Africa cannot claim to be poor when its leaders spend lavishly

The lowest going rate for a room at Waldorf Astoria in New York is about Sh120,000 or $1,223. Among other features to make your stay heavenly are a rain shower, a spacious vanity, and a large soaking tub. The vanity there must have been put in just for African leaders.

Waldorf knew they would sign up to pay such ridiculous rates to stay at the hotel because it is not their own money they are spending but taxpayers’. It is always easy to spend other people’s money, I think.

The vanity hotel adventure for African leaders under the guise of attending UN meetings is not only serving a president or prime minister but an entourage of hundreds, including family, friends and hangers-on.

The UN General Assembly has given African leaders the reason to splash out in New York and the rest of the US as they go on long sojourns in the name of attending the conference, when most of them are just out to fleece their own countries.

Sadly, Guinea’s President Mamady Doumbouya has not enjoyed his stay at the Waldorf Astoria as he hoped. The Guinean diaspora descended on the hotel to protest against his rule. It seems he has been enjoying the trappings of power and Guinean money despite killing and disappearing them.

The irony is that many African leaders were advocating a seat for an African country at the Security Council. These are the same countries that deny their own citizens seats at the eating table and refuse to share national cake with other ethnicities.

Ripe for reform

The UN Security Council may be ripe for reform, but it cannot be reformed by African countries that do not have their own houses in order. The African Union has been nothing but a disappointment in its lack of engagement with dictators and in having done little to end impunity on the continent.

The biggest challenge Africa faces right now is that of illegal emigration to the West by mostly young men. This ought to have been the top agenda at the AU and in many African countries whose nationals are forced to leave poorly governed states in search of opportunities abroad. Corruption in Africa has dwarfed the continent and is never discussed as a contributory factor to the fleeing of its residents into the arms of human smugglers, who have turned Africans into cash cows. African men who have not succeeded in reaching Europe are allegedly being treated as slaves, where they are openly being sold in a slave market in places like Libya.

The talk of giving Africa a seat at the Security Council is premature. Africa needs to ask itself why it has been ignored for this long as a potential member of the Council, despite the UN being in existence for 80 years. As Chinua Achebe said in his book, Things Fall Apart, “If a child washes his hands, he could eat with Kings”. Africa is not ready to eat with kings if it keeps its hands dirty with impunity, dictatorship, corruption, mass murders and disappearances of dissidents.

Security Council

Africa is no more qualified to have a membership at the Security Council than the Middle East. Two regions still unrepresented at the SC. What Africa fails to acknowledge is that the Security Council largely comprises states that have been going through the Cold War for millennia. Until the cold war ends for good, the status quo at the Security Council shall remain.

Membership of the Security Council is about power, which Africa does not have by virtue of its subservience to the West, which is its major donor. The six members of the SC, namely China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, still wield power over Africa and will continue to do so, as long as its leaders hold the begging bowl towards them.

The lavish spending by African leaders when they travel to the West or looking that way for their healthcare, education of their children and every other luxury they can think of is contrary to their reliance on donor countries to govern. One cannot claim to run a poor country while living the ‘Life of Riley’ at the expense of their voters; for that is exactly what most African leaders do.

Joining the Security Council means standing shoulder to shoulder with its current members and getting rid of donors entirely. The only way to do that is for every African to tighten their belt and aim to make the continent work for everyone. As things are, it seems only the elected have the chance to survive while voters scramble for crumbs.

The large sums spent by African leaders in New York for the UN General Assembly this year were enough to build several schools and hospitals in Africa. Sadly, Kenya, which had one of the largest entourages at UNGA, did not even have a specialist children’s hospital to save rare quintuplets born on its soil recently.

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The writer is a legal researcher, kdiguyo@gmail.com, @kdiguyo.

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