Prime
EAC integration: Illogicality vs duplicity and practicality
Author: Nkwazi Mhango
What you need to know:
- South Sudan. These guys have suffered more than any country in the EAC.
First of all, pole sana ndugu Joseph Ochieno for what you went through in Kenya (Sunday Monitor, August 1). But those who daydream of the East African Community (EAC) must know that it died in 1977. It’ll never be back.
The people of East Africa would like to become, not the EAC, but a single country. But our rulers don’t want to have any of. Theirs has always been to cling to state house and the pomp thereof.
We all vividly know that our present-day African states were born in 1884 in the city of Berlin, Germany, at the conference that bears the same name and sins. These criminals met there to avoid fighting among themselves over us. Thus, they created an ogre that has forced some of us to hate and kill one another under the sin of injudicious nationalism.
I’ve lived in and travelled in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and know how we disbelievingly look at each other. Kenyans think they know English more proudly than the rest. Ugandans think are the most educated compared to the rest.
Tanzanians feel they are more connected to Ugandans and separated from Kenyans. Kenyans view Tanzanians as uneducated, poor and gullible. Tanzanians, in return, view Kenyans as warrying tribalists. This is who we are.
In Kenya, we have a shaky peace presided over by tribal lords who’ll stop at nothing when it comes to aspiring to become president. In Tanzania – I must declare my interest, it is where I was born and bred – they’re wary any Mafioso who want to take them for a ride. Politically, in Tanzania anybody can become president as opposed to Kenya where dynasties have a big sway.
As for Uganda, for close four decades, they’ve known one leader.
I cross over to Burundi. This has always been on and off vis-à-vis violent conflict. Citizens are peaceable, but poor. Like their brethren in Rwanda, they’re but only three communities of which only two call the shots.
One thing Burundi competes with Uganda in is the number of coups they’ve evidenced. While Uganda boasts of four coups, Burundi boasts of six. You see. The duo are but military countries.
Let me move on to DR Congo. DRC is known for its love for life and music. When DRC’s maestro Franco wanted to sooth its former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko after falling out with him, he composed a hit song.
He simply chanted, “Happy are those who sing and dance even if they’ve nothing to eat or are under a stinking thievish dictator”. You can treat Congolese as you like if you’re able to make them sing and dance.
Lastly, South Sudan. These guys have suffered more than any country in the EAC. First, they lived under Sudanese madness of discriminating against them. So they decided to get independence in 2011.
The whole world was excited, and not knowing it would become a banana republic. To borrow from my friend Prof Makau Mutua, the country has since been bleeding in the hands of two warlords.
Like a baby who refused to grow, South Sudan is close to the status of a failed state like Somalia and Libya.
With such leaders in power, and the different characters of the different citizens, is there anyway the EAC dream can be actualised? My foot! Pole sana again Ochieno. That’s your EAC that has refused to be.
Mhango is a lifetime member of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador
