By Otchere Darko

A Ghanaian proverb in Akan says: “opanyin bone na otra fie ma asedua fow”...... which literally translated into English resembles something like: “it is a bad elderly person who stays home and does nothing while his housemate’s beans [that have been spread to dry in sunlight] get rain-soaked”. Mills and other African leaders are behaving like bad elderly people who stay at home and watch, but do nothing while beans being dried by their housemates get soaked by rain.

Not long ago Tunisia went through the kind of problem Egypt is currently going through. And like now, Ghanaian and other African leaders said, or did nothing until Tunisia’s fire burnt itself out. Lives were lost before the situation returned to normalcy after the country’s President fled. The fire burning in Egypt may burn for a much longer time and more dangerously, if it is left on its own. Who can tell? And if it does, the repercussions will certainly be far-reaching because of Egypt’s special position which makes it the “natural leader” of the Arab world. It is also the leading country in Africa north of the Sahara and the oldest State among the currently existing countries on the continent. Thus, Egypt epitomises Africa’s ancient civilisations. It is also one of the three most important countries in today’s Africa, if not the leading one. Egypt is, again, the most important country along the Suez shipping route, which is very important for many exports and imports leaving and coming to Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, etc, via the shorter East African route. Egypt, again, is one of the biggest military powers in the world today, being probably the tenth biggest. *Mr Mubarak cannot, and should not flee...... as his Tunisian counterpart did. Even if he plans to leave office soon, he must not create a “vacuum”. He must get someone who is capable of holding the position of interim President until a new permanent President can be elected later. Egypt being so powerful economically and militarily, it is surprising that neither Mills nor any other African leader has made any efforts to play any influencing role to help quench the fire that started burning since last week and is said to have led to the death of about 300 people, according to the United Nation’s estimate.

Many Western countries have talked to, and are still talking to President Mubarak publicly and [possibly] behind the scene. Russia, one of the countries that one would expect to stay out of what is happening, has seen the special importance of Egypt and has accordingly spoken publicly about the situation. China which is the second largest economy in the world and one of the many countries that will lose heavily, if what is happening continues for a long time, has remained quiet. But no one expects China to say anything, because of its own record on democracy and human rights. However, how can anyone understand why our Ghanaian leader and his African counterparts are quiet, when they should be the first to talk to Mr Mubarak? Is it not shameful that Turkey has advised President Mubarak to listen to what his people are telling him when Mills and other African leaders have told him nothing yet? Are Ghanaian and other African leaders treating what is happening in Egypt as an internal affair of Egyptians? Or they, like China, are afraid to advise Mr Mubarak because of their own disrespect for their citizens, and for democracy?

On Thursday, 1st February, Mr Mubarak offered to stand down after elections this coming September..... which elections he wants to facilitate, but which he himself will not be contesting as a Presidential candidate. This sounded promising, though it seemed a few days too late. At the time of writing this article, it was not clear whether the demonstrators will accept this offer, or not. We can only hope that they do. If Mr Mubarak had said what he said on Thursday four or five days earlier, he might have succeeded to defuse the anger of his people. *In the event of the demonstrators refusing to accept the latest offer made by their leader, President Mills and other African leaders must not continue to sit aloof, as they have been doing up to now. They must talk to their colleague and advise him to try as much as possible to do what he must do to defuse the crisis and stop what is going on from developing into a more dangerous and fatal confrontation with his people. They cannot force Mr Mubarak, but they can influence him. African leaders cannot just wait; and do nothing, while America and Europe play the role they, rather, should be playing.

President Mills, in particular should not forget the special role Ghana played in the past that led to the total emancipation of the entire continent and its subsequent coming together to form the OAU that has now become the AU. He, Mills, loves to see and call himself as a pan-Africanist. If he wants others to see and call him as such, then he must act differently from now onwards. He must be bolder and more assertive in his dealings with his fellow African leaders, especially those who do things that he, President Mills, would not do because he considers them as undermining democracy and human rights. He should begin to raise not only his domestic image as a leader with “authority over his team”; he should also begin to raise his international profile by showing the kind of influential leadership and moral courage that makes peers accept one among them as “a natural leader”, or that makes some politicians acquire names that live several years after their owners have long left this world.

Source: Otchere Darko; [This writer is a centrist, semi-liberalist, pragmatist, and an advocate for “inter-ethnic cooperation and unity”. He is an anti-corruption campaigner and a community-based development protagonist. He opposes the negative, corrupt, and domineering politics of NDC and NPP and actively campaigns for the development and strengthening of “third parties”. He is against “a two-party only” system of democracy {in Ghana}....... which, in practice, is what we have today.]