Opinion
By Santigie Momoh, Freetown, Sierra Leone
Many Africans, are often very angry and frustrated when they see and hear foreign diplomats based in Africa trying to tell African leaders how to run the affairs of their countries or how to do specific things on specific occasions. These Western diplomats are saying are saying, do it our way or else.
I have never heard of an African ambassador in any Western country tell the leaders of that country how to do anything including how to conduct elections.
Western diplomats in Africa often ascribe to themselves the power to give instructions to African leaders. They do this because they give African countries huge amounts money with invisible chains attached to them. What is ironical is that most of these African countries have the natural resources to make them rich. If there is no corruption in these African countries they do not need Western loans or aid. And then no Western diplomat will tell them what to do. It is very simple.
Protect your money and resources and stop taking free money from the West. If you do that they would not dare say anything to you.
Africans are mature enough to conduct free and fair elections and build and maintain the tenets of a liberal democracy. There is no perfect democracy. Even Western countries have displayed and continue to display barbarism in the way they do things at home. Electoral fraud is also common in the West but no African diplomat has ever dared reprimand them. Maybe African diplomats will be able to do that when they start giving money to Western countries.
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