Why African leaders must put the interests of their citizens first

The world does not owe Africa a living. We seem at times to be deluding ourselves that since we have vast mineral wealth etc the world will be knocking at our door looking for favours. Wrong. This is a very cruel and mean world where those who have gone ahead will keep on going ahead.

 They will only drag you along if accompanying them in the journey makes them reach the destination faster. China has learnt this and is doing all she can, conventional and unconventional, to bring Africa to her side. And, like willing brides, every African leader—not necessarily nation—is responding very positively.

 China has a policy towards Africa developed by the Chinese Communist Party for close to half a century. Africa has no policy towards China because what may be regarded as policies are interest-driven by specific leaders not necessarily in national interest.And please don’t blame China: the essential enemy is within ourselves.

At independence we had a good and coherent policy towards our former colonial masters, the West as it were. This was the policy of nationalism nurtured out of the nationalist movement and articulated by the leaders. It called for the political independence of our countries: most of us achieved that and even fought with those who were left behind to achieve theirs.

If there is one major success of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) it was its Liberation Committee based in Dar es Salaam and effectively led by Julius Nyerere.

Without this committee the former Portuguese colonies would not have been independent that soon, Ian Smith would have made life difficult for Zimbabweans for much longer and apartheid could have lived into the 21st century. That was an African policy and programme with a vision, a mission and a tangible outcome. It was not a project driven for the self-enrichment of a head of state.

But after independence we needed to liberate our people from the colonial yoke internalised as poverty, ignorance, disease and bad and repressive government disrespectful to its own people and oblivious to their human dignity.

Our people, from the peasant farmer to the captains of industry, should have been empowered to create wealth, and not simply depend on the benevolence of the state. This war of national liberation has deluded almost every African country as the leaders have, by and large, engaged the state in projects of personal aggrandisement and wealth accumulation more than the economic empowerment of the people. If that were not the case the following list by Forbes Magazine of Africa’s top richest men would have been of entrepreneurs and not merely heads of states and government.

What entrepreneurial acumen do the following nine richest men in Africa have? Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the Angolan head of state, with a fortune of $20 billion dollars. Mohammed VI King of Morocco with $2.5 billion. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea is worth $600 million.

 

Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya is in fourth place with $500 million. Paul Biya president of Cameroon who is worth $200 million. King Mswati II of Botswana with a fortune of $100 million. Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria at $100 million. Idriss Deby of Chad at $50 million and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe at $10 million.

One of the reasons why the countries of South East Asia which have industrialised successfully since the end of the Second World War is that the political leadership has distanced itself from grand projects of personal enrichment using state power.

Instead the state has been used as a vehicle of supporting national entrepreneurs by availing human resources development, technological advancement, access to markets and maintenance of the rule of law. But as long as our rulers persist in exploiting state power for accumulation of wealth the following will happen.

Parasitic capitalism will flourish with superficial organic connection with the domestic economy. And that is why the vast oil wealth of Equatorial Guinea does not translate into the national liberation of the Guinean people from poverty, ignorance, disease and an uncaring and repressive government.

Of course the power wielders will always point out to the grand stadia, boulevards, sky scrapers and national airlines that they have nurtured as fruits of development. Granted: these could hardly have fallen like manner from heaven. But how useful are they to the nation? How many are the passengers in the planes?

And we do not ask this question glibly; we ask it because for us the nation includes all those who should have a nutritious meal on a daily basis; those who need a roof over their heads like all of us; those who need to go to high school like I did and my parents hardly paid for it. When all these are attended to then we will have entered the highway towards national liberation as indeed China has.

Every nation in the world we live in today has either gone through national liberation many centuries or decades ago or are feverishly working towards it. Nations which do this successfully are those who pay greatest attention that their people be fed and be fed well; that they do get education which then they use productively; that they are guaranteed access to health care and that they are involved in working for their livelihood in a political atmosphere where they have a voice and are not mere passengers in a government driven national project.

I dare say that as long as many African countries do not resolve this basically governance project we are going nowhere. Our presidents will become richer. Their henchmen and hench-women will follow suit. The cheering crowd called the middle class of businessmen, professionals, public officials and rich farmers will constantly provide the rationale that the system works.

And hence from time to time tribes will be mobilised to decide who becomes the President, not realising that this ritual is not even a panacea: it is a curse.