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According to John Akokpari
of the Organisation of So- Social
Sciences Research in
cial Eastern and Southern Africa
(OSSREA) Newsletter the first
challenge that the Peer Review
Mechanism (PRM) initiatives
of NEPAD is that States can either
sign up or stay out at any
given time of their choice. Even
those that joined the project could
withdraw at any given time without any
severe strain to their diplomatic credentials.
Such an arrangement therefore
raises questions on how a country with
gross human rights violations could be
made to reform if it would have withdrawn
from the project or simply refused
to sign up for membership.
Compounding
this problem is that the PRM
has no instruments of subjecting states
to diplomatic, economic or any form of
punitive sanctions in the event of poor
or non-compliance with the established
principles. This policy that fails to bind
countries to the project could be one of
the issues that have discouraged many
countries from joining the project.
Additionally,
there is also a perception that
this PRM could be a tool abused by
stronger states or economies to meddle
into the affairs of weaker ones. This
is what could be attributed to the fact
that hitherto, of the 53 African member
states, less than twenty are officially registered
with the PRM.
According to Akokpari, the dearth
of knowledge about NEPAD on the
African continent on which the PRM
is based is a great challenge. This, in
Akokpari, is exacerbated by the fact
that; “nowhere in the AU’s 53 countries,
including Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and
South Africa, the leading proponents,
was anything close to a referendum contemplated,
let alone held to determine
the public acceptability of NEPAD”.
The effect of this was that many Africans
were denied an opportunity to
learn about what NEPAD is and its tenets.
This then resulted in limited knowledge
on the part of African citizenry on
NEPAD’s mandate, which then translated
into lack of knowledge about the
PRM. In fact, it is in record that many
parliamentarians in many African
countries including literate parliamentarians
in Nigeria and Ghana do not
know anything about NEPAD.
Another disturbing challenge is that
of African countries holding a suspicion
that foreign imperialists could use
the PRM as a control mechanism of
many unknowing African states. This
problem could at an internal level be
compounded by the fact that the two
economic giants of Africa, South Africa
and Nigeria, being the major financiers
of the project, function as remote
controllers of its impetus. The danger
with such skewed balances of
power is that those with financial
muscles would claim monopoly
on the definition of what Good
Governance (one major tenet of the
PRM) is.
The biggest challenge of all in this
project is the historical fear and failure
by many African leaders to challenge
and condemn their peers that grossly violate
human rights amidst voluminous production of damning reports about
their behaviors. Such examples can be
gleaned from; the grotesque human
rights violations prevailing in Sudan,
the unfolding crisis in Zimbabwe and
the bleak and dark legacies of Abacha,
Rawlings etc.
It seems as if there is Presidential
solidarity in Africa that defines
what seems to look like a Presidential
brotherhood club. In Akokpari’s view,
‘This lack of “tough stance” by African
leaders on human rights violations,
even in countries across their borders,
is a cautionary signal that it is extremely
dangerous to place undue expectations
on the PRM in its bid to promote good
governance in Africa’.
Judging by these few insights, including
the ones that relate to environmental
crimes, it is difficult to see Africa improving
from the PRM. The principle
however sounds noble and grand while
the actual participation and drive leave
a lot to be desired.
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