WHY ICC MUST BE UNLEASED ON AFRICAN POLITICIANS, INCLUDING NIGERIANS

Kenyan Parliament is about to vote to remove their country from the membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Before the last presidential election in that country, the issue of the political leaders who were indicted by ICC over the post election violence in 2008 dominated the headline in Kenya and elsewhere. Uhuru Kenyetta was among those indicted by the ICC. However despite the indictment the Kenyans still voted Kenyetta their president. Now Kenyetta is using his position as president to withdraw his country from ICC aided by the Kenyan parliament. Some Kenyans that I saw on China’s CCTV debating this development argued that the ICC was targeted at African leaders and wondered why former president George Bush of United States and former prime minister Tony Blair of United Kingdom are not brought to the ICC to face war crime charges over their role in the death of millions of people in Iraq. They had also noted that at the last count most leaders facing charges at ICC are from the continent. Those indicted from Africa include former Ivory Coast president, Laurent Gbagbo, president of Sudan Umar Al-Bashir, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyetta and several other African warlords and rebel leaders. Uhuru Kenyetta’s supporters have also argued that African courts have the capacity to try those indicted by ICC. Really?

Africa will continue to provide the largest number of indicted world leaders by the ICC. You know why? Africa is the leading country in the world where leaders do not lose elections in good faith and are quick to mobilise their supporters to maim and kill supporters of their opponents who they can easily identify by their tribe or religion. The legal system in the continent is so weak that such powerful leaders often get away with war crime but for the ICC. With  due respects to African judges who are doing their best to deliver justice fairly to the people, the vast majority of the judges have not weaned themselves of ethnic and religious biases they were born with. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a powerful politician to go to jail over election and post election violence in Africa. In Nigeria there are many politicians who threatened the peace of the country before and after the 2011 election, but they were untouchable. President Goodluck Jonathan refused to go after them for obvious reasons; religion and ethnic sentiments. If the ICC had taken interest in the matter and whisked them away to the Hague, they will think twice to be issuing another round of threats ahead of 2015 general elections in Nigeria; election which may become the last in united Nigeria if not carefully handled as major protagonists have gone to the trenches to perfect how more bloods will flow if the election result did not go their way. That is why I totally support that ICC should continue to save poor Africans from annihilation by their power hungry leaders, by taking the indicted ones to The Hague. In most of the cases of post election violence it is the most vulnerable that are killed. The poorest of the poor are the ones whose bloods water democracy in Africa and the police and the court cannot help them. All over Africa you hardly hear that political leaders are killed in post election violence. The leaders give orders to their poor followers to attack the poor followers of their opponent, while they are shielded from all the killings in Government Reserved Areas that are beyond the reach of the mob.

I think the ICC should take special interest anytime there is election anywhere in Africa, so that they can help us handle those who encourage their followers to kill their opponents’ followers, that is the only way to avert election violence in Africa.

I sympathise with the Iraqis over the action of Blair and Bush, but it is the Iraqis that should take the matter to ICC, after all Sudan, like United States is not signatory to ICC but the ICC has indicted the president over the war crimes in Darfur. That said my major concern is the genocide that is coming to Nigeria in 2015 going by the threats flying around. The ICC should take a closer look at Nigeria before and after the 2015 elections. I do not trust Nigerian leaders and Nigerian courts. Only the ICC can reign in those who would envelope Nigeria with bloods after 2015 elections, whether the country breaks as predicted by the United States or not.