By Heikal I. Kenneded
November 2, 2015
At first spectacle,
Africa presents an enthralling landscape to most visitors, with its world-class
resorts and golf courts, not to mention picturesque beaches that mesmerize your
eyes and all around amazing scenery. However, these images belie an arrested
development that shows an incredible disparity among various sectors of society.
The significant challenges that currently avert the development of most sub-Saharan
African states, include but are not limited to non-existing infrastructure,
weak healthcare system, poor education and most importantly lack of job
opportunities that pushes most of the continent’s young people to take to the high
seas and risk their lives in order to seek opportunities in Europe and far
beyond. Indeed, the continent is in the throes of yet another socio-economic and political awakening
similar to the one experienced during its struggle to break free from the colonial overlords. During
my all too brief and privileged visits to seven African
states ranging from Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Nigeria, Uganda and the Congos, I couldn’t help but become
conscious of a sense of contrast all over the continent.
Notwithstanding, for the last
decade alone most African states had some of the best annual growth development
product (GDP) in the world, which averaged between 3.16 and 7 percent that
ushered them what the Economist magazine dubbed as, “The twilight of the resource curse.” No
wonder most of the continent’s poor still live in deplorable conditions, with
most communities lacking basic necessities, such as access to clean water and
electricity. What ails Africa are three main factors that cripple its economic
growth at levels significantly below most developing countries, which could be
summarized: failed leadership that’s short of vision, corruption that
perpetuates never-ending poverty and repression of dissent and the media The African continent now boasts several
millionaires and few billionaires while tens of millions of others survive no
more than few dollars a day. The postcolonial Africa that I encountered has a long way to go of catching up with the rest of the developing
world, despite the incredible prevalence of natural resources (a third
of the planet’s mineral reserves, a tenth of the oil and it produces two-thirds
of the diamonds) and great manpower of its
people.
Failure of leadership
Ironically,
it seems the more things change in the African continent, the more they remain
the same. First, there were the postcolonial elderly statesmen who clung to
power for their dear life, but today the new leadership is rife with masters of platitudes, self- aggrandizement, living in denial, and driven by insatiable
hunger of cronyisms. There’s no argument that today
most of Africa's root problems lie with the leadership who
time and again failed to end poverty and develop their nations to compete with
the rest of the world. Since good education and intelligence are
indispensable ingredients for good leadership that might be where the continent’s
poor leadership stems from. No wonder a great number of African leaders had
poor educational backgrounds, not higher than graduating from secondary school,
which may translate their lack of much needed vision to improve their nations’
poor performance in the economic index and development. Thus, the ripple
effects of the continent’s poor leadership is manifested on every segment of
these societies’ structure, including reduction
of productivity, obstruction of development, worsening poverty and marginalization
of the poor, which ultimately create social unrest that ultimately lead to a
collapse of the nation-state.
The corruption curse
Another major problem with most African
states is the unbearable kleptomaniac corruption for personal gain that
afflicts every sect of the society and preserves the dysfunctional nature of
the state. In fact, corruption doesn’t mean only of stealing the state’s
coffers, but it’s also putting in charge of inept people in key positions of
government. It is thus shocking to read the
unsettling allegations of corruption in every African state’s political
leadership, not to mention the profound economic disparities in the various
segments of their societies. Driven by voracious greed and poverty most
government officials deprive the coffers of their public resources. This in
turn forces the local populace to turn to petty crime and violence, on a last
resort basis. In fact, the corruption epidemic in most African countries is so debilitating
that it has become an affront to their mere survival. For instance, in the most
recent deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, with a lack of any viable
healthcare system and short on effective leadership, many of these nations could
have easily been wiped off the face of the Earth on such a short notice, if the
West didn’t come to their rescue.
Take for example two of the continents
heavyweights, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite both countries
being blessed with immense economic resources and manpower, still a great
majority of their populace suffer gut-wrenching poverty and social injustices
that perpetuate horrendous violence and other barbaric criminal acts that defy
logic. Over 50 percent of the DRC’s population live below the poverty line, surviving
on less than a dollar a day. Kinshasa’s streets are
endemic with street children with an estimated 25,000 of them who survive by
begging. Infectious diseases and malnutrition are also widespread
because most hospitals and health centers across the DRC are almost nonexistent
due to the healthcare system that collapsed during the years of conflict. On the other hand, Nigeria as one of the top oil
producing countries in the world with an estimated oil revenues in
excess of US$74 billion per year. Nigeria is also known as the power generator
capital of the world, where half of the country’s homes are enveloped in
tropical darkness while an estimated 60 million residents use generators. This is merely due to corruption of successive
unscrupulous leaders who became notorious of siphoning the country’s coffers
taking corruption to an art form that it permeates every level of the
conducting in the country. Drawing from the Nigerian experience, no wonder
throughout the African continent oil is viewed as a curse rather than a
blessing.
Somalia
is also a prime case of how a war-ravaged country is kept in the status quo of
turmoil by its own leaders who pillage the country’s coffers as though it
belonged to the enemy. Reading recently Abdirazak Fartag’s investigative report,
“Their Own Worst Enemy” is a resilient testimony of how successive Somali
leaders “plundered Somalia’s public resources” for more than two decades
since the civil war while the International community turned a blind eye. The
author of this timely report explains in
detail how lack of an effective and transparent financial management system has
contributed to the country’s developmental demise and therefore corruption and
money laundering has been consistent throughout the tenures of the various Somali
administrations, including the current one.
Suppression of dissent and the media
Finally, the third great challenge
facing the continent is the rampant suppression of dissent and censorship of the
media. Despite the burgeoning of vibrant and
active media sectors in most African states, they continuously come under
numerous assaults that threaten them to freely express their opinions. It is
indeed sad that most of the continents’ journalists operate under the
hovering threat of being arrested, prosecuted by using antiterrorism and public
incitement laws. For instance, Somalia is one of
the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist, where they
constantly become victims of their own government or other extremist elements. Naturally
continued harassment, unnecessary obstruction, and intimidation of the media and
dissenting groups combined to create a chilling effect on free expression seems
to undercut the important role of the media to act as a watchdog of
governments’ transgressions against the laws of their countries.
Ultimately, the surest way to bringing
about change of Africa’s current state of despair would be to elect effective
leaders, fight corruption to the bone and free the media to do its sacred job
of overseeing government institutions. In the 2016 elections, Somalia will have
that “second” chance again to elect an effective leadership with good ethics that’s
free of corruption and self-enrichment.
Heikal
I. Kenneded
[email protected]
Kinshasa,
Congo DRC