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Mar. 16, 2007 There are two Lansanas in power now in Guinea with Conakry as the capital. The first Lansana Conte is the President and the other Lansana Kouyate is the newly appointed trouble-shooting Prime Minister, former Executive Secretary of ECOWAS. One is tormented by old age and infirmity and the other younger, sound in health and full of energy! Guinea is one of the poorest West African countries which for decades now has continued to regress rather than progress despite the natural endowment of bauxite. This is due mainly to the iron grip of one dying man in the top echelon of power who wants to emulate other sit-tight African leaders who had died in power. Talk about Felix Houphoet-Boigny of Cote D'Ivoire, Gnasingbe Eyadema of Togo and others. Lansana Conte who was a General in the Guinean Army took over power over two decades ago after a bloodless coup d'etat and ever since he has caught the notorious African power bug transforming himself into a 'democratically elected' President for life. Conte's terminal illness which has seen him collapsing on many ocassions and visiting hospitals in France and Germany is not enough for him to step down having many bloody skeletons in his cupboard. Almost incapacitated by the serious internal disease which has left him seriously emaciated Conte has been reduced to an invalid in power with little or no strenght left within his system to move around yet he clings to power! Trouble began in Guinea when the civil society and trade unions in the country rose and demanded from the ailing President the appointment of a new generally-acceptable Prime Minister to which Conte objected afraid perhaps of a more vigorous PM who may pull the rug off his trembling feet. Rather than accede to the demand of the labour force and civil society Conte went ahead to nominate one of his yes men Eugene Camara which unsettled the whole political equilibrium snowballing into a serious mass revolt that saw Conte declaring a state of emergency. In the end over 130 Guineans had been mowed down by trigger-happy riot policemen and soldiers. It took the timely intervention of an ECOWAS peace team headed by retired General Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria to bring back peace to the charged national atmosphere. IBB must have felt happy leaving his 'prison' of a paradise in Minna hilltop mansion to go to another country in a presidential jet which must have brought back memories of power. It takes a former dictator like IBB who should have done exactly what Conte is doing if given the opportunity to talk sense into Conte; it takes an IBB to hammer out an agreed solution to the political impasse because he knows how it feels to torpedoe a people's desire for change. A new consensus Prime Minister Mr Lansana Kouyate was appointed. As an international diplomat Kouyate is best suited for the job: bringing Guinea back from the abyss of political and economic quicksand into which an incompetent inept leader like Conte and his cronies have thrown Guinea. The gory circumstances of riot and killings that preceded Kouyate's appointment marked a turning point in the lives of a docile people hitherto held down by Conte and his ineptitude. The sit-tight tendencies of Conte is not surprising because in Africa it is perhaps only a Mandela or the former Botswana President who can summon courage to go voluntarily leaving their countries with sound democratic legacies. Lansana Conte's deteriorating state of health reminds one of our own PDP presidential flagbearer Musa Yar'Adua whose health condition has become a subject of intense speculation. Just recently the Katsina Governor was hurriedly flown to Germany having lost consciousness after days of gruelling national campaign engagements. The major concern here is that in the event of Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan winning the April presidential election the tax payer's money would always be used to shore up the health of a president. In a nation of over 150 million people one wonders why and how OBJ should insist on Yar'Adua as successor when younger soundly healthy others like Governors Peter Odili and Donald Duke did everything within their power to fly PDP's flag come April. There's more to the emergence of Yar'Adua than meets the eyes. One hopes Yar'Adua will not one day succumb and kick the bucket in office while leading the most populous black nation on earth with incredible talent and human and material resources. Leading Nigeria is not that easy; it should not be seen as holiday-making event or squash-playing comical show! Those in doubt should ask Alhaji Shehu Shagari who once confessed that he was sitting on a hot seat. Here in Abidjan millions of Guineans driven from home for lack of self-actualising opportunities engage in different things to put food on the table of their families. You have them, "Diallos' as we call them here, driving taxis, working in cocoa and coffee plantations and roadside kiosks where they sell cigarette, spaghetti or brew tea and fry eggs for people. The Guinean francs has been devalued over and over again making it doubly lower to the value of CFA here. Yet General Lansana Conte declared shamelessly in December while on his way to release cronies from prison indicted of corruption: "Je suis l'etat; je suis la justice" meaning: "I'm the state, and I'm justice". As everyone await the death of Conte (because death is not only certain but imminent) to enable a fresh economic and political breeze to blow in Guinea this's wishing Guineans well in their attempt to wrestle their country from the dictatorial grip of a dying man. Kouyate must immediately commence reforms that will see Guinea on the road to recovery. The post-Conte political and economic re-engineering must start now. ------------ About the author: Sunny Chris Okenwa is a new U-K contributor based in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Email: soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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