By Charles Onyango-Obbo
Recently, Namibia expelled four photographers - three French and one South African - for trying to take pictures of Angelina Jolie, who is eight months pregnant with Brad Pitt's child. Hollywood's golden couple is in Namibia, where Jolie is expected to give birth to their first child. Steven Mulundu, a senior immigration official, said it was the first time since Namibia's independence in 1989 that journalists had been forced to leave.
Namibian Prime Minister Nahas Angula - no less - defended the move, saying the couple should be left alone. And what did the big man have to say about Jolie's bodyguards, who are alleged to have threatened and harassed local journalists in the wealthy enclave where the couple is camped? He didn't expel them.
He considered it enough to warn them not to take the law in their hands. This delivering of babies seems to be becoming a sensitive matter of national security in Africa. Not too long ago, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni put his daughter and daughter-in-law on the presidential jet so they could deliver his grandchildren in Germany, safely out of harm's way.
The president reacted particularly angrily to criticisms of such use of taxpayers' money. Fortunately, his daughter later spoke to the media about the matter with a humility and understanding of the public outrage that embarrassed some of us who had made withering remarks about the baby-birth flights.
Now we have the Namibian government providing state security to Jolie's pregnancy and impending delivery. But of course, back in the US, where Jolie pays her taxes, she wouldn't get this kind of treatment from the government. This harks back to the era, barely 10 years ago, when African governments would go to the Paris Club meetings to beg for money, and the proceedings would be a classified matter, information about which would be concealed even from parliamentarians back home.
THESE DAYS, THE DONORS AND THE World Bank have become quite transparent about these talks. In some countries, like Uganda and Kenya, the talks are open and long press releases are issued. In others, however, there remains a lot of secrecy. Except, of course, if you have access to a computer with an Internet connection.
All you have to do is log on to the World Bank website, and all the information you seek will be there. Defence expenditure remains a difficult area. In most of Africa, everything is top secret. But only to the citizens of the country. As used to happen in the past, the purchase of the military hardware will be reported in the Western media and on websites that specialise in these matters.
The CIA website is quite helpful if you want to know stuff about many countries' militaries (except America's of course). But even better, subscribe to Jane's Defence Weekly, or the publications of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The IISS's annual report on the balance of power in the world will give you a very detailed list of world armies and their equipment.
THANKS TO THE INTERNET, AGAIN, you can then find all the technical descriptions of most African weapons and formations. The result is that a curious and wired citizen in Africa today, can have more information about the war preparedness of his country's army, than the minister of defence or president in the government that refuses to release the information to the public.
At least on this one, Museveni got it right when he said you cannot have military secrets, if you don't make your own weapons. And we never shall as long as a prime minister somewhere thinks that the best use of his time is explaining why his government believes the most profitable expenditure of the taxpayer's money is to guarantee privacy to a pregnant Hollywood star.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group's managing editor for convergence and new products.
