Africans embrace democracy while the African Union rejects it

The former Organization for African Unity was often derided as a club for dictators. The organization rebranded itself the African Union several years ago in an attempt to start afresh. It was part of a trend at the time where pan-African institutions were created (such as the New Partnership for African Development, NEPAD) or reformed (such as the AU) to purportedly do more self-policing on issues like human rights and good governance.

So it was quite sickening to read that the AU named Equatorial Guinea’s longtime dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema as its new president. Although the position is mostly ceremonial, it’s a slap in the face to give such a platform to the head of one of the world’s three most repressive regimes. As a man who seized power in a coup in 1979 and has brutally cracked down on all opposition, with what authority can he lecture Côte d’Ivoire’s recalcitrant former president Laurent Gbagbo or the generals in Cairo? With one of the world’s most abominable human rights record, how can he speak on northern Uganda or the Central African Republic or the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo?

While Africans from Tunisia to Egypt are courageously rising up to embrace democracy, it’s a revolting sight to see the AU so strongly cravenly reject it.

Obscenity quantified

An lawsuit has been filed in France against the heads of state of Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and Equatorial Guinea. The lawsuit alleges that the three dictators have money and property in France gained via corruption.

What's particularly interesting is some of the numbers cited in the lawsuit. It claims that...

-Gabon's Omar Bongo and his inner circle have 39 residences (most of which situated in Paris' chic 16th arrondissement). The world's longest serving president also has 70 bank accounts. Not bad for someone who's been formally earning a public servant's salary since 1960.

-The family of Congo-Brazzaville's strongman, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, is reported to have 24 apartments and 112 bank accounts in l'Hexagone.

-Equatorial Guinea's madman Teodoro Obiang Nguema is a pauper by comparison, with only an apartment and eight luxury cars discovered.

These numbers are only what they own in France alone and what's been able to be identified by the French authorities.

Rewarding brutality

Equatorial Guinea may be one of the two or three most closed, repressive countries in the world but that didn't stop the Confederation of African Football from award it this year's African women's soccer championships. I wouldn't be surprised if the geniuses at CAF award Zimbabwe or Somalia a major competition in the near future.