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It was quite a
dramatic moment. Even more dramatic than the entrance of former South
African President Thabo Mbeki onto the stage to deliver a lecture in
Tshwane University of Technology’s Public Intellectual Lecture series.
He had been greeted with spontaneous and beautifully melodic deep
chanting that was both praise and acknowledgement of Mbeki and – against
a background of his failed bid to chair the ruling African National
Congress – a thumbing of the nose at current President Jacob Zuma.

Now, however, Mbeki
was barely into the stride of his lecture when a young man strode in
from the back of the hall. With awesome dreadlocks, shouting in Zulu
language, I mistook him for a praise singer bent on also hailing Mbeki.
Otherwise, why wasn’t he stopped as he approached? But on reaching the
stage, he hurled a poster at the former President. It was not a good
throw and barely made it to the foot of the podium as the interloper was
at last wrestled to the ground by security guards.

Mbeki of course,
reacted with the aplomb that we have come to expect of world leaders
confronted with flying shoes, tomatoes, or even aerodynamically
challenged missiles such as huge unwieldy posters. With barely a
second’s pause, he continued the lecture as the intruder – who, far from
being an Mbeki fan, had in fact been shouting slogans in support of
Zuma – was hustled out of the hall.

Having travelled to
South Africa for a Regional Conference on Civil Society and
Constitutional Reform organised by the National Democratic Institute and
the University of South Africa, it was my good fortune that this
surprise event had been made open to participants. Pondering Mbeki’s
career since he was forced out of office by his party led to musing
about the difference between the home lives of our own dear retired
leaders and those in South Africa.

Mbeki may or may not
be eyeing some other high office, but South Africans can rest assured
that there isn’t going to be another Mbeki presidency. However
enthusiastic his supporters inside the lecture hall, outside, in the
wider country, ANC supporters who appreciated the role played by South
Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela, in stabilizing
and uniting the country in those early days of majority rule, criticise
Mbeki for failing to build on that stability and raise living standards
for the black majority during his own presidency.

Perhaps it is this
perceived failure and recognition that South African voters are fully
conscious that it is their support that maintains the ANC in power that
would make an Mbeki hesitate, even if it had been constitutionally
possible to return to power. So different from the arrogance of our own
dear former rulers.

It was during the
reign of Ibrahim Babangida that masses of workers were thrown out of
work by his “structural adjustment” policies, the middle class was
almost wiped out, corruption with “misappropriated” national funds
became an instrument of state policy while the rights and freedoms of
the Nigerian people were trampled upon through detentions without trial,
executions for trumped-up coup plots (as well as executions for actual
attempted coups) and newspaper proscriptions, while the nation’s
political progress was thrown back by a decade when the presidential
election of June 12th 1993 was annulled. An Mbeki might hesitate to
boast of such a record: Babangida revels in it and offers a repeat
performance! How lucky he is to be shielded by a Federal
Attorney-General who refuses to test his culpability over the Gulf War
oil windfall by a criminal prosecution. Nobody should be fooled by the
excuse that AGF Mohammed Bello Adoke can’t do anything because he isn’t
sure of the authenticity of the Okigbo Panel report presented to him by
civil society organisations in response to his claim that he had not
brought charges against Babangida because he didn’t have a genuine copy.

Adoke must know very
well that he would need to do a lot more than simply present a copy of
the Okigbo Panel report to secure a criminal conviction in any court of
law in Nigeria, but the shamelessness of his behaviour once his
ridiculous bluff was called, is a pointer to the corrosive effect of
former heads of state on the body politic. We need only consider the
game of smoke and mirrors that he is playing with the Halliburton case,
drawing up an elaborate charge sheet without arraigning any suspects and
expecting us to believe that matters are getting close to ex-President
Olusegun Obasanjo because one of those on the charge sheet, Bodunde
Adeyanju, is a former aide of his. Of course, trial judge David Okorowo,
refused to be part of the charade and in effect, tersely advised the
Ministry of Justice to return when they were serious.

But come to think of it, maybe our former leader takes inspiration
from South Africa’s current President? In 2008, Zuma was facing charges
for taking bribes from a French company. But when he emerged as ANC
front-runner for the office of president, these melted away …