At the beginning of this year, we were all woken up with pictures and stories of violent clashes, murders and horrors happening in Kenya after the disputed presidential elections between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. The focus of the whole world was on Kenya, a very stable democracy until after the December 27th 2007 elections when the situation deteriorated into one of tribal violence. Deaths of over 1000 people and 25,000 internally displaced persons crowned it all until retired UN secretary General Koffi Annan brought the two leaders to agree to a government of national unity.

After calm returning to Kenya, with a Koffi Annan peace deal, attention then shifted to Zimbabwe were presidential elections were due to take place towards the end of March 2008. Speeches full of hate and threats by President Mugabe intended to greatly discredit the opposition and intimidate the civilian population into voting the Mugabe government into office for another term after 28 years of rule. Several people were beaten, intimidated and displaced in a country facing the highest inflation in the whole world, at 100,000%.

And now, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the largest African economy, embroiled in migrant attacks spread from Johannesburg to Cape Town, where 50 people are confirmed dead and over 25,000 displaced from their homes.

All this chaos in Africa is happening barely half way through the year. What does this mean for rest of Africa? According to the local daily, Newvision, Mr. James Magode Ikuya, an NRM national Executive council member says that "African leaders are failing Africans because they are not honest to their people. If African leaders do not stop the rhetoric of waiting for the economy to grow to solve people's needs, they should not be surprised when the whole of Africa is covered with revolts."

Therefore, these recent events must serve as an eye opener to the rest of the African countries, especially leaders, who have a commitment to make society enjoy better conditions than the way it was in the colonial days.