Written
by Naana Ekua Eyaaba*
“What
exactly did we do to deserve these people?” my Nigerian friend asked on the
telephone very early this morning, as though there was a lump in her throat. In
fact, she was almost choking with tears. "Who are those," I hastily
responded, fearing that something terrible might have happened to either her or
some other member(s) of her family. She retorted, “Those who call themselves
leaders on the African continent,” laughing out loud this time around. Relieved
of my earlier apprehension, we both laughed for about a minute before turning
on our usual dirge about what we call “the African condition.”
A
question that refuses to go away is this: Why is a whole continent “cursed”
with such terrible leadership?
Certainly,
our forebears could not have survived in the harsher conditions of their world,
if those who led them through the desert down south had been this cruel to
their own subjects.
One
of the best definitions of “leadership” I have ever come across was given by
Daphne Mallory of Mallory Company in the United States of America. According to
Mallory, “Leadership is the art of serving others by equipping them with
training, tools, and people as well as your time, energy and emotional
intelligence so they can realise their full potential, both personally and
professionally.”
Unfortunately,
nearly every single one of the people that have led the countries of Africa,
whether elected or self-imposed over the past fifty-eight years of Black
Africa’s independence, has come with personal agenda. This has been devoid of a
concrete urge or practical desire to serve the people over whom they ruled.
Indeed, the pattern has been to enrich themselves and members of their
families, and then pass on the mantle of leadership to other family members,
emulating the Cuban style or the North Korean “father to offspring” prototype.
Sadly, veritable service to the people has been a missing part of the equation,
as exemplified by the lengths that African leaders go to protect themselves and
governments with security and capricious laws.
Harnessing
of resources
The
one area in which African leaders have perpetrated near criminal cruelty on the
mass of the people of the continent has been the utilisation of the natural
resources, aid and loans that have flowed into the continent over the past
sixty years. Under the Marshall Plan which the Americans harnessed to lift
Europe out of the devastation of the Second World War, the countries of Europe
received about $500 per person.
During
the years of the plan the recipient nations experienced economic growths of
between 15% - 25%. Industry was quickly revamped and agricultural production
sometimes exceeded pre-war levels. This boom helped push communist groups out
of power and created an economic divide between the rich west and poor east as
clear as the political one. The plan also alleviated the shortage of foreign
currency that was created in the war years, allowing for more imports, thus
contributing to more prosperity.
According
to official United Nations figures, over the past 60 years, at least $1
trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to
Africa; that is about $3000 per child and adult on the continent. Yet real per
capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the
population live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled
over the past thirty years. More children of school-going age are out of the
classroom than ever before; the cases of Kwashiorkor or malnourishment are
increasing at an alarming rate; more children die before their fifth birthday
than ever before; youth unemployment is worse on the continent than any other
place on earth. In fact, the negative statistics are endless.
Against
the ebonised background of such grim statistics, the rich enclaves of the
continent are getting richer and richer. The interminable chasm separating the
rich— mostly the political class—and ordinary people continues to widen and
deepen. Strangely and worryingly, it appears the images of half–clad children
with distended stomachs and dripping noses do not seem to bother our leaders,
one jot.
In
the days of the Haile Selassies, Mobutus and Bokassas, African leaders shipped
national exports' earnings, aid money, loans and all, in trunk boxes and
suitcases into unnumbered Swiss Bank accounts. Perhaps, in the twenty-first
century they are a little more refined, using family members and friends who
link up with penniless “foreign investors” to use stolen state funds to
purchase industrial and other commercial state assets they themselves would
have run down in the first place. And the sickening irony here is that most of
these so-called leaders call themselves devout Christians or Muslims!
The
Ghanaian example
The
case of Ghana’s resource management over the past seven years would have been a
great script for a concert party show, were it not so tragic. What little that
is let out into the open shows that the country was placed in the right frame
for the economic development take off that has eluded it for the nearly sixty years
of its political independence.
i)
By the end of 2008, Ghana was considered to be a middle income country.
ii)
Through the hard work of its technical experts, it was producing oil in
commercial quantities for the first time by the middle of 2010.
iii)
The country was one of the fastest growing economies in the World in 2011, with
an estimated GDP growth of over 15%.
iv)
Tax collection jumped from a miserly $5bn during the period 2001-2008, to a
mouth-watering $20bn, a 400% increase between 2009 and 2014!
v)
The massive increase in the price of gold meant another $25bn in gold exports
over the period 2009-2014 compared with $9bn over the 2001-2008 period.
vi)
Ghana’s traditional mainstay cocoa, would not be left out, bringing in a
handsome $14.5bn over the period 2009-2014, compared with the $7.4bn over the
period 2001-2008.
However,
by the time the new government was finally sworn in, in August 2012, the
country was broke, even by the president’s own account. And the reason is not
far-fetched: plain thievery on the part of state officials and corruption in
every facet of society. Nonetheless, those who dipped their itchy fingers in
state coffers are walking the streets of Accra and other places with impunity.
Do they trifle care?
The
heartrending part of the Ghanaian tragedy is that after literally cleaning the
state coffers with nothing to show for by way of infrastructural development,
the government has gone cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund, for a
bail-out loan of $918m! How wicked can any group of people be to people they
claim to lead? Is it then surprising others call Africa a basket case, with
such prevailing levels of callousness being perpetrated on the populace?
As
a result of this state of utter hopelessness being replicated in nearly every
country on the continent, able bodied young men and women are now adopting
desperate measures to better their lot. There are also harrowing stories of
whole families from various parts of West Africa trekking through the
unbelievably harsh conditions of the Sahara Desert, with the hope of reaching
Libya and eventually, Italy. The recent catastrophes on the coast of Italy tell
it all.
Suggested
solutions
Answering
a question at New York University a little while ago, the British Prime
Minister, David Cameron said, "I think there is a huge agenda here where
we stop speaking simply about the quantity of aid, important as it is, and
start talking about what I call the ‘golden thread.’" This, he explained,
as his idea that, "You only get real long-term development through aid if
there is also a golden thread of stable government, lack of corruption, human
rights, the rule of law, transparent information."
As
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (authors of Why Nations Fail), writing in
the Spectator highlight as part of their commentary on the Prime Minister's
address: "Promoting his [David Cameron's] golden thread means using not
just aid but diplomatic relations to encourage reform in the many parts of the
world that remain in the grip of extractive institutions. It means using
financial and diplomatic clout... to help create room for inclusive
institutions to grow. This may be a hard task—far harder than writing a cheque.
But it is the surest way to make poverty history."
Naturally,
the Prime Minister of Great Britain has to be diplomatic. Nevertheless, I
believe the situation is so drastic it requires equally drastic solutions:
i)
An aggressive naming and shaming of corrupt African heads of state.
ii)
Open support of non-governmental institutions, student and other identifiable
groups to educate the largely illiterate populations of Africa about the
importance of their votes at national elections so they begin to reject
inducements at election time in order to throw out corrupt and callous leaders
at national elections.
iii)
End voting along ethnic and religious lines, to show the displeasure of African
voters at bad governance on the continent.
It
is worth highlighting that Nigeria has shown the way. Will others follow? Any
African president (that is what most of them are) who fails to improve upon the
lives of his or her people in their first term in office must be thrown out at
the next election. If we could make one-term presidents of these failing
leaders in the next twenty years, perhaps, African leaders will begin to take
their people much more seriously than they have done in the past. This
realisable practice may very well beat a shiny track out of the morass of bad
leadership and governance in which we seem to be everlastingly stuck.
On
that I shall return with my beaded gourd soon; it’s a crystal promise.
Naana
Ekua Eyaaba has an overarching interest in the development of the African
continent and Black issues in general. Having travelled extensively through
Africa, the Black communities of the East Coast of the United States as well as
London and Leeds (United Kingdom), she enjoys reading, and writes when she is
irritated, and edits when she is calm. You can email her at
naanaekuaeyaaba@gmail.com, or read her blog at https://naanaekuaeyaaba.wordpress.com/.
Note
*
If you would like me to publish your article on this website, please get in
touch at angelinakm75@gmai.com. Thank you.
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