The future of West Africa is one of the most difficult things to read today. Those of us who were lucky enough to study history in secondary school retain memories of the great empires that straddled the open savannas of our region – Mali, Ghana, Songhai, Borno, Asante and the Sokoto Caliphate were the main ones. They aggregated kingdoms and communities into political entities and that had the capacity to organize large empires which impacted greatly on political and social life in the region. The major cities in West Africa that organised the polity and promoted economic development were all in the zone – Timbuktu, Kano, Gao, Ngazargamu etc were all in that zone. The commencement of colonial rule changed the dynamics over the century. Colonialism led to consider- able development of the coastal areas where capital cities were established and ports and transport systems established. The coastal zone that previously had very low population densities started experiencing vast immigration, a process that continues today. The coast which had previously suffered difficulties of access was opened up and established the process of rapid urbanisation that has also continued up till today.
Since then, the conditions for future development in West Africa based on rapid urbanisation. Indeed, by 1995 West Africa was already 50% urban contrary to so many false claims that “70% of West Africans were village farmers.” About half of the population of West Africa had abandoned their farms in the rural areas and moved to urban centres. The pattern of urbanization developed; one was the growth of the mega cities with the ones concentrated in the Lagos to Accra axis as well as Abidjan and Dakar. The other is the development all over West Africa of small and medium urban centres.
As urbanisation grew, the signifier of social trends was the growth of informality at the level of the economy, society and above all in religion. West African informality is located in poverty. A cursory look at the World Development Report reveals that out of the 13 poorest countries in the world, West Africa has 11.
West Africa’s biggest problem as well as its best opportunity is its youth. The region has a youth bulge that has developed and is galloping. This is happening at a time in which formal opportunities for employment are declining, and industries are closing down rather than opening up. Having a job has always been a minority experience in West Africa and over 60% of livelihoods have been generated by the informal sec- tor. The youth in West Africa are trying to negotiate a society in which poverty is growing and the future looks bleak. This poses a major issue about the stability of West Africa. The stability question is however posed in a differential manner within the region itself as some zones are growing fast while others are stagnating or even regressing. Nigeria for example has an average growth rate of 3.2%. This number however hides a much more frightening tension with population growth rate in the north being double that of the south while the economic growth rate in the south is double that of the north. This growing disparity will play out even more dramatically over the next decade as poverty and scarce resources affect communities differentially.
Many West African countries are undergoing existential crisis in which the survival of the state is threatened by growing violence, bloody conflicts, insurgency by religious and ethnic militants and takeover of the state apparatus by narco-traffickers. Ethno-religious conflicts are concentrated in the Sahel and the Middle belt Zones in Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Guinea Bissau.
This rapid growth of urban centres is transforming the nature of urban life in a dramatic way. From the 1950s to the 1970s, migration to urban centres was based on the acquisition of modern education and skills. The pattern of migration therefore left the poorest in the rural areas and the adoption of urban life signalled social mobility. However, as population increase continued and a significant youth bulge developed in the population profile, the poor youth in the rural areas have moved to urban centres. In this con- text, these cities have become the new focal point for the aggregation and aggravation of poverty amidst massive accumulation by tiny elite. The most profound poverty has there- fore been moving from the rural to the urban centres.
Since the 1990s therefore, urban poverty has been growing more rapidly than rural poverty. Indeed, the main feature of urban life in contemporary West Africa is the precariousness of life. Daily subsistence needs such as food, housing, healthcare and education are lacking for a large proportion of the population. There is serious pressure on livelihoods, both formal and informal. More and more people are being pushed into the informal sector. The breakdown of the social fabric and family bonds is producing a lumpen culture characterised by delinquency violence, religious extremism and prostitution.
The conditions created by urbanisation and social transformation are producing a new post cosmopolitan- ism. It is not based on the spread of modern education and the develop- ment of knowledge and refined culture. Diversity and multiculturalism has limited impact as many of the shanty towns in the cities are characterised by the aggregations of the village in urban centres. Globalisation is a major player for these communities. The village is transferred to the new urban centres but village culture is being transformed through satellite television, cassettes, video and cell phones. Chinese cell phones come with ring tones that call the Muslim faithfull to prayer and the Hausa vil- lager in the city has a worldview that is daily informed by news analysis in their language from the United Kingdom, Iran, France, Germany and China. You do not need education to use them as they come in with applications that link the listerner to the Hausa pages of the BBC, YouTube and facebook pages.
On the economic front, the informal sector with all its incertitudes is the basis of precarious livelihoods. The pre- cariousness of life has created ideal conditions for the proliferation of informal as well as formal religious activities. Sufi and Wahabi orders and Pentecostal churches provide many survival functions – shelter, medical support and economic net- works – that neither the family nor the state can secure in these times of crisis. Increasingly, it is the religious actors who are the social agents that provide meaning for the new and dif- ficult conditions of life in the squatter towns. It is true that the village has been transplanted into the city but at the same time, new forms of bonding and differentiation are being created new social networks are needed to provide comfort and emergency relief to those in distress; new lucra- tive spheres for accumulation, both legal and criminal, are being created – and for all of these and more, the religious sphere provides the most effective framework.
Religion also offers salvation for the West African soul, arguably the most vital of needs in the post-mod- ern age. The Nigerian government for example estimates there are 10 million young boys aged from 5-15 who had been sent unaccompanied to the cities to acquire Islamic education. These boys, called almajirai in Nigeria and tallibbe in Senegal, provide a huge army capable of creating agency. In Sebegal, a combination of young people, rappers and modern musicians on the one hand and tallibbe and traditional Quaranic students on the other combined to vote out Wade from office. They also voted in Muslim clerics to the newly elected National Assembly with the clear mission and vision of dismantling the secular state in Senegal. When the rappers and the tallibbe in Dakar clash, Senegal will no doubt be an interesting case study
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