Africans are tired of being puppets to the whims of a manipulative west and this is what we thought the president was saying . Why then castigate a country that is trying to shake off the shackles of exploitation .
In fact , the president had had a televised debate with the French president Macron where he emphasized that the world needs a new financial architecture apart from IMF and World Bank where countries cooperated and transacted as equals .
Niger had taken a bold step in actualizing that very dream by calling out France and ensuring that France ceased to control the internal affairs of Niger where the citizens toiled but the benefits were enjoyed by France and their chosen acolytes .
Niger made it abundantly clear that they had not only ousted a puppet leader of the French but they also wanted France and its troops to exit their country . In a sovereign country what is a foreign army doing there ? Who is that army answerable to ?
Matters came to a head when the imminent threat of an attack on Niger took an interesting twist when neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso threw in their lot with Niger and stated that an attack on Niger would be an attack on them too .
It is more than evident that the former French colonies are exhausted and the so-called constitutional means to better their lot has been thwarted by the same people who need them to remain in subjugation .
The fact that the Niger people poured into the streets to support the coup is an indicator that not all is well in the country . Coups are not popular uprisings and when they quickly get ground support it is indicative of underlying issues .
The saying goes that no force can stop an idea whose time has come and no system can survive forever that is based on the exploitation of the masses . Sovereignty means self determination even if one makes mistakes .
The threat of retaliation to an attack was also communicated to ECOWAS and the situation ended in a stalemate since it was highly imprudent and unfair to assume that outsiders understood better the agony of the Niger citizens .
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting for what is just . Africans need to recognize that they cannot be the people with the resources and yet remain the ones who are poor .
Ochieng would like to point out that the incidence of external manipulation is a ploy that has been used successfully by all former colonizers , not only France and the result is that Africa finds itself in an unenviable status on neo-slavery .
The perennial instability in DRC is a stage-managed crisis by the west that perpetuates chaos in a country that would potentially be a powerful African nation . The genius is that they use the so-called African elites to play the game . that he received on his claim to the vast area .
Those invisible master puppeteers of yore are still the same people manipulating the current world order and this is what Ochieng was hoping the president is fighting against in an effort to redefine African unity and sovereignty .
In a puzzling move the president has continued to borrow funds and ostensibly to cooperate with the same countries and the global institutions that he is attacking . He has even bizarrely accepted to send peace-keeping police to Haiti .
His dalliance with the perceived enemy and his draconian internal economic policies that are a throw-back to the dreaded SAPS that nearly brought the country to its knees are sending mixed signals to the Kenyans and Africans in general .
The inconsistency is creating a strange political environment in the country as we now have a president who has become internationally popular and progressively unpopular at home as he fails to keep to his campaign promises .
He is championing African sovereignty while at the same time going against the tenets of self-determination in individual countries . He is castigating the west and its global financial institutions while continuing business as usual with them .
Ochieng is at a loss at to what intricate game the president is playing but what is abundantly clear is that at present it is not translating to any tangible benefit to the country . A case in point is the disastrous government to government oil deal that has boomeranged .
The last word is that a country ’ s sovereignty is best determined by the control it has on its political and economic agenda . These two areas need to work in concert to create the necessary enabling environment for development .
What Niger is doing and it appears other franco-phone countries are also attempting to do is to get control of these two crucial areas otherwise the talk of sovereignty is but a pipe dream made more difficult by espousing flawed democratic ideals .
Kenya also needs to take a deep introspective look to determine whose tune the country dances to . Is the claim of sovereignty and democracy real or an elaborate veil that hides the manipulators that really own the country ?
It is Ochieng ’ s fervent hope that this is the direction the president is taking the country as there is a need for someone to take the lead in the African emancipation . A united Africa should not remain just a pipe dream .
Too many Africans who have dared to dream the sovereign dream have been assassinated for that noble ideal . In all those cases the killer of the African dreamer was the west aided by collaborating locals serving the interests of foreign masters .
It is instructive not to forget that the Congo was a personal territory of the Belgian King Leopold but he would never have pulled off that stunt if it wasn ’ t for the international recognition
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