Africa my Africa. . . ON A recent Tuesday evening, President Ernest Bai Koroma's motorcade swung past St Mary's supermarket in the west of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. A motorcyclist came first. Mr Koroma followed in a Mercedes saloon. Most of the other six vehicles in the procession were gleaming black 70 Series Toyota Land Cruisers. The 70 Series wagon starts at $68,210. The World Bank puts Sierra Leone's GDP per capita at $325.
Mr Koroma's extravagant motorcade is modest compared with other African leaders. When Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni travels up-country he takes between eight or nine cars, a couple of mine-resistant South African armoured personnel carriers and a large silver Mercedes truck with a mobile lavatory. Occasionally mobile-phone signal dies when he arrives, suggesting that one of his vehicles also contains some kind of jammer.
For a trip to church some weeks ago, the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, travelled with three four-wheel-drives from the Special Security Service, two pickup trucks from the Liberian national police, and an off-roader carrying Nigerian troops from the United Nations peacekeeping mission. Long-time Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe travels with two motorcyclists up front who clear the road, arriving at high speed then stopping by their road, their lights flashing and sirens blaring. Three blacked-out Mercedes saloons follow, one with the number plate "Zim1". Finally two pick-up trucks appear, with ten or more armed guards in them. Which of these many cars Mr Mugabe himself travels in is unclear.
But even these processions fade into insignificance compared with the travel arrangements of King Mswati III of Swaziland. The Swazi regal convoy can be up to 20 cars long. The king's favourite vehicles include a $625,000 Rolls Royce, a $500,000 Maybach 62 and a BMW X6. He also has 20 Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman Guards, costing $250,000 each, many of them armoured. Warrior guards in traditional dress including an "Emajobo" or loin skin travel with the king. "These men emerge from cars already sprinting," said one local observer.
Many Africans are ambivalent about their leaders' extravagance; disgust at profligacy mingles with pride at the display. In Swaziland local people enthusiastically discuss the specifications of King Mswati's fleet. Swazi girls cite the post-wedding gift of a BMW X6 when explaining their dreams of becoming the king's fourteenth wife.
Do such motorcades keep African heads of state safe? One security expert is doubtful: "If there is a threat against the president, at the end of day you’re putting a bull's eye." Modern ambush techniques—a rocket-propelled grenade or roadside bomb to stop the vehicle, followed by small arms fire—can derail the most heavily armoured presidential saloon. That said, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's former president, was saved by his armoured car during an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa in 1995. Flying in for an African unity summit, his spy chief advised him to take his armoured limo. He duly flew it in to Ethiopia and within ten minutes of leaving the airport, was ambushed by three men with machine guys and a rocket-propelled grenade. Had he not been in his armoured behemoth, it would have been curtains.
When Mr Mubarak travelled his entourage included scores of cars. Any time he crossed Cairo, much of the capital would be roped off with traffic stopped for half an hour before he passed and 10,000 policemen standing along the route. Sharp shooters stood on the rooftops, a helicopter circled overhead and an ambulance accompanied him. A recent inventory of the presidential vehicle pool under Mr Mubarak released in Egyptian newspapers said that it included 950 vehicles. Other African leaders might well note, however, that Mr Mubarak is no longer in power.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2012/04/presidential-motorcades?fsrc=nlw|newe|4-6-2012|1317139|38132337| |
