When former Ivory Coast President, Laurent Gbagbo (now under custody) refused to step aside for employee, Mr Alassane Ouatattara, who had won the election, triggering fighting.
The world held its breath and said, ‘if only he could step down. The war will be brought to an end.’ Unfortunately, Gbabo did not until he was forced out.
Defeated and thoroughly embarrassed he has now paved the way for the former United Nations’ employee, Ouattara.
Yet international media that had all along made the world believe that once Gbagbo stepped aside all would be well, now say that all is not well in Ivory Coast!
Lest some of us forget, Ivory Coast was touted by the West in the days when Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was Tanzania’s President and Chairman of what came to be known as the Frontline States as the most politically and economically stable African country in black Africa.
Those were the days when Tanzania and Ivory Coast held views which were contradiction in terms, economically and politically.
While Tanzania pursued the policy of socialism and self-reliance, Ivory Coast decided that she would have nothing to do with economic experiments.
Major differences between the countries were also to be found in the political realm.
While Tanzania was committed to the hilt in the liberation struggle against racist minority regimes such as Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) and South Africa, Ivory Coast sought to colour its international relations with the rest of the world by hobnobbing with the racist regimes.
Apart from Ivory Coast, the other country that is known to have publicly had very cordial relations with racist regimes in Southern Africa is Malawi.
These were the days of Ngwazi Dr Kamuzi Banda, a man whose administration fed its opponents on crocodiles.
Again fast back in history. At one time, during Nyerere’s era, Malawi allowed itself to be used by the powers that be in the world, during the cold war era, by claiming parts of Tanzania, starting from the shared lake to the land.
As already noted, a lot have been written about Ivory Coast by the international media.
Yet one thing that many people, including some Tanzanians, don’t seem to realize is that Ivory Coast’s population distribution, in terms of tribes and religion, is not very much different from that of Tanzania.
Indeed, just like Tanzania, Ivory Coast has a strong dose of Christianity and Islam with the former dominating the southern part and the latter, the northern part.
Again, just like Tanzania, Ivory Coast’s population is around 40 million, two million less than that of Tanzania.
The West African country is however, thoroughly outstripped when it comes to the number of tribes.
While Tanzania has over 120 tribes, Ivory Coast has 62 tribes, merely half the number that one finds in Tanzania.
Therefore when one looks at the foregoing statistics, there is very little difference between Tanzania and Ivory Coast.
However, the million dollar question is why is Ivory Coast presently locked in religious, tribal conflict despite the disappearance, from the scene, of what we had all along been made to believe (by the international media) was the main factor in the conflict, namely, Gbagbo?
Before tackling the foregoing ‘why Ivory Coast question,’ it is interesting to note what some international journalists are writing now that Gbagbo is confined to his cell.
In an article headlined: ‘Cote d’Ivoire in deep fissures even after Gbagbo arrest,’ a local English daily wrote:
“Even if Gbagbo had honoured the results of the November 28 (2010) run-off presidential election and stepped aside, Ouattara would have experienced difficulty governing.
The election results demonstrated a closely divided electorate: 54.1 percent voted for Ouattara and 45.9 percent voted for Gbagbo.”
Now we all know the kind of problem one gets into in an attempt to arrive at correct statistics in Africa.
It is an exercise that is always fraught with numerous problems that include, among others, doctoring of figures/statistics.
To appreciate the serious nature of this problem, Tanzania has in fact managed to get a terminology for the problem which is referred to in the local parlance as kuchakachua.
One does not get a fitting term to express a given problem if such a person is not thoroughly disturbed by the problem.
Therefore looking at the above voting figures, one can safely say that Ivory Coast is divided in two parts, the south from the north.
The implication of the two quoted paragraphs means that while the international media harped on the Gbagbo factor, it also knew that even if Gbagbo left, the problem was so deep-seated that Ouattara will get nowhere.
In fact this is the same way the world was misled, during the era of Presidents Bush and Blair in US and Britain respectively, about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
It would be recalled that the lie of the century finally led to the Iraq war and a few years later, the international media has done it in Ivory Coast!
The article went on to write: “Moreover, the intense post-election violence that left almost 1,000 dead, internally displaced one million people and sent 100,000 across the border has surely exacerbated existing regional, ethnic and religious differences.”
What does the foregoing ugly development lead to?
Again, going by similar experiences in Africa that include Ethiopia, before the birth of Eritrea and The Sudan, before the referendum early this year that saw Southern Sudanese saying No to one Sudan, one can draw one conclusion.
The recipe for cession in Ivory Coast is now ready to be served! This is glaring reality for everyone! As for Ivory Coast, the West African nation as the world knew it is no more.
And now back to the why Ivory Coast question posed earlier, and its comparison to Tanzania.
Tanzania would have long gone through what is presently going on Ivory Coast had Nyerere not spent most of his time building unity, firstly, through the nationalization of some religious owned schools, a move that would earn him the wrath of his own church.
Mwalimu’s move was aimed at ensuring that children of followers of all religious denominations could go to.
Committed to national unity, Nyerere went on to introduce Kiswahili as a national language and later, the National Service.
The latter brought together Tanzanian youths, both illiterate and educated and the end result Tanzania leads, in inter-tribal, inter-religious marriages East Africa.
Mwalimu was not done. He later ensured that those who went through their final primary school examinations, O Level and A Level were sent to schools located far away from their home regions.
The move helped further in cementing national unity.
Nyerere’s decision to embark on the foregoing national unity building effort was a result of being subjected to the 1964 army mutiny that almost toppled him.
He realized how fragile his country was in terms of national unity.
The army mutiny taught him that dependency on foreign powers both for manning and training of armed forces was nothing but suicidal.
Fortunately for Tanzanians, there are plenty of examples on this.
Foreign trained Rwandan army were no match to locally trained, home focused and committed RPF when the chips were down during the post genocide in the Central African nation.
Interestingly, what befell Rwanda’s General Habyarimana army has now come pass in Ivory Coast.
Like in the erstwhile Rwanda, the majority members of Gbagbo’s army were foreign trained.
And as expected, Gbagbo’s men were no match to Ouattara’s rag-tag army driven to the fore not by money, but rather commitment and vision.
It is indisputable that in the economic realm, Nyerere was, in the words of Professor Ali Mazrui, a heroic failure.
However, his template in the nation building process is not only second to none, but has stood the test of time.
But the question is, is the East African country capable of maintaining its national unity, hence peace?
The validity of the above question lies in the fact that there are a number of similarities between Ivory Coast and Tanzania that make the latter equally vulnerable.
What is more, contrary to what Tanzanians are made to believe, all political parties in the country, including the ruling party, CCM, are capable of bringing chaos in the country.
In short, no political party has a monopoly for chaos! The sooner Tanzanians realize this the better.
By Attilio Tagalile
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