Ben Ali, formerly of Tunisia (left), and Hosni Mubarak (right). During the protest in Tahrir Square, Mubarak showed a classic disconnection from reality
money was returned to the Central Bank of Nigeria and put to any good use. If it was, why hasn’t the Federal Government published a pamphlet – at least – depicting what was done with such a national trove, in order, as the French would put it with a twist, “pour encourager les autres”? (to teach others a lesson)? Well, if the Egyptians want any of Mubarak’s $70bn back, they
doesn’t know history. It is precisely such a resort to inane ver- bosity that caused President Nicolai Ceausescu of Romania to be executed with his unfortunate wife on 25 December 1989.” And truly, on 11 February, Mubarak’s newly-appointed Vice-
President Omar Suleiman, whose eyes were as hard, cold and ruthless as one might expect of a security apparatchik who has presided over torture, extraordinary rendition, and other crimes against individuals’ freedom in Egypt, gave the stark news on television, in a bare two sentences, that Mubarak had stood down. Immediately. Not in September as he had earlier wanted to do. An erupting Cairo now boiled over. The people had got their wish. And I had lived to see it, by God’s grace. Big question: Has Mubarak really stashed
away at least $70bn, with which he can enjoy life at the resort city of Sharm-El Sheikh? Of course, we cannot believe everything we hear when dictators are overthrown. But in many instances, there really is no smoke without fire. Tunisian TV showed pictures of Ben Ali’s library, revealing a secret safe and an obscene amount of foreign curren- cies and Tunisian money. Plus some of the fabulous jewels of his wife. This was what was left behind. What have they stashed abroad? It reminded me that when the late President Sani Abacha
of Nigeria died in June 1998, it was widely reported that he had amassed a fortune worth as much as $5bn. Few people believed it. But despite the murky and intricate routes through which such funds are usually extruded from a nation’s coffers to nestle in cosy, sacred corners in the vaults of “respectable” banks “domi- ciled” overseas, at least a third of that sum has been traced by the Nigerian authorities, with the assistance of Swiss lawyers. At one stage, I had to laugh, when one Swiss lawyer turned
on the banks of Great Britain and accused them of being unhelp- ful in trying to help trace Abacha’s loot! What? The Swiss, whom the British deride as “the gnomes of Zurich”, were now pointing an accusing finger at the British? Of course, the funniest part of the Nigerian story is that very few Nigerians believe that the
will have to spend more time in London than Zurich. The Swiss have promptly announced that they have frozen Mubarak’s assets. But in the City of London, and in the House of Commons, loud, indecipherable silences continue to be heaved about the dictators’ filched moneys. The newspapers are saying that Mubarak’s son, Gamal, has a $10m home in a swanky area of London, and that he also owns a “merchant” bank. But the scores of thousands of Egyptians who are forced to live in ancient cemeteries in Cairo, for want of modern accommodation, aren’t about to surface and be given new homes, you can be sure. Indeed, if I were to run an educational seminar for world
leaders, the juxtaposition of what was occurring daily in Tahrir Square on one side of the television screen, with what Mubarak was saying on the other side of the same screen, would be my number one study project. It was a classic example of the dis- connect between reality and fantasy, in a relationship of power politics between the people and their countries’ leaderships. Ruling countries has never been easy. For every Alexander
“Leaders so often renege on their pledge to serve their peo- ple. Their luxury mansions and private jets tell the real story.”
The Great, you get an Ozymandias; for every Gaius Julius Caesar, you get a Nero Claudius Caesar. Yet leaders so often continue to ignore the writings in the sand and renege on their voluntary pledge to serve their people sincerely. But their luxury cars and mansions, plus the luxurious private jets – as held up against the dry water-taps in the shanty-town shacks
without toilets, in say, the South African black townships away from Sandton and Guguletu, tell the real story, away from the verbiage on the TV and radio and in the newspapers. No PR organisation can dissemble away the stench on a
ghetto road: the blocked gutters hit everyone in the nose, and the judgement they force into being is instant. So leaders must truly serve their people’s interests or quit. Or the people – and their offspring – will come to turn on the leaders and put them on to the rubbish heap of history. Nothing is completely settled yet in Egypt. Nor even Tunisia, which led the way. But that has not stopped the people of Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, or Iran, Syria, and Morocco from listening to their own heartbeat. Inanity in the political affairs of nations will be ended. If you
don’t believe it, think of the Berlin Wall, its Fall, what brought about that Fall – and what happened to other countries after that; including the Soviet Union – whose suzerainty over East Germany caused the Wall to be built. No – human history is evolving still, and will continue to do so. And God willing, some of us will live to record what is happening. gNA
New African April 2011 | 73
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