Saturday, October 1, 2011

Of presidents probing past misdeads

Whenever a new administration takes office it is almost predictable that it would seek to probe its predecessors. The irony is that when they are voted out of power and it is time for them to bow out (if they are gracious enough that is) it comes as no surprise either that their complicity in corruption and other malfeasance is often not less but worse than the mess they claimed to be cleaning. This behavior has come to characterize many a regime that have come to power in this century thereby nipping in the bud the dream of a new Africa. Perhaps Africa at the beginning of the 21st Century is no much different than the one of the twentieth century after all it is business-as-usual if accounts of sleaze in high places is anything to go by. If this be the case the promise to end corruption or investigate past cases of corruption are empty and hollow. Corruption per se should not be an issue if we lack the will and capacity to deal with it. Ironically, it is if and when we marshal the fortitude to deal with this vanity that we will realize the dream of government of the people, for the people and by the the people.