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"I told you so" The Oil for Food Probe Has Cleared Kofi Annan of Wrong Doing By Dr. Wunmi Akintide On December 16, 2004, I did a piece titled "Kojo Annan's Indiscretion may have hurt his Father"... posted on the Internet by most of the Nigerian Web sites. I was reacting to the orchestrated effort by Senator Norman Coleman of the United States and people who think like him, to run the best African Secretary-general out of town before the allegations against him were fully investigated. I forcefully deposed in that article the Secretary-general , in deference to "Due Process and conventional wisdom"ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Three months later, that is precisely what Paul Volcker has done in his very objective probe of the scandal. We now know what we have always suspected that Kofi Annan could not have knowingly aided and abetted his son's foolhardiness and indiscretion by seeking to mar the good name and reputation of his famous father by pulling a fast one with a Company doing business with the United Nations headed in a quasi executive capacity by his own father. Kojo should have known better and should have resisted the temptation to dent the image of his father, a world-famous African diplomat that has done so much already to redeem the good name of all Africans in positions of responsibility around the world. I personally took exception to the campaign of calumny, spearheaded by the Bush Administration at the time, to bring down Kofi Annan. I saw that as an affront to the whole of the African continent. Kofi Annan had become Secretary-general at a time that Africa was clearly traveling on the fast lane in Geo Politics, as I dared suggest in my very first article extolling the virtues of the Nobel Peace Laureate Kofi Annan as the first pure Black Secretary-general of the United Nations. I had revealed in that article how the black race has come of age, in my judgment, with distinguished Africans like Nelson Mandela, Cardinal Arinze, Desmond Tutu, Four star General Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice and Kofi Annan, to mention a few, holding the whole world by storm by rising to the very top of their chosen field in their different countries including the United States. With Colin Powell as Secretary of State and Condi Rice as Security Adviser of the only world super power, I thought the black race has never had it so good. I therefore saw the attempt to disgrace Kofi Annan out of office as having more far reaching implications and ramifications than the few individuals in the Republican Party, pushing for Kofi Annan's resignation were willing to admit.. I particularly resent the notion of wanting to rubbish Kofi Annan and putting him in the same fox hole as the erstwhile Butcher of Baghdad who had actually engineered the scandal, for his own selfish interest. I saw Kofi Annan as playing his role as Secretary-general with equanimity, courage and finesse that are rare to find in most African leaders. Without pulling punches, he had made a forceful argument that, the war in Iraq, despite its seemingly victorious outcome was an illegality. It is the same verdict that the rest of the world, including many in America, are now coming to terms with after the defeat and incarceration of Saddam. It is now clear that Saddam was only faking weapons of mass destruction he no longer had, and that President Bush had gone to War for the wrong reasons, but probably for the right cause. Colin Powell , the number 3 man in the Bush Administration at the time, has admitted that much in his post mortem confessions on the Iraq War. There were no weapons of Mass Destruction, but the claim had to be made to get majority of Americans to reluctantly come on board. I am pleased that the Volcker Report would seem to have validated much of what we have predicted and articulated in the article in question. I was even expecting the Volcker Report to find or dig up some evidences to show that Kofi Annan, at some point, did call his son to question, and to warn him about possible perception of impropriety on all of his indirect dealings with the United Nations, probably more forcefully than he has admitted doing in a mea culpa letter addressed to Paul Volcker ,following the release of his Report. That I see as an act of courage by a man who has nothing to hide. One of the most difficult tasks that most parents could ever face is being placed in a situation to indict or investigate your own child ,on a matter like that. Very few parents would pass that litmus test, especially in a situation where the son was deliberately keeping his father in the dark about the nitty gritty of what has actually transpired between him and the Company in question. I think it was regrettable that Kofi did not find out sooner the very deep involvement of his son in the affair until the scandal has broken out. We thank God that the Volcker Report like the rest of the world, has not decided to visit the sins of the son on the father on this occasion. I can only hope that other African leaders in similar situations all over Africa and the world at large would learn their lessons from the Kojo affair and his father. I cannot end this piece without recalling similar stories in Nigeria where children of our current President and others before him are known to constantly abuse their privilege by using their father's name and position to entrench corruption and nepotism in our country. Having said, I like to end the piece by associating myself with the quick position taken by the Bush Administration to join the mainstream of the international community which had refused to rush to judgment on Kofi Annan until the outcome of the Volcker Report is known. I hope the Norm Coleman of this world would now let sleeping dogs lie on crying wolf where there is none. Kofi Annan would not only complete his term at the UN, he, like U Thant and Dag Hammaskjold, would set an example in purposeful leadership that all future Secretary-generals would want to look back upon as a worthy benchmark. I doff my hat to Paul Volcker for his brilliant and timely report. I rest my case. Dr. Wunmi Akintide.
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