C’WEALTH A DISAPPOINTMENT

The slave trade was unique!

And so was apartheid in neighbouring South Africa. And you may also add Nazism in Germany to the list of things unique. But is unique necessarily good? The common denominator to the above list is that they variously wrought untold oppression, misery, deprivation, wholesale suffering, etc to sections of humanity. Now, says Dr Roger Koranteng, Head of Public Sector Governance at the London, England based Commonwealth Secretariat, tinkhundla political system belongs to this list of things unique.

Only for its unique credentials, notwithstanding its attendant contradictions and excesses that has led to the systemic dismantling of moral and ethical leadership with the people on the receiving end that has taken this beautiful country on a slippery road to nowhere, Koranteng is of the mind that the system should not be discarded.

Position

I am not certain to what degree Dr Koranteng keeps himself abreast of what is happening around him, especially in relation to former British colonies given the critical and strategic position he is occupying that surely must require him to be at the cutting edge of contemporary issues in these lands. In the event he would have been appraised of the monster that this unique system he is evidently fond of has done to undermine the progress of this country and, by progression, that of emaSwati.

Dr Koranteng would have been appraised of the tinkhundla system’s brutality on emaSwati for standing up and calling for political reforms to secure their total liberation. One could go on and on about how the ruling elites have, instead of unifying the nation, used the system to divide and alienate the people’s human rights and freedoms and appropriated to themselves national resources that has enabled their trajectory to a First World lifestyle while the majority of the people have been left to wallow in abject poverty. For all these abuses and excesses that have undermined the quality of life of the people this man believes emaSwati should remain grateful and retain institutions that have occasioned their oppression and suffering.

Informed

Koranteng parachutes into this country and prescribes what to do and what not to do – do not throw the baby out with the bathwater – without interrogating why this country is in the mess it finds itself in. For had he done that he would have informed himself that all the things and institutions – including the obtaining polity – have occasioned bad governance, abuse of power, moral decay as well as birthed a class-structured society manifested by the christening of sections of society with demeaning names and titles to make them feel inferior and at the mercy of the upper class.

He condemns strikes and protests, the only weapons at the disposal of ordinary people against the military might of the State. Not once has he at least acknowledged the brutal acts committed by the security forces that continue to this day let alone condemned same. He does not condemn the abuse of the Judiciary to persecute critics of the political status quo and proponents of multiparty democracy, including sitting lawmakers.

Patronising

As I see it, Dr Koranteng’s patronising demeanour is perhaps instructive of where the Commonwealth Secretariat’s loyalties lie. Obviously with the leaders of the various former colonies and not with their peoples. Hence the Commonwealth was complicit in the drafting of a national constitution that, while embracing a full Bill of Rights with its built-in concomitant fundamental human rights and freedoms, but it also entrenched the political hegemony of the infamous 1973 Decree that occasioned the usurpation of political power and control of the nation.

The organisation also reneged on the (former president of Malawi) Bakili Muluzi initiative for an all-inclusive dialogue to resolve the country’s long-standing political imbroglio started by the predecessor to the current Secretary General Baroness Patricia Scotland QC. Baroness Scotland was only content to be wined and dined by the Eswatini leadership whose motive may perhaps have been to help her forget about the Muluzi initiative and probably won the day because she never followed it up. It is possible that that initiative could have helped the country avoid the current political uprising that culminated with the brutal assault of emaSwati youth by the security forces. All the people ever wanted was an all-inclusive dialogue on the political future of the nation in the face of the cataclysmic failures of the Tinkhundla political system.

Invitation

That Koranteng finds himself in these shores at the invitation of the legislative arm of government in the midst of a never before witnessed political and social crisis should be instructive of the capacity and mentality of the leadership of this nation. We would have expected all hands on deck to deal with the crisis more especially since many lives have been allegedly lost unnecessarily because of the greed of a minority.

Yet Parliament found time and the resources to organise a retreat for lawmakers to be lectured on what they were elected to do all courtesy of the beloved but dysfunctional tinkhundla political system. This retreat and accompanying wastage of resources was evidently an excuse authored by the political handlers of the Speaker and Senate president to avoid dealing with the current socio-political upheavals convulsing the country as if these issues can easily be wished away.

As I see it, the kingdom is at a critical junction where public figures have to be circumspect of their actions in the furtherance of the objectives of a minority because the time is coming when they shall be required to answer for their omissions and commissions. Only those who swear and stand for the truth shall be absolved of culpability to the suffering being visited on emaSwati at the behest of the leadership.  

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