[Music]
[Applause]
First of all, I'd like to thank the
um Oslo Freedom Forum
for inviting me here to speak to you.
And I also would like to thank you for
finding some time to come and listen to
me. And I'd like to dedicate my
address to the cheetah generation of
Africa. They are vowed to take back
Africa one village at a time. They've
taken
back Egypt and Tunisia and they're going
to take back more African countries. I
also would like to dedicate this uh
speech to
Ali Abdul Salam. He was a Bahanian
journalist who couldn't make it because
he has disappeared. I also would like to
dedicate
this uh to Oleg Beanin of
Belarus, to Leo Siabo of
China, to um Nida Aar Sultan of
Iran, and I'd like to dedicate this to
Muhammad Buazizi of
Tunisia. And I'd like to dedicate this
uh to Judge Maria Funi of Venezuela.
And I also would like to dedicate this
to all the pro-democracy activists in
Cameroon, Chad, Bkina,
Faso, Yemen, Syria, Zimbabwe who are
fighting for
freedom. Fighting for
freedom is a very daunting task. It's
not
easy. There are many people who pay the
ultimate price.
Now with me, they threw me in jail in
Synagal in
1994. They banned me from the uh
stateowned control that television. They
even banned my
books and security agents raided my
hotel room in Kenya in Nairobi in 1994.
And even in Washington DC, they fire
bombed my office. But I did not back
down and I won't be deterred because
freedom is not
negotiable. The they that I'm talking
about are the usual
suspects. Murderous dictators. They
cause all the world's worst problems.
All the collapsed states, devastated
economies been caused by
dictators. All the humanitarian
catastrophes caused by dictators. and
all the vapid cases of corruption, grand
theft, naked plunder of the treasury
caused by
dictators. Africa has more dictators per
capita than any other
continent. Africa also boasts of the
largest collection of coconut
republics. Now here, see the the bandits
don't take away don't steal one million
here and 1 million there. They cut away
the entire treasury plus the kitchen
sink. After a mere four and a half years
in office, the late dictator of Nigeria
managed to accumulate a personal fortune
of $5 billion.
Omar Bashia of Sudan has siphoned out of
Sudan the country $7
billion and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt
managed to accumulate a personal fortune
of 40
billion. Now, let me put that in
perspective. The net worth of all US
presidents, 43 US presidents from
Washington to
Obama amounted to $2.7
billion. Which means that Africa's
kamicazi bandits each stole more than
the net worth of all US presidents and
then some. Now dictators have left a
trail of quantum
destruction, horrendous
carnage and human debris in their in
their in their wake. And guess who
cleans up after
them? The west has spent trillions of
dollars trying to persuade kajou these
dictators to reform the abominable
political and economic systems.
There was even tried appeasement
promo
enough. Dictators are allergic to
reform. They are stone death and
impervious to reason. They're not
interested in reform.
Period. I mean, if you put pressure on
them to reform, they perform the coconut
boogie. One swing to the right, one
three swings to the left. A jerk in the
air and then a tumble to land on the
frozen Swiss bank
account. Switzerland froze the bank
accounts of Ben
Aliarik and Loric
Babu. The reform process in Africa has
been
stalled by vexacious chicenry, willful
deception and vaunted acrobatics. See
back in 19 1990 out of the 54 African
countries only four of them were
democratic. Now 21 years
later this small group is increased to
only
15 meaning that the vast majority of the
African people still live under tyranny
and oppression.
The number of uh economic success
stories are fewer than 10 and also fewer
than 10
have free and independent
media. Some people call this progress.
Some
progress. Now angry Africans are fed up
with the antics of these dictators and
taking the heat to the dictators. Benali
fled. Whose neighbor Barrick was shoved
aside and more coconuts would
tumble. But I must caution
you that the noisy ra demonstrations
alone aren't enough to house a dictator.
To remove a dictator, three cardinal
principles must be followed. The first
one is that you got to have it takes a
coalition to house a dictator because a
coalition to organize and also
coordinate the activities of the various
opposition groups. And second, you got
to know the enemy. You got to know his
motives operandi, his strength and
weaknesses. You don't fight a dictator
on the turf on which is
strongest. You find his weaknesses and
exploit it. And third, you got to get
the sequence of reform correct.
If you look, it is imperative to have a
small group of people to coordinate the
activities. Call this group of people an
elders
council. This council must be made up of
eminent and respectable personalities
who have no political baggage. They must
be able to reach out to all the
opposition groups. We formed one in
Ghana. We called it the alliance for
change. We set up a corresponding group
in North America as well.
to coordinate the
activities. Now, historical examples
will include the gathering in Sudan in
1985, the Danube
circle in Hungary in
1988, the charter 77 in Czechoslovakia
in
1989. Now, these group this uh uh this
council is the one which is supposed to
organize and collect the activities of
the disparit groups.
Now, if the dictator calls an election,
this group has always been in place. If
the dictator calls an election, the
council must rope all opposition parties
together into an electoral
alliance. See, last year there were 10
elections and the dictators won all
those 10 elections. Why? Because the
opposition was divided. Take example in
uh Ethiopia for example there were 92
political parties trying to challenge
the dictator Mel Zinawi in an
election and in Belarus's December uh
two 2010 elections there were nine
opposition leaders trying to challenge
him. It shouldn't be this way. The
council must rope all opposition groups
into an alliance. The council must also
ensure
that the electoral commission is
independent, the voters register is
clean, all opposition parties have
access to the state
media. And for
funding and for
funding, the council must rely upon the
diasporan community, not on western
donors. Know the enemy.
All dictators operate by the same modus
operant. You see they they seize control
of six basic institutions. They seize
control of the civil service, the media,
the judiciary, the security forces, the
electoral commission, the central banks.
They pack these institutions with their
cronies and allies and subvert them or
debotch them to serve their interest.
For a revolution to
succeed, you have to wrestle control of
one or more of these institutions from
their from the out of the dictator's
clutches. If you look at Tunisa and
Egypt, the game was over when the
security forces said they were not going
to fire on the uh uh on the street
protesters. the same in Philippines in
1986 and also in the um Georgia's rose
revolution the street demonstrators were
able to charm the security forces with
roses and that's why it was called the
rose
revolution and also in Ukraine uh 2004
orange revolution street protesters were
able to secure the full support of the
supreme court in Pakistan's 2007 uh
black revolution the protesters had the
full support of the judiciary. It is
important to to get control of at least
one or more of those state institutions
on the side of the
protesters. Now you also exploit the
weaknesses of the dictator by stretching
its military uh
geographically. I mean you shut down the
milit the civil service and any military
regime will collapse because they don't
have enough soldiers to ser replace all
the civil servants. Now this strategy
was very much on display in Tunisia and
Egypt and also certain parts of the uh
Middle East where protesters held
simultaneous strikes in almost all the
cities and towns across the country. Now
that's how you strain security forces.
Now after you remove the dictator and
you have to remember that here's also
another caution getting rid of the
dictator does not necessarily establish
a free
society. You have to reform the dictator
dissemble the dictator
itself. We didn't do this in Africa in
the 1960s. We got rid of the white
colonialist but we did not
dissemble the oppressive colonial state.
And guess what
happened? We removed the white
colonialists and they were replaced by
black new colonialists, Swissbank
socialists, crocodile liberators, quack
revolutionaries and briefcase bandits.
Africans will tell you we struggle very
hard to remove one cockroach from power
and the next rat comes to do exactly the
same thing. This is because we did not
dissemble the dictatorship. To dissemble
the dictatorship, you have to follow
reforms in certain ways. It's like
overhauling a vehicle. You don't fix the
transmission when the battery is dead.
Nor do you put in install a new fun belt
when the radiator leaks. You got to do
things in order and in steps to
dissemble a dictatorship. You need first
intellectual reform freedom of
expression and free media. And next you
need political
reform for democratic pluralism. And
then you need constitutional reform to
limit the powers of the executive. And
then you need institutional
reform so that you can free up the
judiciary, make sure that the judiciary
is independent, the media is independent
and so forth. And then lastly, you need
economic reform. Premature economic
liberalization can cause reversals of
the revolution as happened in many
Eastern European countries. In many
Eastern European countries, they push
forward economic liberalization ally the
shock
therapy. Now the shock
therapy with the shock therapy the
Norman Clura was still entrenched in
power. institutional reform had not
taken place and then
Norman frustrated reforms and even a few
of them used their inside knowledge. The
eight oligarchs used their inside
knowledge and political connections to
global abstate assets and became instant
um
billionaires more disastrous for Africa
was pushing economic liberalization
economic reform ahead of all other types
of reform. Don't get me wrong, economic
reform
works, but dictators never level the
economic playing field. They only
implement those types of economic
reforms that benefit them, their family
and their cronies. Okay? African
countries that tried economic reform
before any other type of reform failed
the political test and imploded. I
coast, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Malagasca,
Tunisia,
Egypt. Now it is important that we get
this sequence correct and I call this
sequence AI law. China currently faces
this particular quandry. China has done
well
economically but it's going to meet the
political test. If it opens up the
political space, the Communist Party
will be swept away. If it doesn't, then
it will implode and disintegrate like
the Soviet Union. The necessity of
beginning with intellectual reform
derives from the fact that it is the
reform has to come from within.
It's the people who must make their own
case for reform. Not western government,
not western uh financial institutions.
And for the people to make this type of
reform, they need intellectual freedom,
freedom of expression. Remember that
Mikov started with glass nose, openness.
We in Africa want to start with black
news. Now remember that in Tunisia
Muhammad Wazizi the self emulation of
Muhammad Wazizi was the ultimate in the
extreme form of freedom of expression.
In Ghana we were able to uh bring about
change by freeing the airwaves
establishing FM radio stations which
were able to do the trick for us in
2000. A free media is the most powerful
weapon against all dictatorship. Get get
the media out of the hands of corrupt
and incompetent dictators. That will
unleash the freedom that we all so
dearly cherish. Not western sanctions,
not western sermons or western
appeasement. And we will defeat these
dictators. Thank you very much.
[Applause]