 As the world mourns the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, we take a look at the legacy of the anti-apartheid Aika. And former President Lucia Gondobasanja denies claims that he hates the people of the Niger Delta. This is Plus Quality, I am Mary Annacle. World leaders mourn South Africa's anti-apartheid hero and novel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died yesterday at the age of 90. President Bahari said his death had further created a void in the world in dire need of wisdom, integrity, courage and sound reasoning. He recalled the historic role that Archbishop Tutu played in the fight against minority rule and during physical assaults, jail terms and prolonged exile. Well joining us to discuss this is Foreign Affairs Editor Agogo Obo and of course International Relations Analyst Michael, thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for the time and opportunity. Great. All right Agogo, I'm going to start with you. It's interesting that world leaders are pouring in communes on the late Archbishop. But of course I mean most of us who have read, most of us who have heard, most of us who know about the late Archbishop, we know him for his tenacity, the man who stood side by side was the former South African president, the late Nelson Mandela. There are so many communes coming his way, but then we're looking at the legacy of the man. So let's start with the fact that this man held a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. I was just telling somebody, I was just a year old when this man got that Nobel Peace Prize. And what are the major legacies, aside from being a peace, you know, let's call him a peace fellow for South Africa. What are the other things that people can point to when we are talking about the late Archbishop? Yeah, I mean it's massive. The fact that that's from Tutu, popularly called the Arch, died at the age of 19, and yet people still say they miss him, makes you realize just how it was as a figure, not just in South Africa, but in the entire African continent. And there are many reasons why he was massive, people of them being the fact that he did fight side by side with the ANC in making sure that the evil, apartheid, rule and policy. Exactly. And there's major reasons. In fact, you know, even though he was a cleric, he was known more for his activism. And I remember living when Nelson Mandela was free, his two side by side with him. And interestingly, they both lived on the Lakaze street, one of the more popular streets in South Africa where Nelson Mandela and Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu stayed. So it's massive. And you're right. If you would call two popular Africans, one of the Nelson Mandela and the two would be Desmond Tutu. And no small wonder that throughout Mandela's time, after he was out of jail, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela did stick closely. Even after Mandela ended his tenure as president of Free South Africa, they still worked together in the eldest group, which came together to find ways in which they could bring about global peace. And interestingly here, I recommended that Mandela join the eldest then because he was just thinking that if Mandela invited anyone, the person would have a good reason for not being able to attend that sort of big, big, big event. And the fact that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, before the fight to end apartheid, he went to jail several times. He wasn't just speaking behind the pulpit, calling for an end to injustice against his people. He also led from the front in a protest that happened, and he was a key figure in all of those major events that happened in the 60s and 70s, leading up to Nelson Mandela's release. Even the transition period was one of the bloodiest pre-periods in South African history, the brief period just after Mandela was released from prison, and I repatried towards the elections. He also did mention a huge role. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu's role grew because with the eldest, he got involved in many things in the African continent. I remember the Darfur crisis was also a leading voice there. I remember in Kojibwa when I was there in 2012, 2011, the Laurent Bargole and Alassan Huatara over the election of O'Hala, he was here. So, I mean, he was everywhere. He had his proof things in every part of the continent, and finally, the Tutu Reconciliation Commission was privileged and honored to see him lead there, because he was just the best fit for such a role in ensuring that all of the injustices, if they had the opportunity to see anything, it would have come through Desmond Tutu, chairing the Tutu Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Interesting. Let me come to you, Michael. Looking at the time where the South Africans found themselves the apartheid regime, many people would say that it was not an easy fit to want to put yourself in the shoes of the archbishop at the time, but he did stand his ground. And many actually did say that, at the point the ANC sometime in the future lost its footing. He did not hide under any guise. He spoke truth to power. Now, looking at our world today and the kind of person that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was, is it easy to say that we can find those kinds of people in and around Africa, in the continent, you know, speaking truth to power, as opposed to what we saw in that day and age? Well, it's quite a big shoes to be filled by any other politician on the African continent. But to face relative with you, I would say that the success of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa, having presided over a united and peaceful country following the dangerous and troubled times of apartheid, much of the credit should be given to the revered Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The only difference between the world after independence and South Africa after independence was that there was a Desmond Tutu whose country that regardless of the atrocities that the African community suffered in the hands of the vital places, there was still the need for them to live together in the same jurisdiction. And if you remember when Desmond Tutu was made as chairperson of the South African Reconciliation Committee, that was charged or taxed by Nelson Mandela to prepare the grounds for a new united country made up of various people from various racial backgrounds. There was so much agitation, there was this clarion call for people who abused and violated the rights of people during the apartheid regime and by so making specific reference to the vital places to be punished, to be made to face the law. But people like Desmond Tutu saw beyond his time and preached for forgiveness. This is a man who embraced forgiveness, preached forgiveness to an entire nation and eventually the nation accepted this form of living together, peaceful coexistence, although today there are still some people in South Africa who believe that those who are responsible for the apartheid regime should have been made to face the law and so people criticized Desmond Tutu who was chair of the reconciliation for his failure to recommend very punitive measures against the vital places. But we all know that his decision to go against the popular will of the people then and rather advocate for peaceful coexistence has been the foundation of modern-day South Africa. So the man has a lot to offer and it's quite strange that having such an icon across the continent in Africa, politics has been winner takes all. When people win power, they want to use the power to intimidate attack their openness, surprise their openness and it's happening all around us. Uganda we have, you're wearing a saving, who has been a tyrant arresting almost everybody in the opposition. You go to Zimbabwe even after the death of Robert Mugabe and the atrocities that were unleashed against Morgan Changarai, even after Mugabe's death, the new president is perceiving the same path, go to Rwanda. Evidently we've seen some form of socio-economic developments, significant ones, that there is virtually no opposition in Rwanda. The country's parliament is rubbish and the country is ruled at the wishes and command of a single individual, a poor Kagami. It is replicated across the continent, go to Togu, virtually no opposition. Alasani Watara comes to power on the backdrop of a civil war that was triggered by the refusal of his assessor, Wurang Babu to leave power. And after he inherits the throne, he does the very same thing that clung his country into a civil war. So these are the kind of leaders we have today and it's quite unfortunate that they do not make us wonder if these leaders have not taken any leaf or borrowed leaf from what South Africa went through. Does this not also mean that our African leaders have not necessarily learned anything from the life of the archbishop even in his passing? Because we could add more and more names, I can just continue to reel out the names of African leaders who may not necessarily be leading their countries are right. So I'm asking, does this not mean that maybe our leaders and maybe even the people who are their followers are not necessarily interested in, you know, pivoting some form of change for the continent or redirecting the continent? I believe that the ordinary people on the continent, especially the continent's unemployed youth, Africa has a more youthful population than any continent on planet Earth. And majority of these youth are unemployed. And if people have to embark on such dangerous journeys on the sea in an attempt to reach Italy and other parts of Europe, then these people definitely are concerned, are worried and are demanding and clamoring for some form of change and socioeconomic development on the continent. But a big question is, are the leaders in charge, those are the helm of affairs, those with power, are they as interested in the change as the very followers or as the people that they are leading? For that I would say no. Some leaders on the continent, few of them, I have to be specific, have shown tendencies of leading grassroots of white socioeconomic changes that has, that will witness some form of socioeconomic development in the lives of people. But with the exception of those few people who go to Mauritius, they are doing so well, they go to Botswana, they are doing so well, Rwanda is doing so well socioeconomically. Ghana has been the star with regards to democratic credentials and socioeconomic development since it returned to multi-departive democracy in 1992. However, same cannot be said of other leaders on the continent. Nigeria should be the shining star of Africa. Majority of its youth are unemployed and the very medium where these youths use to express decent, to express their worry and frustration, Twitter, social media has been banned for more than a year even by the current president. I mean that's a whole kettle of fish and it's when we can go on and on and on about that. But let me quickly go back to Agogo. I want to believe that Desmond Tutu must have done something to religious leaders also across the continent because we see that this man was not just talking from the pulpit, he also went to the streets to do the same thing he was asking people to do. Now let's bring it home to Nigeria. We've seen a former vice presidential aspirant, Tunde Bakary speaking a lot lately. We've seen the likes of the senior pastor of the house on the Rock Church, Paula Deferasen speaking a lot. We also see a reverend father. What's his name now? The priest from Kaduna State, if I'm not mistaken, or Platu State, I can't get his name right now. But we've seen those kinds of people speaking up but can we say that religious leaders are taking that stand to not just preach about what's in the good book and when I say religious leaders, I'm not just talking about the Christian Dhamma, I'm talking about religious leaders across board. Can we see these religious leaders also coming into the forefront of pushing for some sort of change and asking for good leadership and governance on the continent? Let's start with Nigeria as a case study. Brilliant. When you think about what Desmond Tutu did with the Treaty on the Consumiation Commission, a lot of people expected that he would be like the Nuremberg sort of trial where you had those who were responsible for the program and faith that happened during the Second World War, faced lengthy jail times, some of them were killed, which would go back to Hitler's, Nazi, Germany and the rest of that, but unfortunately what you had in the Treaty on the Consumiation Commission did not give them the powers to convict people. It was just more of a way people should come out today and this is what happened and in fact people who were going to be accused, who were the so-called oppressors and those who victimized the people, signed a deal where if they said they did X, Y and Z in return for admitting to the guilt and saying we're sorry, they were going to be expropriated from any crime and charges because of a lot of criticism around that. I spoke with Bishop Machu Hassan Puka, who is the Bishop... Bishop Puka, I was trying to remember his name, yes. Yeah, who is the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese a couple of days ago on his impressions of at Bishop Desmond Tutu. He's been a South African Tutu because Nigeria has had a horrific military rule where a lot of people had suffered justice. Just one local government, the River State, which was the Oguni people in the aftermath of Kensaro River's trial and his execution, had 10,000 petitions. They had several thousands of petitions and he said, it went to South Africa, he had met at Desmond Tutu and he threw a card he fired during that time, the government of the state, who was an activist there, got the report of the Tutu Reconciliation Commission and then suddenly realized the same with the frustration Desmond Tutu had with the fact that many of those guys who were responsible for the atrocities that happened during the apartheid were not going to be convicted. The same thing happened with those people who were responsible for the atrocities, the gross violation of rights, the killings during the military era in Nigeria never appeared. In fact, some of them did not even appear before the Tribune and I think it was only Shaguno Basajer because he was incumbent president there that he had before the Tribune now. 20 years down the line, look at what has happened, whether the rights in Nigeria have been put in any sort of way. Bishop Hooker says, yeah, I mean, being a moral compass for what he does by criticizing governments, interested in the same government that had worked arm-in-arm with him, criticizing the military rule and the transition democratic rule in Nigeria. Many of them are pointing fingers back at him saying, why are you criticizing us when this is happening? So, yes, there's a legacy. People look at, people try to replicate what happened with the Reconciliation Commission in Nigeria, for example, and unfortunately at the Puta panel, the report was never, was never followed through. Many of the people who were found guilty, who were entitled, but many of the crimes never went or found themselves in court because somebody went to court and then they could put a seal on it and nothing could happen afterwards. All the people like Rwanda did trial their own system, they called it Gachacha and they did take a number of kids. I remember Gachacha was a local system where they would come out and talk with their oppressors and say, this person did this against me. And the local system found punishment for these people, juries out whether that was successful or not. But I think that at the heart of this, which is what there's for people who talk about, is the social justice component. If people still feel a wrong field in justice about how they were treated, they still feel that the social and economic rights are still being abused, it's always going to be difficult for you to win them over. No matter how hard we try and second for reforms democratically, that isn't dealt with. It was people who tried to find ways to express themselves and seek other means of getting their rights obeyed. Unfortunately, I hear people talk about this rule, which is simply unconscionable that we can talk of the sort of mutual rule when we think about the trust that happened during the mutual era, compared to where we are as democratic nations and the African continent. It is a place we shouldn't be thinking of. Well, back to Michael, I'm just going to piggyback on what Agogo has said, that the people have to be allowed to express their feelings. The people have to be able to get some form of dividends of democracy or governance. Let's go back to what you said, Michael. You mentioned briefly the Twitter ban in Nigeria, and of course, you do remember, because you and I have spoken about what happened on October 20, 2020. Of course, the average Nigerian now does not necessarily think about protesting anymore, because of course, we are still traumatized by what happened. And if you've been following the stories, you also know that it's been rubbish. And I think it's a few days before the end of the year. We still haven't heard anything. It doesn't look like anywhere on the radar that the government is going to do anything about it and the blood that was shed, because it seems like they're trying to rubbish it. So how do people, and this is not just in Nigeria. This is a detail for everything. We saw what happened during the elections in Uganda. We saw what Bobby Wine had to go through, how his wife and his family was treated. We're seeing this in many parts of Africa. If Africans feel like there's a plaster or a tape over their mouth and they're unable to speak or that their hands are being tied behind their backs, how do we get good governance in the first instance? And secondly, we're asking that the West does not paint a picture of us that makes us look like a dark continent. But are we also not helping to paint the continent black, especially our leaders? That's an interesting accession. You see, the problem we currently have in Africa is that we have a very youthful population who wants more, who wants to see things happening in Africa as witness in other parts of the world. And these young people are being led by very old people who are out of touch with reality, basically above or beyond the age threshold of these youthful populations. So the kind of people living in Africa have no idea what governance is in the 21st century, what science, technology, social innovations are in the 21st century, and the kind of people being ruled, majority of whom, who of course are the youth, also want to see happening on the continent, what is happening elsewhere in North America, even in other parts of Asia, in Latin America. So number one, much talk has been about the Western media painting the very dark picture of the continent. Of course, there are some Africans in Libya, in South Africa, Ghana, in Botswana, Mauritius, they are living better lives than people in some parts of Europe, in some parts of Southeast Asia, Latin America, even in some parts of North America and Central America. Why is this picture not being shown to the whole world, rather than images of war-torn countries in Africa? But who are the very people responsible for these images? To the best of my knowledge, when innocent young protesters were shot at, at the Lucky Toe Gate, it wasn't the Western media who fired those weapons. It was the Nigerian army and police under the, acting under the command of the Nigerian government, or who so-ever that was in charge, when people who were demonstrating by electoral reforms in Togo, the leader to the country's presidential elections, were shot, were killed, some were arrested arbitrarily without any form of trial and are still in detention. All these atrocities were unleashed against the African people by their own leaders. So one way or the other, we are the very people painting our continent black to the rest, to the black to the rest of the world. When two brothers or family members decide to fight, outside this may only observe and report to others just as they saw it. And it becomes quite unfortunate when they even report beyond what they saw. And that is the reality that we are having now. Now, the very people who are advocating for change, should they give up? Because these same dictators, despots, heavy-handed, old, out-of-touch leaders that are in charge. No, we shouldn't give up. Nigeria has a very youthful population. Ghana has a very youthful population. If you look at the trade-dominant economies on the continent, and by that I'm talking about Nigeria, I'm talking about South Africa, and I'm talking about Egypt, the populations of these countries is predominantly youthful. And these are the three countries which should be leading Africa's socioeconomic transformation. We saw just how America's influence in North America transformed the world of North America and even Western Europe after the first and second world war, when they introduced the martial plan to basically reconstruct, refinance, Europe that had been ravaged by war. So Nigeria, for the South Saharan Africa, Nigeria and South Africa, and Egypt for North Africa, I believe that the youth and people in these countries, despite the very, very expression of dictatorship around them, the youth should continue fighting for more. They shouldn't give up. They should keep fighting, and you'll get the type of governance and resources that we want to see on the continent. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, time is not our friend, but I want to say thank you to Foreign Affairs Editor, Aga Aga Obo, and International Relations Analyst, Maika and Ketia. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break now. When we return, former president of Lusheguang Basinjot denies claims that he hates the people of the Niger Delta. Stay with us. We'll be right back.