Thumbs up Fatou Bensouda!

Mrs Fatou Bensouda

The fifty year old Gambian lady, Fatou Bensouda has done it for Africa. After playing second fiddle as Luis Moreno - Ocampo's deputy at the International Criminal Court since 2004 - she has now grabbed the real McCoy - she has been confirmed as the Chief Prosecutor at the ICC. She will be taking over from the Argentinian Luis Moreno-Ocampo whose nine year term of office expires next year.

Bensouda's appointment makes her the first African to hold a top post at the International Criminal Court. It also comes as a resounding victory for the African Union, which lobbied vigorously for Mrs Bensouda's appointment and had even been adamant that an African candidate would be selected to replace Mr. Moreno-Ocampo. 

Fatou Bensouda replaces Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo who came under heavy criticism from the African Union throughout his term of office for his "selective justice". According to the African Union, Ocampo's justice only targeted perpetrators of atrocities in Africa while their counterparts elswhere went scot free. For instance, the ICC has so far investigated conflicts in seven countries all in Africa: Sudan, Libya, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic.

Bensouda, a former legal advisor at the ICC Tribunal in Rwanda got the job ahead of three equally competent shortlisted candidates. These three are: Andrew Cayley, the British co-prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia; Muhammad Chande Othman, Tanzania's Chief Justice; and Robert Petit, a Canadian war crimes specialist.

Fatou grew up in Banjul, the Gambian Capital in a polygamous family. Her father was a civil servant who had two wives. She studied law in Lagos, Nigeria and became the Gambia's first international maritime law expert. In 1987, she joined the Gambian justice ministry as a public prosecutor and went on to become the Gambian Attorney General. In 1998 the Gambian President Yahya Jammeh appointed her as justice minister. But after only two years, the two fell out and Jammeh sacked her while she was abroad.

After falling out with Jammeh, Fatou Bensouda went to work abroad. She worked for the Tanzanian-based International Tribunal for Rwanda, which is trying key figures responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Then in 2004, she became a deputy chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Now that an African has got the top-most job at the ICC,  Africans can't wait to see the Moreno-Ocampo's selective justice being thrown to the dustbin where it belongs. Bravo  Fatou Bensouda! Bravo African Union!