{UAH} Africa’s bad men are Mandela’s biggest failure
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Nelson Mandela Madiba was no ordinary man even if he often asked people not to attribute saintly virtues on him.
There is one thing you could not fault him on. Whatever he set out to do, he did it diligently and he achieved it. At the age of 23, he took on the apartheid regime, he paid a heavy price for that. The family disintegrated and he spent the rest of his youthful years behind the bars at Robben Island.
But the 27 years he endured in jail yielded peace in South Africa, dismantled the apartheid regime in 1990 and it bestowed an iconic figure on him. So the sacrifice, endurance was not all in vain. There is no amount of words that can accurately capture the persona of Mandela.
For me, he was a typical human being, who embodied a mythical blend of virtues and vices alike. Even the terrorists and bullies of humanity could mellow in the face of Mandela.
Yet he abhorred the myth with which some people attached to his person. He was typical human being who was not infallible and insulated against common weakness that afflicts ordinary men and women.
For instance, as a family man he didn't fare so well. In 1944, he married Evelyn Ntoko Mase only to divorce in 1958. That very year he married Winnie Madikizela, who was 16 years younger than him.
The marriage, which was partly lived through the 27 years of imprisonment, later disintegrated into an acrimonious divorce in 1992 on grounds of infidelity on the part of Winnie. Mandela said of his marriage after prison that he was the loneliest ever married man in South Africa.
Yet, he forgave Winnie for all the moral infractions, after all she was human. Mandela said Winnie was a young lady who was vulnerable to all manner of temptations in the absence of a husband. Those who live in glass houses don't cast stones for fear of retaliation especially when the fragile glass cannot protect one from insults returned.
There are all sorts of claims that Mandela fathered two daughters from another woman while he was married to Winnie. Mandela never denied the children although the rest of the family members refused to recognise them.
This checkered lifestyle clearly explains why he was at pains to accept being anointed a saint. Guerilla outfit leaders of that time, the ilk of Robert Mugabes, who posed as freedom fighters and liberators, fighting against dictatorship, steadily manipulated laws and quietly morphed into dictators as they worked to entrench themselves in power.
Mandela, who lived a bigger part of his life in jail, resisted that temptation to super glue himself in the revered presidential seat. To him, power was not about self-aggrandisement or compensating one's suffering.
He didn't feel like he did a favour to South Africans and therefore they owed him, whereby he had to pay himself by overstaying his welcome. It is not that he didn't have a vision. He was a visionary but his approach was that South Africans could still benefit from his wisdom even if he was not the captain of their ship.
He passed on the reins of power to the cerebral Thabo Mbeki, who also narrowly survived the 'stayism' bug that has been contracted by many African leaders. To his credit and to the culture of constitutionalism, Mbeki gracefully accepted the verdict of his party, African National Congress (ANC) when they faulted him and asked him to step down.
Mandela's milestones are innumerable. In March 1999 Nelson Mandela flew to Tripoli to convince the then Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, to surrender to UK the suspected terrorists who were involved in the Lockerbie bombing in which all 259 people aboard the Pan Am flight from London to New York perished.
Mandela could have trekked to Mozambique in search of a wife and indeed married Graca Machel, widow of Samora Machel, but he also sowed democracy and politics of tolerance. Mandela suffered embarrassment and ridicule when he tried to save the lives of Chief Mshood Abiola and Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni human rights activist from the blood thirsty Sani Abacha then president of Nigeria.
Saro-Wiwa was sentenced to death by Abacha's regime for agitating for a fairer sharing of the oil resources with the people whose land produced oil. While Abiola was jailed for declaring himself winner in the 1994 general elections which were annulled by Gen Ibrahim Babangida.
Mandela sent several highly placed people, including former president Thabo Mbeki and the distinguished Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Abacha to secure their release. Abacha played hide and seek with Mandela.
Ultimately Mandela flew to Nigeria and met Abacha and discussed the release of these persons. Instead Abacha made fun of Mandela saying that his visit was intended to discuss world economic situation and not the release of those people.
Mandela's charm offensive did not work with dictator Abacha. But he promised to blow up the powder keg on which Abacha was seating. Abacha died mysteriously.
Perhaps Mandela's failure to have those prominent Nigerians released was symbolic and premonition that he would never have his way with men who treasure blood and iron to resolve political issues.
He was revered and many former "freedom fighters" often identified with him. How ironic that they praised him, admired him but few of them seemed eager to embrace his political virtues like respect for the constitution, tolerance, and not being the only visionary. Fare thee well, Madiba.
pmkatunzi@observer.ug
Twitter:@piuskm
The author is the Finance director, The Observer Media Ltd.
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