Southern Africa’s political overlords had their first regional shindigs of 2022 early this month. The events, hosted by Malawi, whose new leader offered much hope initially but is proving to be an utter disappointment, were remarkable – not for what was discussed, but for the elephants in the room that appear to not have featured on the agenda.

The events were a summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, convened on January 11 with President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chairperson, and an extraordinary summit of the SADC heads of State and government, which was held the following day.

The thrust of the two get-togethers, if a post-summit communiqué is anything to go by, was the ongoing insurgency in northern Mozambique, to which the SADC responded last year by deploying a regional force to fight alongside the Mozambican army and troops dispatched by far-away Rwanda.

While the SADC leaders were crowing about the SADC Mission in Mozambique’s “successful operations and for achievements recorded since the deployment of the mission in July last year”, an independent security analyst was telling a Johannesburg talk radio host that the regional intervention would eventually fail. To his mind, the insurgents are simply biding their time and will definitely strike the moment the SADC troops are withdrawn – they cannot be in Mozambique forever.

By way of context, Mozambique’s far north bore the brunt of the bloody armed struggle against Portuguese colonialism, which ended in 1975. While the region has a significant natural resource endowment – including gas and oil deposits, which are currently being developed – it is the least developed in the country, with rife unemployment, especially among the youth. Naturally, the locals are disaffected with the government in Maputo, a state of affairs Islamist elements exploited, giving rise to the ongoing security crisis.

As the security analyst pointed out, the insurgency would not have arisen had the Mozambican authorities ensured that no communities were left behind while the rest of the country developed. Many in northern Mozambique, particularly in the district of Cabo Delgado, feel alienated and it will take a huge effort, if not a miracle, for them to trust their own government once again.

Many members of the public in that region are reportedly sympathetic to the insurgents and, according to the security analyst, even elements within the Mozambican army are known to be divulging information that may compromise the multi-country effort to crush the insurgency. It’s for this reason, he added, that the Rwandans prefer to go it alone instead of working closely with Mozambican troops.

Expressed differently, the analyst was saying that those in authority should adhere to good governance practices to avoid crises like the one we are witnessing in northern Mozambique. I doubt that this topic was broached as our leaders met behind closed doors in the Malawian city of Lilongwe.

That was not the only elephant in the summit hall. The issue of eSwatini, where untold brutality has been unleashed against those clamouring for full democracy, cried out for attention but no one seemed to care. None of the 16 points in the final communiqué mentioned the crisis in our neighbouring country.

Perhaps our leaders are not fazed by the fact that, in 2021, the eSwatini protests – which, in my book, were justified – claimed many casualties. The country’s Human Rights Commission puts the figure at 46, but political parties and civil society groups insist that the actual tally is more than 100.

Good governance and the plight of the poor people of eSwatini should have been front and centre at the SADC summit.