Why Africa should have its own type of democracy – Kenyan envoy
Daily Trust: What’your impression about Nigeria? first Machage: As I thank President Uhuru Kenyatta for my appointment, I also thank President Muhammadu Buhari for receiving my credentials. I haven’t stayed long in Nigeria, about two and a half months. It may be naïve for me to begin to make comments about a system that I’m yet to understand. But in a nutshell, I found Nigerians to be loving, respectful and receptive. And that is a tradition that should be exported even to Kenya.
DT: What would be the key concern of your tour of duty in Nigeria?
The relationship between Kenya and Nigeria is a long one, especially so when you consider the late 1950s at the apex of freedom fighting. We had the Pan Africanists which included Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, just to mention a few. Nigeria which actually led in the getting independence also assisted other African countries to get freedom. Currently, my concern may be on election issues. Nigeria is going to have election in February and it is at the apex of campaigns. My wish is that Nigeria has peaceful elections. We pray for peace. That’s really my concern. Peace and democracy.
DT: Are you saying this out of the experience in Kenya, where sometimes elections result in chaos?
Let’s look at established democracies globally. America, which had been independent for over 200 years, has had its own upheavals. Really what is happening in Africa is a developmental issue, an issue of identification of deficiencies in the constitution and trying to build that constitution around what I will call African democracy. Winston Churchill once said that democracy is not really the best form of government, it is that there is no better alternative. The question is, is democracy as defined by western countries really what Africa defines as democracy? A good question for scholars to answer, what is democracy as defined by Africa? So we are trying to force ourselves to western type of democracy and elective rule. It won’t work. We just have to come up with our own type of democracy and election rule. What happened in Kenya over a period of five years is an amalgamation of many factors, including the interests of the western world. It is true, Kenya has had its share but we have survived it. Kenya has had a share of repeat election, nullification of presidential election and we survived it. So, that tells you how mature Kenya is in terms of election and democracy. In Nigeria, I hope you learn from our mistakes.
DT: Is Kenya considering eradicating visa for Nigerian visitors as part of efforts to boost intra-African cooperation?
What happened in the 1930s, the sub-division of Africa, putting boundaries between communities of one people, as well as the partition into Anglophone and Francophone, seemed to have been the cause of disintegration in the continent. I’m happy to state that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is at the forefront in the fight for removal of visas for all African countries in Kenya. I hope all African countries will do same and accept the Kigali accord.
DT: Kenya is known for tourism, which is one of the key sources of foreign exchange earnings. Is there anything Nigeria can learn from Kenya to boost its tourism sector?
As an Ambassador, one of my mandates here is to promote cultural cooperation between Nigerians and Kenyans. It is true that the tourism industry is quite advanced in Kenya. Nigeria really needs to learn a lot on environmental preservation, using the existing culture to promote tourism and accepting the sector as a great earner of foreign exchange. Kenya is mainly an agrobased economy. We have had to look at other sectors like tourism as one of the great earners of foreign exchange. How does Kenya manage to do what Nigeria used to do in the 1960s? Kenya has been able to do that mainly by coming up with a good policies, protecting the environment with law. But let me say that we cannot really pride ourselves as super. Sometimes you have to survive in a certain environment, without oil, we had to survive with what we had and develop the agriculture and animal husbandry. I can proudly say that Kenya can export this knowledge to Nigeria. You have length of good land for big ranches. Sometimes it is good to remember that petrolbased economy is short-lived, and especially so with the introduction of green energy. All African countries have to think out of the box.
DT: One area of common concern to our two countries is the challenge of terrorism. Is there sharing of ideas between Kenya and Nigeria to overcome the challenge?
Yes, plenty of ideas and cooperation, some of which I cannot talk openly, on the management of terrorism. Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, al-Qaeda and others may appear to be separate but these are groups that have a lot of cooperation. It is important that African countries get to know the real reason we have this in Africa and we try to stop it. It is not worth it seeing many people die for no reason. For this reason, I pass my condolences to the people who have died as a result of terrorist activities. It is not fair, let us all respect human life.
DT: Are you satisfied with the level of cooperation between Nigeria and Kenya?
Let me say, so far so good, but it could be better. We work hard not only to satisfy but to enhance the cooperation and make it even better. There are lots of lacuna yet to be explored in the cooperation between Nigeria and Kenya. We need to go deep into that. In terms of political cooperation, yes, it is excellent. What of economic friendship? Why do we have lot of our money going to Europe instead of our neighbouring countries? We are treated into forgetting our neighbours and importing things from outside when you can import goods from the neighbouring countries. African countries are now industrialising and even coming up with better machineries. The pan African dream should be revisited in terms of economic independence.
DT: Which area of the economic relations do you think we can explore more?
We now have to localize our thinking to what is produced locally. In the petroleum industry, a lot of African countries would rather export their petroleum products, have them refined and then buy those products again because they do not want to see what the neighbours are able to do. Instead of burning gas, give it to your neighbours who don’t have and make something out of it. That boomerangs into your country. Cultural export is another. You have so many cultural systems we can learn from and export them to Kenya.
DT: Does Kenya also experience clashes between farmers and herders, if so how do you manage the problem?
The history of Kenya and Nigeria is different, so it calls for different management. In Kenya, we have had legal provisions that protect communal lands. That helps a lot because you cannot just move into ranches or grab lands and begin to exploit the Masai people and many other tribes even if they are not there. God has given us land but soon it will be less as population increases. There must be intentional introduction of legislation that protects community lands. If that is not done, there may be people to people, tribal conflicts where a farmer feels he has a right to cultivate crops and the nomad feels he has the right to move his herds everywhere and eat anything on the way. That will cause conflict.
DT: How would you react to the 2018 Daily Trust African of the Year award won by a group of Kenyan teens?
Daily should be congratulated for the part the company is playing in the fight against female genital mutilation. FGM and its associated complications is something that needs to be fought by everybody. There are some cultures in Africa that can be retained while there are others that are not worthy. They should be discarded. FGM is one of them. And I’m happy that Kenyan girls were identified by Daily Trust for an award for developing a tool that can be used to fight FGM.