Africa And The Need for Attitude Change

With the crippling socio-economic condition of many African states today, observers of events in the continent are scratching their heads wondering as to what has happened to the excitements and hopes that heralded the transfer of power from the imperial powers to the indigenous people, more than four decades ago.  At a time when the region ought to be the envy of the world given its enormous mineral and human resources, its story instead, is one of a disappointment and an underachievement.  We are awakened daily by reports of bad governance, corruption, civil wars, diseases, and poverty.  Gradually but steadily, this naturally endowed paradise is becoming a failed geopolitical entity.

Of course, the bulk of this problem centers on Sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world’s poorest countries are found.  Soon after independence, many indigenous officials shunned policies that foster peace, unity and prosperity choosing instead, to amass wealth and power, thus, plunging their fledgling nations into unwarranted civil wars.  For years, we saw countries such as Liberia, Angola, Sierra-Alone, the Democratic Rep of Congo, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda and Ivory Coast bogged down by internal hostilities.  At the horn of Africa, Eritrea continues to be a handful to neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti, forcing them to invest heavily in military hard wares in place of social programs.  And in Sudan, what appears to be a sectarian war between the Moslem North and Christian South has claimed several lives with about three million others, internally displaced.

On the economic front, efforts to revive the region’s economies are being impeded by over-sized foreign debt loads.  And guess what?  Owing to instability, many African nations scarcely benefited from the global economic booms of the nineties.  In fact, record shows that while the continent’s debts to foreign lenders topped $300bn in 1998, Sub-Saharan states were responsible for $236bn (nearly 79%) of the total bill.  So for the most part of that decade, our leaders were busy running up the national credit cards as the regional economy stagnated.  In addition, the continent is still home to some of the notorious corrupt regimes in the world.  Greedy officials are continually ran-sacking state vaults for personal bank accounts in foreign nations, at the expense of social programs.

This leads me to the question: How did a region blessed with so much mineral and human resources as Africa hit this low?  While foreign exploitation and local instability are undoubtedly part of the problem, the real issue here is the opportunities being missed as a result of managerial ineptitude.  The biggest embarrassment so far, has been the failure of the authorities to take advantage of the continent’s enormous wealth to improve the lives of ordinary citizens.  But it is up to us as a people to reclaim our destinies by demanding a change for good.  Fact is, whether we accept the responsibility or not, lifting Africa out of poverty and underdevelopment is everybody’s business.  For a secure Africa will no doubt make a safer world.  That is the essence of this book.  It attempts to answer the questions; is Africa, as we know it today fixable?  If yes, how can it be done?  Simply put, it is a contribution to the on-going debate about the future of the continent, and how best to assuring its viability and sustenance.  It’s a must-read, joke aside.