From third world to first

In this series, Angelo Izama brings you a slightly edited account of Lee Kuan Yew's experience in the Commonwealth club of nations to which both Singapore and Uganda belong

Former Singapore Prime Minister [ 1959-1990] has been one of the most influential persons in the lightening speed with which Singapore moved from " The Third World to First". During his 31-year reign in office, he was viewed as an inspiring force in the steps, political and economic, that Singapore took to become one of the most advanced countries in Asia. Many of Yoweri Museveni's advisors and assistants including himself have quoted his work. One cabinet Minister described Mr Lee's famous book, From Third World to First as a "bible" by the bedside of President Museveni.

 

In October 1965, Singapore was admitted as the 22nd member of the Commonwealth. This membership was valuable. For a newly independent country, it provided links to a network of governments whose institutions were similar and whose leaders and officials shared a common background. They were all English-speaking governments, with British civil administration practices and legal, judicial, and educational systems.

Soon after we joined, the prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, called a conference of Commonwealth prime ministers for 11 January 1966 in Lagos, to discuss Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) was then a self-governing colony with a white minority of 225,000 in control of 4 million black Africans. I decided to go.

On the plane making the seven-hour flight from London to Lagos were several other prime ministers and presidents of the smaller Commonwealth countries.

We were greeted [At the airport], inspected a guard of honour in turn, and then whisked into Lagos. It looked like a city under siege. Police and soldiers lined the route to the Federal Palace Hotel. Barbed wire and troops surrounded it. No leader left the hotel throughout the two-day conference.

The night before the meeting, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, whom I had visited two years before, gave us a banquet in the hotel. I [was] seated opposite a hefty Nigerian, Chief Festus, their finance minister. The conversation is still fresh in my mind. He was going to retire soon, he said. He had done enough for his country and now had to look after his business, a shoe factory.

As finance minister, he had imposed a tax on imported shoes so that Nigeria could make shoes. Raja [Singapore Minister] and I were incredulous. Chief Festus had a good appetite that showed in his rotund figure, elegantly camouflaged in colourful Nigerian robes with gold ornamentation and a splendid cap. I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing to a different set of rules.

When the meeting opened on 11 January, Prime Minister Abubakar spoke. He had summoned this conference urgently to discuss the unlawful declaration of independence by Rhodesia [Now Zimbabwe], which called for action from the British. The vice president of Zambia, Reuben Kamanga, spoke next, and then Harold Wilson [Prime Minister of Britain]. It was clear Wilson was not able and not going to use force against lan Smith's illegal independent regime. It would be politically costly in British popular support, and would also cause economic damage to Rhodesia and the surrounding African countries.

On the second day I spoke. Three hundred years ago, the British set out to occupy North America, Australia, and New Zealand and to colonise much of Asia and Africa. They settled in the more desirable regions of Asia and Africa as conquerors and masters. But in 1966, a British prime minister was talking on equal terms with heads of government of former colonial territories. It was a continually evolving relationship.

Sir Albert Margai, prime minister of Sierra Leone, had said that only an African could feel passionately and be concerned about [Zimbabwe]. I could not agree with him that only Africans should be concerned with this problem. We were all interested parties and concerned. Singapore was closely associated with Britain in defense. If Britain were to be branded as a supporter of lan Smith's illegal seizure of power, my position would become difficult.

I disagreed with Dr Milton Obote, prime minister of Uganda, that Britain had been reluctant to bring the Europeans in Zimbabwe to heel or to have the UN impose sanctions because of a diabolical British plot to give lan Smith time to consolidate his regime. It was unhelpful to talk in terms of racist divisions between white settlers and immigrants.

I sympathized with the Africans, but I also saw the difficulties a British prime minister faced if he had to send British troops to quell a rebellion of British settlers who had been fully self-governing for decades since 1923. The issue now was to make progress on the method and the time for achieving majority rule for [Zimbabwe]
One advantage of these Commonwealth leaders' meetings was that however big or small your country, when you did intervene, you were judged on your merits.

Wilson later wrote in his memoirs that "It [conference] was hard-hitting, though somewhat repetitive, as one African leader after another sought to prove how much more African he was than his neighbour. When we left for our next stop, Accra, the capital of Ghana, there was more security along the route to the airport as tension had increased in Lagos in the four days since we arrived.

Three days after we arrived in Accra, we were told by our hosts that there had been a bloody coup in Lagos. Prime Minister Abubakar had been assassinated and so had Chief Festus. An Ibo army major from eastern Nigeria, where oil was being discovered, led the coup, which killed many Hausa Muslims from northern Nigeria. The major said, "he wanted to get rid of rotten and corrupt ministers and political parties." This coup put Major-General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Irons into power, but it was to be followed by many other coups.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's president did not rejoice at the news. He himself had had a narrow escape about two years before, just before I visited him in January 1964. By 1966, "Osagyefo" (Redeemer), as Nkrumah was called, had recovered enough of his bounce to give me dinner with some of his senior ministers and a bright young vice-chancellor of his university. This man, Abraham, was only about 30 years old, had taken a First in Classics at Oxford and was a fellow of All Souls' College. Nkrumah was very proud of him. I was impressed, but wondered why a country so dependent on agriculture should have its brightest and best do Classics- Latin and Greek.

On our arrival at Accra, the person who came up to the aircraft to greet me was Krobo Edusei, the minister for presidential affairs. He had gained notoriety as a corrupt minister who had bought himself a golden bedstead, a story much publicised in the world press. Nkrumah defused the scandal by restricting Krobo's portfolio to looking after government hospitality. On my second night in Accra, he took me to a nightclub in Accra. He proudly announced that he was the owner and that all VIPs would enjoy their evenings there.

One month later, on 24 February, as Nkrumah was being welcomed with a 21-gun salute in Beijing, China, an army coup took place in Accra. People danced in the streets as the army leaders arrested leading members of Nkrumah s government.

My fears for the people of Ghana were not misplaced. Notwithstanding their rich cocoa plantations, gold mines, and High Volta dam, which could generate enormous amounts of power, Ghana's economy sank into disrepair and has not recovered the early promise it held out at independence in 1957.

The news I read saddened me. I never visited Ghana again. Two decades later, in the 1980s, Quaison Sackey [Ghana's ex-Foreign Affairs Minister] saw me in Singapore. He had been arrested and released in one of the innumerable coups. He wanted to purchase palm oil on credit from Singapore, on behalf of the Nigerian government, which promised to pay after they had held their elections.

I said that was a private business deal he had to strike. He picked up a living by using his contacts with African leaders of neighbouring states. Ghana, he said, was in a mess. I asked after the bright young vice-chancellor, Abraham. Quaison Sackey reported that he had entered a monastery in California. I felt sad. If their brightest and best gave up the fight and sought refuge in a monastery, not in Africa but in California, the road to recovery would be long and difficult.

I was not optimistic about Africa. In less than 10 years after independence in 1957, Nigeria had had a coup and Ghana a failed coup. I thought their tribal loyalties were stronger than their sense of common nationhood. This was especially so in Nigeria, where there was a deep cleavage between the Muslim Hausa northerners and the Christian and pagan southerners.

As in Malaysia, the British had handed power, especially the army and police, to the Muslims. In Ghana, without this north-south divide, the problem was less acute, but there were still clear tribal divisions. Unlike India, Ghana did not have long years of training and tutelage in the methods and discipline of modern government.

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