Africa in a turbulent world – Part 4

It is of great importance to note that Africa’s erstwhile colonial masters were themselves former colonies of other powers, some under colonialism three to five times longer than Africa was. Rather than wallow in self-pity or indulge in blame game (for their misfortunes), they set to work and became dominant world powers. Perhaps, more significant is the fact that some former colonies that got their independence the same time as most African countries have since transformed.

Malaysia, Singapore and others are in this class. Although great powers such as India, Pakistan and China got their own  independence much earlier but not more than 15 years before Nigeria, for instance. China, the world’s wonder-country was under three different colonial masters!

However, in terms of turning situations around, I would think the U.S. leads the pack. After a violent independence struggle against the British and a bitter civil war, the U.S. grew sufficiently strong enough to ‘colonise’ Britain, it’s former colonial master as well as dominate the world.

Given these scenarios of turning situations around, I would think Africa has not done enough for itself taking a distant last with no light at the end of the tunnel. At the risk of repetition, Africa is satisfied with blaming others for its woes.

When the political elite are in consensus, they blame erstwhile colonial masters. When they are not, they blame opposition politicians or imaginary enemies. Opposition politicians blame witches in their villages. The working class/peasants (in the majority) who have the power to fight or even effect a  change of  this  irredeemably corrupt elite, blame evil spirits and  are often  divided along primordial lines,  rationalising the sins of their leaders. In a few circumstances when they are united, each person waxes into a state of inertia, waiting and hoping for the other person to do something, thus they lose the advantage of collective power of numbers and spark to push. They also lack the power of creative thinking because they are too busy talking or making noise to do anything reasonably  meaningful. It is a known axiom that a people who talk too much have little time for thinking or work.

The few geniuses, and “mad” men and women with the will and initiative to triumph, with or without government, are brutally crushed with regulations and gun-toting task forces.

Africa’s problems are largely internal and they are corruption, oppression,  repression,  unhelpful education and the inability of the victims to effect a change of leadership. We have a predatory and narrow-minded political elite that are unrepentantly selfish and greedy, lazy and unimaginative, brutal and unforgiving (Frantz Fanon puts it more poignantly). They are impatient and intolerant of their people with little thoughts for tomorrow. They have all the vices of colonialists and none of their virtues. Their overwhelming power and influence have a paralysing effect on the people and the land. The people themselves are too docile for a meaningful fight with their traducers.

These elite are more at home  with smarter and self-indulgent foreign counterparts than their own people. Often in dark blue suits and black shoes, these foreign collaborators are  implacably  arrogant and self-conceited. They  facilitate the hitch-free movement of the  stolen money or resources, provide  sanctuary for their safe-keeping, tell the African elite how to spend the money and then  turn around to call all of us “fantastically corrupt”.

Yakubu Mohammed underscores the gravity of the role played by the local African elite when he writes:

“Economic textbooks on Africa and other poor continents of the world should be updated to take into account the role of indigenous exploiters who use their positions to pauperise their countries and kill their fellow human beings because of their insatiable appetite for money and the good things money can bring.” (The Guardian, Wednesday, September 1, 2021).

While the African elite take a significant portion of this blame, time has also come for shared-responsibility between the African political elite and their partners in crime in Western capitals. But can Africa muster the necessary will and courage to demand for the reparation of the illegal wealth stowed away or have it reinvested or will it continue on this path of whining? Whichever decision Africa takes, it must not, never again allow their silk-suited foreign counterparts pour cigar smoke in our faces while they live off us.

The mentality of  political leaders waiting for aid before  doing  anything, must stop even as no nation can be unto itself an island. Even some liberal scholars attest to this. Giles Bolton, for instance, avers that, “Aid, no matter how good can do no more than help create the conditions for development. It can’t deliver it.” (Aid and Other Dirty Business). My opinion is that aid may be good but it will take us nowhere for the simple reason that the aid-giver determines not only what we need, it decides what we get, and how we spend it. But that is not the end of the story. The aid-giver helps us spend the aid and still asks for something bigger in return.

In light of this, the turbulence into which  we are  getting  is a great opportunity for Africa to die a permanent death or  to break even,  get even….steal, take by force (if it has the courage) but certainly, to stop begging, to stop blaming!  It is for  weaklings. Development cannot come to Africa on the basis of pity or charity. It will come on chariot wheels with flaming fire!

There are theories and models of development but I have chosen to reduce them to  two here;  Market and State. Of state model, the assumption is that, “no developmental state, no development [as] the idea of a developmental state puts robust, competent public institutions at the centre of the developmental matrix” (Peter Evans 2010: quoted by Omano Edigheji in his book, Nigeria: Democracy Without Development: How to Fix It).

He similarly quotes Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, a market-minded politician thus:
“Societies make progress when visionary leaders emerge to organise and direct collective actions for peaceful co-existence, with sensible rules, clear incentives and sanctions that enable individuals to realise their full potential”.

This is  illustrated further as follows: “…countries escape poverty only when they have appropriate economic institutions, especially private property and competition….countries are more likely to develop the right institutions when they have an open pluralistic political system with competition for political office, a widespread electorate, and openness to new political leaders.” (Gary S. Becker, Nobel laureate in economics in Why Nations Fail).

To be continued tomorrow
Upah is a public affairs and leadership analyst.