Nairobi — The UN Secretary-General almost makes you proud to be an African. Focus, firmness of purpose and dignified eloquence, such was the ambience of the global Secretary-General when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday this week.

Had he only spared a thought for Africa, Mr Kofi Annan would have come off with full marks. Unfortunately, Africa was not even on the back burner. Nonetheless, in just under 10 minutes, Mr Annan carries you to the Middle East, where the Israeli-Palestinian Question has continued unabated. Half a century since the problem first reared its ugly head, there is no silver lining on this cloud of despond. The solution, says Mr Annan, lies in the formation of two independent states, co-existing side by side, in secure sovereign borders. One would have thought this was a common sense matter, but not so to the belligerents on both sides.

Mr Annan shifts gears and, suddenly, you are in Iraq. Saddam Hussein's military obduracy runs on, unbridled. Mr George Bush's choleric and near puerile response combines with this to place the Persian Gulf and the rest of the globe on the fringes of the Armageddon.

From the Persian Gulf, the UN Secretary-General swiftly carries you to Afghanistan, where, while celebrating the overthrow of the Al Qaeda, he nonetheless regrets the hopelessness into which the global community abandoned Afghanistan in the aftermath of the US-Soviet quest for control in the 1980s. It was this post-war international nonchalance that made Afghanistan fertile breeding ground for the pandemonium and terror merchants that are the Al Qaeda. Finally, his searchlight settles on South Asia. The congenital Kashmir issue has kept India and Pakistan busy, clawing at each other with no end in sight, again for another half a century. But although you have listened with keen and mounting sense of pride, and although you are wishing you were Mr Annan, you are disappointed that this African international civil servant says nothing about Mother Africa. Not once in his very expressive and stately presenta- tion is the word "Africa" mentioned. Is it the northern hemisphere in which he has lived for so long at work? We have heard that Africa is irrelevant in those parts of the globe. Is it out of some form of contagion that Mr Annan has forgotten about the various prongs of conflict in Africa? There is the Great Lakes conflict and there is the Horn of Africa wave of conflict. Then there is the Sierra Leone-Liberia-Guinea nexus and there is the conflict in the Maghreb, in Algeria and in Tunisia. Surely at least one of these would merit even the most fleeting mention by the Secretary-General? Or are the bellige- rents in Somalia and in Sudan not messing up suffi- ciently to draw Mr Annan's attention? Maybe we should not wonder so much that Somalia has lived on the periphery of civilization for more than one decade now? No matter, Mr Annan does a sterling job, sending Mr Bush an oblique and yet very clear message on America's self-proclaimed global prefecture. No nation, no matter how small or great, should be encouraged to go it alone on matters that call for concerted international action. He reminds Mr Bush of the credentials that allow him to address the General Assembly. They are all founded in multilateralism. Mr Annan describes himself as a multilateralist by principle, by charter, and by duty. He cautions those who would elect to walk the lonely and slippery path of unilateralism in matters of global concern. In essence, he is cautioning the choleric and blustering Mr Bush against the folly of itching to strike at Iraq, although the entire global community has called for restraint and for exhaustion of multilateral avenues. The one thing that tells Mr Bush apart from the rest of the global leaders is his irritable nature, blustering cowboy-style of eloquence and a dominating urge to bomb someone. If it is not Sudan he wants to bomb, he is ready to bomb Somalia. If it is neither, then he is spoiling for a fight with Saddam Hussein.

Mr Bush is serially defiant of the international mood and of wise counsel. The Arab world has cautioned him that nobody in that fraternity will join him should he begin unilateral strikes against Iraq. But Mr Bush is unrelenting. Is there every risk of this anger-and-muscle-driven gentle- man setting the whole world on fire some day, soon? But if Kofi Annan almost imbues you with a sense of pride, where does that leave everyone else? Our own domestic scene knocks you breathless. Certainly Rainbow Alliance member Kalonzo Musyoka knocks you breathless with his eloquence on why he would like to be Kenya's next President. Kalonzo is a portrait of composure, soft- spoken and erudite dignity and vision. In a TV talk show with Loius Otieno and Sophie Ikenye on Thursday, Kalonzo left you wondering why Kanu should elect to short-change herself of national goodwill by sticking to atavistic methods.

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