Africa's Shady Politicians Are at Root of Continent's Destitution by George Ayittey August 27, 2002 Africa's potential is enormous, yet it is inexorably mired in steaming squalor, misery, deprivation, and chaos. Four out of 10 Africans live in absolute poverty and recent evidence suggests that poverty is on the increase. Most Africans today are worse off than they were at independence. Why is Africa in this state? "Externalists" ascribe Africa's woes to factors beyond its control: Western colonialism and imperialism, the slave trade, racist plots, avaricious multinationals, an unjust international economic system, inadequate flows of foreign aid and deteriorating terms of trade. "Internalists" blame local systems of governance: excessive state intervention and corruption at all levels, from the police and judiciary to the highest branches of government. Since independence in the 1960s, African leaders, with few exceptions, have attributed almost every malaise to external agents. But a new and angry generation of Africans has emerged. As Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe says: "There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership." Many African countries are "vampire" states, their governments hijacked by gangsters who use the instruments of the state to enrich themselves and their cronies. In Africa, the richest people are heads of state and ministers. They destroy wealth: rather than encourage investment, they encourage activities designed only to capture some of the President's largesse. The instinct of the ruling elite is to loot the national treasury and invest the booty in foreign banks. The UN has estimated that in 1991 alone, more than $200 billion was siphoned out of Africa by the ruling elite, more than half the continent's foreign debt. Since politics is the gateway to fabulous wealth, the competition for power is ferocious. Defeat can mean exile, jail or starvation. Those who win power award key positions to fellow tribesmen, cronies and supporters. Those exploited remove themselves from the formal economy, either leaving the country or turning to the black market. This deprives the state of tax revenue and foreign exchange. The formal economy shrinks and the state finds it increasingly difficult to raise revenue. Then those excluded from the spoils rise up. It takes only a small band of determined malcontents to plunge the country into mayhem. In 1981, Yoweri Museveni, now the President of Uganda, started with only 27 men in a guerrilla campaign against Milton Obote. Charles Taylor, now the President of Liberia, set out with 150 rebels; no post-colonial African government has been able to crush a rebel insurgency. In destroying their economies, African tyrants received much help from the West - out of sheer naivety. Since the end of colonialism, Western governments, development agencies and international financial institutions have provided generous assistance. According to the OECD, the net disbursement of official development assistance, adjusted for inflation, between 1960 and 1997 was roughly $400 billion, equivalent to almost six Marshall Plans. Somalia is probably the most execrable example. Huge amounts of economic and disaster relief aid was dumped there, but it was the massive inflow of food aid in the early 1980s that did much to shred the fabric of Somali society. Droughts and famines are not new to Africa, and traditional societies developed methods of coping. Cheap food aid destroyed these methods and Somalia became dependent on food imports. Africa's crises have little to do with artificial colonial borders, American imperialism, racism or the alleged inferiority of the African people. They stem from bad leadership and the enabling role played by the West. The centralisation of power and absence of mechanisms for its peaceful transfer lead to a struggle which degenerates into civil war. Infrastructure is destroyed. Food production and delivery are disrupted. Thousands are dislocated and flee. Food supplies run out. The Western media bombards us with horrific pictures of famine victims. Unable to bear the horror, the conscience of the international community is stirred to mount 11th-hour humanitarian rescue missions. Foreign relief workers parachute in dispensing high-protein biscuits, blankets and portable toilets at hastily-erected refugee camps. The same macabre ritual is repeated year after year. It seems nothing has been learned. The real tragedy of Africa is that most of its leaders don't use their heads. Even more tragic are the Western donors who, gushing with noble humanitarianism, don't use theirs either.
This is why I say economic aid should only be given to African countries that have a free press so that they can report any wrong doings with the aid. A free press is a good indicator of how open a society is, because a free press is in a position to expose corruption and this is why most corrupt leaders want to control the press in their country once they come to power. Many corrupt African leaders have censored and imprisoned journalist. Another Central African journalist imprisoned According to information gathered by the Now York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Judes Zossé's arrest stemmed from an article that was reproduced in 'L'Hirondelle' on Monday, 23 February, titled "General Bozizé: the State's Tax-collector." The article, which originally ran on the news Web site Centrafrique-presse.com alleged that General Bozizé, who declared himself President after a March 2003 coup d'état, has personally taken over the collection of state tax revenue in the Central African Republic, prompting two senior Treasury officials to contemplate resignation. http://www.afrol.com/articles/11402
Africa would be fine if it was still colonized. Decolonization of Africa occured so swiftly and violently that i think it was doomed to fail.
Well I've heard some Africans say that is was more that before independence, Africans didn't take the time to plan to build on their own traditional forms of governance and economics. Most pre-colonial Africans had their own forms of democractic governance that they could have modernized for their new countries. Botswana was one of the few that built on their own indegenous system called Kgotla. A System of Government As Old as the Desert Sands Talking it up in Botswana By PETER HAWTHORNE It helps to have diamonds in your backyard. But that's not the only bounty that Botswana can boast. Once a Cinderella of the colonial era, the central African country on the edge of the Kalahari Desert is the very model of a modern black democracy. http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/0710/botswana.html Another example of pre-colonial African governance: "At its peak, the Mali Empire extended across West Africa to the Atlantic Ocean and incorporated an estimated 40 to 50 million people. The administration of such an enormous territory was formidable and relied on the establishment of a government sensitive to the diversity of the land, population and cultures and accepting of the indigenous rulers and their customs. What distinguished the empires of West Africa, particularly Mali and later Songhay, was their ability to centralize political and military power while allowing the local rulers to maintain their identities along side Islam. The imperial powers were located in active commercial centers like Djenne, Timbuktu and Gao. The wealth of the Mali Empire is illustrated by the Mali emperor Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca...." http://www.nmafa.si.edu/educ/mali/
Well when Africa grows up cultrially then maybe more goverments will want to help them...Genocde, warfare and so on is normal life. Forigen investment should be minimal until they can expand and grow.....having another culture's ideas/money/or tech to change themselves is unhealthy they have to develop on there own
One guess as to which nation is the biggest supporter of the terrorist regimes ruling most african nations.
Actually Willow if you had any real knowledge of Histroy..many nations are interfered in Africa..not just America and if you call america the bigest reason africa is the way it is..you are sadly mistaken. But regardless on other culture's influnce they are still 100's of years in the past cultrially..and we are trying to build them up..with money..our ideals..and tech this is a mistake they must choose to change on there own
No, what I'm talking about is the fact that the US is CURRENTLY the biggest supporter of the awful regimes referred to in this post. The US is the WORLD'S largest supplier of weaponry to despots and dictators, including those in Africa. The US is currently supporting the despotic Nigerian government referred to in the original post. Certainly, European nations like Britain, France, and Germany are also supporters of African dictatorships, and have been just as complicit as the US in Africa's problems. European nations, in addition, are probably MORE guilty of sheer looting of Africa - particularly in terms of stealing the diamond, gold, and other mineral wealth of the continent in order to enrich Europeans. But when it comes to support for terrible dictators in Africa, the US is currently the big "winner."
Dictators in African were also supported by the Eastern powers and Fidel Castro during the Cold war years because several African dictators were Marxist.
