The man who demystifies Africa’s political elite clubs

There is normally nothing much to read in between the lines when a Head of State skips a regional leaders’ Summit once (or even twice) a year. It happens all the time for reasons that range from ill health to national emergencies.
But the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) cannot explicitly, or tacitly, claim or pretend that by choosing to consecutively snub the bloc’s two crucial meetings, Tanzanian President John Magufuli is not sending them some significant message.
This week, Dr Magufuli decided to once again stay away—this time from Mbabane Swaziland, where fellow Sadc leaders converged for the 36th Summit of Heads of State and Government that began yesterday, and is expected to end today. Fifteen member states of the regional bloc,  including the Sadc Executive Secretariat, are in attendance.
He instead sent his second-in command, Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan, to represent him.
This is the second key Sadc meeting that he has chosen not to attend in three months. On June 28, this year, he sent Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa to the Double Troika Summit of the Heads of State and Government in Gaborone, Botswana.

Elite club of politicians
It is also interesting that President Magufuli has not seen the urgency of being formally introduced to the other elite club of politicians known as the African Union (AU).
He has skipped two of them so far—the 26th and 27th AU summits in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Kigali, Rwanda, respectively.
In a manner of speaking, the Tanzanian President is yet to be initiated. He is still to go through the rite of passage that gives one standing and credibility in a community in which the norm is for those in the corridors of power to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.   
The irony though is that, far from the ritual chanting at such elaborate gatherings of the political elite, he somehow has become the “uninitiated’ Man of the Moment—just for now forget the backlash back home where he has banned “unnecessary” political activity.
His message is loud and clear—just that fellow members of the elite club are now hard of hearing. By not attending the Mbabane meeting, where he was not only to be introduced as the “new kid on the bloc”, but also assume chairmanship of the Sadc Troika on Politics, Defence and Security, he puts paid to a lot of myths about these elite political clubs in their current form.
In a typical world, by snubbing his own combined welcome party and  grand crowning ceremony simply because he wants to work on more pressing housekeeping duties in his own backyard, the Tanzanian leader has not only once again proved to be ‘un-African’, but also, he may have “missed” a perfect opportunity to promote Brand Magufuli outside the borders of his vast nation.
Elsewhere, this is the story— ‘President attends crucial Sadc meeting’. Nice photo here. Wide smile there. Meanwhile, home is burning with a major political and economic crisis. But does it really matter?
For many of the Heads of State currently in Swaziland self tend to come first before anything else, despite what it costs their nations.
And now it seems meetings of the African Union and related regional blocs provide such a good distraction from the sad reality back home. A little wonder the AU and Sadc have been called all sorts of ugly names. These so-called high-level meetings have in many cases remained there -- at the highest level and not able to trickle down to benefit the ordinary person.        
What good is salt when it has lost its flavour? The Tanzanian leader could be right—maybe these Heads of State summits are much ado about nothing, after all.

Daniel Muhau is a revise editor with The Citizen.