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Recent upheavals in
the Arab world may have turned the world’s attention away from Cote d’
Ivoire. In the period of our own elections, Nigerians may view Abidjan
as a remote Schleswig-Holstein; a quarrel in a far-away country between
people of whom we know nothing. In truth, if Ivory Coast implodes, it
would be a setback for ECOWAS and indeed for our entire continent.

The trigger for the
current crisis is the dispute over the results of the December
electoral re-run, in which both Gbagbo of the FPI and Ouattara of the
RDR are claiming victory. The UN and the “international community” are
adamant that Ouattara is the winner and have threatened Gbagbo with
dire consequences if he does not surrender power immediately. Gbagbo,
on his part, insists that it is not up to the UN or, indeed, “the
international community”, to decide who has won elections in a
sovereign country. He is claiming victory based on the pronouncements
of the Constitutional Council which declared him the winner – a council
that his opponents murmur is controlled by the government.

It is a murky
business. Even the AU has acknowledged in a secret memo that there have
been widespread irregularities in the rebel-controlled north. The UN
has never pretended to be a neutral arbiter on this matter. And some
would not fail to take judicial notice that the Head of UN
Peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, happens to be French.

Gbagbo has wept on
more than one occasion while addressing his people, describing his
country as an orphan being attacked by a consortium led by France and
other powerful international interests. Strangely enough, both sides of
the narrative are right. And both are wrong. I take my own stand with
the defenceless Ivoirien people who are suffering the brunt of this
quixotic melodrama being enacted by crooks and knaves on both sides of
the equation.

Laurent Gbagbo
started life as a youth activist who openly challenged the venerable
Old Fox of Yamoussoukro before it was fashionable to do so. He and his
wife Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, both of them university academics, were
often in and out of prison. Gbagbo’s credentials in democratic struggle
are unassailable. However, having been in power since 2000, he has
outlived his relevance. He has disappointed his followers by preserving
France’s monopolistic privileges over such public utilities as water,
electricity, telecoms, roads and oil. His record in economic management
has been, quite frankly, weak.

As for Ouattara, a
large section of Ivoirien youth view him as the candidate of the
French, Burkinabes, Malians and Senegalese; and of the World Bank and
IMF, where he once served in the exalted position of Deputy Managing
Director.

He is no doubt a
competent technocrat. His problem is his backers; comprising a ragtag
of mercenaries that make up the ‘forces nouvelles’ and shadowy
reptilian types from places as wide apart as Ukraine, Lebanon and Iran.
Ivoiriens will not forget in a hurry that it is these people that
unleashed a civil war on their country.

At the root of this
tragedy is the economic divide between the north and the south. There
is also the brooding figure of Blaise Compaore across the border. Over
2 million Burkinabe migrant workers have provided the labour in the
cocoa and coffee plantations which have sustained the Ivoirien economy.
He could not be expected to ignore their fate. Félix Houphouët-Boigny
failed to bequeath a legacy on which an orderly constitutional order
could be established.

There is also the
stranglehold of France-Afrique which has made nonsense of Ivoirien
sovereignty for all these years. Some 85 per cent of the cash flow of
the country goes through the BCEAO, the regional central bank of the
French-backed West African Economic Community, to the French Treasury
which has veto powers over how the Francophone countries can spend
their own money. The French have arrogated to themselves the right of
first refusal for public works contracts and the most lucrative raw
materials concessions.

If Ouattara manages
to actuate his internationally acquired prize, he would still have to
address these realties, including the nitty-gritty of governing his own
people. Ahead is not the bliss of summer, but a night of icy darkness
and toil, to echo Max Weber.

Since God Himself
speaks French, I could never consider myself to be anti-French. I went
to school in Vichy and Paris. And my intellectual life, you could say,
is a permanent dialogue with Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Sartre, Camus and
St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

But France makes me
sad. In Cote d’Ivoire and elsewhere, France remains the obstacle to the
final liberation of our continent. If this great country descends into
murderous chaos, France must be held ultimately responsible.