The problem with Africa

The problem with Africa

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By Silence Chihuri

AFRICA today is still as much in problems as it was more than a century ago as the continent continuously suffers and recovers from one disaster only to fall into another.

Natural as well as man made disasters have lampooned the continent in pretty much the same way with the droughts and famine such as endured for years in Ethiopia then Sub-Saharan Africa, and now Niger where millions are at risk of annihilation. We have witnessed civil wars and related conflicts that have culminated in genocides of the sort that have been witnessed in Rwanda, some parts of the DR Congo, and lately Sudan’s Darfour region.

It might be acceptable for one to say that Africa is like a demonstration continent that is constructed and then demolished, and constructed again, only to be demolished once again. It literally goes on and on in Africa because real countries have gone leaving only the names. There seems to be no permanent or consistent pattern of development and advancement on the continent that is one of the richest in resources yet has the poorest and most miserable people in the world.

As an African born and bred through the thicket of misery that is life on the continent, I have seen and suffered it all. But as a responsible and proactive African, I always feel that we all have a part to play in trying to emancipate our continent from the perennial curse of poverty, disease and squalor that characterise our lives.

Indeed, life in Africa might be viewed as a loosely mixed bag because there are some well to do African families that are living quite comfortably although these are surrounded by the sad realities of deprivation that hound the generality of the African populace. And this is one of the pointers that all is not well on the continent because while there are those filthy rich Africans who are the so-called ‘managing’ ones, there is this spectre of the equally filthy but poor majority visibly growing in number way more than the rich. The gap between these two contradicting classes of Africans is simply widening at an alarming rate.

The analysis I have made over the years brings me to a conclusion that the African problem is mainly two pronged, of which the most fatal of the two prongs is the government and systems of democracy that are the brain child of those who rule rather than lead the African people. The other prong is the western dealers and wheelers who have exploited the continent ever since before the seventeenth century scramble for the continent. These western movers are found both in the governments as well as the corporate establishment of their economically superior home countries, and they literally rule the world through the massive dollar power that is at their disposal. They will establish a foot hold on Africa at whatever cost and most of the corporate and government corruption has been fanned by the western investor. This is what has rendered the world and international consensus so fragmented when it comes to tackling world poverty and the causes of such a menace it is now a matter of where the interests of our benefactors lie rather than our fragile welfare.

For their part, our leaders have not served our continent as best as they could have done. In fact they have emerged as the worst nightmares to the advancement of the aspirations of the African person. Self denial and self service have become the hallmarks of most of our governments in Africa today, with our leaders working in cahoots to both deny the sad realities of the surmountable challenges that face them and their people, while seeking at the same time, to cover up for each other even where this threatened the very existence of their onw people. The greatest weakness of the typical African President or King in some cases, is the blatant failure to own up to the realities of the devastating effects of both governmental failure and policy shortcomings that have held up development on the continent for decades.

This is further buoyed by a disturbing version of a bankrupt type of nationalism and half cooked democracies that entail the subjection of the our people to a kind of cruel and intolerable suffering that would never be acceptable anywhere else in the western world. All in the name of the so-called sovereignty. The ordinary African is supposed to suffer in silence and blinkered loyalty to the self-indulging antics of rulers rather than leaders most of whom have long surpassed their sell by dates. Outside help is not readily accepted for fear of betraying acceptance of failure and this is why even the most of redeemable situations are left until well out of hand such that it would take more time and more resources to address them. This is why people in Sudan’s Darfour region, those in Zimbabwe, and lately in the Niger have to suffer endlessly because their authorities will not admit the existence of the ominous threat to humanity in their midst let alone take in outside help. It is a sad state of affairs indeed. On the other hand, the greatest exploit of most of our leaders is to help themselves to the national potty that they wantonly abuse at the expense of the suffering ordinary people, thereby worsening otherwise containable situations.

The western approach to African catastrophes demonstrates a public relations exercise at best, and an international policy disaster at worst. The reason why the problems in Africa are not ending (rather not why they keep mounting because this predominantly is the responsibility of those in charge of the continent), is largely because the way they are addressed from outside by the west (part of the world community with the best capability to help eradicate them), is mainly on an ad hoc, sporadic, inconsistent and part of a concerted shock response. Such a response terribly lacks in vision, suitability and coherence. What I think is often done is to address the symptoms of the African problems i.e. starvation, disease, squalor, and general inadequacy at the heart of governments that is the brainchild of upside down priorities and dangerous policy formulation. The main cause of the African downward spiral is simply mal-governance. This may be further branched into corruption, nepotism, dictatorship, shortsightedness, autocracy, plutocracy, the list is endless, but these are all facets that typify most governments in Africa. Some people say that democracies and good governments are emerging in Africa. To me that is simply day dreaming because good governments that have been deafeningly silent while these atrocities are being perpetrated with impunity unto the hapless African masses are to me as equally culpable if not as bad as the perpetrators.

Now the way the west has had a history of propping up bad governments has been terribly counterproductive to the crusade against same as well the drive to end poverty because most of the poverty stricken countries in Africa are languishing at the hands of some of the worst regimes in the world. Some western governments deal with African leaders in their (African leaders) personal capacities rather than as leaders of their countries. This is why when they fall out the entire African country will be made to pay for the sins of its their leader. This is why some African countries have been allowed to go the dogs with poverty and squalor after all the investment and aid programmes are simply dried up. Yet if the relationship was that of country to country then there would be ease of continuity even when the leader fell from western grace because he would simply be part of a wider arrangement. African leaders are harnessed and developed into super humans by the west who allow them to be so powerful over their people such that they become gods of unprecedented powers that they unleash unto their people in the form ruthlessness and devilish oppression and suppression of all the natural liberties due to any living human being. This happened in Zaire with Mabutu Sese seko and in Uganda Museveni is no longer as much a darling of America and Britiain as he once was. The same could be said of Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe used to be a guest of the western capitals yet now because of frozen relations between him and his acquaintances all the investment and aid to Zimbabwe have dramatically shrunken to zilch.

The United Nations remains very ineffective and largely irrelevant when it comes to seriously tackling the real problems of Africa. The UN approach remains softly-softly at best and painstakingly slow if non-existent at worst such that sometimes by the time the UN actually responds to an African disaster it will be simply by apologising either for too little too late action or for doing nothing at all. And when at times the world body does actually respond in the rarest of occasions, this may be in a manner irrelevant to the problem or disappointingly pacifying to the perpetrators of the hardships such that everyone will be more dismayed than helped out. At times the UN responds simply to mark a presence and then the world body will be gone before anyone noticed they were even there. The world body has on numerous occasions summoned teams on endless fact-finding missions that were never followed on by the necessary and appropriate action, and at times the fact-finding forays are simply sanctioned where the facts were as bare as a naked person. There are cases that simply need swift, direct and spot-on responses but not with the United Nations. I think the UN should be re-named the PN, the Procrasti-Nations because of its dillydallying. Examples where the UN dismally failed African range from Rwanda where what we only got was an apology from Koffi Anan right up to the most recent case in Niger from where the UN is already withdrawing before they even serve all the starving people from further risk. In Zimbabwe the damning Tibaijuka Report will never be followed up because Koffi Anan’s son is or was (whatever the case) a business associate of President Mugabe’s nephew. Everyone knows that they (Leo and Kojo) were involved in the Harare International Airport refurbishment and extension project under the auspices of the International Harbour Technologies Ltd. No matter how much crocodile tears Koffi Anan may shed in public prophesying ignorance of his son’s exploits, no parent can ever be that ignorant of the pursuits of his offspring. What suffers in the end is the world in general and the underprivileged society in particular. I personally do not think Koffi Anan could be still credible enough to seriously oversee the much needed revitalisation of the United Nations while he has presided over most of the chronic failures of the world bodie. This is why some powerful countries would rather override the UN because it is so impotent that even an individual person would still be tempted to want to brush it aside. I would do the same if I could.
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