Taking the Electorate for granted - The Tunisian Experience

You are in the unique position of No.1 citizen in your nation. You came to power and prominence by way of the ballot box. Another way of saying people's power put you and kept you in office. I have just put down on paper the bedrock of democracy. I will go further to state that it has been well documented based on experience that sister states on the African continent have this unique affinity for using the electorate to rise to prominence only to carry out what we might now popularly allude to as a "hidden agenda".

Time and again has it been done and many times the politician in question wins the day. And for several years takes his best shot with his cronies at looting the nation's treasury and resources. Case histories point the way to the sad few who have overdone it and just like Mr Ben-Ali of Tunisia have had to show a clean pair of heels or run the risk of being lynched. Mobutu Seseko of the then Zairean Republic, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida of Nigeria among a few others all fall into that class of leaders who have taken the electorate for granted and paid the price when the people have risen against them and asked them to leave or else.........

Leaders like these are really not to be sympathized with. They have long since lost touch with the reality of what really obtains in their respective countries. They have gone over and above expectation in their looting sprees and they have also laid waste the better part of a generation of leaders who have tried to oppose them while in power,who either wind up detained,missing ultimately dead and buried in some shallow unknown grave somewhere.

Africa is probably the only continent left with despotic rulers of this I'll who need. To be shown the door. And as soon as possible,for the good of their own people and the progress of Africa as a continent the experience of the erstwhile President of Tunisia and the events currently unfolding are a pointer of things to come in othe African nations who have leaders who only speak of democracy in word but have no proper understanding of the word in deed.