has ruled the country for 40 years since 1979. In this country, murder and kidnapping are the lots of opposition politicians. He executed his predecessor, Marcias Nguema in 1979 when he took over and he and his family control all the resources of the country. In the neighbouring Cameroons, the dour ageing dictator, Paul Biya who has ruled his country his country with iron fists for the past 37 years has zero tolerance for the opposition. At present he has unleashed reign of terror on the people of the English-speaking part of his country because of their agitation for self-determination for their own part of Cameroons, which unfortunately, is presently enslaved by the French-speaking part. They want their part of the country, formerly known as Southern Cameroons when that part was with Nigeria to be an independent country to be known as Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Many leaders of the English-speaking part have been killed while many have gone on exile.
Paul Kagame of Rwanda who is erroneously held up as a poster boy for good governance in Africa in the west, is known to harass opposition figures regularly and unfortunately his admirers in the western world have not been able to condemn him until recently when the European Union presented to the whole world, a damning human rights record in Rwanda under Kagame. Diane Rwigan, the opposition activist and former presidential candidate has just been released from prison after spending one year in jail. She was accused of inciting insurrection against the government of Paul Kigame who has been in power for the past 19 years. Camir Nkurunziza, a critic of Kagame’s government was few days ago shot dead in South Africa by the agents of Kigame’s government. This has already sparked diplomatic row between Rwanda and South Africa. Kagame who is from minority Tutsi tribe has used all government machineries to suppress Hutus opposition figures who are from the majority tribe. In neighbouring Uganda, the easily excitable Yoweri Museveni who has ruled his hapless country for 33 years since 1986 sometimes ago told the whole world that he did not believe that there should be opposition parties in African countries. In his warped thinking, he feels opposition parties retard progress. Opposition figures like Kizza Besigye were jailed and the musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulayi was put in ‘preventive arrest’. These actions of the ageing Museveni are to prevent them from contesting the 2021 presidential with him. Detention and arrest of opposition figures are tactics of Museveni at the approach of any presidential election.
The above expositions only deal with few countries in Africa. There are still suppression of opposition figures also in countries like Togo, Egypt, Burundi, Central African Republic and Gabon. There can be no democracy when opposition figures and parties are harassed and victimized with government machineries routinely, as we see presently in many parts of Africa. The death of Mohammed Morsi in detention has rekindled once again the memories of many African opposition figures that died in detention. These figures included J. B. Danquah of Ghana, Felix Mommie of Cameroons, Patrice Lumumba of DR Congo, Ben Kheda and Ben Bella of Algeria, Diallo Telli of Guinea, who was the first Secretary General of OAU, Maurice Yemeogo and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Steve Biko of South Africa and Moshood Abiola of Nigeria. In this list, only Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko and Moshood Abiola had been given posthumous honours and recognitions in their countries.
- Prof. Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan.
