When will African leaders stop being pawns in global chess game if by 21st century they are still behaving like their great grand fathers who enslaved their people and allowed massive plunder of their continent? Put differently, when will African leaders stop being the bush fowl that is not gifted to improving on its environment.

The French Presidential election may  have ended in a victory for the Socialist Party led by Francois Hollande but the revelations of slush fund scandals in French politics that have become legendary in Franco-African relations demand further exposition.

The Hollande campaign team  had alleged that Nicholas Sarkozy, had received funds from the deposed Libyan leader, Col .Muammar Gaddafi, in 2007  but turned round to champion NATO-led military campaign that ended the regime and the life of the stormy petrel of African politics. In this report,  HUGO ODIOGOR examines Franco-Africa relations.

POETIC JUSTICE

There is a sense of poetic justice among some watchers of international politics, especially who believe that Sarkozy has gone the way of other French leaders who are friends by the day and foes at night. While there are those who may argue that Sarkozy could not have done better in the circumstances of an incumbent facing a backlash from an austerity weary electorate than his acts of perfidy against an African despot.

The allegation that Sarkozy received funds from Gaddafi was one of the dominant themes of the election campaign but this may not be a new song as former French Presidents like Valerie D’ Estiang and later Francois Mitterrand were at various times accused of receiving gifts of diamond from African despots like Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa, Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo DR, the late Omar Bongo of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang who ousted his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, in a bloody coup in 1979 – becoming Africa’s longest serving ruler – has plundered the coffers of one of Africa’s wealthiest oil economies.

France is a haven for corrupt African leaders and its diplomacy in Africa is fraught with dubiety. It is a chess game of selfish idiosyncrasies between Paris and its fawning cronies on the continent of Africa, a paternalism that keeps the former colonies as perpetual minions of the metropole.

Majority of them, especially those from the Francophone countries, have choice mansions in Paris, just as Nigerian leaders have made Dubai their first home.

The Francois Hollande allegations have further complicated the impending trial of Saif Al Islam Gaddafi whom the International Criminal Court has found it difficult to arraign because of the widely held view that his trial will expose some of the dirty deals that the former Libya leader had transacted with many European leaders.

Europe is one continent that has parasitically lived off Africa yet when it suits European racial bigots, they play the immigration card and treat Africans living on the fringes as scum.

Former Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, Prof. George Obiozor told Vanguard Features, VF, that the structure and nuances of French foreign policy on Africa will remain the same, regardless of whether it is the Socialists or the Center Right party is in government.

Its policy of “use and dump” has  perpetuated cronies of Paris in office only to be dumped  when the game is over. This means in international politics and diplomatic practice,  new political leaders do not invent new national strategies, rather, they adapt enduring national strategies of the moment.

The emergence of Francois Hollande as France’s president, or the victory of the  Socialist party after 17 years may not change this policy of fleecing Africa through corrupt leaders taking austerity, but the underlying issue remains constant: France’s struggle for a dominant role in European affairs and at the same time maintain a dominant influence on its colonies in Africa, the source of raw material for its sagging industries, remain an issue.

The genesis of Franco-African corruption tango

It must be said that two events that shaped the modern French policy and strategy to European and African affairs are the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. That is, three years before the balkanization of Africa, and the emergence of Britain as the world’s dominant naval power and Europe’s leading imperial power.

According to Dr. Casmir Ani, an international Affairs  analysts: “While this did not eliminate French’s naval power or diminish its imperial status, it profoundly constrained it, at least, given the influence of Britain and Germany before the First World War.”

He said: “France could not afford to challenge Britain any more but had to find a basis for accommodation, thereby, ending several centuries of hostility and  distrust”. In Africa where  France, Germany and Britain were in contest for the soul of Africa, it had to adopt a less aggressive policy of assimilation and association as the cardinal thrusts of its colonial policy in Africa. Under these policies, it tried to clone Black Frenchmen or minions whom it would use to perpetuate its dominion of the continent.

For all the thesis and arguments that have been generated by the Walter Rodney’s seminal work entitled How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, the continent has not stopped producing leaders whose pre-occupation with power is to further impoverish their citizens.

It is also  interesting to question the role of Sarkozy in ordering French paratroopers to take out Mr. Laurent Gbagbo in Cote D’Ivoire where the former Ivorian president had refused to relinquish power after he was voted out by his countrymen.

Gbagbo felt he had the support of the Ivorian troops and the support of some ECOWAS leaders who had no better credentials on democratic norms than him and resisted global  pleadings to hand over power to Alhassan Outarra.

The situation in Cote D’Ivoire was dangerous as the country which has been involved in political crisis inspired by power struggle was heading towards another phase of the conflict that would have worsened the fragile security in the ECOWAS sub-region.

Even as the West African sub-region braced up for the scourge of terrorism and growing spate of insecurity, from Cote d’Ivoire to Mali, Chad to Niger, Senegal to Mauritania, Hollande and his countrymen must take a second look at French-Africa policy, especially its eternal capacity to produce puppets  who continue to prosper Paris at the expense of their own people.

The crisis rocking the Euro-

zone countries will be the main pre-occupation of Hollande as he has to chart a path fundamentally different from Sarkozy. This means placing less emphasis on cuts in government spending and pushing for recreating the industrial competitiveness of France in the global market.

Hollande would want to reposition French auto industries, focus on areas of the economy that will reverse the neo-liberal policies that the country has gone through since 1995. The fate of African migrants will be crucial as the stress of these changes will unleash on Africa and its people.

France, like other industrialised countries, continues to deal with African countries as peons rather than treat them as partners. The renaissance Africa that we have long expected will come from African leaders and that will be when they wake up from there Rip Van Winkle slumber. Some serving African leaders and their families are facing investigation in Paris over cases of embezzlement, money laundering and acquisition of vast assets in France, including bank accounts.

The rot in French politics

The French public is becoming embarrassed by the presence of stolen African wealth in their country. Paris, the French capital, was always popular with high-spending dictators from Africa. From the likes of Paul Biya of Cameroon, the clan of Gabon’s late leader, Omar Bongo and its current leader, his son Ali Bongo, and the President of the Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso and his family are accused of having assets in France worth  $195 million.

Sassou Nguesso, at 68, is famous for his dress sense and is accused of having spent more than €652,000 on clothes in 2010. The Sassou Nguesso clan is alleged to have 24 properties in France in their own name. This includes 112 bank accounts and various luxury cars.

In Paris, a mansion on Rue de la Baume has come to symbolise the wealth of Gabon’s late leader Omar Bongo. A French police preliminary report claimed that the late Gabonese president and his close relatives owned 39 properties in France. It also said they had 70 French bank accounts and at least nine luxury cars in France. Bongo’s son, Ali Bongo, was elected President in 2009 after his father’s death.

The list is endless. Cases of embezzlement, money-laundering and misuse of public funds by African leaders have been ignored by French leaders. Public funds are directly siphoned from the coffers of African states to France, to the detriment of millions of African populations who are left to live in poverty.

The complicity of the French establishment in corruption in Africa is legendary. Under a system known as ‘’francafrique’’, kickbacks, receipt of prized gifts from despots from its former colonies in Africa have been an integral part of Paris’s foreign policy towards its former colonies.

The scandal of the ill-gotten gains

The allegations of corruption and the collusion of the French political elite is the central theme of a new book by Thomas Hofnung and Xavier Harel, entitled: The Scandal of the Ill-Gotten Gains. The investigative journalists have sent shockwaves across the French establishment as they  revealed how African leaders have regularly been giving briefcases of cash to French politicians to gain protection.

The on-going enquiry in France on the origins of the Obiang, Bongo and Sassou-Nguesso clans’ fortunes led to a police raid on the Obiang properties and the seizure of possessions.

According to Dr. Kolawole Aina: “The investigation of the corruption of African leaders and the complicity of the French political class is the handiwork of anti-corruption non-government organisations which will be a long legal battle and illustrates the extent the Western powers could go to impoverish Africa”.

In the case of Gabon, Bongo junior and close relatives in France are said to own 39 properties, at least nine luxury cars and operate 70 bank accounts, states one French police report. French police say jointly the Obiang, Bongo and Sassou-Nguesso clans have assets worth €160-million in France.

Many French governments like that of Sarkozy’s are loath to act against their cash-flush African cronies. Although Sarkozy had nothing good to say about Gaddafi’s ill-begotten wealth, his people have benefitted more than the subjects of most other despots. Many of these tyrants have feathered the economy of Europe and elsewhere with impunity except when they fell out of favour with their hosts their stolen wealth are seized.

With billions of dollars worth of Muammar Gaddafi’s assets frozen by the United Nations and member countries, and other moves to recover the wealth of deposed autocrat, efforts must be focused on France and other European countries that have been warehousing stolen wealth amassed by the likes of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia.