In comparison to other regions of the world, Africa lags far behind in development and progress. With a population of nearly a billion people, a World Bank Report projects that there would be approximately 385 million people living under $1 a day by the end of 2015; almost 40% of the total population of the continent. Globalization and the advancement of Science and Technology, and the breaking of barriers of time and space in human relations which made activities of societies open and accessible across the globe, brought to light the great disparities between Africa and the rest of the world in economic, political, social, scientific and technological developments and standards. These disparities are seen to have tilted heavily against Africa.
In my view, the key reason for this unfortunate situation has been the type of persons, leaderships, policies and strategies employed to govern African States in the face of the changing world order. In other words, by reason of bad governance and poor policy options, Africa failed to overcome the challenges of modernization to develop its societies. Hence, over half a century since independence, African countries are still stagnantly underdeveloped, with all the attendant traits – illiteracy and ignorance, poverty and deprivation, famine and starvation, epidemics and health crises, child labour and mortality, corruption and dishonesty in leadership, poor infrastructure and moral decadence, crime and violence, insurgency and outright failure of states. This situation, which is forcing large abled African immigrants out of the continent, is so serious that its continuous existence constitutes a grave threat to global peace. There is therefore an urgent need to resolve this Africa’s developmental problem as a key solution to global insecurity; and it is imperative, for at least two reasons, that Nigeria leads the process for the continent.
Nothing more demonstrates this obligation than the important role played by African Countries and the Global Community in the election of Mohammad Buhari as president of Nigeria in the 2015 presidential election. The president himself said this much! This then imposed on President Buhari the dire necessity for good governance as the prerequisite for not only Nigeria’s but also Africa’s economic, social, technological and political development. Also, given the background of the local politics that facilitated for Buhari’s emergence as president, this necessity becomes even more ardent; whether or not he lives up to it, is nonetheless a defining issue for the president. I think his 100 days in office is an auspicious landmark to harp on this issue.
The underdevelopment of Africa vis-à-vis the rest of the world spans a period of over 500 years. From 1479 when Europe came into ‘active’ contact with Africa, the slavery era of the 16th – 19th centuries, the ‘legitimate trade’ of the 19th century, the colonial domination of the early 20th century, to the period of neo-imperialism of the late 20th century, the continent of Africa remained a subject of foreign exploitation. Since the end of colonialism, African countries had desired, tried and failed to achieve the “progress” they observed in the developed countries. Not unexpectedly, after “failing” to achieve development by themselves as a result of poor leadership and bad governance, African countries continued to depend on the 1st World countries for guidance. This dependence led to the recommendation of policies encapsulated as Austerity Measures and Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) by the IMF and World Bank.
The IMF and World Bank thus prescribed economic policies to African countries, and our leaders accepted those policies wholesale and swung into action to implement them in the 1970s and well into the 1990s in the hope that it would build our economies and lead unto prosperity. Thirty years after, this approach failed and the IMF and World Bank then finally admitted that Austerity Measures and SAP were wrong policies to have applied to the economies of African states. But the damage had already been done. African countries became so indebted that they practically lost their sovereignty. The issue of debt reliefs then came out as a major concern in world politics and African states became beggar nations in the international community. Domestically, there was a complete collapse of both human and physical infrastructures, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This situation, driven from operating an unequal relationship in trade and commerce, became fraught with many implications. It led to the greatest transfer of wealth from poor nations to rich imperial countries. A typical example of note is Nigeria paying the Paris and London Clubs in 2006 $12 billion USD in the name of Debt Relief for an original loan of $9 billion USD, with over $32 billion USD already paid as Debt Service so as to forgive an outstanding debt of $36 billion USD. This represented the largest single wealth transfer from a 3rd World country to the Developed World in human history. The implication of such wealth transfers is the creation of wide disparity between the richest and poorest countries of the world. For example, in 1820, the rich imperial countries were 3 times richer than their poor colonial spheres of interest. By 1913 they were 11 times richer, by 1950 they were 35 times richer, by 1973 they were 44 times richer, by 1992, they were 72 times richer, by 2001 they were 85 times richer, and by 2011 they were 111 times richer. This represents 2,950% growth in wealth disparity between the rich and poor countries from 1820 to 2011. Interestingly, over 58% of the growth in this disparity occurred in the 38 years between 1973 and 2011. This means that the post-independence period alone accounts for more than 58% of the wealth gap between the rich and poor nations.
The truth is that even with our poor state of science and technology such wide scale disparity would have been prevented if we had good, visionary and purposeful leaderships. Though at independence there were positive attempts by African leaders to protect the economies of their states, by the end of the 1960s most of these leaders were forcefully removed and their policies replaced by the policies from the IMF and World Bank. The type of persons, leaderships, policies and strategies employed to govern these countries became merely intended to help the economies of the imperial countries and more often add to the personal wealth of the new African ruling class. This set in motion the cause for this disparity. In other words, by reason of bad governance and poor policy options, African states failed to develop their societies.
As pointed earlier, it is imperative that Nigeria leads the continent to overcome the challenges of bridging this developmental disparity. President Buhari must take up the duty of driving the process beyond the scope and strategic methods employed by successive previous leaders. In my view, it is the lack of clear understanding of the issues confronting us over the years by our policy makers, both by design and default, themselves therefore leading to poor policy choices and implementations, which inevitably led to our developmental failures. The solution is for President Buhari to pursue a more sophisticated line of inquiry for a more complete view of government policies in international relations, trade and commerce, science and technology, human and physical infrastructures, leadership, corruption, rule of law, judiciary, etc.
Firstly, with our rich aptitudes and talents of large populations and our abundant untapped natural resources, we can seize the positives of globalization, overcome our challenges and attain rapid material development for our people. Only the employment of creative strategies and alternative policy options based on a clear understanding of our history, society, culture and the global environment can make us achieve this goal for our people. This requires the creation of the right kind of leadership that would in turn create the conditions for good governance in which our people can realize their potentials by getting their talents expressed and resources harnessed. Since leaders are products of history, culture, values and circumstances of their societies, concerted and conscious efforts on the part of the people can create the desired leadership. I believe it is such efforts by Nigerians, and supported by African and global communities, that produced the current Buhari presidency.
Secondly, Nigeria, being the most dominant in the African Continent, with the largest human and material resources, and the largest number of black Muslims in the world, can play a central role in the fight against terrorism and global insecurity. Already a strong international player in peacekeeping operations, Oil and Liquefied Natural Gas deposits, Oil pricing within OPEC, leadership role in the OIC, AU, ECOWAS, etc. Nigeria is well positioned to lead Africa in stabilizing the global environment. Also, being the largest non-Arab Muslim country in Africa, Nigeria can play a key role in evolving constructive specific relations regarding non-Arab Muslim countries that can serve as a counter-balance to the broad international relations between the West and the Islamic World. Such relations will aim to ultimately oscillate the centers of worldwide Muslim community in West Africa, where pluralism and tolerance is more established than in the Middle East, Arabia and Asia Minor. To effectively play this role, Nigeria must gain the support of the West to build a strong economic base. The United States especially must have to come forcefully in terms of funding, investments, transfer of technology, and other initiatives to help Nigeria’s economy, at the same time decentralizing economic opportunities and national resources to bridge the wide gap between the rich and the poor. This will be crucial not only in opening new economic vistas for Africa and advancing her corporate interests but also restoring security and stability in the continent.
But first President Buhari must necessarily hinge Nigeria’s national politics on her developmental needs, separated from the existing individual, group and regional supremacy contests. The wellbeing of Nigerians will be the gauge of his success and their welfare must hence be the subject of his politics. This is the only guarantee of retaining their support and the continuous support of the global community to lead Africa to bridge its developmental gab with the rest of the world.
Dr. Ado, a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, writes from Abuja.
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