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Since the result of the November 28th run-off election was made
public by the Independent Electoral Commission, outgoing President Laurent
Gbagbo has defied international pressure and is clinging tenaciously to power.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union, the
United States of America, France, China and the United Nations Security Council
have all backed Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister who was named winner
with 54.1 percent of the votes. But Gbagbo has refused to budge, preferring
instead to foist a national crisis on his country, shutting down almost all the
media in the country and closing the national borders. He has gone ahead to
swear himself in as president for another term.

During an African Development Bank meeting with civil society, I
inadvertently stepped on dangerous ground. In the course of my interventions, I
had a reason to crack a joke and made jest of the so-called “Ivorization”
policy. The immediate response I got from my predominantly Ivorien audience
shocked me and I had to quickly move over to a different topic altogether. A
colleague of mine from Mali, who knew the fragility of the situation better,
later warned me never to joke about that kind of thing during my stay.

The ‘Ivorization’ policy is a politically motivated tribalistic
policy introduced by the now 76 year old deposed former president Henri Konan
Bedie, after the death of the former president and father of Cote d’Ivoire
Felix Houphouët-boigny. Bedie’s main objective was to solidify power as
Houphouët-Boigny’s successor. The policy sought to deny Ivorien citizenship to
people who were born in and had lived in Cote d’Ivoire, but who had one or both
parents born in a neighbouring country such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal or
Niger Republic. It was a very unjust policy that was primarily designed to
prevent the now newly elected president Alassane Ouattara from contesting for
the presidency in July 1999 because he was a “foreigner”.

That policy made it easy for Konan Bedie, who was then President
of Parliament to retain presidency of the country in a flawed election process.

The cancerous consequences of that single virulent political
seed has followed that country ever since. It metamorphosed into bitter
divisions that ended up in an armed conflict in 2002 after President Gbagbo
continued with ethnocentric politics to retain power and control the economy.
Cote d’Ivoire is rich in cocoa, coffee, timber, petroleum, cotton, and palm
oil. The access to the lucrative proceeds of these natural resources has been a
contributory factor in the Ivorien crisis.

In response to the election of Ouattara, the chairman of ECOWAS,
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, convened a meeting of ECOWAS Heads of
government on 7 December 2010 in Abuja, where the leaders unanimously backed
the president-elect and asked Mr. Gbagbo to step aside. The African Union (AU)
also sent an envoy, former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to meet with
and persuade the defeated Gbagbo to step down. But that seems to have failed.

After the report back of Mbeki, the AU announced its suspension
of Cote d’Ivoire’s membership. Many other major powers, including multilateral
agencies, are threatening other forms of sanctions if the Ivorian strong man
continues to be obdurate.

The former university-lecturer-turned president has rebuffed all
of these actions as “western intrusion”. He seems impervious to mounting
international pressure and willing to risk an impending international isolation
and internal conflict just to ensure that he defiantly clings to power.

Two issues come to my mind amidst this dangerous political
drama. The first is the need for Nigeria to step up and re-energize her
prominence in the affairs within the African continent. It falls on President
Jonathan’s shoulders to rally other African heads of government to make it
categorically clear in an ultimatum to Gbagbo that he cannot continue to hang
onto power. Press releases and shuttle diplomacy can no longer suffice, and so,
more needs to be done. The other issue is the need for politicians in Africa to
understand the fundamental tenets of democracy.

Kenya was recently plunged into an avoidable conflict when Mwai
Kibaki refused to allow his rival Raila Odinga to form a government, when it
was crystal clear that he had been defeated. Ditto Zimbabwe, where the strong
man Robert Mugabe lost the election but refused resign and allow his rival
Morgan Tsvangirai to take over. Enough of these African strong men! These are
exactly the kind of men the US President Obama says we do not need. Africa
needs strong institutions instead.

African leaders must learn to accept defeat with equanimity and
put national interest and continental prosperity above selfish quest for power.

To sit down with Laurent Gbagbo to consider a unity or coalition
government as has been done in Zimbabwe and Kenya is tantamount to denying the
democratic process and the legitimate voice of the Ivorian people expressed
overwhelmingly on November 28. Africa must for once confirm to the world that we
can get it right. The Cote d’Ivoire logjam must not be allowed to degenerate to
war.

Uche Igwe is an Africa
Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre