'Africa is vibrant and prosperous,' says Ramaphosa - not true, a head in clouds Nero moment

It is a great disappointment when, seemingly level-headed people, are appointed into high and they lose their heads. The act of elevating them into high office makes them lose their heads in the clouds; they suddenly believe they are invincible and infallible.

One of the best known historic figure who lost his head is Emperor Nero. One of his grandest plans was to tear down a third of Rome so that he could build an elaborate series of palaces that would be known as Neropolis. (Nelson Chamisa has his bullet train plan lined-up complete with Wi-Fi for goats. He will never be president because he still fails to understand that he must first win the rigged elections.) Rome's senators, however, objected ardently to this proposal. The story goes that it was Nero who set Rome on fire in AD 64. The Roman historian, Tacitus, said Nero watched Rome burn while "merrily playing his fiddle".

Until today, I thought President Cyril Ramaphosa of SA was a level-headed leader but now I am not so sure!

"Tell them their father was proud on the day African boarders were removed; tell them they live in a proud, vibrant and prosperous continent, because you, their uncle's and aunts were vanguard panafricanists who brought down the walls left by colonialists, maintained by imperialists," he wrote in Zimeye. The article was ominously titled, "Tell Them Mnangagwa, Kagame, Issoufou Were Here", Ramaphosa Kigali Blast.

"Tell my daughter, and my son that their father was there, on the day our continent signed the African Continental Free Trade Area, in Kigali.

"Tell them, if their grand parents fought for their political independence, you achieved their economic freedom." What a blast, indeed.

Still, Mr President, we must deal with reality and not the mirage we wish to see. Like it or not Africa is not, I repeat NOT, "a proud, vibrant and prosperous continent". Much as we would wish this was so, it is not. Africa is blundering from one crisis to another beset poverty, civil war, disease, etc. and all these problems can be traced back to one cause - bad governance.

If the truth be told; and for the good of Africa, it must be told; we in Zimbabwe look back on the colonial days as the country's "golden age" compared to where we are today. Before independence the country was the bread basket of the region, today we are starving in, for all intend and purposes, the Garden of Eden.

Zimbabwe is the poorest country in Africa with ¾ of her population living on US$1.00 or less a day! In 1980 Zimbabwe had the potential to become the South Korea of Africa but has become instead the North Korea complete with a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging regime. There has been a raging factional war within the ruling party, Zanu PF, which led the country's tyrant of the last 37 years being forced to resign after a military coup in November last year.

Zimbabwe is due to hold elections in a few months and already it is clear they will not be free and fair. The military Junta ruling the country has stubbornly refused to implement any democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections. So, if the country has yet another rigged elections it will set itself up for yet another military coup - how else can there ever be regime change.

President Ramaphosa was speaking from Kigali Rwanda, a country that has suffered some of the worst human tragedies to happen in post-independence Africa. In 1994 800 000 to 1 000 000 mainly Tutsi Rwandans were murdered in cold blood by their fellow Hutu Rwandans. The country's current President, Paul Kagame's, in power since 2000, refusal to give up power does not augur well with the country's good governance and stability.

No, President Ramaphosa, Africa is not, I repeat NOT, "a proud, vibrant and prosperous continent". And this was not because the continent did not have free trade but because the continent's leaders have failed to deliver on their promise of freedom, justice, peace and economic prosperity for all its people. has failed to deliver Africa is a continent beset by problems of her own making, man-made problems of chronic corruption and bad governance.

What Africa needs is to sort out the problems of corruption and bad governance which have dragged so many African countries into the abyss. Solves these problems at national level and only after this has been done can the continent open up to free trade and free travel between nations. The vanguard panafricanist vision of a United States of Africa is grand on paper but a none-starter in practice. If brothers cannot work together what is there to suggest they will work together with a total stranger in the midst!