News that former Trade and Industry Minister, Joshua Setipa, is in the running to become the next secretary general of the Commonwealth should uplift us all.
It is a rare piece of good news amidst our perennial economic and political vicissitudes.
Not only will becoming secretary-general of the Commonwealth be good for Mr Setipa’s own professional health, it will be very significant for Lesotho and the entire southern African region. It will catapult Lesotho onto the world stage.
The government must thus pull out all the stops to ensure that Mr Setipa gets this important post.
Mr Setipa will be the first southern African to hold the top post if he is successful. That will be good for this entire sub region, from where it has become rare to get good news amid continuous economic stagnation and gloom.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 mostly former British colonies, including Lesotho, from Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific. It is a strategic, international body that promotes noble values and positive welfare of its member states. It ranks alongside other important states groupings like the Arab League, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organisation of American States and others that address hemispheric, sectorial issues. Having one of our own at the helm of such a body is a worthy cause.
Mr Setipa is a deserving candidate, not only because he is from southern Africa, a region that has never produced a secretary general of the Commonwealth, but because he is himself eminently qualified. He has served in key international bodies like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at significant levels. He was recently the managing director of the United Nations Technology Bank. At home he was a hard working cabinet minister and once led the all too important Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC). He is deserving of the Commonwealth top post on account of his proven managerial and administrative pedigree. He is in our view a future and inevitable Prime Minister of Lesotho. The good experience and contact book he will garner as Commonwealth secretary general will be good for the Kingdom when his time to lead the country arrives.
The first and only African holder of the top Commonwealth post, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, was from Nigeria and held the position from 1990 to 2000. It is high time Africa got a second bite of the cherry.
It is however discouraging that West African states in the Commonwealth are intent on fielding extra candidates to compete against Mr Setipa instead of acknowledging that their region has already had its own time at the helm and must back an eminently qualified southern African.
We are nonetheless encouraged by the fact that Foreign Affairs and International Relations Principal Secretary, Thabang Lekhela, recognizes the importance of consolidating regional support for Mr Setipa first before embarking on a campaign in the rest of the Commonwealth.
If SADC– most of whose member states are also Commonwealth members – can be lobbied to agree to back Mr Setipa, it will make Lesotho’s campaign for Mr Setipa in the rest of the Commonwealth much easier. Getting SADC’s endorsement of Mr Setipa should not present much difficulties. After all, it is in the region’s own interests to have one of its own at the helm of a significant world body.
But nothing should be left to chance. The government must establish a viable campaign team that must forthwith lobby SADC and the rest of the African states to back Mr Setipa before embarking on a campaign in the rest of the Commonwealth.
Any West African candidates or any other potential Africans must be persuaded to withdraw in favour of Mr Setipa.
“In the spirit of regional rotation and equity, we believe it is the turn of Southern Africa or the SADC region to occupy that high post,” Mr Lekhela said this week.
We couldn’t agree more. Let’s rally behind Mr Setipa. He epitomizes the good quality of human resources that Lesotho is capable of producing and the best that this country can offer.
