"Who does not say a word consents", we often say. Even if it can be debated in some cases. Still, we cannot take refuge in silence in the face of certain situations without giving reason to this expression. For my part, there can be no procrastination or compromise in the face of the coup d'Etat in Niger and the need to restore constitutional order. Even if the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must finally reform or disappear. Africa in general and West Africa in particular has become the battleground between two visions of the world of the great powers, but above all two geopolitical visions which are strangely reminiscent of the Cold War period. And, unfortunately, whether we defend one position or another, this confrontation is only to the detriment of Africans themselves in the end. However, I will not support the “Pro-Russians”. And for good reason:
2 - Russia will save Africa: the biggest scam of all time
In a Documentary entitled Bill Browder's Crusade against Putin broadcast and accessible on ARTE, the American-British businessman who had to flee Russia gave a detailed account of Russian President Valdimir Putin's modus operandi with the Oligarchs. By handing over the big privatized Russian companies to them through sleight of hand, without them spending a penny, he made all the Russian Oligarchs his obligees. By taking over 50% of the shares in all the companies sold off to them. At the expense of the Russian populations whose heritage has been shared in this way to serve the cause and ambitions of Vladimir Putin, the new Tsar of Russia.
In the 1990s, his company was the largest investor in Russia, and Bill Browder held shares in Gazprom and other Russian state-run companies. At that time, Vladimir Putin would have become the richest man in the world by using his political power to force wealthy Russians who had made investments similar to his to simply give him their shares.
What Vladimir Putin did with the Oligarchs is the 50-50 solution, as it were. He would be the richest man in the world today if we lift a corner of the veil on his personal affairs. With a personal fortune that would add up to more than “200 billion dollars”. This gives credibility to the investigations of Alexis Navalny, one of the most irreducible political opponents and who has been languishing in prison since. Which had unveiled in an investigation as only he knows how to do in Russia one of his properties which are among the most impressive in the world. This did not prevent Vladimir Putin from officially declaring that he earns 133,000 dollars (112,000 euros) a year and only has a modest apartment in Moscow, according to Newsweek.
On the case of suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Bill Browder was heard on July 27, 2017. And the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management –a fund company investment and asset management company specializing in the Russian markets – to provide a lot of information about Vladimir Putin.
The man knows him only very well indeed. For having suffered his wrath and preferring to flee than to suffer the fate of many Russians or Oligarchs who have decided to stand up to the master of the Kremlin. Several of them having experienced unexplained accidents, poisonings, etc.
Imprisonment being, in this case, the lesser of the penalties. As was the case of the Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. After sharply criticizing Putin's methods, the one who was in his time the first fortune of Russia quickly paid the price. Arrested then thrown in prison without consideration. One way or another to show all the other Oligarchs what will happen to them, in the best of cases, if they dare to challenge the authority of the one who had decided to make great fortunes out of them subject to submission of course.
“Little by little after the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the other oligarchs of the country came to see Vladimir Putin”, explained Bill Browder to the American senators. They asked him what to do to avoid ending up in prison. “50%,” Putin replied. Not 50% for the Russian government or for the administration, 50% for Vladimir Putin.”
Wagner's creation has shed more light on the modus operandi and ambitions of all who participate in and benefit from this nebula of the Russian regime. And Yevgeny Prigojine's recent stab in the water says it all more.
While Vladimir Putin declared: “It's a stab in the back of our country and our people (…) What we are facing is nothing but betrayal. A betrayal caused by the disproportionate ambitions and personal interests " of Yevgueni Prigojine in his crazy trip to Moscow, the former boss of Wagner was no less tender towards him, the military leaders and the Oligarchs who surround him.
In his failed rebellion or coup against Vladimir Putin, Wagner's own leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, openly questioned the motive for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying: "War was necessary for a group of bastards to be promoted". And to accuse at the same time "the Russian Oligarchs" whom he said "needed the war", while kyiv was "ready for any agreement". He went even further by emphasizing that it was all about big money: “We were fighting in Africa because we were told we needed Africa. And after that they left her. They stole all the money that was to be used to help African countries.”
How could people of this ilk who have no scruples for their own country and their people come to help or save Africa and Africans? What did they do long before in Africa and which prevented them from coming to invest there to employ millions and millions of young Africans without jobs and who are dragging the devil by the tail every day that God does? With the exception of Wagner, which we know how it has worked up to now and which we don't know much about the profits it makes, let's take stock of Russian companies in Africa and their activities.
After having long denied any link between the Russian state and the Wagner group, Vladimir Putin was forced to recognize it and admit it officially and publicly. Surprised by the suddenness and brutality of the events that made his Power waver when Evgueni Prigojine reminded him that everyone defends his interests as best he can. And to declare: “Between May 2022 and May 2023, the State paid 86.262 billion rubles (or approximately 922 million euros at the current rate, editor’s note.) for the payments of the Wagner group”. He also promised the Russian people an investigation into how this sum was spent.
Who could still trust their words when they claim that they want to save Africa? Save Africa how? They want to finish it maybe yes, but above all not to save it? And you really have to be either very naive or collusive to pretend to believe it, in order to enjoy it as much as possible. By continuing to make Africans take bladders for lanterns.
In fact, come to think of it, it is not all of Africa that has a problem, it is rather Black Africa. It was Frantz Fanon who was quite right: it is the Black man who has a problem with himself. “The Black is a Black man; that is to say that thanks to a series of affective aberrations, he has established himself within a universe from which he will have to be removed”*1. And it is the same Frantz Fanon who also reproduced without his work this completely different truth from Francis Jeanson: "Any national of a nation is responsible for the actions perpetrated in the name of this nation". Who says better ! Understand who can. In any case, we are all responsible for what happens in our countries in West Africa individually and in our regional community collectively within ECOWAS.
It is not Vladimir Putin's Russia that will come to save Africa if Africans are unable to do so for themselves. It is simply a political, intellectual, economic and financial scam on the part of all those who participate in it. Nor is it France or the West that will come to save Africa. And it must be said, once and for all, so that it resonates eternally in the ears of African populations. It is not a question of shouting at the exploitation or predation of the West to supplement it with an even more opaque exploitation of the Russians to claim to be the heads of state or leaders who defend the interests of African peoples. And to justify the seizure of power by coups d'Etat. It is necessary to start by showing Transparency with the Russians by indicating to the people the nature of the relations and the contracts which bind them by the commitments of the leaders who contract them, the activities which the Russians carry out, the benefits for the African countries and the repercussions for African people. The postures which consist in condemning the Westerners to loathing are nothing but political infantilism, if they are not followed by concrete actions of good governance, at least economically and financially, on the part of the military in power. Unless we are told that Wagner is a Philanthropic Organization!... But that is not what Yevgeny Prigojine told the whole world.
Faced with current events, I prefer the courage of those who tell the Truth to be unpopular than the cowardice or trickery of those who tell the Lies to be popular or loved by their own people. Even if it means always walking alone behind the Forsaken flag. I will never be silent in front of a lie even less in front of heaps of lies, which is worse, for manipulation purposes which only divide Africans and make the bed of new internal wars. I don't need to be popular or loved by anyone. And even less by people who convey lies, not only because they are paid to do so but also because they nourish an unexplained hatred against France or the West, where one must in principle be sit around the table and tell each other the four truths, and bluntly if necessary.
As a journalist and what is more, a political journalist, it is inadmissible that I remain silent in the face of these heaps of lies that I see on social networks, even if this is directed against situations whose resentment and frustrations I fully understand they engender as an African or simply a human being. The global phenomenon of social networks and the turn taken by their use as vectors of communication but above all peddlers of FAKE NEWS more than anything else, is absolutely serious and dangerous for it to be necessary to look into it. My Filipino colleague Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize 2021, whom she shares with Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov, was right to answer bluntly the question posed to her by Heïke Schmidt on December 10, 2021:
"You often say that a dangerous virus threatens our freedoms all over the world… the virus of lies and misinformation. Whose fault is it ? To social networks?
Yes ! These technologies make the bed of all that is wrong in the world. Our information ecosystem is driven by decision makers who no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. They favor lies, because lies that stir up anger and hatred circulate faster and easier on social media. This must change. I have been saying it for a long time, we need to regulate all this. Frankly, it has to come from the United States. The European Union is at the forefront of this fight, with “digital services legislation” looking at how information is amplified by the power of algorithms. The United Kingdom is also preparing a law on information disseminated online. I think technology evolved even before governments and citizens realized that it can be used to insidiously manipulate us. And it has to stop."
Before taking Vladimir Putin as the Messiah of French-speaking Africa, young Africans who move here and there like puppets should first find out who is the journalist Dmitri Muratov, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya gazeta. It is not enough to shout: "Down with France" and to wave Russian flags to appear on social networks as a Hero or a Herald of I do not know what cause for the benefit of Africa, even when they do not know absolutely nothing about Vladimir Putin's policy both inside and outside his country. A fortiori the underside and other political and geopolitical issues.
By Marcus Boni Teiga
*This article only reflects my position as a journalist and citizen of ECOWAS and not that of the editorial staff, which is a veritable melting pot of lively and committed but always constructive exchanges and debates. Not to be confused.
*1- Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs, Paris, Seuil, Points Essais, 1971 [1952]
To be continued…
