By Babatunde Jose
“… Africa owns half of the world’s gold, a greater proportion of the world’s diamond and chromium, gas, crude oil among other precious minerals and metals as well as two fifths of the world’s potential hydroelectric power. It is also home to millions of acres of fertile and uncultivated farmland, yet it is home to the world’s most impoverished, famished, uneducated and malnourished people – we add due to plunder. In most African countries, public utilities are often dysfunctional thereby forcing Africans to live under the most incredibly horrifying socioeconomic conditions. …” Loyola Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. XXXII, No.2, Jul- Dec 2018.
When I first met my late wife, she was staying with her cousin Julie, who was the widow of a Nigerian engineer who had been sent to Russia to train for the Ajaokuta Iron and Steel Complex, which was billed as the biggest industrial project in sub-Saharan Africa. The mill was supposed to produce over 2.6 million tons of steel in its first year of operation alone. Despite the government awarding a contract to build the complex in 1976 and $10 billion down the drain, the mill never produced any steel. Incidentally, the engineer who had died in Russia and Julie had a son Rume, who is now 47. But the steel complex for which his father went to Russia for training, and in the course of which he died, has remained moribund: An epitome of how African leaders have underdeveloped Africa.
Since 1976, Nigeria has had 11 rulers both military and civilians viz. Obasanjo, Shagari, Buhari, Babangida, Shonekan, Abacha, Abdulsalami, Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan, and Buhari. Tinubu is the 12th head of state and there is no possibility that his administration will resuscitate the mill. Factors that would militate against that are legion: Obsoleteness of some of the installed facilities and other factors too numerous to list.
Equally bizarre is the 3,050 MW Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project. If it is ever completed, it will be the largest power-generating installation in the country, and one of the largest hydroelectric power projects in Africa. However, the Mambilla Hydropower Plant Project has been planned for over 40 years. The first preliminary feasibility study for the Mambilla Hydropower Plant was reportedly carried out by Moto Columbus 51 years ago in 1972 but attempts to construct the power station up to now have been unsuccessful. Armageddon!
The underdevelopment of Africa is a complex issue that has been attributed to various factors. Some of the factors include slave trade, and colonization by Europeans which led to the retardation and stagnation of technological and industrial development.
There are also other factors such as corruption, poor governance, lack of infrastructure, and lack of education. Africa has therefore been subjected to two ages of plunder: the first by Europeans and the second wave, by African leaders.
The late historian, Professor Walter Rodney devoted 361 pages of writing in 1972 trying to convince readers on how ‘Europe Underdeveloped Africa’.
Then, the issues he raised were very relevant at that time but 50 years after his treatise, Africa is still underdeveloped. This time around, we truly know who are underdeveloping Africa, certainly not the Europeans.
In the last 50 years the world has witnessed some of the greatest transformations ever to have happened. Yet, Africa is not moving along with the world, and we should have no one to blame but ourselves. A sentiment I share with my late mentor Areoye Oyebola in his epic book ‘Blackman’s Dilemma’.
The colonial situation was not exclusive to Africa. Other peoples were subjected to the same historical tragedy. Can we compare those regions with Africa today? Are countries like India, Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, and the likes still blaming the Europeans, or have they transformed themselves into powerful economic and political blogs? Brazil has the ninth-largest economy in the world and the largest in Latin America with a nominal GDP of $1.85 trillion.
Asia and Latin America bounced back from colonialism, dictatorships, and political turmoil, why will Africa not bounce back from slave trade and colonialism?
At present, it is obvious that Africa is the least developed inhabited continent of the world. The region suffers from all sorts of problems, 90% of which are man-made. Naturally, the region seems to be the luckiest because it is one of the most geographically stable continents with the least occurrence of natural disasters.
Africa is the global chief source of raw materials because rather than process and manufacture its raw materials, Africa exports them for others to process and sell finished products to them at exorbitant prices. A good example is our oil which we export only to import finished petrol, diesel and kerosine. All the other derivatives from refining crude are lost to us: Heavier (less volatile) fractions can also be used to produce asphalt, tar, paraffin wax, lubricating and other heavy oils.
The most prominent problem in Africa is leadership failure. Most past and present African leaders have failed the region woefully.
More than 85% of African elections are not free, unfair, and not credible. Until very recently, elections were not even conducted at all in almost the entire North Africa.
Another problem in Africa is the failure of its citizens to recognize themselves as each other’s natural brothers by virtue of being human beings. For over 2 years now people in the South/Eastern states of Nigeria have been terrorized by IPOB’s weekly sit at home order. Failure to comply results in property being destroyed or being killed in the bargain. It is estimated that the region has lost over N50 billion to this nefarious act. Yet there are governments in place in these states.
Hardly, could you find an African country that is completely devoid of religious and ethnic crisis. Every year thousands of lives and properties are being lost in Africa in the name of religious and ethnic differences. Just 20 years ago in Rwanda, more than 800,000 people were estimated to have been killed just because they belong to a particular ethnic group.
According to Wikipedia, between 1.2 to 2.4 million Africans died during the Atlantic Slave Trade over a period of about 360 years. The amount of those who died as a result of ethnic and religious crises in Africa between 1980-2010 have since exceeded that figure.
The people who died in the 34 months old Nigerian civil war alone are close to the entire number of Africans who died in the 360 years of Atlantic Slave Trade.
African countries claim to be recording economic growth, but its people are increasing in poverty, impoverishment and miserization.
What these African nations are having is development in irony, a development that increases the suffering of the people, makes the poor poorer and the rich richer.
Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, 6th oil producer in the world and home to the largest conglomerate of multinationals in Africa, yet the minimum wage is a paltry N30,000 or $43 a month. And today that is equivalent to 50 liters of petrol, barely enough to fill the tank of a Toyota Corolla.
Despite these problems and troubles, Africa still has a chance to develop. The resources, manpower and all the potentials are there. What is lacking are the will and the determination. Let all Africans put their hands on deck to make sure the region is pulled out of this mess and placed in its rightful place in the global development map.
African leaders are the causes of Africa’s underdevelopment and impoverishment, not the West like the Pan-Africanist, Walter Rodney, and those who believe in dependency theory to justify the underdevelopment of Africa.
In ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, Frantz Fanon blames the failings of nationalism on the “intellectual laziness of the middle class”. The native bourgeoisie rises to power only insofar as it seeks to replicate the bourgeoisie of the “mother country” that sustains colonial rule. Fanon suggests that the opportunist native bourgeoisie mistakenly attempts to survey and control the colonized masses to the same extent as the colonial bourgeoisie it attempts to displace:
Before independence, the leader generally embodies the aspirations of the people for independence, political liberty, and national dignity. but as soon as independence is declared, far from embodying in concrete form the needs of the people in what touches bread, land, and the restoration of the country to the sacred hands of the people, the leader will reveal his inner purpose: to become the general president of that company of profiteers impatient for their returns which constitutes the national bourgeoisie.
Using historical, economic, and political context, a comparative analysis of some Asian countries: Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, with Africa, leaves a sad commentary on African leadership.
Can our current crop of leaders change the music and bring about a new dawn in the life of our people? It looks very doubtful. Not with the presidents of some countries being associated with gold, diamond, and oil smuggling, at the expense of their national fortunes.
Hmmmm! It is not yet morning in Africa.
Subhana Rabbika Rabbil Izzati Amma Yasifun, Wa Salamun Alal-Mursalin, Wal Hamdu lillahi Rabbil Alamin. Thy Lord is Holy and clear of all that is alleged against Him (by the non-believers); and He is Exalted. May God’s blessing be upon all Messengers. All praise truly belongs to Allah Who is the Sustainer of all the worlds.
Barka Juma’at and happy weekend.
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