A New Narrative for Africa: Voice and Agency 9780367228682, 9780367228637, 9780429277313

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative
2 Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”
3 African economies
4 African politics, peace, and security
5 Writing and re-writing Africa
6 Religion and social transformation in Africa
7 Global responses to Africa’s new narrative
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

A NEW NARRATIVE FOR AFRICA

This book addresses the perception of Africa in the global equation, tracing Africa’s transition from a “problem” to be solved into an agency. Mixing Afro-optimism with heavy doses of Afro-reality and Afro-responsibility, this book attempts an academic picture of Africa. This book calls for a new political narrative about Africa, capturing the multi-disciplinary dimensions of Africa’s “transition” and critically examining its ramifications. The author discusses the origins of the “problem” perception held about Africa and explains how things are turning around and how the continent is now becoming a “voice” to be heard rather than a “problem” to be solved. He then goes on to interrogate some of the key manifestations of this new “voice” and identifies how the world is responding to the new “voice” of Africa before finally examining some of the contradictions that have been embedded in the transition. The book is strategically multi-disciplinary – emphasizing key disciplines of African studies in different chapters – for example: anthropology, ethnography, and philosophy in Chapter 1; history, in Chapter 2; economics, in Chapter 3; politics, in Chapter 4; arts, literature, and aesthetics, in Chapter 5; religion, in Chapter 6; and globalisation, in Chapter 7. Through this, A New Narrative for Africa explores and analyses several of the various strands of the African Studies discipline, examining the transformation of Africa on the global stage over the course of its history. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest across African Studies, Global Affairs, Politics, Economics, and Development Studies. Abiodun Alao is Professor of African Studies at King’s College London, UK.

http://taylorandfrancis.com

A NEW NARRATIVE FOR AFRICA Voice and Agency

Abiodun Alao

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Abiodun Alao The right of Abiodun Alao to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-22868-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-22863-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27731-3 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Thomson Digital

This book is deservedly dedicated to the memories of some of my friends and colleagues who “left” so early: Dr Tajudeen Abdulraheem; Professor Olakunle Lawal; Professor Abubakar Momoh; and Dr Peter da Costa. Their lives were rich, not in term of their durations, but in term of their donations.

http://taylorandfrancis.com

CONTENTS

Prefaceix Introduction: “It is called Africa, but some also call it home”

1

1 Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative 

22

2 Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

45

3 African economies

67

4 African politics, peace, and security 

97

5 Writing and re-writing Africa: the arts, sports, and information technology 

125

6 Religion and social transformation in Africa

142

7 Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

158

Conclusion: “problem”, “voice” and “agency”: the past in the present and the present in the future of Africa

183

Index193

http://taylorandfrancis.com

PREFACE

The idea of Africa as either a “Problem” to be solved or an “Agency” created by a “Voice”, was not originally conceived as a book project; it was the subject of the inaugural lecture I delivered as the first Professor of African Studies at King’s College London in April 2016. From the moment I was invited to deliver the lecture, I decided to use the platform to reinforce the call for a change of narrative about Africa. Indeed, the actual title of the inaugural lecture was: “Africa: A voice to be Heard; Not a Problem to be solved”. After the lecture, the determination to use the enormous materials that could not make it into the inaugural presentation and the encouragement from colleagues at the African Leadership Centre (ALC) King’s College London launched me on the endeavour that has resulted in this book. The ALC saw the inauguration of a Professor of African Studies at King’s College London (which in 1858 blazed the trail by becoming the first University in the United Kingdom to produce a graduate from the African continent) as a testimony of the College’s commitment to writing a new script about Africa. There were also encouragements from many of those who attended the lecture as well as those who read or listened to it on-line that an expanded version of it should be brought to the attention of a wider audience. But maybe all these in themselves would not have been enough incentives for the book, if not for the continued occurrences of developments that reinforce the positions previously taken in the inaugural lecture. This book is an attempt to address an age-long issue that has always underlined African Studies: how Africa is seen (or should be seen) in the global equation. Attendant questions this raises include: what are the yardsticks with which to gauge events on the continent or measure its progress? Where does Africa stand in global equation? What has the continent contributed, or is contributing to global advancement? These questions, among others, are also ones that have been packaged and re-packaged in different ways to conceal their real motives and agendas. There are also questions that have sometimes drawn lines, even if again in concealed ways,

x Preface

between many tendencies and biases: between Africans and Africanists; conservatives and radicals; moderates and extremists, supporters and critics, etc. Indeed, for African Studies, what is said, most of the times, is as important as how it was said, when it was said, and who has said it. Undeniably, the distinction between normative and personal consideration is very difficult, if not, in fact, impossible. As is well known, Africa is the continent with the highest number of people outside it writing on it or even speaking for or about it. Indeed, among the “unresolved” issues in African Studies is the debate as to who has the right to “speak” for and about Africa, and the “credentials” required to write about the continent. Although debates here are sometimes hidden under ideological subterfuges that are meant to conceal the real grounds of disagreements, the position of some African scholars is that some non-African writings about the continent are sometimes condescending or patronising or both. This is a book that mixes Afro-optimism with heavy doses of Afro-reality and Afro-responsibility. The objective is to attempt an academic picture of Africa which is honest, but at the same time, one that is devoid of stereotypes. For example, while recognising that the continent has problems, which are “real”, it equally posits that there are other “problems” which are “perceptions”, and that the two are not necessarily the same. It also simultaneously notes that Africa too has a “voice” and that this is no less authentic than those from outside, even if it is less audible or recognised. The motivation for the book is not just the desire to be “different” by producing a book that paints a somewhat positive picture amidst a plethora of those that have dominated the scene for more than half a century. Rather, it is rooted in the strong conviction that there are many positive developments that are worth recording about the continent that accommodates more than one billion people speaking several thousands of languages. It is also an attempt to put the “present” in the context of the “past” by recognising the circumstances under which the continent has had to evolve to address the challenges emanating from its peculiarities. Recent global developments like Britain “exiting” Europe and policies of Donald Trump as the American President seem to add another impetus to the need to look at the future of Africa in a world that seems to have begun to look more “inwards”. But more than these, this is an attempt to bring more awareness to what an intellectually engaging African continent can mean to other regions of the world. Broadly, I want to do a few things in this book. First, I want to identify what I consider responsible for the negative stereotypes that exist about Africa, tracing the root causes of these perceptions and the factors that have reinforced them. Second, I want to explain how things are turning around and how the continent is now becoming an agency, rather than a problem to be solved.Third, I want to identify how the world is responding to the emerging “voice” of Africa. Fourth, I want to point out the issues that can determine the spectrum between “Problem” and “Agency” in the future of Africa and finally, I want to identify and discuss the inherent contradictions that are noticeable in Africa’s transition to Agency.These objectives force me to interrogate five corresponding questions: (i) How did Africa acquire this image in the first instance? (ii) What are the evidences that things are changing

Preface  xi

and what circumstances defined the changes? (iii) How is the world responding to the changes in Africa? (iv) How are things likely to manifest in the future? and (v) What explains the paradox that often manifest in the dichotomy between “problem” and “agency” in Africa. The sole objective of all this is to reinforce the on-going clamour for new narratives about the African continent and its people. I have tried to retain as much as possible the discursive quality of the original inaugural lecture in this book. Although I have expanded the text of the lecture quite significantly, I have endeavoured to ensure the sense of interconnection among the various chapters. Against the background of the earlier stated objectives, the chapters in the book are designed to engage in critical discussion with some of the dominant paradigms.The book is thus strategically multi-disciplinary – emphasizing key disciplines of African studies in different chapters – for example: Anthropology, ethnography and philosophy come up in Chapter 1; History, in Chapter 2; Economics, in Chapter 3; Politics in Chapter 4; Arts, literature and aesthetics, in Chapter 5; Religion, in Chapter 6, and Globalisation, in Chapter 7. Through this, efforts are made to capture some of the various strands of the African studies discipline. Let me preface the discussions in this book with a clear statement of fact: when I say that Africa is no longer a “Problem” to be solved but an “Agency”, I do not mean that the continent is no longer facing major challenges that may keep it on a global watch-list for some time to come. Before anyone reminds me, I am aware of the current problems in a few African states. Of course, I accept that some of the countries are still in the “Intensive Care Unit”. However, I aver that some of these problems are not significantly different from what is happening in many other continents of the world that have not been so negatively stereotyped. I also contend that when one looks at events occurring in some other parts of the world just at about the same time these “advertised” and “publicised” events were taking place in Africa, apocalyptic conclusions should also have been reached about these continents by unbiased observers. However, while it sets out to bring out positive stories, this book also recognises a paradox about Africa – one that shows visible failure amidst brilliant progress, indicating paradoxically that for every Africa’s advancement, there also seems to be a corresponding setback. But this may also indicate, quite ironically, the incomprehensibility of events in development. A book with a title such as this raises two contextual issues that should be addressed in this preface. First is how and by whom Africa is being defined and second is how “Agency” is being contextualised. The issue of the “definition” of Africa has arisen because of the dichotomy between “north” and “sub-Saharan” Africa. This book makes no such distinction. Africa here is thus taken to represent both “North” and “sub-Saharan” Africa. Indeed, recent developments, including Morocco’s desire to join the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Egypt and Libya being increasingly included in East African configurations, have further diffused the strength of the “North” and “sub-Saharan” dichotomy. Furthermore, there are also comparable degrees of “othering” that have even shaped North Africa and made notions of agency and not being seen as a problem even more pertinent,

xii Preface

especially considering the global war on terror, NATO’s fragmentation of Libya, the “Arab Spring” and terror attacks believed to be of North African origin. On its part, “Agency”, in the context of this book is a term used to describe a forceful emergence to prominence (or the potential for it) that deserves recognition. For Africa, this is rooted in a number of assumptions, including the acknowledgment of a number of positive developments taking place on the continent, the measure of renewed confidence with the way the continent now confronts its challenges, the boldness with which it engages the world, and the gradual resurgence or reinventions of some traditional practices that still work in Africa, despite attempts over the centuries to frustrate them. There is also the measure of assertiveness that is becoming prevalent in the continent, especially among the youth, who are determined to evoke a new narrative about the continent of their birth. But there are some questions that the whole issue of “agency” equally raises, including: is Africa striving to succeed on the world’s terms – or more precisely, the ‘West’s terms? Should the continent set its own standards for “Agency”? Beyond “Agency”, should Africa’s ability to break out of the essentialist Orientalist tropes of “object of development” into the re-invention of the notion of progress be enough into making the continent an “Agent”? How is Africa “leap-frogging” and finding nonlinear pathways to progress and sharing these with the world? Answers to some of these and many other questions will be attempted in this book. Let me conclude this preface with a statement on the rhetorical narrative that underlines this book. As it grew out of an inaugural lecture, an occasion which marked a point in my career, it is as much an academic book as it is a documentary of personal experiences. It is a symbolic reflection of not only Africa’s journey but a personal excursion through academic and personal life as this intertwines with the continent. Having been involved in the intense study of Africa for more than three decades and having participated in the formulation of some major policy decisions about the continent through connections with both various governments of many African countries and the major international organisations working in and on Africa, a pathological examination of changes and developments in the continent has become somewhat irresistible, especially as one is sometimes privy to the intricacies of the processes behind some of the major policy decisions. What all this thus means is that the dichotomy between the “academic” and the “practitioner” – which often sees the former thinking to a “conclusion” and the latter thinking to a “decision”, and the former deciding what to “think” and the latter deciding what to “do” – is a distinction that is somewhat blurred in this book. Indeed, when one considers how academics and their works have influenced policy spaces and how practitioners have (in forms of research grants and commissioned research) shaped research agendas, distinctions between the two can be quite problematic at worst and tenuous at best. Moving on to acknowledgements; again because of its origin as an inaugural lecture, it is just appropriate that it should serve as an occasion to acknowledge intellectual debts. Let me start by acknowledging those who knew when it all began: my teachers at the Department of History, University of Ibadan, where

Preface  xiii

I had my Bachelors, especially the late Professor Ade Ajayi, late Dr G.A. Akinola, Professor Obaro Ikime, Professor Omoniyi Adewoye, and Dr Martin Uhomoibhi. Dr Akinola indeed, started reading the manuscript but was only able to read the first chapter before his sudden death in August 2018. At the University of Ife where I did my Masters, it was a singular fortune to have been taught, supervised, and mentored by the late Professor Olajide Aluko, Africa’s first professor of International Relations. Also, to be mentioned among my teachers and friends at Ife include Dr Adeleye Ojo, Professors Olayiwola Abegunrin, Amadu Sesay, Alade Fawole, and Julius Ihonvbere. I thank them all. It now remains for me to thank my former teachers, colleagues, and students (past and present) at King’s College London. The year of the completion of this book – 2019 – marks my thirty-second (as student and staff) at King’s College London. I can think of no better place to build a career and the city of London, to start and raise a family. At King’s College London, I express profound thanks to Professor (Sir) Lawrence Freedman, who was the Head of War Studies Department when I came in as a research student and who offered me a job in the department. Sir Lawrence, I can’t thank you enough! Next is Dr Barrie Paskins who supervised my PhD thesis. Barrie’s friendship during and after our formal engagement is one I greatly cherished. I must also mention my two examiners: Professor James Mayall, former Sir Patrick Seehey Professor of International Relations at Cambridge and Professor Jack Spence, former Pro Vice Chancellor of Leicester University, who have both remained very good friends and mentors. Professor Keith Hogarth, former Vice Principal (International) of King’s College London, showed me enormous kindness for which I will remain eternally grateful. Also, to be mentioned is Professor Frans Berkhout, the Dean of Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy. Professor Funmi Olonisakin, deserves a very special mention. For more than three decades, she has remained a trusted friend, respected colleague, great “sparring partner” and the god-mother to my children. Many thanks Funmi. My colleagues at the African Leadership Centre, including Drs Eka Ikpe, Olawale Ismail, Barney Walsh and Olaf Barchmann, Nayanka Perdigao and Adeoti Dipeolu, have been great colleagues and originators of great ideas, especially when there are “stranded” packs of plantain chips to stimulate discussions. In formulating my thoughts both for the inaugural lecture, three people, Professor Olufemi Taiwo of Cornell University, Professor Ismail Rashid of Vassal College, and Professor Segun Ilesanmi of Wake Forrest University were extremely helpful, and I am most grateful. In the revision of the lecture, tremendous assistance came from my friend, Dr Peter da Costa, my former student, Iris Nxumalo and my colleague Dr Salem Mezhoud. Indeed, with the three of them, I can call this, “our book”. Others who have assisted include Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali (SAN), Professors Jacob Olupona, Wale Adebanwi Dele Layiwola and Adigun Agbaje, Desmond Davis, Godwin Murunga, Professors Chris Alden, Boubakar Ndiaye, Sola Akinrinade, Solomon Akinboye, Adebayo Olukoshi, Labode Popoola and Abdulahi Zuru, Drs Remi Oyewumi, Adewale Ajayi, Tunde Afolabi, Akin Iwilade, Kehinde Bolaji, and Rasheed Oyaromade; Adewale Ajadi, Adebayo Olowoake, Dr Kayode

xiv Preface

and Bisi Fayemi, General Mohammed Inua Idris, General Martin Agwai, 2016 Fellows of the ALC, especially Awah Leonide, Sheila Gitonga, and Radwa Saad, Drs Awino Okech, Comfort Ero, Akin Iwilade and Ambassador Akin Fayomi, Sylvanus Wekesa, Jenny Mushegera, Yvonne Ajudua and Aisha Sumbunu. Time-tested friends have been most wonderful. I want to thank Dotun and Jumoke Adeniyi, Baba and Zainab Ali, Danlami and Mariam Sule, Bayo and Made Bello, Demola and Ronke Salau, Laja and Bimbo Mustapha, Doyin and Wemimo Sheyindemi, Segun Obafemi, Remi and Funmi Adeseun, Olabode and Laide Esan, Jibike Oyewumi, Adeola and Bunmi Magbadelo. Olufemi Edun, Idowu Oyebanji, Ranti Olawunmi, Babajide and Rowena Fawole. As the first draft of this book was completed whilst on a family holiday in Fort McMurray, Canada, I want to thank the family of our host, Kayode and Lucy Fawole, Bolaji, Funmi, and little Dammy. It has also been a great experience working with Routledge for the publication of this book. I am grateful to Leanne Hinves and Henry Strang, both of Routledge, for their assistance. Of course, it is conventional that I place my family last, even though they should have come first. The greatest thanks go to my wife, Ronke and our two extremely delightful children, Fiyinfolu and Ajibola. Although they have gotten used to my absent mindedness anytime I am undergoing “manuscript labour”, I still want to apologise for my seeming negligence and to thank them for tolerating a spouse and a father almost always on his laptop.

INTRODUCTION “It is called Africa, but some also call it home”

How Africa and Africans have been seen (or should be seen) has been a subject of interest for quite some time. Even, some believe that the choices of day-to-day phrases exhibit, even if sometime unconsciously narrative prejudices, as evident in some of the words below that once pervaded the social media: When people came from Europe to Africa, they were “Voyagers”; but when people now come from Africa to Europe they are called “Immigrants”; a group of Africans coming to Europe are labelled as “Refugees”, whereas a group of Europeans coming to Africa are called “Tourists”; African People working in Europe are called “Foreigners” while European people working in Africa are called “Expatriates. To the above has also been added the following: When African Public office holders abuse position, it is called “corruption”, but when a similar thing happens in Europe it is called “sleaze”; when elected officials in Africa collect money from the public to perform a task or sponsor a cause, it is called “Bribery”, but when the same thing is done in Europe, it is called “Cash for Question”; when mistakes are made by Africans, it is called “incompetence”, but when they are made by Europeans, it is called “Learning Curves. ” Perception is, indeed, all that matters in the formation of narratives and the string of paradoxical stereotypes presented in the two quotations above shows how Africa has meant different things to different people over different periods of time. They also show the variety of standards that have been used over time to view the continent and assess its developments. Nothing perhaps sums up all the above realities better than the popular Standard Bank advert that welcomes visitors to the Jomo Kenyatta

2 Introduction

International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya.The advert simply reads: “They call it Africa. We call it Home”. Embedded in this somewhat innocuous statement is a perception debate that conceals several layers of thoughts and interpretations, not the least on how judgements and perceptions have intermingled with socio-historical and political realities and prejudices to shape narratives about the African continent. As with most entrenched opinions, these stereotypes have often obstinately remained, even when there are sometimes obvious evidences that call for their complete repudiation or, at least, their modification. This introductory chapter looks at the changing nature on perceptions of Africa, particularly those at the forefront of the transformation of “Problem” to “Agency”. But some background discussions on nomenclatures, culture, history, and geography may be the necessary preface to this chapter, especially as these are persistent issues throughout the book.What is Africa and who is an African are two interwoven questions that should be addressed at the outset of a book of this nature. Africa is the world’s second-largest continent, bounded by the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and by the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans. It covers 20% of the world’s land surface, making it 70% the size of Asia and three times that of Europe. Its 1.2 billion populations form 16% of the global figure. By the United Nations estimate, the continent would have reached a staggering 4.4 billion by the end of the 21st century, by which time it would then be 39% of the global population. Africa’s population is currently the youngest in the world with a median age of 19.7 years old, compared to a global average of 30.4 years old. Literacy rates are quite low with only 64% of the population considered literate. The figures here, however, vary from country to country, with a country like Libya for example having a literacy figure of 94.2%, while South Sudan’s is 27%. With up to 3,000 different languages, it is the most linguistically and ethnically diverse continent in the world. Indeed, a country like South Africa has 11 official languages. The continent has always prided itself in its rich cultural heritage which was rooted largely in its ancient Kingdoms and Empires. This cultural heritage, whose fame extended across the world, manifested through trade, commerce, arts, political governance and religion, among others. For centuries, the co-operation, adaptation and shifting alignment of power, influence, survival, and scope allowed the continent to manoeuvre complex realities. At a stage, the continent’s rich cultural diversity met external influences, two of which are particularly profound – Islamic and Western – and both of which came through migration.1 The Islamic impact came through Arabs and Arabic speaking people, first through invasions into North Africa during the 7th century and later into East and Central Africa in the 19th century. Inbetween these there were also scientific voyages by Arabic speaking Muslims (though not Arabs) like Ibn Battuta, Al Idrissi, Leo Africanus, who were all Berbers, and Al al-Sarakhsi who was Persian. Apart from increase in trade and commerce, contact with Muslim peoples, mainly from Persia, Oman, and Yemen, during trading voyages to East African littoral dating to the early centuries AD led to the development of the famed Swahili civilisation in the coastland of East Africa. Swahili language, a product of this civilisation, was basically a Bantu language structure, albeit with

Introduction  3

about 25% borrowing from Arabic and Persian. This remains a lingua franca in East African countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Congo. On its part, the Western influence came through contact with Europeans. The ­Portuguese had over two centuries established bases in Zanzibar and Mombasa.This was later followed by the set of Europeans who first settled near the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern end of the continent during the mid-17th century but later moved hinterland. Another wave of European migration however came during the colonial period, and it was this that resulted in white settlements in places like South Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), South West Africa (Namibia), and Algeria. There is also a history of forced migration of individuals engaged as indentured labour from South East Asia in the period between 1834 and 1917 that is often ignored.2 This occurred mainly in East and Southern Africa between 1895 and 1902 and several thousands of them helped build the Kenya-Uganda Railway. At the end of the contract, some of them remained in Africa. A final set of immigrants, though on a much lesser scale, came from Asia during the colonial era and these were the precursors of the Asian settlements in places like Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. It was the contact with the West that ultimately resulted in colonialism. Contextualising who is an African seems a bit complex and like all identity issues, may be somewhat emotive and controversial. One of the issues at the p­ ossible source of controversy is the extent to which “race” can (or should) be a factor in d­ etermining who qualifies to be an African. There are, indeed, those who believe that “race” should be the sole determinant, and consequently, only people of Negroid (as in the cases of West, East, and Southern Africa) and the original indigenous North Africans, who are qualified to be Africans.3 In short, the contextualisation of Africans here excludes “Europeans”, “Asians”, and “Arabs”.To the proponents of this position, the longevity of the stay of Europeans, Asians, and Arabs in any African country is not enough to make them “Africans”. Adherents of this position opined that such longevity can, at best, only confer “citizenship” or “nationality” of a particular country on them, as in the case, for example, of “White South African” or “Ugandan Asian” and not the broader “African” identity.4 Africa’s situation, however, seems much more complex. Indeed, identity in a continent with a history of migration and other peculiar challenges like Africa ­raises profound epistemological challenges, such that attachment or affiliation can be claimed through three forms: Biology, History, and Preference. “Biology” is imposed by circumstances of parentage, and this is where “race” comes in as a ­factor – thus excluding others apart from blacks and indigenous North Africans from being Africans. “History”, on its part, is determined by issues such as migrations and settlement. The African continent is replete with these and this explains why some of the countries are multi-racial, as in the case of countries like Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and to some extent, Kenya and Uganda. In all these countries, many people who are neither Blacks nor indigenous North Africans could claim the right of calling themselves Africans.The third way, “Preference”, seems more slightly complex than others, as it centres largely on how one sees oneself in the context of a society and the issues that bring that society together. Following this argument, for

4 Introduction

Africa, many people that have aligned themselves to different aspects of its struggles and are resident in the continent can be tagged Africans should they so desire. Indeed, there are individuals who are neither Negroid nor indigenous North Africans but see themselves as Africans and have made enough sacrifices and suffered denials because of their choices. It will thus be inappropriate to deny them of this affiliation because of their race. For example, any definition of an African that denies individuals like Joe Slovo, Ruth First, or Ahmed Kathrada membership just because they are neither blacks nor indigenous North Africans will be unacceptable to many South Africans who benefitted from their commitments and sacrifices, whilst black Africans who betrayed the cause would be automatically eligible for this continental badge because of race. Overall, complexities of migrations, settlements, history, and the commitment to agendas that are at the core of the continent’s values have reduced the importance of race in determining who qualifies to be an African. The continent’s long history of contact with the outside world has meant that a lot of people have migrated into the continent; though they still retain racial pigmentation of their origins, have no roots to their original places of migration. These people have always seen Africa as “Home” and cannot be denied of this affiliation. There is also a debate as to the extent to which one can talk about Africa as a monolithic entity when there are glaring disparities among its constituent parts. For example, Botswana and Somalia cannot be more disparate; one an oasis of political stability and economic prosperity and the other a microcosm of all that should not be associated with any credible statehood. Indeed, using developments in Somalia to represent Africa in any analysis is as unreasonable and erroneous as to use Chechnya to epitomise Europe. Consequently, broad generalisation about the continent, which envelops countries with these disparate characteristics together and the extrapolation of events in one country to represent the continent, are thus seen by some scholars as consequences of colonial invention of “Africa”.5 While it may be a valid argument that broad generalisation is a product of colonial invention and may be potentially dangerous, especially if the extrapolation is done haphazardly, there are still grounds for discussing Africa as a monolithic concept. First, the challenges across the continent are similar, even if the scales are different; and second, the peculiarity of its history, especially the ways it has coloured perceptions, justifies reasons for corporate discussion. There are still debates on the origin of the word “Africa”. However, conclusion seems to be leaning towards the direction that the name was externally conceived, with people linking it to different roots like the Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks, Hindi, and Yemeni origins.6 While it serves no useful purpose going into any debate about these assertions, what is beyond contention is that the “invention” of the word Africa quickly became linked with an “impression” about the territory and its inhabitants. This impression was that the territory and its people were in dire need of occidental intervention.7 According to Ferguson, the invented Africa served as a metaphor of absence, a “dark continent” against which the lightness and whiteness of “Western civilisation” needed to be imposed.8 This was as much as to protect it from itself as it was to ensure that the catastrophe of its inevitable collapse did not have ripple effects

Introduction  5

on its immediate environs. Even the famous historian, Herodotus, suggested that ­“Africa was not only different, but also more threatening, sinister and dangerous than Greece”.9 Over the centuries, this perception has become entrenched, with every generation of external actors finding even more justification to become more involved in the affairs of the continent.The outcome of all this is that Africa subsequently became perhaps the most maligned of the world’s continents, with scores of negative phrases being constantly employed to describe it, including it being labelled in recent times as the “Dark Continent”,10 the “Hopeless Continent”,11 the “Scar on the Conscience of the World”,12 and many others. In an oft-cited even if intensely racist assertion, an Oxford Professor, Hugh Trevor Roper, went as far as to refer to African history as “the unedifying gyrations of barbarous tribes in … irrelevant corners of the globe”.13 Although criticisms and protests from several quarters have resulted in the temperance of comments by subsequent commentators, especially those with racist slants, there are still occasions when comments about the continent have been largely unsavoury and sometimes out-rightly offensive. But all these have not removed the fact that there are also more than one billion people who currently call Africa “Home”, despite all the negative stereotypes.The people currently haphazardly divided into 54 countries, and speaking several thousand languages, look back into their continent’s history and see flashes of success, despite the situations which circumstances later placed on the continent.This divergence of views as to how Africa should be conceived has been at the centre of the competing narratives about the continent. Also, worth discussing as a background consideration is the place of religion, undoubtedly one of the most important issues in Africa and one that is at the centre of some contemporary controversies. Broadly, in Africa, religion serves three main functions: relationship with the Supreme Being; communion with the departed ancestors; and setting the codes of conduct that guide morals and inter-personal relations. In terms of broad categorisation, three religions are most prominent in Africa. These are: Christianity, Islam, and Traditional religions. To a large extent, Christianity came because of Western migration as it was a part of the “civilising” mission that preceded colonialism. However, broad generalizations here may be inaccurate as Christianity existed in an African nation – Ethiopia – even before it got to any European country. Also, North Africa had some of the earliest and ­largest Christian churches. Indeed, several “fathers of the Church” like St. ­Augustine, were linked to North Africa. However, the brand of Christianity that resulted in the entrenchment of the religion in Africa was the product of Western migration, especially during the 19th century. Islam too came because of migration and settlement, while traditional religions had been in existence before foreign incursions. Although they now have their followership reduced, due largely to the influence of Islam and Christianity, there remain a sizeable number of African populations that remain faithful to indigenous religions. In some countries, the efforts by the adherents of these traditional religions to reassert their primacy are at the centre of conflicts and controversies. Also, due to settlement of people from Asia, there is gradually beginning to be a few Asian religions like Buddhism and Hinduism becoming established in some parts of Africa.14

6 Introduction

Now, talking about its geography, a factor that has played a major role in the complexities of the continent’s inter-group relations and the politics of its being considered as a “problem”, the continent falls into eight geographical regions: the Sahara, the Sahel, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Savanna, the Swahili Coast, the Rain Forest, the African Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. Each of these regions has unique characteristics: the Sahara is one of the world’s largest hot desert, covering about 3.5 million square miles and made up of two sub-climates: the dry tropical climate, characterised by mild dry winters, a hot dry session just before raining season and an annual temperate cycle; and a dry sub-tropical climate, characterised by annual temperature ranges, cold winters, hot summers, and two rainy seasons. In the pre-historic period, it is believed to have supported human habitation before desertification set in about 12,000 years ago. The Sahel is a narrow band of semi-arid land that forms a transition zone between the Sahara to the north and the Savannas to the south. It comprises flat, barren plains that stretch from Senegal to Sudan. The Sahel also contains the fertile delta of the Niger, one of Africa’s longest rivers. The Ethiopian Highlands cut through the Highlands from the southwest to the northeast and it is home to 80% of Africa’s tallest mountains. Savannas, or grasslands, make up most of Central Africa, beginning south of the Sahara and the Sahel and ending north of the continent’s southern tip. The Swahili Coast stretches along the Indian Ocean, from Somalia to Mozambique. Most of Africa’s native rain forests are concentrated in Central Africa, along the Congo River Basin. The Great Lakes are in nine countries that surround the Great Rift Valley. There are seven major African Great Lakes: Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Turkana, and Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is the southern source of the Nile River, the longest river in the world.To the West of the Ruwenzori Mountains is River Congo and to the south are the Savannah and the Shaba plateau where the River Zambezi rises. The region of Southern Africa is dominated by the Kaapvaal craton, a shelf of bedrock that is more than 2.6 billion years old. The location makes the region free of Malaria, a major scourge that kills up to a million people annually in some other parts of Africa. Rocky features of Southern Africa include plateaus and mountains, such as the Drakensberg range. Moving more closely into contemporary Africa, it indeed goes without saying that post-independence Africa has faced many challenges, which have been reflected in several academic and policy pronouncements. These negative views have been underlined by issues like civil wars, famine, high levels of poverty, the pressure of the youth bulge, elite corruption, and several others. Indeed, each decade since independence seems to have come with its own peculiar challenge(s) for the continent. For example, the 1960s saw the continent engrossed in immediate challenges of post-independence nation building arising from acrimonious inter-group relations, which, in turn, resulted in bitter civil wars in places like Congo (later Zaire) and Nigeria and several inter-state border conflicts, while the 1970s brought a string of challenges including famine, and the intensification of the wars of liberation in Southern African countries of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) Angola, Mozambique, South West Africa (Namibia), and South Africa. The 1980s, for their part, witnessed the

Introduction  7

challenges of coping with the effects of Structural Adjustment Policy and the attendant social upheavals across the continent, coupled with further entrenchment of autocracy.The 1990s, which ironically brought positive expectations to the world because of the end of the Cold War, conveyed little respite to Africa, as the decade witnessed genocide in Rwanda and bitter civil wars in countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Indeed, in the period between 1990 and 2001, the continent accounted for 19 of the 57 total armed conflicts across the globe.15 Three of the civil wars during the period – Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the DRC – resulted in the death of up to a million people, while another million people were killed in the Rwandan genocide. Also, at the same time, about 39% of the 48 countries in Sub Saharan Africa enjoyed stable political conditions, while another 23% and 38% faced political turbulence, and armed conflict respectively.16 Apart from wars and socio-economic and political instability, natural disasters also brought their own challenges, with droughts, coastal erosions, and other disasters resulting in the organising of assistance packages throughout the world for affected regions of the continent.17 Finally the dawn of the new millennium brought serious conflicts in some parts of Africa, including the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that was dubbed Africa’s “First World War”,18 and the one that ultimately resulted in the independence of South Sudan.This, as will be discussed later, also signified the turning point in the perception about Africa. Over the last few decades, political and socio-economic developments in ­Africa have introduced a few lexicons and terminologies to Political Studies, the appropriateness or otherwise of which is seriously contestable, but whose gullible acceptances even by Africans themselves have further widened their endorsement. Among others, terms like “Shadow” States, “Pre-bendalism”, “Neo-Patrimonialism”, “Failed” State, “Collapsed” State, “Fragile” State, “Un-governed spaces”, “Weak States”, “Clientelism”, etc., are some of the phrases that are incomplete until they are discussed in the context of, or associated with, an African state. Although, in extremely few cases some of these phrases are used for non-African countries, they are largely nomenclatures reserved for African states. This, to a very large extent is the predominant narrative about Africa, especially in Western academic literature. The various challenges posed by socio-economic and political developments in Africa have attracted interest and concern from a wide array of directions: Africans and non-Africans; policy practitioners and academics; international organisations and civil society groups; etc. Some of these are out-rightly paternalistic, some patronisingly hypocritical and few genuinely sincere. Many ad-hoc agencies have also been created to address the special concerns of the continent. The Office of the United Nations Secretary General, for example, created an Office for the Special Adviser on African Affairs.The International Development Departments and Agencies of American and European countries have allocated a significant percentage of their resources to addressing situations in Africa, while in the last few decades this category of largely western actors has been joined by countries like China, India, and Japan. Indeed, even when general agenda aiming to address global challenges were framed, special attention was often given to developments in Africa, as in

8 Introduction

the case with initiatives like Security Sector Reform, Transitional Justice, and the Millennium Development Goals. In short, a question that has been on the lips of many, especially those from outside the continent, has persistently been: “How do we address the problem of Africa”? In the various answers provided to this question, one sometimes finds oneself appalled by the extent of the negative views about Africa; frustrated by the reluctance to appreciate the peculiarities of the continent; irritated by the simplistic presentation of African issues; disappointed by some African scholars’ implicit endorsement of these negative assertions by the same African scholars themselves; outraged by the lack of recognition of some major positive changes taking place in the continent; dissatisfied by the double standards with which judgements are passed about Africa; disturbed by the apocalyptic predictions of some conclusions; and most importantly, repulsed by the increasingly nonchalant responses by some Africans to Afro-pessimism and stereotypical depictions of the continent of their birth or descent. The ultimate outcome of all of this, however, has been the urge in several quarters to present other versions of the African story. This now leads to the crucial question: how do Africans see the continent they call “Home”? Of course, the existence of challenges has never really been denied, even if their magnifications beyond realistic proportions and their extrapolations to encompass the whole of the continent have often been vigorously contested by Africans. Indeed, there have emerged many African academics that have challenged this narrative of gloom. Often fighting against considerable odds, these scholars have struggled to present “African” dimensions to appreciating Africa’s complexities and bringing out alternatives to understanding the continent. Although this clamour has become more prominent in recent times, the antecedent is further than is often assumed. For example, Kenneth Dike’s seminal Book, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830 - 1885, (published in 1956) and Saburi Biobaku’s The Egba and their Neighbours (published in 1957) though widely recognised as pioneering the effort to “Africanise” African History, should also be considered as scholarships in demonstrative defiance, and they must be recognised as pioneers in the evolution of African narratives. Both books, which grew out of doctoral theses submitted for King’s College London and the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research respectively, used African sources hitherto considered untenable, to present sustained and coherent arguments.19 Francophone African scholars like Amadou Hampâté Bâ and Cheikh Anta Diop also contributed significantly to the effort.20 In subsequent years, several scholars came up with equally forceful arguments on the African cause. The History Department at the University of Ibadan, in Nigeria, under the leadership of Kenneth Dike and Ade Ajayi later produced a string of major studies that defined African historiography.21 Although other disciplines in other African Universities also had their own individual scholars that advanced “African” interpretations of disciplinary realities during this period, their impacts were less known because they did not come together under a single umbrella as did the Ibadan School of History, especially during the periods between late 1960s and early 1980s. Another comparably coherent initiative was from the Political Science

Introduction  9

Department of the Dar-es-salaam University in Tanzania. The radical tendencies of the Department could have also been enhanced by the nature of national leadership in the country during the 1970s, with President Nyerere and his Ujamaa socialism experiment holding sway in the East African nation. Another set of antecedents for a call for new narratives also came from radical scholars like Franz Fanon, especially through his analysis of the role of class, race, national culture, and violence in the struggle for national liberation.22 Two other factors are worthy of note. The first is the impact of the Negritude Movement, the literary drive that made waves in the 1930s and 1940s.This brought together black intellectuals and literary writers writing in the French language and became a tool that was used to assert their cultural identity. Among such writers were Leopold Senghor, Leon Damas, and Aime Césaire. Negritude responded to the alienated position of blacks in history and was an important tool in the rejection of colonialism. The second is the influence of the 1960s Black American movements that aimed to dispel the prevailing American notion that Blacks were less attractive to other races. These movements came up with the “Black is Beautiful” slogan that swept through the world in the early 1960s. Overall, the narrative advanced by Africans during this period was simply that there is more to the continent than all the tragedies often associated with it. While conceding that there were challenges, they also believed that they have a past and a present worthy of recognition. Indeed, Africa has recorded a few positive global “firsts” and its diversity, environment, culture, social values, and other peculiarities dictate the need to flip the coin to see the other side – to see how the African people see their own continent. Among others, excavations on the Olduvai George in Tanzania have confirmed Africa’s predominant position in human evolution.23 Neolithic Revolution is now confirmed to have arisen in the areas surrounding Egypt;24 techniques for working in copper had been operational in North Africa since the end of the fourth millennium BC;25 Egyptian pyramids date back to around 2630 BC;26 Pastoralism had been established in the region that later became Ethiopia and Sudan by around 5000 BC;27 Metallurgy had spread across what later became West Africa during the period 888 BC to 200 BC and Cultures like that of Nok in present day Nigeria had been prominent by around 1000 BC;28 Great Zimbabwe Ruins attest to sophisticated architecture and construction in Africa dating back to the 11th century.29 In the area of agricultural production, Coffee was invented in Ethiopia more than 3,000 years ago.30 In terms of learning, ancient institutions of learning had existed in places like Fez (latter-day Morocco), Timbuktu and Sankore, present-day Mali.31 Some of the oldest churches in history are in Ethiopia and North Africa, with historical roots dating to the time of the Apostles.32 It has also been reported that before street lights came to Europe, the Ancient Benin Kingdom had street light fuelled by Palm Oil.The same Kingdom, 500 years ago, casted metal alloys to create magnificent arts, including the world-famous Queen Idia mask.33 Even in the field of architecture, Africans look back to the accomplishments recorded by African architects through constructions like the rock churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia, the Swahili architecture of Lamu, Zanzibar, and Mombasa, and

10 Introduction

the mosques of Djenné in Mali.34 Also serving as sources of alternative pride for many Africans is what they consider as the diversity of their existence, the harmonious relationship they have historically had with their environment and the intricately complex but extensively beneficial family network. Africans also believe that there are many ways that they have influenced the world and for which they can celebrate. The impact of Africa on Western art is also one of the things Africans hold with pride.This, for example, comes out quite clearly in the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, among others. The Les Arts Negres of the 1940s and 1950s raised to the fore the global impacts of individuals like Senghor and Césaire. Also, the famous writer, Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis, who wrote The Golden Asse, the only Ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety, was a Berber born in North Africa. Furthermore, African American music made an extraordinary explosion in the 1920s through to the 1950s. It is also widely recognised that music like blues and jazz have been influenced by African rhythms, mainly through slaves brought to South America from Africa.35 Also celebrated American musicians and musical groups in the 1970s and 1980s, including Ginger Baker, The Rolling Stones and Steve Winwood all had influences from Africa. Even in the search for global peace, Africans recollect the roles people from the continent played during the Second World War, roles that recently earned the recognition of the former French President Francois Hollande.36 Africa has also impacted the world with its clothing. Indeed, dating back to the Phoenician times, migration and integration have spread African textiles to other regions of the world. As far back as around 1000 BC, when the trans-Saharan trade was at its peak, African clothes have been used as symbols of currency in transactions.37 During the European coastal trade in the 1400s, African fabrics were preferred over European fabrics and the “quality and colour of African textiles became an expression of wealth and knowledge in society and an indication of social hierarchy”.38 Even on the battle field, Africans believe there was a glorious past which they could look back to. There were indeed instances where European military forces were humiliated, or at least, embarrassed. For example, after a popular uprising in the Sudan in 1885, Britain’s Governor-General of the country, George Charles Gordon, was killed and Britain had to retreat from Sudan, even if temporarily. In Ethiopia, the Italian army was comprehensively defeated in 1896 at the Battle of Adowa. In 1824, the armed forces of the Asante Empire defeated the British forces and killed their commander, the governor of the Gold Coast. The Asante again attacked the coastal area of the Gold Coast between 1869 and 1872 and were only finally defeated in 1874.39 Africans also look back into their history and recalled that European refugees flocked to Africa before and during the Second World War seeking sanctuary.40 In short, while aspects of the advertised narrative that paint gory pictures of Africa might be accurate, so also are those that point to a great past for the continent. More forcefully than ever before, African scholars are now challenging the narrative that argues that the continent was a frozen state before it was “discovered” by Europeans. Even giving the allowance that some of the comments may have been infused with extreme pan-Africanist sentiments and may be sometimes intemperate in their language, some of their claims are backed with historical facts. For example,

Introduction  11

John Jackson, the African-American historian argues that “the curious idea that a great white race has been responsible for all the great civilisations of the past is nothing more than a crude superstition propagated mainly by European-oriented racist historians”.41 A crop of African American Scholars have also now come to argue that: There is something very deep-seated in many European historians or scholars that make him refuse to accord the African – and it is only the African – any credit for anything at all. European historians are happy to credit the Chinese, the Indians, the Mongolian and anybody else for what they have done. Not the African. Even when the feat is, or was, clearly achieved by an African and is on African soil, they attribute it to some Caucasoid element who descended from somewhere onto African soil and achieved the feat, or they give the credit to anybody else but the Africans. 42 Some Western scholars have also risen to criticise the “anybody else but the African” rationalisation that has been at the heart of the contortions that has afflicted many Western historians, scholars, writers, and journalists in their explanations. For example, Basil Davidson notes: Time and again the achievements of men in Africa – men of Africa – have been laid at the door of some mysterious but otherwise unexplained ­“people from outside Africa”. It is not the Hamites who have given scope for the ­“inarticulate major premise” of an inherent African (of Negro) inferiority. Over the past fifty years or so, whenever anything remarkable or inexplicable has turned up in Africa, a whole galaxy of non-African (or, at any rate, non-Negro) people are dragged in to explain it. The Phoenicians are brought in to explain the ­Zimbabwe in Rhodesia.The Egyptians are produced as the partners of the “White Lady” of the Brandberg in South West Africa. Even the Hittites have had their day. Yet every one of these achievements and phenomena is now ­generally agreed to have had a purely African origin.43 African literary writers also rose to compliment the efforts to assert African indigenous wisdom. After writing his seminal novel, Things Fall Apart, for example, Chinua Achebe said in a 1964 interview that he would be quite satisfied if his novels did no more than teach his “African readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them”.44 While all the above have been known for decades and Africans had taken pride in them, there has now emerged some new categories of people whose pride in the continent deserve special mention because of the effects they have been able to give their “Voices”. Indeed, these categories of people who now call the continent “Home” seem to be challenging opinions and perceptions about Africa. Broadly, new actors on the scene can be brought under three categories. The first are the “Diaspora” Africans. This group again comes in two forms. First, are those who

12 Introduction

fled the consequences of Structural Adjustment Policy that almost eradicated the middle-class across most African countries to travel to the United States and Western Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike their predecessors who came in the period immediately preceding and after independence to acquire education, this class of immigrants came in as Professionals, and they came to settle.45 Against the background of their deep understanding of developments in Africa, the desire to create a new narrative about the continent was paramount in their minds. This determination was further pursued by their children born during the 1990s and 2000s. These generations are often victims of dual cultural heritages – beneficiaries of deep African values coming from parents who did not want them to imbibe aspects of Western culture considered to be antithetical to African moral values, and western culture that endorses freedom of thoughts, words, and deeds. The second group of the Diaspora population is those who belong to the increasing resurgence of pan-Africanist sentiments in parts of South America, especially Brazil, Cuban, Bahia, and other places.While these people have always shown the desire to be connected to the continent, the last few decades have witnessed greater assertiveness in their desire to demonstrate their links with Africa. Indeed, in the last decade there have been deep interests on the part of many African diasporic populations to regard the continent as their “home”. The role played by Brazil, especially under former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is worth recording. During this period, greater affinity was established with the continent, such that the President himself was made an honorary member of the African Union. Indeed, Brazil’s reassertion of its African origin was, until the recent economic meltdown in the country, a key foreign policy objective and a major consequence of this increase in diasporic desire to reconnect with Africa. There are also individualised processes of reconnecting with the continent. A good example here would be the recent cases of Jamaicans moving to Ethiopia often linked to notions of Zion rooted in Rastafarians.46 All this makes major additions to those who give an alternative narration about Africa in global circles, thereby increasing the “Voice” of the continent. The second category comprises of those who, come somewhat under the growing term of “Afropolitans”. These are the new/emerging category of Africans who, in a way, belong to the Born-Free/Raised Free” generation. This includes ­African youths that never experienced apartheid (as in the case of South Africa) or brutal military dictatorship that prevailed across the African continent during the 1970s and 1990s. This generation seems to be more forceful in its determination to call Africa “Home”. In the most recent case of South Africa for example, students exhibited this tendency through the massive call for the “decolonisation of scholarship” which though started earlier, gained wide acclaim in the “Rhodes Must Fall” agitation.47 It is, however, important to put the “Must Fall” movements in a broader African historical trajectory that includes calls for Africanisation in the 1970s and 1980s in East Africa to show that this is part of a broader, more protracted struggle.48 There is also a slight external dimension to the “Agency” that emanated from this source. Spontaneous reactions that greeted police brutality against blacks, especially in the United States, and the “Black Life Matters” clamour, also gave voice

Introduction  13

to youths of African descents. This generation whose whole life has witnessed the experience of having a “Voice” are often seen to be more expressive in the ways they embark on the pursuit of a new narrative about Africa. Another characteristic of this generation, and one which has amplified their voice is their access to and usage of modern technology, especially social media. As will be discussed in the second chapter, the roles of these people in giving Africa a Voice has been remarkable, especially in many of the recent elections held across the continent where members of this generation were able to collect and collate results and put them on websites, thus forestalling rigging in these elections.The coming on to the scene of tools like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others have made inter-continental and inter-generational connectivity easy, fast, and effective and has empowered many Africans to take part in and be aware of global debates in which they can participate. The importance of social-media for mobilising the population was seen during the “Arab Spring” protests and in the Third-Termism controversies in Burundi and in Cameroon. Such is now the importance of social media that governments often limit internet access during times of important national developments and social agitations.49 As a result, this category of actors has been able to get to the outside world issues and information about the continent that they want disseminated. A section of this category of actors has also been involved in internet-based communication, or “citizen journalism, through which they have given voice to the hitherto voiceless segments of the African society, especially in challenging dictatorship.”50 The final category comprises African academics and activists who from their bases across the continent have used their work to shape the notion of, and clamour for, an African Voice. Indeed, some African scholars have emerged from the continent, especially in the fields of humanities and the social sciences to aspire to restructuring the narrative that sees Africa as a problem to be solved. Also, across universities on the continent, some of these academics have changed the content of the syllabus and have exposed their students to radical thinking that has shifted the focus from the “Africa as a Problem” narrative. There is the need for a discussion on how Africa has been studied (and is being studied), especially as this is linked to the whole issue of “narrative” about the continent. The intense and sustained study of Africa may be said to have begun during the 1950s but started gaining considerable ground during the 1970s and 1980s. It may also be necessary to concede that the increase in activities during the 1970s and 1980s was also stimulated by American grants to fund area studies to bolster their policy position in the post-World War II period. Two mutually ­reinforcing questions are pertinent in the discussion on the study of Africa: what the best approach to the study should be; and who best can study the continent. These questions have arisen for different, but somewhat related reasons. Among others, the first has come up because the multiplicity of approaches to the study of Africa lends itself to some conceptual confusion, while the latter question has arisen because of the near deep involvement of non-Africans writing about the continent and the ease with which some writings by non-Africans have fallen into simplistic conclusions that sometimes border on stereotypes.

14 Introduction

How best to study Africa is a question that would, perhaps, never be convincingly answered, especially as issues about the continent cut across many disciplines – economics, politics, history, geography, etc. – and most of these ­ ­disciplines come with different conceptual and methodological tools. However, Africa seems to be the continent that has most attracted ideological contestations in its scholarship. While initially most writings have been by those with liberal (and somewhat conservative) leanings, radical scholars later entered the space and, due also to the sympathy for this group by African scholars, have effectively become a major force in analysis about the continent. Indeed, the history of the continent and the peculiarities of its existence make the ideological contestations understandable. Analysis about its past and its aspirations for the future are bound to be explained and analysed with different ideological tools. Both ideological leanings have their own advantages and set-backs and they have both contributed significantly to knowledge about the continent. It would, however, seem that regardless of the ideological leanings of writings, any sustained study of the African continent would be one that eschews disciplinary compartmentalisation. As noted earlier, the question of “who can best study Africa” would seem to have arisen because of the number of non-Africans who have dominated the writing about the continent and the somewhat stereotypical depictions that have, in some cases, coloured their writings. There are also concerns with the ways some of the scholars in this category, often categorised as Africanists, have allegedly tried to undermine African authors and edge them out of visibility by preventing them from getting access in journals and book series that they (the Africanists) dominate. Indeed, as noted earlier, Africa is the continent with the highest number of people from outside of it writing about it. This again has been due largely to the nature of the continent’s evolution and the political history of its knowledge production. For analytical purposes, writings about Africa by non-Africans can be brought under three broad headings. First are scholars commissioned by the colonial powers to collate information about the “natives” to inform their colonial policies.This indeed was the motivation for the establishment of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) as an integral part of British colonialism through anthropology and the use of ethnography as its methodology.51 French colonialism also has its own links with institutions like the École nationale de la France d’outre-mer and the L’École libre des sciences politiques. Second are those writings by tourists, colonial officers, journalists, and those who had some form of contact with Africa during the period of colonialism, giving accounts of experiences and stewardships. These are often in narrative form and most of the time, not particularly analytical. While some of these contain information that may be important, writings in these two categories are the most vulnerable to stereotypical depictions. The third category comprises those written by academics, especially in the decades beginning from 1970s. It is this category of scholars that are often tagged “Africanists”.While the enormous contributions of both categories cannot be ignored, it is also the case that sometimes they are often unable to capture the various strands of African realities while in some cases too they have constructions of Western modernity as the universal standard

Introduction  15

and anything that does not fit is tagged a problem. Indeed, the construction of racial hierarchies set the trajectory of a predominantly black continent being “ordered”. Despite all this, the reality is that the involvement of non-Africans writing about the continent is practically overwhelming. But before concluding this chapter, there is the need for a discussion on the theoretical underpinnings that underline this book.

Theoretical underpinnings of “Problem” and “Agency” in Africa: issues surrounding the politics of “marginality” Writings on the reasons for Africa’s “underdevelopment”, have fallen into three broad segments: the first that puts the blame on colonialism and the decades of colonial exploitation which places Africa at a disadvantageous take-off position;52 the second, puts the cause on the activities of corrupt African leaders who have pillaged the economies of their respective countries;53 while the fourth explains the situation under foreign aid which has created dependency culture, trade distortion, corruption of political elites, and others.54 All this has brought a range of political theories, including development, Marxist, dependency, socialist, indigenous, neopatrimonial, and many others, have been employed in the study of post-colonial Africa.55 While not going into the contents of these theories or providing a critique of them, tasks that have been undertaking in other sources, what all of them seem to have in mind is the weak structural base from where Africa is relating to the rest of the world. Indeed, somewhat inherent in most, if not all of them is the assumption that the continent is operating from the “margin” of global affairs. Herein lies the idea of Africa as a “Problem.” Academic writings depicting Africa as a continent on global margin have a long history, dating back to the period even before the strong entrenchment of colonialism. In the 20th century, Africa’s marginality in western writings has an early entry in 1914, when Edgar Rice Burroughs published Tarzan of Apes, the first in the series of 23 books about the heroic Tarzan in the African jungles.These books were so popular that they were translated into 56 languages, and they contributed immensely to the misconception of Africa and its people and strengthened the early impression of Africa on the margin narrative. But academic writings have reacted in different ways to Africa’s marginal position in global politics. There are even arguments that different standards may be needed to gauge developments on the continent Africa and that when set against different (and in this case, non-Western) standards, events in Africa may be better appreciated. This, for example, was the view of Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz in their book, Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument.56 In recent times, one of the greatest manifestations of Africa’s marginality was the wave of Afro-pessimism that made waves in the early 1990s. This tendency gained greater audience with the publication of Richard Kaplan’s piece, The Coming Anarchy.57 The question of “Agency” is one that has become associated with academic writings about Africa in recent decades, linked in part to the impact of globalisation on the continent. Much influence also came from how Foucault and Habermas have separately challenged the supremacy of the structuralist approach that had

16 Introduction

dominated writings in the post-World War era. Essentially, Agency is usually understood as “directed, meaningful, intentional and self-reflective social action”.58 It emerges from a long debate about the respective importance of structure and individual action in social change. This debate is rooted into two genealogies. The first is to do with the shifts in social sciences since the 1960s and the second is linked to the evolving situation in Africa, viewed by many analysts as the impact of globalisation on Africa. The dominance of Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches to the study of society began to be questioned in the 1970s by people like Foucault and Habermas. These critiques began to influence the way Africanists went about their businesses. According to Chabal, Agency as a tool of theoretical analysis owes much of its impact on two important shifts in history and the social science: the rise of cultural history which has led to the reassessment of historiography by opening a vast transformation in the theory of history especially in areas like feminism and post-colonial studies; and the historical and linguistic shifts in the social science which brought about a focus on subjectivity, discourse, and deconstruction.59 The debate of the emergence of the agency discourse must be placed within some historical context. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism helped bring back subjectivity and agency in the analysis of social and political action.This ushered in theories of modernisation that emphasised on liberal democracy and the role of the market. It is within this setting that democracy wave swept across Africa. In this way, agency is the link between the market and democracy both which look at society through the lenses of an empowered individual endowed with social, political, and economic rights. The African context at the time of the market and democracy wave was mired in political and economic crisis. It is at this period that the fundamental rethinking of the African predicament began to take shape. The acknowledgement of the limited success of the structural adjustment ­programmes has been linked to the emergence of a new vision of African agency. This vision is rooted in two processes; the revolt against authoritarianism through social mobilisation and informal socio-economic and political activities to survive the harsh living conditions. Subsequently, since the 1990s, two strands of agency have emerged. One, is the aid ideology of supporting the civil society and second one is the idea that development needs combined efforts of every individual. This new discourse culminated in the creation of the NEPAD and MDG initiatives.60 Countering the Afro-pessimism mood which descended on the continent in the 1980s has been another strand of agency. This was aimed at focussing on the successes of the African continent as opposed to dwelling on the failures. This approach, however, highlights the limits of a lot of Africanist social science. This is because existing ideas cast the African continent as being impotent.Therefore, there is need for a new agency to come up with a new narrative that shows Africa as undergoing greater social change.61 A keen examination of agency in Africa reveals its ambiguity.There is the change that reflects the Western and non-African societies on one hand and on the other hand there is the bottom up analysis of the African context. However, the concept of agency in Africa is useful in two ways. One, it forces us to ask different questions

Introduction  17

about the on goings on the African continent. For example, instead of dwelling on the question of why Africa remains underdeveloped, there is need to ask how it has adapted to ever dynamic global order. Second, it supports the discussion on the extent of the reflection of the notion of Afro-Pessimism and how it is not inextricably linked with the causalities it seeks to undermine. It forces us to revise any overall mind-sets we may have taken for granted of the previous theoretical frameworks.62 The use of agency as a rebuttal against Afro-pessimism arises from two ­aspects mostly used when explaining the African continent. One is the deep concern that despite gaining independence, the African continent has stunted in development while the second is the negative impact of globalisation of the African continent. The situation in Africa at present can be summed into two broad categories. The first is laying the blame at the historical factors which include colonialism and the current wave of globalisation. This is to mean that conditions that affect the African continent are mostly outside of its control. Furthermore, the aid culture has perpetuated the dependency syndrome on ­outside help. The second, is the important role of political factors that are rooted internally that have been the root causes of the crisis on the continent. Perhaps the take off point for any attempt at theoretical postulations in the “Problem” and “Agency” dichotomy is to interrogate the ramifications of Africa’s “marginality” in global politics. Indeed, the concept of “marginality, is relational. It is rooted to the West’s perception of sophistication and advancement, when compared with other societies. Africa’s marginal image in international relations is largely measured through Western lenses and it is only marginal because of the ways global society is structured and in the way the continent is seen by those who manage global relations. In the last 15 years or thereabout, however, things have been changing and lines of resistance have begun to emerge. Indeed, the framing up of responses like movements for South-South cooperation, pivot to Asia and the calls for African solutions to African problems, while being steps for development, are also responses of resistance to global narratives that see Africa as marginal. An application of Foucault’s conception of discourse theory as a relationship between knowledge and power to highlight the framing of Africa through prejudiced knowledge production in the west is also important here. One of Michel Foucault’s main theoretical contributions was about the politics of knowledge production. His point was that there is a reciprocal relationship of legitimation between knowledge and power. That those who produce knowledge are able to use that knowledge to justify/legitimise their power over others, but that that process is then repeated wherein the power that they gain as a result of being able to claim control over knowledge is then used to legitimise the type of knowledge that they produce.63 To apply it to Africa’s place in global politics, one can argue that because the west controls levers of power (military, economic, and scientific), it uses that to exclude or in fact deny the viability or credibility of knowledge produced from elsewhere about Africa. It then in turn uses its centres of knowledge production, which are powerful precisely because of military, economic, and historical factors, to justify the continued subjugation of the so called “marginal societies”.

18 Introduction

The “voices” that ultimately led to “Agency” have multiple sources, some of which appear somewhat competing, but nevertheless also fairly reinforcing. Some of these include those who desires to frame Africa along neo-liberal values and those opposed to it. Other sources of “voices” leading to “Agency” include the redistributive voices of the working class who, in some African countries, subscribe to issues like land-redistribution and those who are diametrically opposed to this, the middle class versus the working class, youth versus adult, diaspora versus home, state versus citizens, as in the case of strong states like Rwanda and Ethiopia wanting to weave narratives around the state and others desiring lesser grip of the state in favour of the citizens. But despite the divergencies, there are still areas of commonality, including consolidation of democracy, development, and the establishment of harmonious inter-group relations. Looking at Africa as the liminal, it can now be said that Africa is finding itself in between competing global powers – East – West. This, however, is not in the cold war context but in the context of new great power competitions, e.g. China versus the West and BRICS versus the West. The continent has attained a measure of importance with all these actors fighting for its attention. Indeed, access to Africa is crucial to these outside blocks. But some of the crucial questions this raises, include how Africa is trying to manage its image and what this means for Africa’s agency.

Conclusion The last two decades have witnessed major transformations in Africa, both in terms of development and the quality and quantity of people determined to project the image of the continent. However, not much attention seems to have been given to this new trend and a lot of literature still seems to be focusing on tragedies and negative stereotypes that characterised the period immediately after independence. Perhaps, too, a reason for this is the limited number of Africans writing about their own continent. Overall, this introductory chapter has tried to provide a contextual background of Africa and one that shows it as a continent with considerable diversity. This diversity, which though adds to its peculiarity, has also made it vulnerable to it being misunderstood and misrepresented, especially through blanket assumptions and extrapolated deductions. The broad generalisation of research on the continent has also often been based on pre-existing assumptions that often lead to empirical falsification. Perhaps the most extreme manifestation of this tendency is the emergence of the narrative that sees the continent as a “problem” that needs to be solved. Examining the roots of this narrative is the objective of the next chapter.

Notes 1 This is at the Centre of Ali Mazrui’s Documentary, “Triple Heritage” that had wide global audience in the 1980s. 2 For more on this, see, Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery:The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1820-1920 (London: OUP, 1974). 3 It is perhaps important to note at this point that there are the indigenous North Africans, who inhabited the region before Arabs and that the Arabs, in fact, were

Introduction  19

invaders. These indigenous North Africans are indeed considered as one of the oldest populations in Africa. 4 This was the topic of an intense debate at the Post-graduate seminar at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London in November 2016. 5 John Ryle, “The Many Voices of Africa”, in, The View from Africa The Magazine on New Writing (London: GRANTA, 92, Winter 2005). 6 The “foreignness” of the name has prompted some to demand its replacement with something “Afrikan”. The Nigerian playwright, Wole Soyinka, was once at the forefront of this clamour. 7 This discussion has been brilliantly captured by Peter da Costa in his thesis, “Rule of Experts? Decomposing Agency and Agendas in Africa’s Development Regime”, ­Unpublished Ph.D. thesis School of Oriental and African Studies, (University of L ­ ondon) February 2011. 8 James Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006) (Quoted from ibid). 9 Quoted from Japhace Poncian, “The persistence of western negative perceptions about Africa: Factoring in the role of Africans”, Journal for African Studies 7, no. 3 (March 2015). 10 This seems to be the oldest of all the negative stereotypes, possibly taking its roots in Henry Morten Stanley’s book about his travels in Africa, In Darkest Africa, London: Sampson Low and Co, 1980. It was later amplified by from Hugh Trevor Roper’s 1969 time (dis)honoured assertion that “there is only the History of Europeans in Africa. The rest is Darkness.” See, also Sarkozy’s speech in Chapter 1. 11 This was the assertion of a publication by The Economist Magazine in May 2000.­Although the Magazine has tried to moderate its stance on this controversial position, it remains a most quoted phrase in discussions on Afro-pessimism. 12 This was the assertion of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair in his speech while on visit to Nigeria in February 2002. 13 Trevor Roper first made this assertion in a series of lectures he delivered at the ­University of Sussex in October 1963 and later returned to this argument in The Past and the ­Present: History and Sociology, Past and Present, no. 42 (February 1969). 14 South Africa has the largest Buddhist and Hindu population in Africa, but many African countries are now joining South Africa. In West Africa, Ghana, for example, has a considerable Buddhist population. 15 See SIPRI. SIPRI Year Book 2002: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 65. 16 These statistics emerged from the Nigerian-based ACDESS program, for more details see Adebayo Adedeji, ed. Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts (London/New York: ZED Books for ACDESS, 1999), 4. 17 The drought in Ethiopia in 1985 caught global attention, with key musicians from across the world coming together to wax the popular song, “We Are the World”. 18 The concept of the war being described as Africa’s “First World War” by Gerard Prunier, See Gerard Prunier, Africa’s First World War: Congo, The Rwandan Genocide and the Making of Continental Catastrophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. This was because it occurred in Africa and with up to seven or nine African countries taking frontline/ inglorious part in it. But it is inappropriate to the extent that there are numerous nonAfrican actors (state and non-state) in the war. Many Western countries and about 85 multinational companies participated either in the gross human right violation, despoliation of land, water and forest, plunder of mineral resources, and violation of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines when the DRC war was ranging. For details, see, Zahra Moloo (2007) “The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Economic War: Investigating the Origin of Anonymous Commodities in the Global Capitalist System” (available online on http://www.otabengaalliance. org) (date accessed 21/05/2009); Erik Kennes, “Footnotes to the Mining Story” Review of African Political Economy 29, nos. 93/94 (London: Pluto Press, 2002); and Carole J.L. Collins, “Congo: Revisiting the Looking Glass” Review of African Political Economy 29, nos. 93/94 (2002), 607–615.

20 Introduction

19 Kenneth Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta (London: Clarendon Press, 1956). This grew out of the PhD thesis submitted to the University of London in 1940.The uniqueness of the thesis is that it was the first time that African oral tradition was employed in the writing of a Doctoral thesis.This study thus paved the way for subsequent studies that came up using similar method. Saburi Biobaku, Egbas and Their Neighbours 1842 - 1872 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). 20 Books by Amadou Hampâté Bâ include The Fortunes of Wangrin: The Life and Times of an African Confidence Man, while Diop include, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa, from Antiquity to the Formation of Modern States; Civilization or Barbarism. 21 Other leading scholars of the Ibadan School include Saburi Biobaku, Adiele Afigbo, Adebowale Atanda Emmanuel Ayandele, Obaro Ikime, Rowland Adeleye, Banji Akintoye, and Tekena Tamuno among others. A number of foreign scholars, many of which came to teach in Nigeria, were also often associated with the school, including Michael Crowther, Abdullahi Smith, J.B. Webster, R.J. Gavin, Robert Smith, and John D. Omer-Cooper. 22 This is most demonstrated in his book, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin ­Publishers, 1961). 23 Richard Hay, Geology of the Olduvai Gorge (University of California Press, 1976). 24 Melanie Boyd, “The Different Paths of the Neolithic Revolution in Egypt and Sudan”, CJA Anthro Journal 2 (May 2014). 25 Toyin Falola and Daniel Jean-Jacques, “Introduction”, in Toyin Falola and Daniel ­Jean-Jacques, An Encyclopaedia of Culture and Society, Vol. 1, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1016), xii. 26 Kurt Mendelssohn, The Riddle of the Pyramids, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1974. 27 Günther Schlee, and Abdullahi A. Shongolo, Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia (London: James Currey, 2015). 28 Breunig, P., ed. Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context (Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag, 2014). 29 Huffman, Thomas N. “Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The origin and spread of social complexity in southern Africa”. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28, no. 37 (2009). 30 Thomas P. Ofcansky, and David H. Shinn, Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia (Scarecrow Press, 2004), 92. 31 See, Alexandra Hudolleston, Divine Learning:The Traditional Islamic Scholarship of Timbuktu (Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2009). 32 See, John Baur, 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa: An Africa History 62 – 1992 (Paulines, 1994). 33 The Idia Mask remains one of the most popular identities in the world. It was part of the treasury removed during colonial rule and still kept in the British Museum. 34 See, Mario di Salvo, The Basilica of Ethiopia: An Architectural History (London: I. B. Tauris, 2016). 35 See, Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), especially Chapter One which looks at the Pre-history of Jazz: The Africanization of American Music. 36 See, François Hollande praises Senegal in first Africa visit, The Guardian (Associated Press) 12 October 2012. 37 New African Women, Issue 39, October/November 2016, 15. 38 Ibid. 39 Biodun Olamosu and Andy Wynne,“Africa rising? The economic history of sub-Saharan Africa”, International Socialism: A Quarterly Review of Socialist Theory Issue, 146. 40 See, Curtis Abraham, “When Europeans were Refugees in Africa”, New African Magazine, June 20 2012. 41 Quoted from Baffour Ankomah, “When Africa civilised Europe”, New-Africa (January 2016), 73.

Introduction  21

42 Ibid 43 Quoted from Africa, Her History, Land and People (New York: Cooper Square Publishers INC, 1969), 7. 44 https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/things-fall-apart/about-things-fall-apart 45 As some of them were children of those who had come to study in the 1960s and had been born in Europe, they did not encounter much difficulty in settling as they were exempted from Visa requirements. Even those who were not born in Western Europe had no serious difficulties settling because immigration policies in most European countries during the period were relatively relaxed. 46 A major work that explores this is Emily Raboteau, Searching for Zion:The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) (especially Chapter Parts II and III, Chapters 5–12). 47 This started in March 2015 when students at the University of Cape Town, South ­Africa, called for the demolition of the statue of Cecil Rhodes. But the statue was only a symbol of a deeper struggle – that of what was considered as institutional racism at the U ­ niversity. This later extended to other universities in Southern Africa and later to ­Oxford University. It later adjusted its focus to clamour for decolonisation of scholarship. 48 For more on this, see, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity (Oxford: Berghahn Publishers, 2013) (especially Chapter Seven on Higher Education); Bhekithemba Richard Mngomezulu, Politics of Higher Education in East Africa from 1020 to 1970; Mahmoud Mamdani, “Between the Public Intellectual and the Scholar: Decolonization and some Post-Independence Initaitives in African Higher Education” in Paul T. Zeleza, and Adebayo Olukoshi, African Universities in the TwentyFirst Century:Vol. 2: Knowledge and Society (Dakar: Senegal, 2000). 49 Recent cases include Cameroon in 2016 with the Anglophone crisis; Uganda in 2014, South Africa in 2015, Egypt in 2011, and even during the Arab Spring. 50 A popular one here is the On-Line based News Agency, Sahara Reporters, established by a Nigerian, Omoyele Sowore, in 2006 with its head-office in New York. 51 See, Ian Brown, The School of Oriental and African Studies: Imperial Training and the Expansion of Learning. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 52 A representative of this school is Patrick Bond, Looting Africa:The Economics of Exploitation (London: Zed Publishers, 2006). 53 The position of those in this school is well captured by van de Walle. See Nicolas Van de Walle, African Economics and the Politics of Permanent Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 54 Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). 55 Patrick Chabal, Africa:The Politics of Suffering and Smiling (London: Zed Books, 2009), 3. 56 Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument (London: James Currey, 2010). 57 Richard Kaplan “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet”, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994. 58 Patrick Chabal, op-cit., p. 3 59 Ibid 60 Ibid 61 Ibid 62 Ibid 63 Michel Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2002).

1 BACKGROUND OF THE AFRICA AS A “PROBLEM” NARRATIVE

The former French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, raised considerable dust in July 2007, when he made his now (in) famous Dakar speech, where he said, among other things, that: The tragedy of Africa is that the African has never really entered into ­history… They have never really launched themselves into the future… The African peasant, who for thousands of years has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time… In this imaginary world, where everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human endeavour, nor for the idea of progress… The problem of Africa… is to be found here. Africa’s challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history … It is to realize that the golden age that Africa is forever recalling will not return, because it has never existed.1 Expectedly, Sarkozy’s speech attracted derision and enormous criticism from a broad range of Africans, especially scholars, artists, and practitioners who viewed his position as being inherently ill-informed – perhaps even somewhat racist.2 Traveling down to Africa to make such a statement was also seen as being somewhat insensitive, if not intensely arrogant and blatantly condescending. The timing too was considered most inauspicious – a time when the continent had started showing considerable progress and had begun to attract interest, attention, and recognition. Ironically, however, there were those who supported his views or perhaps, aspects of them, even among notable Africans. For example, the former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, saw Sarkozy’s position as an implicit endorsement of his call for the African Renaissance,3 and went ahead to call him a “friend of Africa”.4 Although Mbeki’s position earned him a lot of criticism, mostly from among his fellow South Africans,5 he has remained adamant in his views. Regardless of where one stands in the controversy, what seems

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  23

to be without contention is that there are different perceptions as to how Africa got the image of a “Problem” that was affixed to it in many quarters and any attempt to discuss the present and future of the continent should address the origin of this attempt at demonisation through negative tagging. As noted in the last chapter, the “problem” perception came not long after formal contact with the outside world. However, a repackaged and updated version of this perception came shortly after independence, with the prevalence of corruption, civil wars, instability, and socio-economic challenges in the continent.6 The narrative that sees post-independence Africa as a “problem to be solved” is rooted in a series of exogenous and endogenous socio-economic and historical considerations but the manifestations become more glaring when they are combined with prevailing global developments. While, no doubt, there were external factors that created problems, the denial by ardent Afro-optimists that there are also self-inflicted issues is at the centre of the continent’s failure to change the narrative.The objective of this chapter is to identify and discuss the various exogenous and endogenous strands of issues that brought about the perception that Africa is a “problem to be solved”.

Exogenous factors in the origin of the “Africa as a problem” narrative While many exogenous factors can be identified, four are particularly important. These include: the effects of Slavery; the impact of Colonialism; the consequences of wiring of post-independence Africa into the international system; and the results of Neo-Colonialism.

(a) Slavery The commodification and dehumanisation of black bodies that came through the Slave Trade undoubtedly provide the most profound exogenous factors at the root of the “Africa as a Problem” narrative. The trade, which took place between the 15th and 19th centuries, resulted in several millions of people from Africa carted away to the “New World” in North and South America.The regions of Africa most affected were the Senegambia region (Senegal and Gambia); the Upper Guinea region (Guinea Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone); the Windward Coast, (Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire); the Gold Coast (Ghana and the east of Cote d’Ivoire); The Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria, west of the Niger Delta); the Bight of Biafra, (Nigeria, East of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon); West Central Africa, (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola); and Southern Africa, (Mozambique and Madagascar). Overall, it is believed that up to 12.5 million people were transported outside Africa and between 1.2 and 1.4 million people were assumed to have died in the process of transportation.7 But what was Africa like before the Slave Trade and what structures did the enterprise disrupt? While, with no doubt there were wars of territorial expansion and occasional acrimonious inter-group relations among various African communities,

24  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

there was also a standard of civilisation that was even by the global standards of the period, quite impressive and which was even acknowledged by Europeans as being somewhat comparable to Western Europe. For example, a Dutch visitor to Benin City wrote around 1600: As you enter it, the town appears very great.You go into a great broad street, not paved, which seems to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes Street in Amsterdam…The houses in this town stand in good order, one close and even with the other, as the houses in Holland stand… 8 The system of government too was impressive and again, somewhat comparable to what existed in Europe during the same period. For example, Lewis Gann and Peter Duignan, in their book The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914, say that “An African Aristotle would have found in the Congo every conceivable form of constitution, from small “stateless” neighbourhood societies to powerful monarchies”. 9 These were some of the standards the Slave Trade met across most African societies. In discussing how the Slave Trade contributed to Africa’s identification as a problem to be solved, perhaps the first is through the massive outflow of individuals from the continent over a period of three centuries and the long-term demographic and economic implications of this on the continent. This massive outflow had two major consequences. First, it stifled the ongoing developmental processes in the affected societies and weakened the foundation of subsequent post-colonial states that emerged from them. Most of the victims of slavery were those who were crucial to their societies, as they were individuals in their prime ages who could have contributed to the development of the lands from which they were uprooted. The extraction of these people weakened the foundation of all the affected societies, as it denied them the ability to reproduce themselves economically, politically, culturally, and socially. There is indeed a link between this and post-independence economic development as the Slave Trade prevented the coming into being of an agrarian and even industrial revolution in most African countries. Indeed, conservative estimates believe that the population of the continent would have doubled the 25 million population it had in 1850 if it had not been for the Slave Trade. Second, and somewhat related to the first, is that Slave Trade puts the affected African countries at a comparative disadvantage to the societies receiving these slaves. Because the Slave Trade took place over a considerably long period of time, it places the “haemorrhaging” societies at long-term disadvantage in any competition against the “recipient” state. Indeed, there are assumptions that the whole Industrial Revolution that gave the Western world considerable advantage over the rest of the world owed a lot to the Slave Trade by inciting the need to compete with free labour. On their part though, post-independence African societies feel that they were handicapped, not from birth, or even from conception, but even before their prospective parents met. Even the conflicts that bedevilled post-independence Africa have links, even if admittedly remote, with the Slave Trade. While, indeed, there was often acrimony in inter-group relations before the Slave Trade, there is

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  25

also no doubt that the Slave Trade exacerbated it as it increased the incentives to engage in communal conflicts for slave raiding. Indeed, the Slave Trade made war more common, possibly laying the foundation of a practice that was to become prevalent in post-independence Africa. The disruption of a culture during its evolution is another major consequence of slavery that remained significant in post-colonial Africa. While, of course, it would remain an historical conjecture as to what path Africa’s social development would have taken if its centres of civilisation had not been razed in search of human cargo, or how its economies would have developed if it had not been distorted by trade in human beings, the general conclusion, and one that is safe to reach, is that it could not be as bad as it eventually turned out for the continent. There is, indeed, a link between culture and development and the disruption of any culture in the process of its evolution can only have negative consequences on the affected people. The forceful removal of millions who could have contributed to the sustenance of the culture was almost certainly bound to be detrimental, even if there are no empirical methods to measure all the ramifications of the impacts. Deduction of the long-term economic implications of Slavery can also be seen in the category of the people that were taken as Slaves. All accounts of the Slave Trade have shown that the age-bracket mostly taken and exported as slaves were of those between 15 and 30. In any society, this is the productive age bracket. The consistent haemorrhaging of people of this productive sector from Africa over a period of three centuries left a huge gap in the economy of the continent with consequences that lasted long after the independence of these countries. In his significant work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney argues that the Slave Trade fundamentally altered African economies. First, the trade discouraged state-building and encouraged slave raiding. It encouraged the capture of slaves for sale and discouraged the capture of land and the cultivation of the citizenry for the purposes of taxation. Rodney was also able to establish that while Europe’s population more than quadrupled between 1650 and 1900, Africa’s population rose only by 20% during the same period.10 Indeed, as Warren Whatley and Rob Gillezeau have pointed out, there “is econometric evidence showing that increases in the international demand for enslaved Africans induced a reallocation of resources in Africa towards slave production and away from other economic pursuits”.11 While it is impossible to get the actual figures of slaves taken away from Africa, Warren Whatley, and Rob Gillezeau provide some statistics about the consequences of slavery in Africa: More than 13 million slaves were produced in Africa and transported across the Atlantic. 77% of these slaves (10.1 million) were produced along the West and West Central coasts of Africa during the 150 years between 1701 and 1850. In 1700, the estimated population in this region of Africa was 28 million people. If the average life span was 30 years, then the 10.1 million slaves were produced over five lifetimes.That yields 2.6 million slaves produced per lifetime, or 9.3% of the total population. If we take into account collateral

26  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

damage, then the probability of being a victim of slave production increases further. Slave producers killed and injured others to capture their slaves. Captives died during the long trek to the coast, in the holding pens along the coast, and during the Middle Passage. And many captives remained in Africa. The physical and social deaths needed to produce 13 million slave exports could have easily reached twice that number.12 Also, worth considering in the long-term implications of Slavery on Africa is its impact on the Elites in the continent. In many societies, the elites (often considered as the Middle Class) are the engines of development. Consequently, the development of a warped sense of judgement by this class was bound to have far-reaching consequences. The tendency that became visibly manifest in later centuries – that of aggressive accumulation and violent protection of elite interest – could have started during the period of Slave Trade. Many African slave dealers were forceful in their determination to protect a source of income that was giving them power and wealth, such that the British effort to stop the enterprise faced as much of a challenge from the Slave Traders as from the African sellers. Equally important but again difficult to quantify and analyse are the psychological consequences of slavery which still determine power relations between Africans and the rest of the world to date. This emerged largely through undermining the confidence of Africans in their historical evolution. Being the only continent where there was Slave Trade on that scale and for such a sustained period, Africans find themselves feeling inferior to other races of the world, especially those races that were responsible for their subjugation. There were also active attempts to teach the Africans that they were inferior and not civilised enough and to position them as abnormalities or as the “other” that could never be equal to whites and other people of colour – or considered human. Also, to be added to this is the way “science” has been brought in to reinforce racial hierarchies and the notion of inferiority. The ramifications of all are complex and often difficult to quantify but they created a perception that became enormously entrenched because they had been passed down over the centuries and through several generations. Because of the mental and psychological consequences of slavery, black Africans believe that they are implicitly inferior to the race that took their ancestors as slaves.There are indeed ethnographic studies that have demonstrated the effects of slavery on communities, and even the importance of shame in shaping what is shared in the transmission of histories.13 However, the scale and ramifications of slavery were different and in some circumstances some people could work their way out of slavery in both Africa and in the recipient countries. The slavery phenomenon led to the whole debate over reparations, the call that the West should pay for the injustices of the action. Contrary to what is ­often assumed, the idea of reparation began when slavery was still in progress. As ­Alfred Brophy has noted, the call can be traced back to David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, published in 1829.14 Callie House, Martin ­Luther King, Malcolm X were to join the clamour in subsequent generations. From the

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  27

African continent too, the call received a significant boost when the Nigerian ­telecommunication magnate, the late Moshood Abiola waded into the discussion. The Organization of African Unity, the precursor of the current African Union, gave the call for reparations an open endorsement and a Committee was set up under Abiola to champion the cause.15 In concluding this discussion on the impact of Slave Trade, it would, however, be historically dishonest not to recognise the culpability of Africans themselves. As noted earlier, African elites, for obvious personal greed, played an active part in encouraging and sustaining the trade.This also explains why, after the formal abolition, the practice continued in some parts of West Africa. It is also important to note that it was also possible, under some circumstances, for slaves to “work” their way out of slavery. However, one most important association of slavery was that with colonialism.

(b) Colonialism A second exogenous factor at the root of the narrative that saw Africa as a problem was colonialism, the process through which several Western European countries partitioned the continent into their colonies. Except for Ethiopia and Liberia – the former having resisted attempted colonial rule by Italy, and the latter having been established by the USA as a state of freed American slaves off the Atlantic coast in the early 19th century – all African states experienced one form of colonial rule or another. Valentine Mudimbe has identified three key features of colonialism in relevance to Africa: (a) territorial enlargement and control of land; (b) the incorporation of colonial history and economy into Western narrative; and (c) the transformation of mindfulness.16 The two main forms of colonial rule were “direct” and “indirect” rule, perpetrated in their colonies by the French and British, respectively. “Direct” rule meant that colonies were governed from Paris, the French capital, and that the colonies had representation in the French Parliament, while “indirect” rule referred to the use of mostly already existing traditional ruler-ship structures superintended by the British through their Governors. There are, however, grounds to consider the widely used expression “indirect” rule as being somewhat misleading. Indeed, indirect rule as it was practiced by the British is not a protectorate. It was direct colonial rule but with the use of local potentates as instruments for administrative convenience. At the level of the colony the British were directly in charge. Colonialism is intricately linked to the Slave Trade, as the abolition of the ­latter weakened the economies of kingdoms that had depended on it, thus making them vulnerable to European conquest. This process of colonisation formally began in 1870, when Otto von Bismarck organised a conference in Berlin, and it took the countries of the continent through a decolonising process, with some ending up fighting bitter wars of liberation.The consequences of Colonialism on the “problem to be solved narrative” are profound. First, the whole process of bringing various ethnic groups, some of them with history of acrimony, together to form nation

28  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

states was to be a significant factor in post-independence instability that brought about many civil wars. Richard Dowden uses Nigeria as a case study to draw out some of the ramifications of this when he notes: Nigeria, like Europe, has three big tribes and several other ethnic groups, 25 in the case of Europe, more than 400 in the case of Nigeria. Imagine a united Europe, united, by force, not by Referendum – which has to elect one President [and] one government; a united Europe in which the French are Muslims, the German, Catholic, the British, Protestants, and there is only one source of income, oil, and it is under the Germans.17 This was what colonialism imposed on Africa and it was on this basis that people had to forge post-colonial states. The inevitability of instability in the scenario painted above is obvious. Indeed, it is now well known that cementing intergroup harmony among ethnic units that come together to form a nation-state is a long and tedious process. For example, if the Scots and the English are still discussing and negotiating the terms of their association after more than 300 years of living together, nothing different should be expected from the Hausa and Ibo in Nigeria after less than 60 years, or the Shona and Ndebele in Zimbabwe after less than 40 years. Colonialism also manipulated African consciousness in agricultural p­ roduction, with African countries being forced to embark on productions that had limited relevance for their needs but to satisfy prevailing socio-economic developments in Europe. The imposition of cash-crop production for export, and mineral extraction affected the economies significantly in future years. As noted by Kevin Shillington, “Colonialism prevented industrialisation in Africa through its economic policies which sort of destroyed commercial agriculture and brought about the birth of mono-crops and cash-crops in various African colonies”.18 An example often cited here in this disarticulation of agricultural production in Africa is cotton production, especially in countries like Mozambique and the present day Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, farmers were forced to divert their efforts from agricultural products that had local relevance into cotton production required to meet the need of the industrial revolution in Europe.19 This forceful production, effected using exploited labour, was to have severe consequences that are visible to date. Indeed, by “the 1980s only five countries (Benin, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Senegal, and Zimbabwe) had diversified export bases”.20 There is also a variant of pseudo-scientific racism that came with colonialism. For example, “science” was used to prove that Africans have different genitalia and high sex drive with Saartje Baartmaan’s body as the justification of the hypersexualisation of black bodies.21 Also, through the denigration and devaluation of all things African (beliefs, arts, religion customs, etc.), a reinforcement of the perception of inferiority was ingrained in Africans and the perception of Africa being a problem became established. Indeed, colonialism classified indigenous ways of life as uncivilised and barbaric.

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  29

The politics of knowledge production in Africa has also been affected by the destruction of its centres of civilisation. Apart from the forceful removal and confiscation of African artefacts, including the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, the Igbo Ukwu and Nok artefacts during colonial invasions and occupation, libraries were also destroyed and looted. For example, the entire library of Umar Tall was believed to have been carted away by French invaders to the Bibliotheque Nationale in France in 1890. Also, in Cameroon, King Njola’s royal palace of Founban, with all its documents and other treasures, were burnt down in 1913. Furthermore, many African artefacts were believed to have been destroyed during the early days of Christian evangelisation while others were exported to European capitals. A long-term consequence of colonialism for post-independence tragedies in ­Africa can also be seen in the colonial policy of “divide and rule”. Rwanda, an ­African country that experienced genocide, manifested this example. What later became Rwanda was first a German colony that was allocated to Belgium after Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Belgium created a distinction between the two ethnic groups – Hutu and Tutsi – even though they both speak the same ­language. Belgium officials “conceived of Tutsi as natural aristocrats as less African than the Hutus”.22 The ultimate outcome of this was the emergence of h ­ ostility which even started playing out before independence after the Hutu “Social ­Revolution” of 1959 and the pogroms that became associated with it and it continued until the genocide of 1994. The brutality associated with Colonialism also left lasting impacts for postcolonial Africa and it contributed to why Africa was later considered a “problem to be solved”. Indeed, all the key countries that took part in colonialism have also been accused of serious human right abuses that were of genocidal proportions. Some of this can be recorded: undoubtedly one of the worst manifestations of the brutality that came with colonialism occurred in the Congo, where King Leopold of Belgium carried out some of the worst human right abuses that are equivalent to genocide. Going under the guise of civilising Africa, King Leopold acquired territories up to 80 times the size of his country Belgium. However, instead of civilising the Congo, Leopold sought rapid exploitation of the region. To aid in this rapid exploitation after acquiring the territory through deceit, Leopold established a military force, the Force Publique, in the Congo Free State. This consisted of Belgian officers and it set up bases and forced labour camps to have the Congolese go and collect wild rubber. What was however most profound was the brutality that was associated with the process. Brutality including cutting off right hands, heads and genitals, and flogging to death, were some of the punishments inflicted on the Congolese. Overall, up to 10 million Congolese are believed to have been killed by Leopold in his desire to exploit Congolese natural resources.23 Indeed, the experience of post-independence Congo, including the war shortly after its independence which brought in the UN intervention and other on-going challenges in the country, show the persistent legacies of King Leopold’s autocratic rule. Germany did a similar thing in the South West Africa (present-day Namibia) when, in October 1904, a German General, Lothar von Trotha, issued an extermination

30  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

order against the Herero ethnic group. The order was explicit as it was chilling: “Within the German borders every Herero with or without guns, with or without cattle, will be shot”.24 In the subsequent months after this order, more than fourfifths of the Herero people perished. Another ethnic group that also rose against the Germans, the Nama, suffered a similar fate, losing perhaps a third of its population.25 British colonial rule had its own imperial brutality in a few of its colonies. In South Africa, there was the brutal repression of the Khoi and San peoples in the 17th and 18th centuries. Also, in Kenya, between 1952 and 1960, British imperial rule exhibited massive brutality in suppressing the famous Mau Mau rebellion. In documents that were subsequently released, British military officers confessed even as of then to Whitehall that brutality was used to extract information from the local population. Members of the Kikuyu ethnic group were detained in camps, since described as “Britain’s gulags” or concentration camps, where they allege, they were systematically tortured, suffered serious sexual assaults and were castrated. Estimates of the deaths vary widely between 20,000 and 100,000.26 All these atrocities could have left consequences that contributed to Africa ­being considered as a problem in at least two ways. First, the physical violations of human rights could have laid the foundation of post-independence continuation of the same practice. It was thus not surprising that in subsequent years, Congo became one of the main countries where sundry forms of physical violations of human rights were most prevalent, such that its first legally elected Prime Minister, the late Patrice Lumumba, was kidnapped, humiliated and tortured before being killed. Post-independence Kenya also displayed similar tendencies as the tenure of ­President Jomo Kenyatta witnessed cases of brutality against the population. Second, the impunity with which the physical violations of human rights were executed during the period could have also encouraged post-independence continuation of the same tendency. Indeed, Congo experienced one of the longest periods of impunity when the late President Mobutu Sese Seko held sway in the country. Kenya too had traces of this during the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta. Recruitment into the armed forces of colonies and the subsequent politics relating to the training of the officers were also factors that contributed to the postindependence political instability that gave Africa a negative reputation. While the processes of recruitment into the armed forces of colonial Africa have had its own set of scholars, with divergent views, there seems to be consensus that whether in Anglophone or Francophone Africa the processes of recruitment seemed to have favoured some ethnic groups to the disadvantage of others. In Kenya, for e­ xample, the Luos were recruited more into the military by the British colonial power at the expense of the dominant Kikuyus who had incurred colonial Britain’s hatred through their Mau-Mau uprising.27 In Nigeria too, for example, special considerations were given to ethnic groups from the Middle Belt and the Northern parts of the country to the disadvantage of the East and Western sections. These were also ethnic groups that colonial rule believed to be more physically suited for recruitment. Also, in Uganda, special considerations were accorded the Buganda ethnic group over others. This was a factor that was to prove decisive in later years when

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  31

the military intervened in politics. While it was not likely that the steps were taken with the aim of future destabilisation of these countries, it was the case that this was later a factor that was exploited for destabilisation. Even the spectre of the military coup that was to be a major factor that underlined the “Africa as a problem” narrative may have aspects of its roots, even if only remotely, linked to the seeds that were sown during colonial rule. A Nigerian military officer who played an important role in the political governance of the country noted that when he was undergoing military training abroad, it was common for British training officers to introduce them during public engagements as future leaders of their respective countries and to demand that they be accorded the level of respect due their future positions.This, according to him could have sown the seeds of future coups in the minds of some of the soldiers.28 Also linked to colonialism and its impact on Africa’s subsequent designation as a “problem” was the role played by racist regimes across the continent, but most especially in Southern Africa. Two things are important in the linkage here. First, the racist policies colonialism brought to the region resulted in bitter wars of liberation in countries like Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, South West Africa, and South Africa. These wars, which resulted in the death of several thousand people, further created the impression of Africa as a continent ravaged by civil war. Second, and perhaps more importantly, was the association of this consequence of colonialism to the bitter civil wars that occurred in some of the countries after independence, especially Angola and Mozambique, through the destabilisation policies of apartheid South Africa.29 To ensure the continuation of apartheid policy in South Africa, the apartheid regime in Pretoria embarked on extensive destabilisation of ­Southern ­Africa through its instigation of civil wars in Angola and Mozambique. The civil wars in these two countries witnessed some of the worst demonstrations of ­violence in the continent and saw the death of more than a million people. The negative consequences of these wars further reinforced the impression of Africa being a “problem”. The argument that Colonialism could not have been without a positive impact on Africa is one that sometime comes up.30 The introduction of western education has often been cited as one of the positive aspects of Colonialism. The argument here is however weakened as it presupposes the non-existence of education before colonialism. Indeed, precolonial Africans were educated, if, however, not literate in the narrow Western sense. One of the common stereotypes perpetuated by the colonialist discourse of African people that Achebe debunks through his book, Things Fall Apart, is the assertion that Africans were not educated before colonialism. Indeed, I think there is the need to make a distinction between “education” and “literacy”. Achebe seemed to have shown that while, for example, the Ibo people may not be literate in the Western sense, the people were educated in the indigenous way and that they had wisdom. Things Fall Apart debunks the stereotype of unwise natives, even if they could not commit their wisdom into writing because they had other forms of knowledge documentation and transfer. This comes out clearly in Achebe’s portrayal of the use of Ibo proverbs. But if there are debates

32  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

as to the place of Western education and its positive impact on Africa, much less discussion exists about the contribution of western missionary activities and colonialism on some negative aspects of African culture such as the caste system and the killing of twins that were prevalent in some pre-colonial African societies. This will be discussed later in this chapter under endogenous issues in the origin of the problem narrative but overall, the legacy of inherited colonial institutions and the values they embody are important in understanding the impact of the past on the present in Africa. Indeed, the construction of racial hierarchies that came with the Slave Trade and colonialism set the trajectory of the predominantly black continent being “othered”.The construction of western modernity as the universal standard meant that anything that didn’t fit into it was a “problem” to be fixed.Two studies that discuss the impact on colonialism are Peter Ekeh’s “Two Publics”,31 and Mamood Mamdani’s “Citizens and Subjects”.32 In concluding discussions on the impacts of Colonialism and of Slavery, it may be necessary to recognise some of the attempts currently being made to downplay the importance of these historical occurrences in explaining Africa’s problems. More than two centuries after the end of slavery and half a century after the end of colonisation, there are people who argue, even if often informally, that Africa should advance different excuses to explain its current predicament; after all, they argue, for example, that Africans were not the only people that experienced colonialism and that other victims of colonial rule are now making giant strides towards development. In short, by talking about slavery and colonialism after more than two centuries and after half a century of independence respectively, these people think that Africa is merely making a three-course meal out of a sandwich. A close look at this position however shows that there are considerable fallacies inherent in this line of thinking. While it must be conceded that Africans were not the only people that were colonised – so also were people in Asia, Latin America, and even North America – Africans were the only people that had their own colonial experience preceded by three centuries of slavery. So, there was a case of double-whammy in quick succession. Indeed, when viewed against the background of its history, the question should not have been why Africa had the enormous challenges it faced for the first few decades after independence, but rather why the problems were not greater than manifested. Neo-colonialism and the forceful incorporation of Africa into the international system reinforced the consequences and long-term impacts of slavery and colonialism.

(c)  Entrance into the post-1945 international system A third exogenous reason why the traffic light always seems to change to red when it is Africa’s turn was the timing of the continent’s entrance into the post-1945 international system. Emerging just about the time the Cold War was at its peak, African countries were incorporated into an international system that they took no part in creating and one that was not designed to recognise them. At the time of their independence, African countries had the unpleasant task of deciding which

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  33

side of the rivalry they were to support. Although colonial connection with ­Africa gave the West considerable advantage over the East, the latter had the benefit of moral high-ground of claiming that its own development had not benefited from the colonisation of Africans. In-between these warring sides was Africa, which had to strike a balance between what history had imposed on it and what would ­ordinarily have been fraternity with countries that had not been associated with Africa’s subjugation. The political choices that African countries made dictated the economic choices they made willy-nilly. Aid flew into Africa, both for economic and political purposes, with long lasting distorting effects on the economy and on how Africa is engaged with the world. Also linked to the timing of Africa’s entrance into the international system are the activities of many institutions that African countries believe have made things difficult for them and which have contributed to the negative reputation of the continent. Among these are the so-called Bretton Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Indeed, these institutions with clear links to the international system that was conceived outside Africa, came up with policies, especially in the 1990s, that many Africans believe were completely inimical to the continent’s interests.33 Against the background of their weak economies and their ineffective institutions, African countries became reluctant recipients of policies that they considered antithetical to their development. The introduction of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and other measures which cut back government spending on basic services reduced trade barriers and opened up African markets, maintaining their economies as sources of cheap raw materials and cheap labour for multinational corporations.34 Indeed, because of World Bank and IMF policies, average incomes in Africa declined, and the continent’s poverty increased. Africa’s debt crisis worsened, as the failure of the World Bank and IMF intervention left African countries more dependent than ever on new loans. These institutions have also undermined Africa’s health through the policies they have imposed. Forced cutbacks in spending on health care, and the privatisation of basic services, left Africa’s people more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and povertyrelated factors and diseases. The subsequent problems that the various institutions created for African people, including western supported dictators and security institutions, served the elites while providing insecurity for most of the population. Economic deprivation, liberal state agendas that do not consider individual state contexts and IMF structural adjustment programs that increased inequalities also served to internalise the superiority of westerners over Africans. While it is ­often difficult to prove that the West sought to utilise global financial institutions to ­further its larger agenda of exploiting the global South, there exists ample evidence of the last two methods of corrupting and co-opting the ruling elite, as well as the installation of puppet regimes. This is discussed later in this chapter. The direct ­effects of these manipulations include bad governance, failed states, civil wars, illegal migration, and organised criminality. With the effects, much of Africa was automatically designated as a group of “failed states”, with the continent paradoxically needing to be bailed out of its predicament.

34  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

Closely related to this is the timing of the Cold War itself. The period between 1960 and 1990 saw aspects of the Cold War playing out in Africa, with countries on the continent being used as pawns in the battle for supremacy between the East and the West. The case of the Ogaden region, where the Cold War belligerents switched sides in their support for both Somalia and Ethiopia, shows the extent to which the continent was vulnerable to manipulation during the period. The situation in Angola, where there was a standoff between the West on the one side and the Soviet Union and Cuba on the other, also provides an example of how Africa suffered from the ideological contestation between Cold War belligerents.35 The turning of Africa into the battlegrounds where wars were fought further weakened the socio-economic and political bases of the continent and served as a precursor for subsequent security problems such as the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. Apart from the Cold War, Russia, and China also had their rivalries extended into Africa when they supported rival factions in the wars of liberation in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The long-term implications of this rivalry remained visible throughout the continent for a long time. Indeed, in the case of Zimbabwe, the aftermath of the rivalries extended into the post-independence years, reaching its peak with a major unrest in Matabeleland, the region where the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), supported by the Russians, held sway.

(d) Neo-colonialism The final exogenous factor was neo-colonialism – the process through which independent African countries continued to be connected to their erstwhile colonial structures. Indeed, despite the attainment of self-rule or independence by African states, a few ideological and theoretical traditions strongly argue that what was attained in the continent was not true independence but the continuation of colonial rule through other means. The most notable of this school of thought is the postcolonial or dependency theory proponents (primarily the Marxists) who propound that continued underdevelopment and poverty in former colonies is because of exploitation by former colonies and the advanced West. Dependency theorists argue that the continued exploitation of the developing world is driven by the developed countries’ need for cheap and accessible natural resources, external markets for the latter’s produce, as well as low-wage labour. The theorists go further to argue that the developed countries’ maintenance of dependency is perpetuated through the latter’s greater power in international financial institutions which provide funds for investment and development (such as the IMF), corrupting and co-opting the local elite by allowing them to have personal wealth in return for governing their countries to benefit the West, or even through military rule or dictatorships. In a way, neo-colonialism ties together most of the issues discussed earlier in this list of exogenous factors. Even after the attainment of former independence, ­African countries discovered the inescapability of continued attachment to their former colonial powers. Indeed, this continuity between colonial and post-colonial rule is an extremely important part of the Africa as a problem story and was in

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  35

many cases, intentionally planned by the colonialists as a means of retaining influence and business relationships when they realised they had no choice but to give up the colonies. Also, attempts were constantly made to ensure that these ties remain intact. For example, so involved was a country like France in the affairs of its former ­African colonies that a long-time architect of French African policy, Jacques ­Foccart, once boasted that France could decide who was in power in its former ­African colonies.36 From the colonial pact of Francophone colonies to the assassinations of individuals like Patrice Lumumba, those who tried to subvert the script paid dearly. The politics, economy, and even social structures in newly independent ­countries thus got linked in ways that, in some cases, made a mockery of the ­independence they had just recently acquired. The long-term implications of this contributed significantly to the Africa as a problem narrative. A variety of neo-­colonialism has also come through Multi- National Corporations, including from the former colonial powers that have been looting Africa’s natural resource endowments. Largely because the structures that were set during colonial rule had given the erstwhile colonial masters advantages, African countries did not earn revenues commensurate with the true value of their natural resources long after independence. One consequence of the link between neo-colonialism and Africa being a “problem to be solved” narrative was in the way some African leaders implicitly endorsed considerations that affirm Western superiority and simultaneous African inferiority. For example, the late President of Malawi, Kamuzu Banda, gave implicit endorsement through some of the policies he pursued in his country while he was the President.37 This was also reflected in some of his policies and pronouncements regarding apartheid South Africa. Another example of blatant acceptance of African inferiority was exhibited by the late President Bokassa of Central African Republic who wept profusely at the burial of former French President Charles de Gaulle, calling him “Mon père, mon papa”.38 Bokassa also struck a warm relationship with Valery D’Estaing who he called “cousin”, putting an entire wildlife reserve at his disposal and plying him with generous gifts including diamonds. Bokassa admitted that D’Estaing personally killed some 50 elephants in the wildlife during the 1970s.39 Overall, the four exogenous factors identified here are major factors in explaining how Africa got to acquire the negative image of a “Problem to be solved”. Kwame Nkrumah was to capture all this in his seminar work, Neo-Colonialism:The Last Stage of Imperialism.40 Having indicted exogenous factors, it would be flawed not to concede that there were a few endogenous factors that brought Africa down the “problem to be solved” slope.

Endogenous factors in the origin of the “Africa as a problem” narrative Endogenous issues include the activities of its elites, the negativity of some aspects of its culture, climatic and environmental challenges, and the inability to come up with credible narratives that serve Africa’s cause.

36  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

(a)  Activities of African elites The discussion above reveals that for neo-colonialism to succeed, it must be perpetuated through the political and bureaucratic elite of a state. It is therefore logical that the elites, starting from those who took over the reins of the newly minted post-colonial states, by their willing or inadvertent collusion with the erstwhile colonisers, contributed to Africa being seen as a problem by the rest of the world. Even outside the thinking of dependency theorists, logic holds that African elites who are unwilling or unable to transform their societies, due to a lack of capacity to do so, or a deliberate attempt to perpetuate the gaps between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, contribute to the perception that elites are a major part of the problem in Africa.The elites are also usually the politicians who exploit socio-political cleavages such as ethnicity and religion to further their own agendas. To the extent that significant responsibility for leadership and for determining the course of stability and development lies with the African elites and that the latter fail to deliver on expectations, it becomes inevitable that they are regarded as a major contributor to Africa being considered as a scar on the conscience of the world. Considerable blame for Africa being a “problem to be solved” has been put at the doorstep of African elites.These elites, be they political, academic, religious, were responsible for some of the most callous acts against their own people: democratising the looting of the treasury, rather than consolidating political democracy; institutionalising brutality, instead of making their population secure; and entrenching nepotism instead of establishing structures around which sustainable development of the continent could be built. Indeed, it is clear beyond any shadow of doubt that, right from independence, Africa has endured a tragedy of leadership and this contributed to the perception that the continent is a “problem to be solved”. In a few cases, those who attained office under the guise of providing credible leadership have ended up taking their respective countries to places far worse than those which existed before they attained power. In some countries, the “inheritance elites”, i.e. the set of elected leaders who took over at the time of independence, laid strong foundations which were subsequently destroyed, while in many others, a desire to ensure continued stay in office resulted in the entrenchment of nepotism and corruption which soon became a continental trade mark. Perhaps an aspect of elite mismanagement that pervades all other aspects of the Africa as a problem narrative is the nature and extent of corruption in Africa. In many countries, systematic looting of state assets by public office holders became more entrenched than national constitutions. In Kenya, for example, a report that investigated the extent of corruption under the regime of the second President, Daniel Arap Moi, showed that more than £1 billion of government money was looted during his 24-year rule and that the President’s family owned assets in 28 countries.41 Similar situations were also uncovered in Nigeria, under Abacha, Democratic Republic of Congo, under Mobutu, Uganda, under Idi Amin, and other countries. Indeed, in very few African countries have elites, especially those involved in politics, not enriched themselves inappropriately through corruption.

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  37

Some policies implemented by governing elites also cast doubts on their wisdom and further contributed to the negative image of Africa. Where some of these ­policies were not simply wasteful, they were intensely oppressive to the population. For example, the late President of Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, spent hundreds of millions of dollars for his crowning as “Emperor”, and as a result effectively crippled his country’s economy. Some have linked this depth of corruption erroneously to aspects of African culture.

(b)  Negative aspects of some African beliefs and practices Africa also seems to have suffered negative consequences from some aspects of its beliefs and practices. Although there is clearly a great diversity, there are nevertheless aspects of African beliefs and practices that are inimical to development. Things are made more difficult by the refusal to adapt or to accept the inherent dynamism of culture. For example, some cultural practices fundamentally discriminate and systematically prevent segments of the population from realising self-actualisation and from contributing to societal development. A good example here is the caste system in many African societies, especially Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Chad. Broadly, this is the practice that inherently discriminates against certain segments of society because of indigenous religious and cultural practices. Under this arrangement, some sections of the community were officially categorised as being inferiors. Consequently, interactions with them were limited and there were informal limits to how far they could aspire on the social and political ladder.This discriminatory practice had nothing to do with colonialism and in fact, was assuaged by it. Strangely, even after more than half a century of independence, residues of this practice still exist to stunt continental growth.42 A few other inherently detrimental aspects of African culture can also be identified. For example, how most African societies handled the crucial issue of gender was inherently unfair. Even before colonial rule, most African societies had not accorded the female gender any special consideration. Having noted this, however, it is also important to recognise that post-independence gender inequality also fed on colonial rule, with the British rule for example, using Victorian ideals to close the spaces available to women.43 In much later years after independence discrimination has manifested itself profoundly in the ways girl-child education was considered during and even after colonial time. Also, worth noting was the practice prevalent in some cultures, notably among in the eastern part of Nigeria, of the killing of twins. Another endogenous cultural problem is the tendency prevalent in most African cultures, whereby inquisitiveness on the part of the younger generations is not encouraged. While this varies in extent across cultures, most cultures in Africa did not encourage inquisitiveness on the part of younger generations.This tendency resulted in situations where excesses of the older generation often go unchallenged and older generations have used this to intimidate the younger ones into conformity, stifling in them any manifestation of inquisitiveness. In many ways, the attendant

38  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

sense of impunity is at the centre of an autocratic tendency that existed across the continent. Although this practice is now being challenged, it was for several decades at the root of several cultures across Africa and it has contributed its own measure to Africa being viewed as a problem.44

(c) Environment However, between endogenous and exogenous causes is the crucial issue of the environment, which also seems to have contributed to the “Africa as a problem” narrative. Although Africa’s climatic condition are largely favourable, the impacts of the unfavourable aspects of the climate have been more devastating because of the weakness of the continent’s economy. First, the continent has the world’s biggest desert, the Sahara, as well as another, the Kalahari, which occupies a large portion of Southern Africa. The desert climate has made drought a perennial problem for many countries and often resulted in epic famines which captured the television screens of Western nations. Most African countries also face the risk of flooding, salinisation and damage to its marine habitat from the rising tides of the warming Atlantic Ocean. Flooding is in fact a major issue in some African countries just as deforestation continues to be a major environmental threat. Some parts of the continent are also vulnerable to Cyclone. Institutional capacity to implement forest regulations and logging bans in most countries remains unconvincing as are resolve and coordination between government agencies. Parts of Africa also suffer from geologically induced and inherently low soil fertility since the continent’s bedrock consists mostly of granites and gneiss. The relationship between the parent soils and the soil forming factors is very complex because the land surface has undergone a series of shifts in vegetation and climate. Nearly one-third of the central plateau of Africa is of Pre-Cambrian age (over 600 million years old). The rest of the surface is covered with sand and alluvial deposits of Pleistocene age (less than 2 million years old). Recent volcanic activity occurred mainly in the eastern and southern parts of the continent, principally between Ethiopia and Lake Victoria. For this reason, most of the soils in Africa are characterised by a low proportion of clay, making them easy to work, but also easy to lose. Not only are parts of Africa geologically old and afflicted with a harsh climate, but in addition large parts of the continent have been occupied by human beings for much longer than in other continents. Human activities of obtaining food, fibre, fuel, and shelter have, therefore, significantly affected the soil.

(d)  Impact of the politics of knowledge production But far more than any of the causes identified above, negative stereotypes about Africa were entrenched because of the dominance of literature on the politics of permanent crisis in Africa and the inability of Africans themselves to influence narratives about their continent. Indeed, Africa’s negative reputation is based not on the magnitude of the challenges it was facing, but more on its inability to

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  39

shape the narratives that form global thinking about the continent. Anyone who determines the direction of the knowledge being consumed dictates everything that connects to one’s existence. The age-long saying that “he who pays the piper dictates the tune” cannot be more appropriate than in the way external narratives dominate thinking, policy, and perceptions about Africa. For a long time, the politics of knowledge production was not in favour of Africans. For example, right from kindergarten, English speaking African children were taught the popular nursery rhyme: “A for Apple”, when most of the children had never seen an apple because the fruit is not produced in many African countries. They therefore had to associate the alphabet “A” with the image of a product produced elsewhere – thus beginning the process whereby the knowledge they are consuming is externally conceived. Worse still is the analogy “as white as snow” for children that have never seen a snow before. Secondary school students were made to study the geography of North America, when they were not encouraged to know even the capital cities of African countries apart from their own; in many Universities, the exploits of Napoleon Bonaparte were forced down the throats of History undergraduate students who were not taught about Dedan Kimathi, who led the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya or great women leaders like Queens Amina and Idia of Zaria and Benin respectively. At the same time, in French speaking colonies, pupils were notoriously taught about “Nos ancêtres les Gaulois” (our ancestors the Gauls) which has no cultural relevance to them. In short, all through their history, Africans were gullibly mimicking narratives whose origins and intent did not substantially serve their purpose. All these examples were to have consequences and they all contributed to the inconsequential recognition that is often given to Africa. Still on knowledge production, the contents of the curricula being taught in schools may also have unwittingly contributed to the governance problems that confronted Africa. For example, History students in secondary school across West Africa learned with pride the story of Mansa Musa, the Malian leader who, in a desire to demonstrate the enormity of the wealth of his empire performed an extravagant pilgrimage to Mecca. Students were taught how he overwhelmed his host with wealth but had to borrow money (which he later repaid) to return to his country. Stories like this, which should have awakened students to the reality that the looting of African treasure to secure extravagant living in foreign land has a long antecedent, are taught to students with pride. This may predispose students not to see anything wrong in the attitude of present-day political leaders acquiring property abroad at the expense of the state.45 The discipline of social sciences being studied by Africans and which form the bedrock of knowledge creation on the continent are received from the West. In his book Social Science as Imperialism, Claude Ake lamented on how the theories, concepts, and narratives in the social sciences have conspired to build the minds of scholars and up-coming African students that Africa is a dark continent.46 He also decried the inability of African social scientists to build a counter-narrative because of the conspiracy of major publishers and think-tanks against Africans.

40  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

The West dominates the international news media and Africa is still on the fringe of the global media industry. In this regard, some of these media are still hooked on the “Africa as a problem” narrative. Media agencies still focus on diaspora citizens of the country engaging in criminal activities. The hypocritical contradiction comes out most distinctly in the ways narratives are quickly adjusted in cases of individuals with dual nationalities. For example, if a British-Nigerian dual citizenship holder is caught participating in acts of terrorism, (as it was the case of Umar ­Abdulmutallab) the Nigeria credentials are advertised, and British identity reduced to the background or not mentioned at all. However, when another British-Nigerian dual citizenship holder becomes a heavy-weight boxing champion (as in the case of Anthony Joshua), the British identity is given prominence in the Western press at the expense of his Nigerian attachment. Indeed, Anthony Joshua’s case even reflects the double-standards further.When in 2012 he was convicted for drug possession, newspaper reports of the incidence identified him as a “Nigerian” but was later to get his British identity advertised when he won the boxing medal.Though somewhat subtle, these are some of the ways through which negative narratives are formed and sustained. Such narrative also gives the impression that certain socially widespread problems are caused by Africans. This is the case for the narrative which purports that corruption is mainly an African problem and that Africa accounts for most of the cases of global corruption. Secondly, violence and conflict have been portrayed as permanent features of governance in Africa, without the media interrogating the remote or structural causes of such conflicts, while most often playing down critical drivers such as arms trafficking, political interests, and/or illegal oil bunkering which directly implicate western countries. Still on the role of the media, the image that has often been painted of ­Africa is one that advertises negative stereotypes. During the first few decades of independence, many unpleasant developments in the forms of civil war, acrimonious inter-group relations, and unemployment plagued Africa and all were given maximum publicity by external media. Indeed, in a somewhat ironic way, different themes seemed to have dominated each decade since independence: 1960s saw the world engrossed with the civil wars in Congo and Nigeria; the 1970s saw the issue of famine in the Horn of Africa attracting global interest while the 1980s saw conflicts and the world focused among other things on the wars in the Sudan; the 1990s were devoted to the genocide in Rwanda and the 2000s were consumed by the media concentration on issues like conflicts such as that in Burundi. The role of external media in the politics of narrative formation about Africa is important. While it cannot, of course be said that what is being recorded is entirely inaccurate, the interpretation that they want their audience to take away is often misleading. In short, while the story line may be true, it is not the only existing “truth” and most of the time, there is also an “African” side to the discussion. It could be said that the media usually provides an image and the image becomes a perception. Indeed, experience has shown that the notion of journalism as “objective” is a fiction taught to trainees in western journalism schools and Africans have tended to replicate this “Thomson Foundation” model of journalistic teaching in its schools, thus perpetuating the myth.

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  41

The politics of media colouration of events can be seen for example in the global responses to the Rwandan genocide in contrast to the crisis that unfolded almost immediately afterwards in the former Yugoslavia. Although many ramifications of the two situations were similar, what was different was the extent of media interpretations of the events. While events in Rwanda were depicted as barbaric and savage no such level of condemnation was given to similar events in Yugoslavia. Indeed, the Rwandan situation could even be seen under a different light because it was “spontaneous”, whereas in the former Yugoslavia, the brutality and the scientific destruction had been long planned and cleverly implemented. Even in terms of duration, the Yugoslav crisis lasted longer than the Rwandan genocide, but the media created the perception of Rwanda’s genocide lingering on for a longer period. The double standard can also be seen in the choice of vocabulary that has been used to describe practices as can be seen from responses to bribery and corruption. Although corruption is a major problem in Africa, it is clearly not the monopoly of the continent; the only difference is the terminology used to describe the situation in other parts of the world. As noted earlier, what is called corruption in Africa is presented as “sleaze” in Britain, and what in Africa is described as “Bribery”, is repackaged as “Cash for Questions” in the same country. But apart from this is the fact that foreign countries and businesses have implicitly contributed to the problem of corruption in Africa. For example, until 2000, paying bribes to foreign public office holders was legally permitted under British law, and business men and women who have bribed foreign public officials could claim tax relief for such disbursements.47 It was only during Clare Short’s mandate as Minister for Overseas Development that this practice was stopped. This discrepancy in narrative further reinforces the perception of a “Problem” that infested Africa. Having said all this, it is important to point out that, in recent years, there have been profound struggles and agitation for the “decolonisation” of knowledge production in general and the curriculum in particular, with universities in South Africa, United States and the United Kingdom calling for a complete overhaul of curriculum that is not in tangent with local and national realities and history.

Conclusion By the end of the first decade of independence, the “Problem” perception had become well established and it has now become wired into the subconscious of the world, even among Africans. Civil wars, acrimonious intergroup relations, economic deprivation, youth unemployment, wars of liberation, poverty, disease, drought, and social hardship were some of the issues that were considered as hallmarks of the African continent. The United Nations system and some of its member states have had one reason or the other to intervene in Africa. Pop stars have come together to raise money to address famine and special attention has been given to Africa, leading to the perennial question of how to solve the African Problem.Yet, despite the challenges, there were, even at this period, efforts to seek alternative description of the African continent, with many Africans arguing that the continent should be in

42  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

search of a narrative that was to engineer socio-economic and political developments. For most of the first decade after independence, the continent seemed to have accepted the under-dog position it was given. By the beginning of the 1970s decade, there had been sporadic efforts, especially through arts and culture, to rehabilitate Africa’s image, as demonstrated by the 1973 Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria. The circumstances that led to the change of narrative about Africa are the focus of discussion in the next chapter.

Notes 1 See http://www.dibussi.com/2007/09/in-his-own-word.html 2 The African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, immediately expressed his ­dismay at Sarkozy’s remarks, labelling it as “a declaration of a bygone era”. 3 President Mbeki advanced this position during his time as the South African President. In 1999, he used the phrase to evoke a philosophical and political movement to end the violence, poverty, and corruption plaguing Africa and to replace them with a more just and equitable order. This Mbeki proposes should be done through education and largely by African intellectuals. 4 This was in a “Congratulatory” Mbeki wrote to the French President after his ­Dakar Speech, See, Angela Quintal and Peter Fabricius “Praise for Sarkozy: ‘Mbeki being ­apologist, World, 26 August 2007. 5 The internal criticism within South Africa was of such a magnitude that the Presidency had to come up with a further clarification of President Mbeki’s position. 6 For example, not long after independence, civil wars occurred in Congo (later Zaire) and presently the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. 7 David, Eltis and David, Richardson, “The Numbers Game”, in: David Northrup, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 2nd edn (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002), and Klein, Herbert S., and Jacob Klein. The Atlantic Slave Trade. (Cambridge University Press, 1999). 8 Quoted in Tunde Obadina, “Slave trade: a root of contemporary African Crisis”, http:// www.africaeconomicanalysis.org/articles/gen/slavehtm.html 9 Lewis, Gann and Peter, Duignan, The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1979), p. 43. 10 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Cape Town: Pambazuka Publishers, 2012). 11 Warren, Whatley and Rob, Gillezeau, The Impact of the Slave Trade on African Economies, http://www-personal.umich.edu/˜baileymj/Whatley_Gillezeau.pdf, May 2009 12 Ibid 13 See, for example, Punila Dineo Gqola, What is Slavery to Me: Postcolonial/Slave memory in Post-apartheid South Africa (Johannesburg: Witts University Press, 2010), Especially Chapter Three titled, “Whiteness Remixed or Remembered: Impurity, Shame and Television”. 14 Alfred, Brophy, Reparations: Pro and Con (Oxford: Oxford University Press, May 2008). 15 Other members of the Committee include: the Nigerian historian J. F. Ade Ajayi; Professor Samir Amin of Egypt; US Congressman R. Dellums; Professor Josef Ki-Zerbo of Burkina Faso; Mme Gracha Machel, formerly First Lady of Mozambique, a political activist in her own right (and later the wife of Nelson Mandela; Miriam Makeba, the South African singer; the Kenyan social scientist Ali Mazrui Professor MM. M’Bow, former Director-General of unesco; former President A. Pereira of Cape Verde; Ambassador Alex Quaison-Sackey, former Foreign Minister in the government of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana; and the Jamaican lawyer and diplomat Dudley S. Thompson. 16 V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1988).

Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative  43

17 Richard Dowden, Quoted from Abiodun Alao, Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa:The Tragedy of Endowment (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007). 18 Kevin, Shillington, K., History of Africa (London: Basingstoke, 1995). 19 See Allen, Issacman and Richard, Roberts, eds. Cotton, Colonialism and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1995; Allen Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996); Richard Roberts,Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy of the French Soudan (Stanford: Stanford University, 1996). 20 Biodun, Olamosu and Andy, Wynne, “Africa rising? The economic history of subSaharan Africa”, International Socialism: A Quarterly Review of Socialist Theory, no. 146 (April 2015). 21 See, for example,Yvette, Abrahams, “The Great National Insult: “Science”, Sexuality and the Khoisan in the 18th and early 19th Century”, in Agenda Empowering women for gender equity 3 (1997) – Issue 32: Race, identity and Change. 22 Frederick, Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 6. 23 For more on the activities of King Leopold in Congo, see Adam Hochschild, King ­Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed,Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (First Marina Books, 1998). 24 Quoted from “Salt in Old Wounds: What Germany owes Namibia”, The Economists, May 13 2017. 25 The German and the Namibian government are currently discussing ways of settling the matter and the exact wording of the apology and discussion on material compensation. However, the situation has become messier because some prominent Herero and Nama people are demanding that they should be involved in the discussion and have consequently embarked on a class-action case in New York under the Alien Tort Statute which allows a person of any nationality to sue in an American Court for violation of international law such as genocide and expropriation of property without compensation. See “Namibia and German: Salt on old Wounds”, The Economist (May 13–19, 2017), 52. 26 In 2013, the British government, in an implicit admittance of guilt, paid out £19.9m to 5,228 Kenyans who suffered torture at the hands of the colonial administration during the Mau Mau uprising. There are, however, more cases in British courts of more than 40,000 Kenyans attempting to sue the British government for compensation for alleged physical abuse or mistreatment during the insurgency. 27 This was reversed by President Arap Moi after the 1982 coup. The Kenyan Air Force, for example, was disbanded and there was a massive recruitment of the Kalenjins, Moi’s ethnic group, into the army. See Cynthhia Enloe, Globalization and Militarism. 28 David, Jemibewon. A Combatant in Government (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1978). 29 See, Abiodun, Alao, Brothers at War: Dissidence and Rebellion in Southern Africa. (London: British Academic Press, 1994). 30 The controversy here again came up through the article written by Bruce Gilley, a professor of political science at Portland State University, title,The Case for Colonialism, and published in September 2017 by the Third World Quarterly. After initially defending its decision to publish the article, the journal later withdrew it amidst considerable criticism. 31 Peter, Ekeh, “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement”, in Comparative Studies in Society and History 17, no. 01 (January 1975):91-112. 32 Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late ­Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 33 See, Stefamo Ponte, “The World Bank and ‘Adjustment in Africa’ ”, Review of African ­Political Economy 22, no. 66 (December 1995). 34 See Peter Gibbon and Adebayo Olukoshi, Structural Adjustment and Socio-Economic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Conceptual, Methodological and Research Issues, NordicAfrikainstitut, Research Report No, 103, 1996.

44  Background of the Africa as a “problem” narrative

35 Graham, Matthew, “Cold War in Southern Africa” Africa Spectrum, No 45, 2010. 36 Padraig Carmody, p. 40. 37 Paul Chiudza Banda. “Hastings Kamuzu Banda: How the Cold War Sustained Bad Leadership in Malawi, 1964–1994” in Baba G. Jallow, ed. Leadership in Postcolonial Africa:Trends Transformed by Independence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, December 2014). 38 See Martin, Meredith, The Story of Africa: A history of the Continent since Independence. 39 Ibid. 40 Kwame, Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (London: Thomas ­Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1965). 41 Kenya: overview of corruption and anti-corruption, Transparency International, 2014. 42 Among the Ibos in Nigeria for example, the Osu caste were discriminated against ­because of the historical culture that they were used as sacrifices to local gods. Although some of the states in the region have promulgated laws against this, it is yet to be seen whether any meaningful degree of success has attended this effort. 43 For example, Oyeronke Oyewumi argued that gender was not a social category in the structuring of the society and that gender was introduced by patriarchal colonial empire building in Yoruba Society. See, Oyeronke, Oyewumi, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 44 Olufemi, Taiwo discussed aspects of this at some length in his book, Africa Must Be Modern, See, Africa Must Be Modern, Indiana University Press, 2014. 45 Adiele, Afigbo has discussed this at some length. See Adiele Afigbo, The Poverty of African Historiography (Nsukka: Afrografika, 1977). 46 Claude, Ake, Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Development (Ibadan: Ibadan ­University Press, 1982). 47 Jonathan, Steele, “Corruption in the Third World is our Problem”, The Guardian, (London) 13 December 2000.

2 FACTORS AND ISSUES IN THE TRANSFORMATION TO “AGENCY”

Two things need to precede discussions about Africa’s transition to “Agency”. First, it needs to be mentioned from the outset that Africa never lost its “voice” completely. Through its culture, its music, its works of art and other things, the continent maintained substantial measures of its identity and voice. Also, through intellectual works the continent and Africans in the Diaspora successfully held on to aspects of their voice. The rise of Pan Africanism as the precursor to African ­socialism, the notion of the Black Atlantic and many intellectual and literacy works attested to a measure of “voice” even at the period the continent was conceived as a “problem to be solved”. However, as shown in the preceding ­chapters, the continent had minimal influence in its relations with other parts of the world, and whenever it was not considered a mere pawn on the global political chess-board, it was perceived as a stooge in Cold War politics or as an object of manipulation in global economic relations. Second, the factors and issues in the transition of Africa into agency are ­intrinsically linked to the politics of information and knowledge acquisition and processing. As noted in the last chapter, one of the foundations on which colonialism was established in Africa was the advertised need of the continent for occidental intervention. Consequently, the roots of the establishment of colonial rule was marked with the development of a body of scientific knowledge about Africa that could compliment the initial knowledge-bank that had been gathered by voyagers who served as the precursors of colonialism. An example of this can be seen in Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, during which he brought along with him scientists, archaeologists, and other scholars to commence the collation of information about the ancient country. Indeed, efforts started right from the initial contacts to acquire as much information as possible about Africa to fulfil this future purpose. Possibly from this moment, the notion of who constitutes an “expert” on Africa was influenced by the views of those with Western education and/or orientation.

46  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

This tendency continued through the colonial period and even after independence, such that the development agenda for the immediate post-independence period was framed largely by Western experts, with occasional injection, in the case of Anglophone Africa, of Indian experts - considered more knowledgeable and more experienced than Africans because they had been independent for a longer period. As will be shown later, this had an impact on the ways external experts shaped narratives about many issues such as Structural Adjustment, the debt crisis, and even the environment. In short, it is important to recognise that the question of African capacity (and the perceived absence of it) has been instrumentalised over time to justify external intervention in African development policy and practice.With time, however, Africans who were trained in the West and had acquired qualifications and abilities and training that were adjudged, even by Western standards, as being “World-Class”, began coming into the equation. Indeed, the way agency among African experts has shifted over time, is crucial in understanding the transition from “Problem” to “Agency”. The renewed phase in Africa’s becoming an “Agency” may be said to have commenced during the 1970s, even though its full effects did not come until more than two decades later. Although Africa’s voice was first heard in its economic power – via its natural resource-endowment – it became amplified through global politics. For example, in late 1975 Nigeria altered the course of events in southern Africa by supporting the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, (MPLA) ­instead of a negotiated reconciliation of all the warring factions. However, rarely was this interpreted as clearly manifesting the emergence of an African voice in global ­affairs, especially as Angola was then seen as a battle-ground for East-West rivalry in Africa. Nigeria’s other actions, including the nationalisation of British Petroleum (BP) and Barclays Bank to champion Africa’s cause in southern Africa, the donation of $20 million to the Zimbabwean liberation movements fighting against the minority regime of Ian Smith in the former Rhodesia, the training of Zimbabwean guerrillas in Nigeria’s military institutions, the dispatch of military equipment to Mozambique in 1976 in order to help the newly independent country suppress a South African-backed rebellion, and the military assistance given to Namibia’s South West People’s Organization (SWAPO) were also subjected to interpretations which differ greatly from the idea of an emergence of a new strand of thought in the determination to alter perceptions about the continent.1 Broadly, a range of events that began during the decade was responsible for the alteration of the historically negative narratives about Africa. Four things are however worthy of note about the transition that led to the emergence of ­Africa’s transition to Agency. First, what brought about the transition was not any singular event occurring at a specific location, but several developments occurring simultaneously across Africa and certainly, in other parts of the world. Second, the actors who brought about the transition were equally diverse, and included academics, policy practitioners, creative youths, civil society groups and a string of other ­participants, working across the world, often in an uncoordinated manner. Third, while some of the events were clearly targeted to give Africa a “Voice”, most

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  47

were not clearly planned with that objective in mind, and things just crystallised and came together to reach this conclusion. Fourth, several aspects of the transition also carried inherent contradictions that seemed to indicate a need for further efforts to properly consolidate to result in a genuine development of the continent. This chapter will identify some of the key issues and events that came together to result in the emergence of Africa’s Voice and have coalesced to result in the change of perception about Africa. More detailed critiques of some of the issues, especially the contradictions which accompany these manifestations, will be presented in subsequent chapters. The issues discussed have been selected because they are central to the transition of African from the “Problem” identified in the last chapter to the “Agency” identified and discussed in future chapters.

(a)  Commencement of efforts towards regional integration A major effort in the transition to Agency was made in 1975, when countries in the West African sub-region formed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to bring about regional integration.The organisation was formed against the backdrop of the subtle rivalry between Anglophone and Francophone West African countries headed respectively by Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. The ­coming together of all the countries of the region represented their first attempt to eschew the colonial dichotomy that had previously separated them.The importance of this initiative for African voice can again be appreciated against the backdrop of France’s desire to prevent this unity. It would be recalled that France had always wanted to ensure that its West African colonies remained closer to Paris than their neighbours.2 To disregard France’s preference in favour of a Pan-African goal was a major exhibition of voice. A second reason why the formation of ECOWAS was important for Africa’s voice was the harmony exhibited by West African countries after the subtle tension that had been created by the Nigerian civil war. It would be recalled that after the war which threatened to dismember Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, a West African country that was widely believed to be acting at the behest of France, officially recognised the secessionist state and after the attempt failed, granted its leader, Emeka Ojukwu, asylum.This resulted in tension between Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. The coming together of both countries champion the formation of ECOWAS was therefore a sub-regional victory over what many saw as a grand design to perpetually keep Africa under colonial appendage. It was a major step in the establishment of the African voice. The third reason why the formation of ECOWAS was an important landmark in the establishment of the African voice is to be found in the broad objective of the organisation to bolster regional trade in a region that had had its trading links wired to the structures of its erstwhile colonial masters. Although as will be shown later, the organisation still faces challenges, the formation was a landmark in ascertaining Africa’s voice. To these can be added, in passing, the coordinated onslaught against apartheid from the mid-1970s, recognition of the MPLA and its admission, into the OAU, in spite of Western opposition, as examples of Africa finding its voice.

48  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

(b) The clash of ideology: the “Lagos Plan of Action” versus the “Berg Report” Another major turning point in Africa’s transition to Agency was the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) – an economic plan backed by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and aimed at ensuring economic prosperity for Africa.The importance of the plan to the redrawing of narrative about Africa is such that it requires a brief discussion here. According to its main drafters, the LPA was underpinned by “a collective African nationalism, which combined Dependency Theory, environmentalism and basic human needs with indigenous and long-standing African priorities”.3 While, according to Peter da Costa, the LPA could not be categorised as being entirely radical, “it marked a fundamental departure from orthodox development theories”.4 According to its main proponent, the late Adebayo Adedeji,5 the document could be described as Africa’s economic Magna Carta and it was the first time in the history of the continent and, for that matter, of the entire international community - that 50 independent and sovereign states which differ markedly in their levels of economic development, in their political ideologies and in their social systems have subscribed to a common set of development objectives and goals and have adopted common development priorities and strategy.6 Not long after the Lagos Plan of Action was released, the World Bank came up with its “Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action” in 1981.This is commonly referred to as the “Berg Report”.The report was prepared at the request of the African Executive Directors of the World Bank and its objective was to put together an in-depth study to address what was seen as the dim economic prospects then confronting Africa.7 In its conclusion, the Berg Report attributed Africa’s economic problems to a string of internal factors, especially poor governance and state failure.8 The Berg Report also posited that Africa’s problem was one of under-production, and it consequently proposed a return to export-oriented agriculture as the way forward. Other short-term prescriptions of the report included: eliminating state subsidies and controls on imports, wages, and prices; floating previously pegged African currencies (effectively devaluing them); and allowing the market to determine the price of commodities for export”.9 The timing of its release puts the Berg Report in collision with the Lagos Plan of ­Action and most people, including some of the protagonists of the two documents, see them as documents in competition.10 Adedeji was to confirm that the Lagos Plan of Action was the cause of his first clash with the World Bank.11 Indeed, there are major divergences in the two reports whose philosophical underpinnings were to be at the centre of what some saw as a major turning point in Africa’s desire to contest externally-sponsored prescriptions for its socio-economic challenges. A key point of divergence was concerned with the identification of the principal causes of the “crises”. While, according to da

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  49

Costa, the Berg Report was deemed to have adopted “a revisionist developmentalist perspective within the modernisation genre in emphasising internal factors as the primary cause of Africa’s underdevelopment, the LPA’s emphasis on colonial and neo-colonial exploitation fell squarely within the dependencia tradition”.12 Another notable point of divergence is that while the LPA presented longer-term and radically different two-decade strategic proposal, it was accused of failing to address the immediate “crisis”, of having been unable to put together an articulate set of principles, and to have failed to follow an empirical approach. In contrast, the Berg Report was touted by many as the only major policy-oriented analysis of Africa’s economic crisis, which included short-term policy prescriptions to address it.13 As Shaw noted, the two plans were not only antithetical in intellectual association and policy direction; they were also advocated by two mutually exclusive coalitions – the more “Africanist” coalition of the ECA under the leadership of Adebayo Adedeji which consisted of indigenous academics, advisers, and leaders; and the more “internationalist” World-Bank-led grouping which was “… less cohesive, more conservative and less indigenous: bankers, bureaucrats and economists”.14 A number of western scholars sided with the Berg Report, criticising the LPA, for example for not “ranking its priorities”.15 Adedeji and his team at ECA, however, came up with a strong rejoinder to the issues raised by critics of the agenda. This marked a major moment in the emergence of African voice in global economic analysis and it showed quite clearly that Africa was ready to challenge the prevailing Western narrative about the origin of its problems. The voice acquired from this moment was to be more effectively demonstrated during the African opposition to Structural Adjustment in later years – which was backed by Southern as well as Northern progressive voices.

(c) Changes in global economics and socio-political dynamics: The Emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as the alternate sources of power and influence Although a detailed critique of the relationship between the BRIC group and Africa, especially those of its aspects which appear detrimental to the continent’s interests is provided in Chapter 7, it can be said at this stage that the emergence of the group as a new set of actors that challenged the dominance of the Western powers went a long way towards demystifying the Western powers in many African countries and consequently contributed significantly to Africa’s transition to Agency. While for the first few decades after their independence, African countries saw the West as the symbol of success, the emergence of new sources of power and influence showed them that they too could make something out of their situation, no matter their historical background and prevailing circumstances.The fact that some of these new actors had also experienced colonialism gave Africans a further reason for not allowing their history to serve as impediments. This can be represented as the resurgence of the Bandung spirit, with South-South solidarity manifesting itself as an alternative to, and outcome of, colonial hegemony. In some ways, South-South camaraderie – in its original forms

50  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

as well as more recent manifestations (BRIC etc.) – has also helped to amplify the African “voice”. The countries, mostly in East Asia, that have given credence to the idea that non-Western countries could make significant economic headways, have often been categorised as “Emerging Economies”. The often-dictatorial nature of the developmental model of the East Asians, it is worth noting, gave the lie to the ­notion that Western-style democracy was a sine qua non condition for development, progress, peace, security and “civilisation”. Whereas Asian benevolent dictatorship helped build the Asian Tigers, by contrast, African dictatorship – which saw its states as post-colonial clients of the British, French, and other former colonial powers – was far less productive. However, the set of Emerging Powers that got far greater publicity were the BRIC countries – that is Brazil, Russia, India, and China.16 Among other things, four factors qualified these countries as Emerging Actors. They are: the ways they have transformed their economies; the role they are playing in their respective regions – where they are seen and respected more than the previous super-powers; the extent of their ability to provide other regions greater outreach than previous powers; and their comparative military strength. Ironically, beyond the fact that they have all been able to transform their economies, BRIC countries have very few things in common. Some underwent colonialism, others did not; some had, at some point, socialist or communist economic ideologies, while others did not; some had variance of western democracies, others did not.The fact that they all had different histories but are all still widely recognised as global actors further shows the importance of economics over many other considerations in the post-cold war period. The subsequent incorporation of an African country, South Africa, into the fold, which changed the acronym from BRIC to BRICS, further endeared the group to Africans, just as it was also a confirmation of the continent’s increasing importance. The coming up of the countries with institutions that challenged the Bretton Woods structures such as a joint Bank, was another endearing factor to African countries. But apart from the BRIC countries some other countries also impressed many African countries with their remarkable economic progress.They include Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, and others. In short, to many African countries, the emergence and development of other countries outside the traditional Western sphere showed that phenomenal socio-economic and political growth was ­possible outside West and that colonial experience should not serve as an impediment. Indeed, African countries began to see in BRIC an alternative to western domination and thinking. The way some of these countries, especially China, extended their outreach to Africa, as will be shown later, was also a major factor that assisted ­African countries in looking at alternate sources of inspirations other than the West. The indication that some African countries were following this path must have further persuaded many countries in the continent that BRIC offered a credible template. Not long after forming the BRIC acronym, Jim O’Neill again coined the acronym, MINT, comprising of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey as the

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  51

next set of emerging countries in the global economy. The inclusion of Nigeria could have given African countries further impetus in their attempt to play an important role on the global scene. The emergence of other sources of influence was indeed an indication that their experience should not constitute a deterrent. As will, however be shown later, the relationship of the Emerging Powers with Africa carries inherent complications that will influence the discussion of the politics of Africa’s transition to Agency.

(d) Renewed recognition of Africa’s self-importance in global natural resources politics Although Africa had always known its natural resources potentials, it was only from the 1970s that many of the countries began to appreciate the extent of these resources’ importance to global market demands. This is because while during the colonial era these resources were exploited by former colonial powers for their own interest alone, many African countries were not fully aware of their endowments in natural resources during the first decade after independence. Indeed, more than is often known, the world depends on Africa in many strategic ways. A brief look at these: the continent has about 30% of the world’s known reserves of minerals, about 10% of oil and 8% of gas resources and the largest cobalt, diamonds, platinum, and uranium reserves. Africa is home to the second largest tropical forest. It has many of the world’s greatest rivers including the longest in the world, the River Nile, and others like the Niger, the Benue, the Congo, the Orange, the Limpopo, and Zambezi Rivers. Wildlife in East Africa for example, has attracted global interest and acclaim. One can go on endlessly. The global impacts of these are remarkable and this fact is known worldwide. For example, the former US Vice President, Joe Biden, noted recently that the annual importation of about US$50 billion worth of goods from Africa, is keeping at least 250,000 Americans in employment. The Republic of Niger, which is the world’s fourth-largest producer of uranium, for instance is responsible for 10% of electricity production in France. The Gulf of Guinea has now become strategic in global oil politics,17 and in general, oceans surrounding the continent are of great strategic value for global maritime. These examples can again be multiplied several times over. Indeed, in terms of global oil politics, the former Vice President of the United States declared that about 20% of the country’s oil would be coming from the Gulf of Guinea. Although this has not yet materialised, it nevertheless indicated the growing importance of Africa in the politics of global resources.18 Although there are still on-going discoveries that may indicate Africa’s prominence especially in resources such as oil and solid minerals, it is also important to note, as will be done in more detail later, that the boom cycle which saw oil and other commodity prices hit historic highs, seems to have come to an end. However, there is no doubt that Africa’s endowment in natural resources bought greater value recognition to its voice on the global platform, especially towards the end of the 1970s. Fuller appreciation of their potentials thus gave a sense of confidence

52  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

to most African countries. The power that the Middle East exercised on the West during the oil crisis of 1973 may also be taken by African countries as an example of the influence they could desire from their natural resources. Despite the link between the resources and bitter civil wars, as in the cases of Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others, international initiatives and concerted efforts by international NGOs like the Global Witness, Partner Africa-Canada and many others aimed to ensure that African countries derive maximum benefits from their natural resource endowments. Two main actors have distinctly worked together towards enhancing Africa’s realisation of its own importance in global resource politics. They are international NGOs and the United Nations. Some international NGOs have been involved in the efforts to stop all illegal trade in solid minerals, especially diamonds. The main objective of these NGOs is to ensure that the resources do not serve to ­encourage the brutalisation of the local populations in these countries. Indeed, to them, smuggling and money laundering can result in the killing and mutilation of innocent civilians in these countries.This campaign was spearheaded by a British NGO, Global Witness. In December 1998, the organisation published a pamphlet entitled A Rough Trade and followed up with an effective media campaign which attracted global attention. In September 1999, another NGO, Human Rights Watch, published a report entitled Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, which, though it dealt with the political and military situation in Angola, also confirmed UNITA’s funding of its war efforts through the sale of diamonds. By October 1999, Global Witness had stepped up its media activities by joining forces with other NGOs to launch an umbrella group known as Fatal Transaction. The first act of this group was to distribute material information to jewellery retailers on the issue of conflict diamonds. By January 2000, a Canadian NGO, Partnership Africa, added its voice to the campaign and called for a comprehensive review of diamond trading regulations. It focused on the role of diamonds in the Sierra Leone conflict, and it accused international industries of encouraging the trade in smuggled gems.19 Some local NGOs such as the Green Belt Movement founded by the late Wangari Maathai and the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) under the leadership of the late Ken Saro Wiwa were also deeply active. By far the greatest efforts were made by the United Nations, whose main objective was initially to ensure that these resources cease to become a factor in fuelling wars that have caused untold sufferings among African populations. Over time though, linkages between these resources and global security issues like terrorism and money laundering have become key considerations, albeit on a lesser scale. Overall, the role of the United Nations has been to establish commissions to investigate and identify responsibilities in the politics of resource extractions in countries involved in civil conflicts. The first of such commissions was the Fowler Commission, set up in 1998 to investigate the sanction busting in Angola.20 The United Nations also became involved in Sierra Leone and it imposed sanctions on the President of neighbouring Liberia’s Charles Taylor for his involvement in the Sierra Leone conflict. Later, a UN Special Court indicted him for complicity in the

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  53

conflict. In March 2001, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1342, imposing sanctions on Liberia for its role in the illicit trade of diamonds in Sierra Leone.21 In March 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1521, which provided for freezing of the assets of former President Charles Taylor, members of his family and close associates. The UN has also shown considerable interest and concern in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, two commissions (the Ba-N’Daw and the Kassim commissions) were set up to consider the complexities of the politics of resources during the period of the war. UN involvement in the DRC also included the dispatch of a peacekeeping mission. Although the deployment of the mission was aimed at ensuring general peace in the country, its activities, however, were heavily influenced by solid mineral resources.

(e)  Strengthening of African Institutions From the second half of the 1970s, a new sense of vigour seemed to have appeared in the ways Africa conceived its unity and the strength that could be desired from closer bonding, and this had added impact on the continent’s transition to Agency. The continental organisation, the OAU had by this time become considerably strong, even if it was still having issues with some aspects of its charter. The Organisation had also strengthened its Liberation Committee in Tanzania to contribute to the liberation of Southern Africa.This effort in the liberation of the continent was a major awakening factor in the continental struggle for a voice.This struggle, it must be noted, also benefited from wider developments such as the decision of Portugal after its coup d’etat of 1974 to disengage from its African colonies. With increasing faith in the ability of their organisation to deliver on a key agenda, Africans began having greater faith in their own capability to attain global respect. The 1980s and 1990s saw a further consolidation of the African Voice. Although aspects of the activities of Africa’s regional organisations are discussed in detail later, the ways through which their activities led to the emergence of the voice in the first instance can be identified here. A major landmark in this emergence was the fielding in 1990, by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of a peacekeeping mission to Liberia. This mission led by Nigeria, showed the world that a new era in conflict management had arisen in the continent.22 In December 1989, a civil war broke out in Africa’s oldest republic, Liberia, when a rebel movement headed by Charles Taylor led a rebellion against the government of President Samuel Doe. The war soon developed into carnage with enormous civilian casualties and ECOWAS, under the leadership in Nigeria, sent in a peace team to Liberia, an operation which cost Nigeria officially US$12 billion. Against the background of the Liberian operation, ECOWAS launched similar peacekeeping initiatives in Sierra Leone. All these successful interventions gave Africans a sense of self-worth in that they can address their security concerns with very minimal support from the outside world. But perhaps the most visible manifestation of the transformation was the birth of the African Union from the former OAU and its ability to address some of the

54  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

former organisation’s shortcomings, especially regarding the management of the continent’s enormous security challenges. This gave many in Africa the satisfaction that the continent, at last, was aware of, and waking up to, the population’s interests. The OAU, having fulfilled its most important objective of ending colonialism in the continent, had subsequently proven incapable of addressing new challenges. The realisation of the ineffectiveness of the institution that had served the continent for so long was a major credit to the continent. In May 2001, the new African Union was born. Many other regional organisations, including ECOWAS and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) also adjusted their policies to make them more relevant to the demands and expectations of their communities. ECOWAS for example came up with the ECOWAS ­Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF), which is a comprehensive framework for managing conflict in the sub-region. Increased security cooperation within the region included, among others, the training by the Nigerian Police Force of Police personnel from Liberia, Niger and Guinea Bissau. Other organisations like the Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS, the Common Market for East and Central Africa, COMESA, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, CENSAD, the Arab Maghreb Union, AMU, the East African Community, EAC, and the ­Inter Government Authority on Development, IGAD have also made significant ­impacts. Apart from these wider regional organisations, ­sub-regional organisations, often woven around the River Basins also emerged to play active roles in development. They include those formed around Mano, Niger, Chad,Volta and many others. In short, Africans realised that they now have organisations that are actively working to their cause and which have ceased to be mere collections of leaders. As will be shown later, some of the policies formulated by these organisations, like the establishment of regional parliament, are much more diverse and more relevant to continental needs.

(f)  Emergence of New African Industrial and Business Class The change in perception about Africa also owed a lot to the rise of new African elites, especially those in some sectors of the economy like Banking, Telecommunications, Oil, Mining, and Information Technology. Individual members of these elite classes, although based in African countries, enjoy a financial power comparable to that of their counterparts in the West. Indeed, as a percentage of the population, this category rose steadily since the 1990s. For example, in 1980, 111 million, or 26% of the continent’s population, fell in this category. This number rose to 151.4 million or 27% of the population in 1990 with a further surge to 196 ­million in 2000 and a dramatic increase to 313 million in 2010 representing 34.3% of the population.23 In contrast, the rise in absolute numbers, as against percentage, has been more dramatic and constitutes a parallel with the increase in population, with Africa having hit the 1 billion population mark in 2010. Even though poverty remains a major problem in Africa, the number of extremely rich Africans is staggering. With a net worth of 14.9 billion US

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  55

dollars, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote’s fortune is greater than any in Britain and Nicky ­Oppenheimer and Johann Rupert of South Africa are richer than all but three people in the United Kingdom.24 Quoting the New World Wealth, a consultancy based in the UK and South Africa, John Njiraini notes that there are about “165,000 very wealthy individuals in Africa with a combined net wealth holdings of more than $660 billion”.25 Also, he notes that from 2000 to 2013, “Africa’s very wealthy individuals increased by more than 150% compared to the worldwide growth rate of 73%”.26 Breaking this down into countries, South Africa topped the list with 48,800 dollar millionaires, followed by Egypt with 23,000, Nigeria with 15,900 and Kenya with 9,000. This is discussed at some length in Chapter three. What Njiraini found more interesting is the way countries not previously considered as likely abodes of dollar millionaires are fast coming on to the scene, as is the case of Ethiopia, the abode of one of the worlds worsts humanitarian disasters in 1984. Indeed, the country’s millionaires doubled from 1,300 in 2007 to 2,700 in 2014. The predilection of this category of African millionaires for global luxuries drew attention to Africa. Luxury companies thus saw Africa falling under the category of dynamic markers offering “exciting opportunities with higher returns on investments than mature markets in Europe and North America”.27 As will be shown later, the growing number of millionaires seeking avenues to invest their wealth is a testimonial that fast-growing elite possesses high disposable income which is spent not only on luxury goods and affluent lifestyles, but also on business investments.The declared interest of Aliko Dangote in owning the top British football club, Arsenal, is an indication that extremely wealthy Africans are determined to announce to the world that a new dawn had emerged on the continent. Other Africans that have also attained this level of global prominence include Adebayo Ogunlesi of the Global Infrastructure Partners (IGP) whose company owns the Gatwick Airport in London, Strive Masiyiwa, the executive chairman of diversified international Telecommunication, Patrice Mosepe, the founder and executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals and a non-executive ­chairman of Harmony Gold, the world’s 12th largest gold mining company, Folorunso ­Alikija of Famfam oil, who 2014 unseated Oprah Winfrey as the richest woman of African descent in the world and Mo Ibrahim, the founder of Celtel. However, as will be shown later in the next chapter, the story of Africa rising, measured through the activities of the emerging Middle Class in Africa cannot hide the irony of the crucial question as to whether the activities of this class of actors impact on the development challenges that Africa continues to face. Put differently, it raises the question of the consequence of “a voice to be heard” and the way that “voice” manifests itself in developing Africa. This major contradiction will be discussed at some length in the next chapter.

(g)  Consequences of the Brain Drain Although the Brain Drain left several negative consequences for Africa, there is a way in which it, quite ironically, contributed to Africa’s transition to Agency.

56  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

The period from the late 1970s witnessed a massive brain drain from African tertiary institutions. The pattern of this migration is quite important as it contributed significantly to the emergence of Voice on the African continent. The migration started in the 1980s and those who took part in this early round were mainly those in Health and Medical Sciences and most of them were from Nigeria and a few other West African countries. The initial direction of migration was largely towards the Middle East and the primary objective was to exploit the dire medical personnel needs of the region to make significant financial gains. Most of those who migrated during this period did so for a specific length of time and many of them returned to their respective countries after enough “prophylactic” measures had been taken against economic poverty. In the politics of Africa’s transition to Agency, these people did not contribute much beyond convincing their Middle Eastern employers that Africans have medical skills and education that are comparable to those of any other race. The 1990s however witnessed the emigration of a far greater number of academics, mainly in the disciplines of Humanities and Social Sciences and many of these went to Western Europe and North America.The reason for this round of migration was largely in response to the negative impacts of the structural adjustment policy on African tertiary institutions. Some of them also benefitted from such schemes as the American immigration lottery to leave Africa. Because of the nature of their disciplines and their strong determination to advance the African cause, the activities of these people played the most important role in the rise of the African Voice. During the decade of the 1990s for example, arguably more than 50% of American Universities had Black Africans from the continent on their Faculties. The numbers are lower in Western Europe but towards the end of the decade, a few Africans had begun to find their way to the teaching staff of Western European Universities. As a result, the curriculum of these institutions began to change with ideas and philosophies about Africa creeping into the undergraduates and Masters’ courses. African students too began to leave the continent to study in Europe and the United States. The scholarship opportunities offered to a few Africans through funding from Foundations like Ford, Rockefeller, Rhodes, Commonwealth and others, also allowed many African students to undertake research degrees in some Western institutions. However, as noted earlier, the notion of brain drain has a dual dimension, as on the one hand it is a gain to African “Agency”, and on the other, it constitutes a loss of resources to the continent. Although the crop of African emigres succeeded in convincing the world that Africans had the capacity to compete effectively if given equal chances, the contributions of these generations to the internal growth of Africa’s voice was sadly lost. It can be said for the discussion in this chapter that what the brain drain did was to change ideas regarding African capacities in every domain. However, while recognising the way it has turned out to raise the image of the continent, the devastating impact of brain drain on Africa should also be noted, with the haemorrhaging of people who could have further contributed to the development of the continent.

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  57

(h)  Global recognition for African icons The emergence of many key African individuals to champion the African cause also gave a major impetus to the projection of the voice of the continent across the world. Broadly, this class of actors comes under three categories. The first comprises African individuals who have occupied and performed creditably well in the management of major International Organisations. These include individuals like Boutrous Boutrous Ghali of Egypt, who served as the Secretary General of the United Nations between 1991 and 1995, his successor, Kofi Annan, whose tenure was widely hailed as being very successful, and Emeka Anyaoku of N ­ igeria who became the first African to hold the position of the Commonwealth ­Secretary General. The fact that both Anyaoku and Annan occupied their respective offices about the same time meant that two of the world’s most important organisations, of which most African countries were members, were, at a point, headed by Africans. Apart from these incumbent heads of international organisations, the coming into prominence of many other Africans, like President Nelson Mandela and writers like Wole Soyinka, James Ngugi, and Chinua Achebe also served to bring a measure of dignity and recognition which Africans saw as an impetus for emancipation. Indeed, while Africans have always made inroads into the literary world, especially through the works of writers like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, James Ngugi, Kateb Yacine, Sedar Senghor, Mouloud Mammeri, Amadou Hampate Ba, Camara Laye, and many others, the post-1990 period witnessed greater achievements of Africans impacting into global literary world.Two African writers, Nadine Gordimer and John Coetzee, both from South Africa, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991 and 2003, respectively and Ben Okri, from Nigeria who also won the Commonwealth Writers Price and the Booker Price. Other writers that have made significant inroads include Chimamanda Adiche, who has won many awards, including Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize,28 Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Nawal el Saadawi (Egypt), Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria); Miriam Ttali (South Africa), Doreen Baingana (Uganda) Naadifa Mohammed, ­(Somalia), and Jilliana Makuchi (Cameroon). Other key African scholars in the diaspora, besides writers of fictions, also changed the perception of Africans and gave the continent the measure of selfconfidence they had longed for. For example, in the 1980s, the Kenyan born Political Scientist, Ali Mazrui, scripted and produced an extensive documentary on Africa for the BBC titled, “The Triple Heritage”. The program had a considerable audience, especially among the black population in the United States. The series was also shown in many African countries. While not necessarily glamorising the African past, Mazrui, brought out in the program some of the key features that put Africa in a global context. The winning of the Nobel Prize for literature by Wole Soyinka at about the same time also brought attention to Africa and gave pride to the continent. Although many Africans had won the Nobel Prize before this, Soyinka’s award was one of the most widely celebrated across the continent.29 After

58  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

him many Africans have won the Nobel Prize, including Wangari Maathai of Kenya (2004), Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee from Liberia (2011) and Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk of South Africa (1993); Kofi Annan (Ghana) 2001; and Mohammed El Baradei of Egypt (2006). Beside these peace awards, academic Nobel prizes have also been won by South Africa’s Nadine Gordimer, Literature, 1991; Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Physics; 1999 Ahmed Zewail, Chemistry 1999; 2002 Sydney Brenner, Physiology or Medicine, 2002; M. Coetzee, Literature; 2012 Serge Haroche, Physics 2012; Michael Levitt, Chemistry 2013. All these achievements increased Africa’s status in the world of scholarship and international peace. African Americans in the United States also began making impacts in sports and governance. One of the most significant icon was Mohammed Ali, and his willingness to stand up for black rights despite great personal loss was revered by Africans, his exploits too served as a source of inspiration.

(i)  Activities of radical academics and policy institutions A number of Universities and Research centres also emerged, especially from the mid-1970s to challenge the existing narrative about Africa. As noted in the introduction, in some African Universities, especially the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria, Nigeria and the same faculty at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a more radical approach to the clamour for new narrative began. For example, from the mid-1970s, scholars like the late Bala Usman and Patrick Wilmot, had, through their writings and activities, been engaged in changing narratives on the subject.30 They were succeeded by the generation that witnessed people like the late Raufu Mustapha, Jibrin Ibrahim, and others. In the same way, the University of Dar es Salam’s Faculty of Arts and Social Science dominated radical thinking during the mid-1970s. Indeed, Walter Rodney, the radical scholar whose book on how Europe Underdeveloped Africa revolutionised the thinking of several generations of African scholars, was for some time, on the teaching staff of the Faculty. Three African scholars that were, however, the most profound of the Dar es Salam school were Nigeria’s Claude Ake, Uganda’s Dani Mabudere, and Tanzania’s Issa Shivji. The books by Ake, Nabudere, and Shivji changed the climate of African narratives and launched the continent on the path that reinforced its voice.31 It is in fact worthy of note that Tanzania was the radical capital of Africa and was the Headquarters of the OAU Liberation Movement during the struggle for majority rule in Southern Africa. Many of those who were to participate in popular revolts in the region, including Yoweri Museveni, were at one time or the other at the University.32 Apart from tertiary institutions, academic professional bodies and associations of this period clamoured for radical thinking regarding narratives of Africa. Again, two of these are worthy of note. First, was the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) established in 1973 in Dakar, Senegal. This is an independent pan-African research organisation primarily focusing on social science research in Africa and its Mission Statement recognises it as

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  59

the apex non-governmental centre of social knowledge production on the African continent. The membership of the group grew significantly as did of radical thinking re-conceptualising the African narrative. The second was the formation of the African Association of Political Science (AAPS) which was also founded in 1973 in Dar-es-Salaam with the objective of promoting “the study and application of political science in and about Africa”.These two organisations were also responsible for the creation of a string of national and local bodies that encouraged the amplification of African voice during the 1970s and 1980s decades. The “voice” of Africans was also heard through the participation of Africans in key discussions about the continent. For example, as noted earlier, the Adebayo Adedeji-led Economic Commission for Africa forcefully challenged the World Bank and the IMF over the introduction of Structural Adjustment Policies in Africa and came up instead with credible, evidence-based and authentic research to suggest alternatives to Structural Adjustment. With the increasing strengthening and importance of diaspora academics, professional associations bringing together many of them began to emerge. For example, the African Studies Association (ASA) became a major forum for in depth major discussions about Africa and the formation of narratives about the continent. With these came the reinvigoration of a narrative about Africa’s glorious past in the curricula of tertiary institutions. Indeed, in many African universities, there had emerged by the late 1970s, a clear alteration in their curricular that reinforces glorious African past. For example, subjects such as the victory of the Ethiopian forces over Italian invaders at the famous battle of Adowa in 1896 were of great interest across the continent. Emperor Menelik, who had led the Ethiopian nation, was being celebrated throughout Africa, and the Chimurenga, the war that was fought by the Shonas and Ndebeles of Zimbabwe against British invaders was similarly celebrated in universities across the continent. In addition, the glorious exploits of individuals like Dedan Kimathi and Shaka Zulu began receiving recognition. Radical African academic and policy activists such as the late Tajudeen Abdulraheem, moved across the continent advancing the cause of Africa and raising awareness.33 Over the last two decades, a set of radical academics and institutions had emerged to advance new thinking about the continent. Somewhat close to this is the rise of Africa’s epistemic communities. These are “groups of professionals, often from a variety of different disciplines, which produce policy-relevant knowledge about complex technical issues”.34 The uncertainties carried by problems of global concern such as global warming, terrorism and financial crises have made international policy coordination increasingly necessary. As mentioned above, decision makers have recognised the need to be familiar with the technical and even cultural aspects of specific problems in order to develop sustainable solutions. Even though timidly, this is positioning African scholars and practitioners as the first points of call for collaboration on challenges that have a bearing on the continent.With the recurrence of conflict in Africa, a need emerged for research and information networks or communities capable of producing context specific and relevant knowledge. This gave rise to communities of African

60  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

researchers. Although the social science epistemic community in Africa consists of professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, they have a shared set of normative and principled beliefs. Research from this community has sought to counter the othering of Africa based on pre-conceived notions about disorder as a mode of politics in Africa as described by Patrick Chabal and Pascal Daloz.35 The rise of these communities shifted the discourse about Africa, by presenting African epistemologies that can contribute to knowledge production but which the ­Eurocentric focus of certain disciplines had marginalised and ignored. This has led to the inclusion of this episteme in global knowledge production processes and further enhanced the emergence of the African Voice.

(j)  Convergence of security interests There have also been changes in responses to internal security. For a very long time, the security issues of developing states can be said to have been treated with ­reluctance. As noted earlier, at independence, African states were ushered in as members into the international system with their state building considered as a mere occurrence.36 However, the reality in these states was the existence of what Peter Ekeh referred to as “two publics” – the primordial public where a great majority of the citizens congregated, and the civic public represented by inherited colonial institutions.37 Post-independence leaders on their part, did very little to transform the divide. Being part of the international system, where prior to the Cold War the state was considered the major referent object for security engagement, many African citizens were left to their own devices as when the structural adjustment programs imposed the reduction of government spending on public services leaving individuals to their own fate. It can be argued that, the absence of a human security prism for analysis permitted the execution of such a program which restricted access to basic facilities for many. In the last decade or so, with the rise of non-state actors who challenge the legitimacy of the state and in some cases, even breaking up states totally, the individual was considered as the referent object for security analysis. The focus on individuals was further heightened by the 9/11 attacks on the United States when the dominant paradigm became “weak states are a threat to the west”. This led to a convergence of security interests as it became evident that these security threats had a global reach. Focus was thus placed on other non-state actors, especially as these non-state actors had begun tapping into accelerating processes of globalisation and cross-border flows of information to expand their reach. The expansion of these groups saw the enlargement of complexes and the knitting together of zones of instability which created a challenge to the international order. These groups, hitherto operating alone in their respective areas of operation, began to join into larger groupings until they consolidated into complex networks with centralised ideology. For example, the Algerian GIA, later Salafists, the Malian MUJAO and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, all at some point, pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda (e.g. AQIM) and later to ISIS.

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  61

(k)  Formal end of Colonial rule in Africa Considerable reinforcement for the African voice also came with the formal end of colonialism. From the mid-1970s, guerrilla movements in the Southern African countries of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Rhodesia, and South Africa intensified their struggles despite the support given by some Western European countries to illegal and racist regimes in Southern Africa. The assistance provided by Eastern European countries, especially the Soviet Union and by China and Cuba saw the victorious emergence of black majority rules first in Angola and Mozambique, and subsequently in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. It is worth noting, however, that the majority rule in South Africa, apart from benefitting from external pressure and the activities of South African guerrillas, owes also a great deal to changes in internal dynamics within the ruling party. The advent of F.W. de Klerk as the President of South Africa and the introduction of his own version of apartheid perestroika added to the impetus that brought the change. The end of minority regimes in Southern Africa had a significant impact on the rise of Africa’s voice in at least four ways. First, it was interpreted as the beginning of a full achievement of African self-esteem. By the time majority rule was established in South Africa, the evils of apartheid and the indignity it imposed on the black population in South Africa had become the shame of the continent. Its ­elimination, therefore, was seen as the recovery of Africa’s dignity and the completion of the decolonisation efforts that had begun in the early 1960s. Second, the fact that the last countries to achieve independence did it through wars of liberation brought further glory to the process which, to many African countries, was hard-earned and well-deserved. The fight of these countries with external support both from within and outside the continent, against the illegal regimes and their successes in forcing them to sit at negotiation tables was a further demystification of the foreign influence. Third, although independence was followed by civil war in Angola, all other countries succeeded in launching a process of development. This was to the surprise of those who had thought that the Africans would not be able to handle political governance. Although civil war later broke out in Mozambique, it was, in this case widely recognised as being sponsored by former Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, and was not, as such, squarely blamed on the country. For their parts, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa all had a good start, and South Africa, in fact, won global admiration for the leadership of its first black President, Nelson Mandela. Finally, the realisation that majority rules in some of the countries, especially Zimbabwe and South Africa, came because of concerted diplomatic efforts by African countries, was also an object of pride and satisfaction. In the case of Zimbabwe, the pressures mounted by Black African members of the Commonwealth, notably Nigeria, accounted for the last-minute change of heart by the Thatcher government which agreed to a genuine election in the country. Africa also played a major role in the work of the Eminent Persons Group who brokered some of the decisions that brought about majority rule in South Africa. These and other facts added to the satisfaction that ensued from the attainment of majority rule and they subsequently increased Africa’s voice.

62  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

In a few of these countries, however, citizens are now revisiting the consequences of their struggles and asking whether they had actually achieved independence.38 South Africa, for example, presents a good example of where the present socio-political landscape reflects the tenuous nature of the reconciliation that was brokered. Critical views were, at some point, expressed about South Africa’s fragile reconciliatory path and the way it is presently being contested. Graça Machel was quoted as saying that South Africa’s reconciliation was at a political level as opposed to a societal level and that although it doesn’t need to be a case of either/or, limited advances in race relations’ and very small result in transformation, and an economy that is almost wholly white owned, attested to this and caused disquiet among many South Africans. However, despite all these challenges, there can be no doubt that, as they became victorious, the armed struggles improved the image of the African continent and increased its voice.

(l)  Drawing strength from Power of Reconciliation While Africa is widely seen as a continent riddled with conflict, what is, however, also worth recognising is the ability of the people to forgive and foster a sense of reconciliation. Although there is a more detailed discussion on the impact of reconciliation in chapter three, it can be noted here that considerable strength has come from this and some of its aspects have won global acclaim. Apart from the remarkable gesture shown by the late Nelson Mandela after his release from 28 years in jail, there have been other indications of impressive reconciliation in the periods after violent civil conflicts. In Rwanda, despite the unprecedented level of violence perpetrated against the Tutsis, the ensuring reconciliation has won global admiration and respect. Also, in the aftermath of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, a measure of genuine reconciliation followed. Even Nigeria, a country not particularly known for self-restraint, made a “no-victor–no vanquished” claim after its civil war.Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, where they were set up, aimed in most cases not to punish individuals or groups, but to get to the roots of problem in order to raise the prospects of reconciliation. Overall, so recognizable is this trait that the former American President, Bill Clinton, noted in his autobiography that his main sources of strength for forgiveness came from Africa.39 This act of reconciliation should not however be misconstrued to mean that the people are resilient almost to the level of self-dehumanisation. It is solely an indication of the ability of the people to embrace understanding for the sake of common interest and harmonious inter-group relations. As will be noted later in chapter three, Rwanda presents complexities in the reconciliation journey which makes it quite difficult to use it as a typical example of this process. The way the RPF government has pursued reconciliation and national unity has allegedly silenced the pain and injustices felt by many. The process has been described as law-fare and accused of providing selective justice. As will be shown later, the uncertainty regarding access to Gacaca, the indigenous mechanism established to address ensure justice, and the definition of “victim” seriously limited

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  63

the gains of the initiative. Despite the criticisms, Gacaca, as will be discussed later, remains a worthy attempt.

(m)  Advancement in gender issues Although historically Africa has fallen far behind in gender issues, the last few decades have witnessed considerable improvements. Indeed, in the last three decades, African women have been at the forefront of efforts to redress the gender ­imbalance across the continent. For ease of discussion, activities in this direction can be brought under four headings. First are those of individuals who protested ­conventions and traditional practices to fight for recognition and gender equality. An example that has often been cited here is the fight of Kenyan Wambui Otieno who fought a landmark case in the 1987 over her right to bury her husband, late Silvano ­Otieno.40 A second agency comes through the activities of female academics, who, through their writings have specifically addressed gender issues and have brought out the need for correction. Among these include scholars like Oyeronke Oyewumi and Amina Mama. Third, is the activities of those agitating for gender equality across African states. In Nigeria, for example, Joe Okei Odumakin, who leads the organisation,Women in Nigeria (WIN) has been involved with over 2,000 cases where women’s rights have been disregarded. The cases have included extrajudicial killings of women or their husbands by the police. Also, in Kenya, Gladwell Otieno led a major struggle that has raised the importance of women in the country and in East Africa in general. All these have been done with enormous personal costs. Joe Odumakin, for example was arrested and detained 17 times by the military rule of Ibrahim Babangida. The civil society too has come to the forefront of efforts to improve the lots of women in Africa. For example, an organisation, the African Women Development Fund (AWDF) has been active as a grant-making foundation that supports local, national and regional women’s organisations working towards the empowerment of African women and the promotion and realisation of their rights. The final agent of change is the African international organisations, especially the African Union. Significant progress has been made in gender issues and more than ever before, the AU and other regional organisations have significantly advanced gender interests in the continent. Following the adoption of the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, the “Gender is My Agenda” Campaign was formed to advocate for the implementation of the declaration, raise awareness, mobilise civil society and co-host an annual Gender Pre-Summit with the AU and other partners.41 The African Women’s Decade (2010–2020) has been utilised as another entry point to advance gender equality on the continent. Some of its key priorities include economic empowerment and expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation in all spheres of life, and health security.42 The Fund for African Women has been used to advance women’s participation in economic processes.43 For example, in 2011, the fund supported 53 grassroots projects located in 27 African states.44 Furthermore, one of the commitments of the Agenda 2063 that seeks to advance unity, prosperity and peace,45 is to “transform gender inequality in the

64  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

economy, in human rights, peace and security, human development and technology, and to advocate for a culture that promote women’s status”.46

Conclusion Although events started changing by the second half of the 1970s, it was the case that by the end of the 1990s, a new narrative had been established about Africa and more than ever since independence, Africans had started changing the impression that the continent is a problem to be solved. The reasons for this, as reflected in this chapter, were scattered and were often not actually designed specifically to give Africa a voice. Regardless of this, what was clear was that both within and outside the continent considerable developments had begun to take place in the areas of politics, economics, and social life that began changing things in favour of the African continent.The impact was also already being felt in Africa and more than ever before it was becoming a pride to be associated with the continent. But apart from all the identified developments, the global environment was also conducive for the rise of Africa’s voice as the end of the Cold War meant the widening of spaces to accommodate new actors on the global scene. However, as will be demonstrated in the following chapters, some of the manifestations of Africa’s voice bring with them inherent contradictions which although they do not nullify the voice, also indicate considerable caution in the ways they are celebrated. One of the main areas where this has manifested itself quite distinctly has been Africa’s economy and this is the object of the next chapter.

Notes 1 Notes For more on Nigeria’s role in Southern Africa and how this redefined Nigeria’s assertiveness in foreign policy, see, Olajide, Aluko, “Nigeria in Southern Africa”, in Olajide, Aluko and Timothy Shaw, Southern Africa in the 1980 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985) and Nicholas J. Spiliotes “Nigerian Foreign Policy and Southern Africa: A Choice for the West”, Issue: A Journal of Opinion 11, no. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 1981). 2 For more on this, see, “Emeka Nwokedi, Nigeria and France”, in G.O. Olusanya and R.A. Akindele, eds, Nigeria’s External Relations:The First Twenty-Five Years (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1986). 3 See Adebayo Adedeji and Timothy M. Shaw, eds, Economic Crisis in Africa (Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 1985). 4 Peter da Costa in his thesis, “Rule of Experts: Decomposing Agency and Agendas in Africa’s”, Development Regime (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 8 February 2011), 95/96. 5 Adebayo Adedeji was first a Professor at the University of Ife, Ile, Ife, Nigeria before becoming Nigeria’s Minister of Economic Planning. He later became the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). 6 See Adebayo Adedeji, “The Monrovia Strategy and the Lagos Plan of Action for ­African Development – Five Years After”, Text of a paper presented at the ECA/Dalhousie University Conference on the Lagos Plan of Action and Africa’s Future International Relations: Projections and Implications for Policy-Makers Halifax, Nova Scotia, ­November 1984. 7 The Berg Report team included a sole African member, the Ghanaian Kingsley Yeboah Amoako, who was deployed alongside Berg to visit Addis Ababa to sell the report’s prescriptions to Adedeji and the OAU. Amoako has been recruited into the World Bank as

Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”  65

a Young Professional after completing his PhD in the US, and later became Director of the Education and Social Policy Department before leaving the Bank to head ECA, 15 years after Adedeji had left Addis Ababa. 8 John Loxley, “The Berg Report and the Model of Accumulation in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Review of African Political Economy, No. 27/28 (1983). 9 Ibid 10 Adebayo Adedeji and Elliott Berg had a pre-existing relationship dating back to the time when the former was the Minister of Planning of Nigeria. This is documented in Peter da Costa’s thesis and is based on an interview with Adedeji. See Peter da Costa, op-cit. 11 See “For Africa’s Sake”: Interview with Professor Adebayo Adedeji, Africa Forum: A Journal of Leadership and Development 2, nos 3&4 (1993), 10. 12 Shaw 1982 (Quoted from Peter da Costa (op-cit.) 13 Quoted from Peter da Costa, op-cit. 14 Ibid, 117-118. 15 See for example, Robert R. Browne and Robert Cummings. The Lagos Plan of ­Action vs. The Berg Report. Contemporary Issues in African Economic Development, ­(Brumswick Publishing Company: Virgian, 1984); 24 16 The acronym was coined by Jim O’Neil who was then working with Goldman Sach and it was in recognition of the emergence of these four countries as emerging economic power-houses in the world. See Jim O’Neil, The BRIC Road to Growth (London: ­Penguin, 2013) 17 Ricardo N Soares De Oliveira, For more on the strategic importance of the Gulf of guinea, see, Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea (London: Hurst, 2007). 18 I have discussed this at some length in my book, Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa: The Tragedy of Endowment (Rochester: University of Rochester Press. 2007). 19 See Partnership Africa, “The Heart of the Matter, Sierra Leone Diamonds and Human Security, January 2000. 20 The UN Security Council had passed Resolution 865 (1993) and 1237 (1999) imposing a set of sanctions against UNITA. These include, among others, prevented the free ­movement of UNITA officials and their families; freezing of accounts of UNITA members, prohibition of direct or indirect imports of all Angolan diamonds without certificate of origin. 21 UN Security Council Resolution 1343, 7 March 2001. 22 I have discussed this at a greater length in my book, The Burden of Collective Goodwill:The International Involvement in the Liberian Civil War (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, 1996). 23 African Development Bank, 2011 24 This is going by Forbes figures of World’s richest individuals. 25 John Njiraini, “Is Africa the new face of rising wealth and opulence,” African Renewal, (April 2015). 26 Ibid 27 Ibid 28 Chimamanda Adichie wrote a string of successful novels including, Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus and Americanah. 29 Those who preceded Soyinka include Max Theiler, a South African who won the Physiology or Medicine prize in 1951, Albert Camus from French Algeria the price for Literature in 1957; Albert Luthulii (born in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe but was the President of the African National Congress in South Africa) Peace prize in 1960; Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, in Chemistry, 1954, Anwar El Sadat (Egypt), Peace 1979; Allan M. Cormack, Physiology or Medicine; Desmond Tutu, (South Africa), Peace 1984 and Claude Simon, Literature 1985. 30 Bala Usman wrote two major studies, History and the challenges to the peoples and polities of Africa in the 21st Century Abdullahi Smith Centre for Historical Research and For the Liberation of Nigeria, New Beacon Books. 31 Claude Ake, Social Science as Imperialism:The Theory of Political Development; Dani ­Nabudere, The Political Economy of Imperialism; Issa Shivji, Class Struggle in Tanzania.

66  Factors and issues in the transformation to “agency”

32 Museveni got into the University of Dar es Salaam in 1967 to study Economic and Political Science and it was while he was there that he became involved in radical Pan Africanist politics. 33 Tajudeen Abduraheem, the Nigerian Pan-Africanist, travelled across the continent and was a regular newspaper columnist in a number of African newspapers. His book, Speaking Truth to Power, was published posthumously. 34 Peter Haas, ‘Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy co-ordination’, International Organization 46 (1992), 16. 35 Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Curry, 1999). 36 Clapman, Christopher. Africa and the International system: The politics of State survival ­(Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2007). 37 Ekeh, Peter. “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement”, ­Comparative Studies in Society and History 17, no. 1 (1975): 91-112. 38 See, for example, Adam Habib, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution; Henning Melber, “Othering” and Structural Violence in Former Settler Colonies: Liberation Movements as Governments in Southern Africa, Roger Southall, Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa and Nzukisi Qobo and Prince Mashele. 39 Bill Clinton, My Life (London: Harrow Books, 2005). 40 The determinative legal issue in the case was on the relevant Kenyan law on burials, whether statute, Common Law or Customary Law and who was the next of kin responsible for the funeral rites. Under Kenyan law at that time, a deceased person’s will or the wishes of their spouse were not sufficient to determine a dispute between opposed parties. In the case of Wambui Otieno v Umira Kager Clan,Wambui argued for the right to bury her husband. The case, dubbed the “trial of the century” by the Kenyan press, brought attention to the rights of women, especially widows, under Kenya’s constitution. Although she eventually lost the case, the whole story resulted in the significant emancipation of women’s voices in Kenya and across Africa in the l980s. 41 Gender is My Agenda Campaign http://www.genderismyagenda.com/campaign/ sdgea.html 42 Statement of the African Union Commission at the 55th Session of the UN C ­ ommission on the Status of Women, 28 February 2011. 43 African Union Women, Gender and Development Directorate, http://www.au.int/en/wgd 44 Olga Martín González, The role of African institutions in promoting gender equality and the political empowerment of women (Stockholm: International IDEA, 2017), 16 45 Agenda 2063, http://agenda2063.au.int/en/home 46 African Union Women, Gender and Development Directorate, http://www.au.int/ en/wgd

3 AFRICAN ECONOMIES

The image of Africa’s economy that dominated the global thinking during the early 1970s was one that though recognised the continent’s natural resource endowment and its economic potential, nevertheless concluded that issues like fiscal mis-management, corruption, institutional weaknesses and political instability would always militate against the continent’s wish of realising its full potential.The request by many African countries for IMF’s interventions into their economies further reinforced the impression that dismal mismanagement will always overshadow any impressive measure of endowment. The inability of the continent to make use of the innovativeness of its teeming youth and its massive population was seen as a further evidence that the chances of it being able to maximise its full potential was slim, at best or non-existent at worst. To be added to all these for the effective justification of Afro-pessimism was the lack of positive commitment on the part of the political leadership to effectively address national economies in ways that can harness the natural and human potential of the continent for economic growth. In the last few decades, the remarkable changes in Africa’s economic fortune has remained one of the most manifest indicators of the continent’s transition from “problem” to “agency”. The economic situation changed quite significantly, such that The Economist Magazine, which in May 2000 had dismissed Africa as “the hopeless continent”, had a cover story titled “Africa Rising” in December 2011. While the concept of “Africa Rising” has given rise to many controversies,1 there is also no doubt that the continent’s economy has shown signs of considerable improvement. Ironically, the excitement that has greeted Africa’s economic transition has resulted in a situation where these changes, which clearly are undeniable, are sometimes blown out of proportion or the contradictions embedded in them are ignored. In this chapter, there is a discussion of the remarkable economic changes that have given Africa a voice, including the manifestations of these changes and the circumstances that account for them. In its attempt to present a balanced picture

68  African economies

that goes beyond the euphoric, the chapter also interrogates how the circumstances accounting for this transition bring along with them contradictions that call for a great measure of Afro caution and Afro-responsibility. Evidences of Africa’s economic improvement are visible but at the broader continental level as well as at the levels of individual countries. As of 2016, for example, the continent was clearly showing clear indications of upward mobility. Of the 15 fastest growing economies in the world, 10 are from the African continent. More than a third of Africa’s population has moved up to the middle class, with 70% of its population living in countries which have enjoyed average GDP growth rates of more than 4% over the past decade. More than ever before, the figures also seem to be adding up for the continent. According to the figures released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, (UNECA), Africa’s average growth of 5% is faster than the global average growth, with 8 out of the world’s top ten performing countries coming from the continent. Indeed, the continent witnessed sustained economic growth between 2001 and 2009. Real GDP rose by 4.9% a year from 2000 through 2008, more than twice its pace in the 1980s and 1990s. Telecommunications, banking, and retailing began to flourish; construction started booming and private-investment inflows commenced surging. In the 2000 decade, Africa recorded significant economic growth. Indeed, the situation may not have been as good since independence. For example, from $600 billion in 2000, Africa’s GDP increased three-fold to $2.2 trillion in 2013. When it is considered that it took China 12 years to double its GDP per capita and India 17 years to achieve the same feat (albeit these are countries), Africa’s three-fold transition in about 12 years is a noteworthy achievement. In addition, according to the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Africa’s total tax revenue increased from $331 billion in 2009 to $527.3 billion in 2012. Efforts to improve the continental economy have also come through the active involvement of the private sector. The shortfalls in national budgets have forced African governments to turn to public-private partnership (PPP) and job-creation and infrastructure have been primary beneficiaries of these initiatives. Since the 2000 decade, there have been such partnerships in infrastructural projects like road construction, bridges and dam construction, power generation, renewable energy, heath and telecommunication. Among the countries that have benefitted from PPP include Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda and specific example of PPP at work in the continent include the Henri Konan Bedie Bridge in Core d’Ivoire, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya, Senegal’s Dakar Diamniadio Road Power, and water Project in Ghana, Nigeria, and Rwanda and the Tanger-Med Port Project in Morocco.2 Indeed, Morocco has made a huge opportunity out of PPP. With the inability to embark on infrastructural investment whist also fulfilling recurrent budgetary obligation, including payment of salaries, the government, in 1992, exploited its strategic location on the Straits of Gibraltar with proximity to Europe to build the Tanger-Med Port. On completion, this would be the largest port in North ­Africa, and it will create a logistic hub to attract manufacturers to the region. It is

African economies  69

also expected to turn Tangiers into a logistic and export centre for moving goods to the USA, the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia.3 The broader continental economic growth has also owed a lot to the efforts by countries to change their laws to allow for improvements of business environment. Kenya, for example, has passed laws to assure the private sector of policy stability and market certainty and has set the goal of exceeding 805 of its projects through PPP by 2030. Tanzania, in 2014, passed the Financial Act that allows the private sector to make PPP proposal. This circumvents competitive tender processes. On its part, too, the Moroccan parliament, in ­December 2014, passed the PPP law that permits private investors to lead in the planning, ­financing, and execution of public projects. It, however, gives the state the powers to abort a project on the grounds of public interest. In pursuing PPP, however, African countries are coming to realise the need for caution and negotiation of favourable terms to avoid bad-debt. Cautions are also being considered about the danger inherent in the ballooning of debts and environmental damage. Other dangers that African countries are also now taking into consideration include the need to ascertain the true costs and benefits of PPP over the lifetime of a PPP project and the need for more informed consultation, broader civil society involvement and closer monitoring of projects by all stakeholders.4 Socio-economic and infra-structural developments have improved significantly. Survival rates of infants in the continent have increased by about 36% in the last two decades. Even though it still remains one of the poorest continents in the world, a great deal of improvement has taken place. Over the last two decades, Africa has also made unprecedented progress in the development of education. Sixty million more children in sub-Saharan Africa were enrolled in primary school in 2015, with (net) enrolment rates rising from 52% in 1990 to 77% in 2011. During the same period, enrolment in secondary education had also more than doubled from 20.8 million to 46.3 million.While noticing that the continent still faces significant challenges in education, UNESCO admits that the African region has experienced an impressive increase in the number of students enrolled in primary school. Between 1990 and 2012, the number of children enrolled in primary schools more than doubled, from 62 million to 149 million children.5 In sub-Saharan Africa, 15 countries abolished school fees, enabling more children to attend primary school.6 Also between 1999 and 2012, sub-Saharan Africa achieved the greatest gains in secondary education participation compared to all other regions of the world, and between 2000 and 2010, higher education enrolment more than doubled, increasing from 2.3 million to 5.2 million. Still according to the UNESCO 2015 Report card on the progress, opportunities, and challenges confronting the African education sector, African countries have allocated the largest share of government expenditure to education at 18.4%, followed by East Asia and the Pacific at 17.5%; and South and West Asia allocated only 12.6%. In the health sector, many African countries have made achievements worthy of note, especially in the treatment of diseases like HIV and Aids and Tuberculosis. South Africa’s role in this regard for example, has won global acclaim. Infant and child mortality rates have also improved across the continent. Access to healthcare

70  African economies

services, including free basic healthcare, has steadily increased in many countries whilst healthcare facilities are being built and hundreds more revamped. While in the same when the continent is still lagging significantly compared with other continents, the progress made should also be recognised. The Ebola epidemic created perhaps the most important challenge in the last decade, especially in West Africa. Although it resulted in the death of more than ten thousand people, it was eventually contained, even if with international assistance, and it also raised its own set of individual hero and heroine. 7 The continent again boasts of the youngest population in the world and it looks set to have the world’s largest labour force by 2040, thus having an opportunity to be transformed into a global economic powerhouse. In urbanisation, Africa, according to reports, is set to become the fastest growing continent in human history and it is estimated that most Africans will be living in urban areas by 2050.8 By this time, it is estimated that the continent’s population would have doubled from 1 to 2 billion.9 It is also important to note that there is a reduction in the amount of external aid coming to African countries and that most of the significant economic developments listed above were made on home grown resources. Indeed, there are now some African countries insisting on using their own resources to address their developmental needs. For example, the Kenyan government is proud to declare that most of its core budget going into development is financed through domestic resources. In addition, other sources of support have now come from China, India, and from Banks like BRICS Bank, Afri-Zim bank as well as the African Development Bank (AfDB) which is supplanting the World Bank as the first bank of choice for African countries. A major landmark in Africa’s economic development was reached in March 2018, when 44 countries signed the African Free Trade Agreement. The decision to establish the continental Free Trade Area was made in 2012 and efforts toward this began in 2015. The signed agreement commits countries to remove import duties on 90% of all goods while identified “sensitive items” which make up the remaining 10% would also be phased out at a later date. The agreement also liberalises commercial services and also tackles non-tariff barriers which include extended delays and harassment at border post, which, hitherto, had hampered trade between African countries. The signed agreement posits a number of advantages for the continent. First, by creating a single continental market for goods and services, the agreement hopes to bring together the entire African population with a combined Gross Domestic Product of more than US$2 trillion as at eight years ago.The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has estimated that by 2022, the full implementation of the agreement could increase intra-African trade value by up to 52%. Although as at the end of 2018, Nigeria was yet to sign the agreement. While recognising that measuring economic growth through GDP has its own problems, especially because it is not an overall reflection of quality of life index and not an accurate reflection of the reality in some critical sectors of the national economy such as education, health, and social services, GDP can also present a picture of aspects of economic progression. The last two decades have indeed witnessed tremendous growth in some of the countries as shown in the Table 3.1 below:

African economies  71 TABLE 3.1:  Top 10 Countries in GDP Growth 2001–10

Country

2001–10

Angola China Myanmar Nigeria Ethiopia Kazakhstan Chad Mozambique Cambodia Rwanda

11.1 10.5 10.3 8.9 8.4 8.2 7.9 7.9 7.7 7.6

Source: Jonathan Berman, Success in Africa: CEO Insights from a Continent on the Rise, (Manchester: Bibliomotion Books, 2014), 20.

Although not all the countries have been successful, as in the case, for example, of Zimbabwe where the economy has continued to decline, overall, things have been looking better for the continent. According to the World Development Indicators (a publication of the World Bank) and as shown in Table 3.2 below, the sub-Sahara African (SSA) economy performed better than other regions and the entire world between 2007 and 2015. While the average annual growth rate of GDP for SSA is 4.5%, the average GDP growth rate between 2007 and 2015 for OECD economy and the World are 1.6% and 2.4 %, respectively. The Middle East and North African (MENA) economy recorded an average GDP growth rate of 4.2% between 2007 and 2015. TABLE 3.2:  GDP Annual Growth Rate (%), 2007–15

Regions/Countries

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

World OECD MENA SSA Algeria Angola Botswana Cameroon Egypt Gabon Ghana Kenya Nigeria South Africa

4.3 1.6 6.5 7.1 3.4 22.6 8.3 3.3 7.1 5.7 4.3 6.9 6.8 5.4

1.8 1.6 5.5 5.3 2.4 13.8 6.2 2.9 7.2 −3.3 9.1 0.2 6.3 3.2

−1.7 1.5 n.a. 2.8 1.6 2.4 −7.7 1.9 4.7 0.1 4.8 3.3 6.9 −1.5

4.3 1.6 5.8 5.5 3.6 3.4 8.6 3.3 5.1 7.1 7.9 8.4 7.8 3.0

Source: World Development Indicators, various years

3.1 1.7 3.7 4.3 2.9 3.9 6.0 4.1 1.8 7.1 14.0 6.1 4.9 3.2

2.5 1.2 4.2 3.6 3.4 5.2 4.5 4.6 2.2 5.3 9.3 4.6 4.3 2.2

2.4 1.1 2.2 4.7 2.8 6.8 9.7 5.6 2.1 5.6 7.3 5.7 5.4 2.2

2.6 1.8 2.5 4.6 3.8 4.8 3.2 5.9 2.2 4.3 4.0 5.3 6.3 1.5

2.5 2.0 2.9 3.0 3.9 3.0 −0.3 6.2 4.2 3.9 3.9 5.6 2.7 1.3

72  African economies TABLE 3.3:  FDI into Africa by Projects in 2015

Country

Projects

South Africa Kenya Morocco Egypt Nigeria Ghana Mozambique Ethiopia Cote d’Ivoire Tanzania Uganda Others Total

118 85 71 59 51 40 29 27 26 20 20 159 705

Source: Zipporah Mussai, “Global Companies Gave Africa a Second Look,” Africa Renewal (Aug-Nov. 2017): 6.

As also shown in the Table 3.2, sub-Saharan African economy recorded lower GDP growth rates in 2009 and 2015 relative to other years. The main contributing factor to the relative poor performance in 2009 is the impact of the global economic meltdown of 2008 while the main explanation for the 2015 performance is the impact of the fall of the international price of crude oil. A relevant question is what factors contributed to the improved economic performance of SSA and MENA economies relative to other economies of the World between 2007 and 2015? The factors that contributed to the improved economic performance for Africa are favourable terms of trade, political stability, high price of crude oil, improved legal and institutional framework for conducting businesses and improved telecommunication. The main consequences of improved economic performance for Africa are attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI), improved infrastructure, and investment in human capital, improved standard of living and social well-being, and technology transfer (see Table 3.3). In the light of the preceding continental and selected country overview, the discussion will now proceed to the identification of the issues that account for the transition (see Figures 3.1–3.3). But apart from this broad continental overview, there is the need to take few country-specific examples to give indications of economic growth that are worth noting.

(1) Mozambique In Mozambique, after one of the bitterest civil wars in post-independence Africa, growth in recent years has been phenomenal. Indeed, since the end of its civil war in 1992, the country has recorded an economic growth averaging around 8% a

African economies  73 20000

US billion dollars

15000 High prediction Measured/predicted Low prediction

10000

5000

0

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2015 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 Year

FIGURE 3.1:  African

gross domestic product in US billion dollars. (US billion dollars), 2000–13

450 400 US billion dollars

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Year EU17 China Brazil, India, Korea, United States Intra-Africa Russia, and Turkey

FIGURE 3.2:  Trade

between Africa and selected partners and Intra-African trade (US billion dollars), 2000–13.

year. In the process, by 2003 nearly three million people had come out of extreme poverty. This has been achieved through positive Government ventures including rehabilitation of agricultural markets and marketing infrastructure. Farmers had access to good-quality land and they used this access to expand the farmed area and to diversify crop production. Increased income from agricultural produce provided funds to invest in new small and micro business ventures.The reforms, “which were

74  African economies 60000 55000 50000 45000

US billion dollars

40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2038 2040 2042 2044 2046 Year China

FIGURE 3.3:  GDP

India

United States

Europe

Africa

(at purchasing power parity) of Africa and major global powers.

responses to the dismal economic performance of the country in 1970-85, took the country to market economy”.10 By 2010, Primary School enrolment jumped from 42% to over 70%, debt-to GDP ratio dropped from 330% to 40% and poverty fell from 84% to 64%.11 Rural households also invested in better housing and in providing good education for their children. Higher rural and urban economic growth raised incomes and stimulated demand for nonfarm goods and services. Investment in public service provision, to address the severe lack of social services, produced improvements in access and outcomes. Although 2016 was difficult for the country, the economy picked up during the first quarter of 2017 to 2.9%, more than double the growth rate of the preceding quarter.12

(2) Tanzania Tanzania too has dramatically improved its economic performance. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the macro economy stabilised, inflation declined to single digits, and economic growth improved. Growth accelerated in recent years, averaging about 7% a year in 2001–07.13 Exports which were just 11% of GDP in 1991 had jumped to more than 20% in 2010, and external debt was cut from 160% of GDP to just 30%.14 Infant mortality too had by 2010 declined by 25%.15 Although agriculture remains Tanzania’s main economic sector – employing 80% of the work force other sectors have equally recorded strong performances. For example, following privatisation, the manufacturing sector output rose briskly driven by an increase in the output of many commodities, including sugar, beer, soft drinks, cement, and

African economies  75

steel. Tourism has also emerged as an important sector contributing to over 10% of the GDP. Mining is growing in impact and importance. Although its contribution to GDP is still small, at around 3%, the sector is one of the most important foreign exchange earners. Annual gold output increased from five to 50 tons between 1999 and 2007, making Tanzania the fourth largest African gold producer. Liberalisation of trade and exchange regimes boosted non-traditional exports and reversed large external imbalances. Tanzania has been successful in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). A large share of FDI is directed to the mining sector, but manufacturing, tourism, and financial sectors have also attracted FDI. The establishment of a competitive banking system has facilitated increased availability of credit for productive activities.16 Tanzania’s reform process began gradually in 1986 and intensified after 1996. The first phase saw a partial liberalisation of the economy, while the second saw far-reaching structural reforms. Major reforms since 1996 include the following: sound fiscal and monetary policies to control inflation; fiscal consolidation and stronger public financial management; privatisation and reform of state-owned enterprises; reduction in the level of state intervention in the economy—trade reform, liberalisation of the financial sector; and creation of a market-oriented regulatory framework. Macroeconomic stabilisation and structural reforms were instrumental in attracting FDI, which was a key factor in fostering higher growth in the nonagricultural sectors. Fiscal incentives to foreign investors—especially in the mining sector—such as generous depreciation allowances, indefinite loss carry forward, exemptions from import duties and the value-added tax, and some income tax holidays were also instrumental in attracting FDI.

(3) Mali In Mali, one of the key objectives of the poverty reduction strategy has been to increase rural incomes and employment opportunities by promoting agricultural diversification and developing the export of high-value commodities. In 2005 the government with World Bank assistance and IDA funding, launched the implementation of the Agricultural Competitiveness and Diversification Project.17 This was a 6-year investment project aimed at increasing the revenues from a whole set of agricultural products with growing markets and strong demand, which are still mostly untapped, thus diversifying the economy’s foreign exchange earnings which remains extremely concentrated with 90% of income being represented by only three products (gold, cotton, and livestock). The project’s development objective is to improve the performance of supply chains for a range of non-traditional agricultural, livestock, fisheries, and gathering products, such as mangoes, cashews, shallots, potatoes, dairy products, beans, papayas, sesame, shear-nuts for which Mali enjoys a strong comparative advantage.18 Mali’s development agenda places a high priority on agricultural growth and diversification. Overall, infant mortality dropped by 25%, poverty fell by one-third and primary school enrolment doubled.19 The results of this project have made a direct and tangible contribution to this agenda.

76  African economies

A whole range of stakeholders involved in the value chain—small farmers, traders, agro-processors, exporters, service providers (technicians, financial and accounting specialists), input and equipment providers—have been involved since the launch of project and are benefiting from the expansion and improvements brought about by the project.

(4) Rwanda Since its bitter genocide, Rwanda’s economic fortune has transformed, and the country continues to win global acclaim for its remarkable economic progress. In the past two decades, coffee has played a part in transforming the Rwandan economy. In 1990, Rwanda exported 45,000 metric tons of coffee. At that time, just over half of all Rwandans produced some coffee.The Rwandan genocide left the nation, its people, and its economy in shambles. Even before the hostilities ended, the coffee industry faced tumbling world prices. Coffee remains Rwanda’s major export crop. In 2006, coffee exports grew from 17,000 to 21,000 metric tons – a 23.5% increase.20 Although there are fewer coffee producers today, close to 500,000 families are involved in the production of high-quality coffee. The growth of the coffee industry has also fostered harmonious inter-group relations, enabling Hutus and Tutsis to work together on many initiatives toward an improved standard of living.21 Several factors brought about important changes in the Rwandan coffee industry: The Rwandan Patriotic Front government targeted the coffee industry for support and liberalisation; bilateral and multilateral development assistance provided funding to revitalise the coffee sector; and. NGOs provided support to help establish coffee cooperatives and train cooperative members to improve quality, processing, and marketing efforts. The government, donors, NGOs, and the private sector have built more than 40 washing stations around the country to help improve quality. Liberalisation reforms freed farmers from the legal obligation to grow coffee. Farmers are now free to interplant coffee with other, desirable crops. The government eliminated legal mulching requirements, and it also allowed coffee producers to work directly with buyers. Farmers could take advantage of economies of scale by creating cooperatives and unions.

(5) Uganda Looking at Uganda, by the end of the 1990’s, fish exports were in a tailspin as the country was unable to effectively cope with international fishing standards. This crisis galvanised action and unprecedented collaboration ensued among a wide range of stakeholders. The fish industry was forced to embrace technological change to remain competitive. Over the last decade, Uganda’s fish industry has shown a remarkable capacity to adapt and grow. Fish-processing plants have adopted and learned to comply with the higher food safety procedures and standards; and the taste, colour, smell, texture and nutritional value of fish have improved.The fish industry is now the country’s leading export: growing from $15 million in 1994

African economies  77

to about $120 million in recent years. Fish exports account for more than 6% of the national income.22 An estimated 700,000 Ugandans are involved in fisheriesrelated employment.23 As fish is the single most important source of animal protein available to the national population, the growth of the fisheries sector has also contributed to food security in Uganda. Factors contributing to this success include, paradoxically, the imposition of international fish standards which created a severe crisis in the fish exporting sector in the late 1990s.24 The loss of jobs, livelihoods, and export revenues exerted pressure on industry players to respond. In order to improve the quality of output and comply with international standards, remarkable interaction and collaboration took place across the value chain—suppliers, fishprocessing firms, buyers—foreign private companies, policy makers, and international development agencies. The public sector played an important role in supporting technological change—namely; it strengthened the inspection process by providing oversight and management. Furthermore, it designated and approved laboratories, improved infrastructure and sanitary conditions at transportation sites, and provided the knowledge infrastructure for proper handling, packaging and transportation of fish. Through its intervention, the government was able to improve food-handling and safety in all parts of the value chain. The government played a central role in sustaining the pressure on firms to maintain standards.

(6) Zambia The Zambian cotton industry has proven to be a significant sector in the nation’s transition to a market economy.The sector was liberalised in 1994—the Government of Zambia sold the state-owned Lint Company of Zambia (LINTCO) to two private companies. Despite the uneven performance in post-liberalisation, the sector has shown considerable dynamism. Private sector innovations in supply of credit to smallholder farmers for inputs such as seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides have been keys to boosting performance of the cotton sector. Between 1999 and 2005, several initiatives were undertaken to improve input credit repayment as well as cotton production and export.25 Dunavant established a private “Distributor Scheme” which reduced input credit default.The government launched a Cotton Outgrower Credit Fund (COCF), a Cotton Board, and the Cotton Association of Zambia, which were meant to improve smaller farmer’s credit facilities and increase exports and farmer profits.26 The COCF does not manage or control the distribution or acquisition of inputs. Instead, it leaves these activities to the individual private cotton companies through which funds are channelled and which work with farmers; thereby making the COCF solely a lending entity within the industry and lowering costs for private companies.

(7) Nigeria Nigeria, in 2014 became Africa’s largest economy, overtaking South Africa. This was done through the overhauling of its economy. Official figures for 2013, released

78  African economies

by Nigeria’s statistics bureau, put the country’s GDP at $503bn (£307bn) – nearly double previous estimates and well ahead of South Africa at around $350bn. The revision pushes Nigeria up 12 places to become the 24th largest economy in the world – on par with Poland and Belgium and ahead of Argentina, Austria and Iran. Although the economy slipped into recession for the first time in more than two decades in 2016, the picture in 2017 has been of moderate economic recovery. The government initiated a plan for an integrated framework for development programs in the north east through implementation of targeted social safety initiatives across the country. Private investments are a key policy priority, aimed at driving economic diversification through entrepreneurship and industrialisation in the lead sectors of agribusiness, manufacturing and mining. The acceleration of the implementation of the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) has been a key priority for fostering industrialisation. The priority sectors identified have been mining and quarrying, which contributed 7.1% to overall GDP in 2016, and manufacturing, which declined 2.6 % year-on-year due to increased costs in business operations, resulting mainly from foreign exchange restrictions. Although instability in the Niger Delta still had impacts on the economy, there are still good indication that Nigeria’s economy is making progress. The Buhari administration that took over in 2015 has again bolstered the economy through prudent fiscal management and the curbing of corruption. The figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics for the second quarters of 2017 showed that Nigeria’s economy grew by 0.55% from −0.91% in the first quarter of 2017 and −1.49% in the second quarter of 2016.27 With this it was officially claimed that Nigeria was out of recession that had existed in the five preceding quarters. This positive development was attributed to both the oil and non-oil sectors of the economy. Specifically, the growth in the oil sector which has been negative since the fourth quarter of 2015 was positive during the second quarter of 2017, rising by 1.64% as compared to −15.60 during the first quarter of the same year. On its part, the non-oil sector grew by 0.45% in the second quarter of 2017. This was a second successive quarterly growth after growing 0.72% in the first quarter. The growth seen in agriculture when the rest of the economy was contracting was maintained at 3.01% which was encouraging. Manufacturing also grew by 0.64%. While this was lower than that of the previous quarter of 1.36%, it was, nevertheless, an increase over the -3.36 of the second quarter of 2016. Overall, industry also grew by 1.45% in the second quarter of 2017. Overall, GDP figures gave grounds for cautious optimism especially as inflation continued to fall from 18.72% in January 2017 to 16.05% in July 2017.28

(8) Ghana Ghana’s economy has continued to make a slight measure of progress, especially since the series of successful political transitions in the country. New oil and gas discoveries have further given greater prospects for the economy. Ghana’s economic performance during 2016, however, was mixed. After making solid progress on

African economies  79

fiscal consolidation in 2015, the following year did not record as much progress.29 All forecasts, however, note that Ghana’s near-term prospects are good, provided that there is no fiscal slippage. Economic growth has been accelerating in 2017, spurred by improvements in both the oil and non-oil sectors. Oil production is expected to increase as repairs are completed in the Jubilee field and the ten Field reaches its full capacity. The non-oil growth sectors, including services, are also expected to remain robust. Surveys conducted by the central bank indicate a positive outlook for business sentiments; this will go a long way towards improving private sector investments. The expected rebound in commodity prices will support the exports and growth necessary to stabilise the exchange rate and create employment going forward. By 2010, the average income had increased by more than 40%, investment had doubled, primary school enrolment had increased by one-third, life expectancy had climbed up to 60 years and the percentage of the population living below poverty line had dropped from 50% to less than 30%.30

(9)  South Africa South Africa, the continent’s second largest economy and the first African economy to be classified as “Emerging”, accounts for 35% of Africa’s Gross Domestic Product. Even the World Bank recognised it as an upper-middle-income economy.The country has, since the end of apartheid, consolidated on the strong economy inherited from the apartheid government.The country is also the only African member of the G-20. The strength of the economy rests largely on its developed infrastructure, and its endowments in natural resource, especially solid minerals. South Africa is also currently the home to more than 75% of all top global companies in Africa, including car manufacturers like BMW, the Standard Bank Group, Barclays Bank,Vodaphone, Volkswagen, General Electric and many others.31 Although uncertainties in the political climate had impacts on the economy, the assumption of office of Cyril Ramaphosa as the new President offers considerable prospects for the economy.

(10) Ethiopia Although it has a bitter history of famine and border conflicts in its recent history, another African country, Ethiopia, has now become one of Africa’s fastest growing economies. Indeed, once a “byword for famine, [Ethiopia by 2013] had become the world’s tenth-largest producer of livestock”.32 The African Development Bank has noted that the country has recorded doubledigit economic growth, averaging 10.8% since 2005. Indeed, the country is showing every indication of being an African economic powerhouse. Tourism continues to thrive, and its national airline carrier is the continent’s most successful. There has been rapid industrialisation with well-developed road and rail infrastructure. Ethiopia is also making progress through its vigorous pursuit of Agriculture-led transformation. Although the country is pursuing a rural agrarian model, it is still managing to engage the West and capitalism in certain pragmatic dimensions.

80  African economies

(11) Botswana Botswana has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world and moved into the ranks of upper middle-income countries. Botswana’s economy was predicted by the country’s Finance Minister Kenneth Matambo, to grow by nearly double in 2017 compared to the previous year – growing to an estimated 4.2% compared with 2.9% in 2016 and this was achieved.The optimism was based on the anticipated improvement in the mining sector and growth prospects for the nonmining sectors. The impact is also felt in infrastructural development as ­Botswana’s Education expenditure is among the highest in the world, at around 9% of GDP and includes the provision of nearly universal and free primary education. The economy has also benefitted from a stable political order that has characterised governance since independence.

(12) Algeria In Algeria, although the economy continues to be affected by the fall in the price of oil, some progress continues to be noticeable. For example, in 2016, real GDP grew by 3.5% down from 3.8% recorded the previous year because of lower oil price. According to the African Development Bank reports, as at July 2016, the government adopted a new economic growth plan (2016–30) which focuses on the private sector and a three-year budget stabilisation strategy. Efforts toward diversification are also achieving success. In 2016, the non-oil and gas industry accounted for no more than 5% of GDP in 2016, compared with 35% at the end of the 1980s. Although inflation rose to 6.4% in 2016 (compared with 4.8% in 2015), it had fallen in the two previous years (2013 and 2014).33

Issues that have accounted for Africa’s economic improvement Several issues have explained Africa’s economic improvement. Perhaps the most important of these is the revolution that has come in political governance. This is discussed extensively in the next chapter.There are, however, other issues, including: the improvement in information and communication technologies; the growth of indigenous business class; increase of regional trading; increasing diversification of the economy; the adaptation of better tax and pension policies; the surge in commodity process; reduction in continental conflicts; and the growth and expansion of indigenous cooperative initiatives. These are discussed below:

(a)  Growth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) The use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has contributed to transforming African economies, especially through its driving of entrepreneurship. Africa’s access to ICT has been a remarkable story. For example, the continent increased its access to bandwidth Internet 20-fold within a period of four years.

African economies  81

By early 2013, some 750 million mobile phone subscriptions were in use, corresponding to two thirds of all African adults. In 2009 “South Africa’s ICT sector generated $24.2 bn. and contributed more than 7% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).34 That same year “Tunisia’s ICT sector contributed 10% to the country’s GDP”.35 In Tanzania, its share reached 20% of GDP. Everywhere on the continent, the ICT sector is expanding rapidly. Annual ICT revenues are now estimated at around $50 bn.36 ICT also made specific inroads into areas like Agriculture, Climate Change adaptation, Health and Financial services. It is driving and facilitating innovation. With over 400million subscribers, Africa’s mobile subscriber base is larger than North America’s. The development of Mobile phone networks has created tens of millions of jobs across the continent. In Nigeria where the results have been most dramatic, the sector went from roughly 400,000 lines in 1999 to over 150 million in 2017.37 Also, job and output growth in ICT has catalysed structural transformation of African economies away from dependence on natural resources. In Nigeria, for example, the service sector of that economy has grown from less than 10% of GDP in 1999 to over 50% by 2016.38 Although penetration in some cases is still low, it is growing fast and driving social media usage and innovative applications such as in those being deployed to give farmers access to fertiliser, improved seeds, weather information and prices. ICT has also revolutionised the way business is done and, the inclusion of the poor and rural dwellers in African economies. For example, in Kenya, mobile money has grown phenomenally, giving both urban and rural poor access to banking services. Also, in that country, the M-PESA Scheme, created by the Mobile Company, Safari, provided a most effective mobile phone-based money transfer, financing and microfinancing service the continent has ever known. It soon extended to other countries like Afghanistan, South Africa, India, ­Romania, and Albania. Similarly, in Senegal, SONATEL (a subsidiary of Orange telephone provider) is one of the latest operators on the continent to launch a money transfer service that is enabling 200,000 subscribers to send and receive money using mobile phones. ICT has also been transferred to other sectors of the economy. In Kenya, for example, farmers have used the M-PESA Scheme to organise crop insurance schemes for farmers. An example of this is the Kilimo Salama Scheme, which is helping farmers to better manage natural hazards such as drought or excessive rainfall, thus improving the economy. It has also impacted on Climate Change, as in the case of Malawi, where a deforestation project is training local communities to map their villages using GPS devices and empowering them to develop localised adaptation strategies by engaging communities. It has also impacted on Health, as in the case of Mali where telemedicine is helping to overcome the lack of trained healthcare workers and specialists in rural areas, specifically the IKON Tele-radiology program. Across the continent, ICT has assisted in promoting job creation and boosting the export potential of domestic companies, in the longer term. In this respect, institutions like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, (AfDB) and the African Union have contributed significantly.

82  African economies

The grip of ICT on the economy was felt in August 2010, when employees of Senegal’s National Telecommunications Company cut telephone and internet connections to the rest of the world to force the government to back down on a plan to grant a US company exclusive rights to manage incoming international phone calls. The two-day shutdown sent immediate shock waves throughout the Senegalese economy, as banks, travel agencies, customs offices, call centres, calling card vendors, the airport, the harbour and many others were affected. The impact of this crisis was heightened by Senegal’s position as an important regional hub for communications in neighbouring countries like Guinea and Mauritania. The strong chain reaction prompted by the Senegalese crisis vividly illustrated just how important the information and communications technology (ICT) sector has become in Africa. Investments in Africa’s mobile phone segment, the continent’s dominant ICT category, have grown from $8.1 bn. in 2005 to almost $70 bn. today, according to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Mobile phone operators have become major sources of tax revenue for African governments. They average 7% of tax receipts and in some countries, comprise the single largest category of taxpayers, according to the GSM Association, which represents mobile operators worldwide. There has also been steady growth in internet access on the continent, from 3 million users in 2000 to more than 100 million in 2010. This upward trend will continue as Africa literally becomes more closely wired to the rest of the world with the construction of a series of undersea cables. In the process, Africans became world leaders in “mobile web” technology—internet access through mobile devices.39 Also revolutionary is the extent to which ICT now supports other economic sectors. Stock exchanges in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos and Abidjan cannot function without these technologies. They make banking easier and accessible to more people, allow faster and more efficient medical assistance and are increasingly being used to help advance people’s political participation and voice. The mobile segment of Africa’s information and communication technologies (ICT) sector has been a huge success. With remarkable speed and cost efficiency, mobile networks have connected the entire continent.The ICT revolution in Africa is being led by mobile telecommunications. In less than a decade, mobile networks have covered over 90% of Africa’s urban population. Coverage of rural areas is also growing. Overall, 62% of the population is covered by mobile networks. Although growth is widespread, there is considerable variation across countries. The number of mobile users has grown from 10 million in 2000 to over 180 million in 2007. In 2006 alone, Sub-Saharan Africa saw an additional 37 million new mobile cellular subscribers, equalling the total number of (fixed and mobile) telephone subscribers in the region three years earlier. SSA has the highest ratio of mobile to telephone subscribers of any region in the world. This remarkable growth in mobile telecommunications has occurred despite a relatively high price of service. The success of mobile technologies has radically transformed the African landscape, changing the way people work, entertain, shop, communicate and organise their lives. For example, M-Pesa provides affordable branchless banking services

African economies  83

such as deposits and withdrawals, transfers, and payments to customers. The ICT sector has positively impacted the region’s growth:The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic study estimates that investment in ICT and increased use of ICT services by businesses added roughly one percentage point to per capita income growth over the last decade. The success of mobile telecommunications has demonstrated the viability of a low-input cost and low-margin, high volume business. Demand- and supply-side factors (regulatory reforms, falling costs, and technological innovation) are behind the spread of mobile telecommunications. The growth of mobile telecommunications has been spurred by wide-spread market liberalisation of the ICT sector in Africa. Liberalisation has brought competition to the ICT market, especially the mobile segment. As countries have moved away from monopoly run operators to more competitive structures, the availability and quality of telecommunication services has improved. Competition has also reduced costs. Operators have adopted innovative pricing schemes to make mobile telecommunications less expensive and to expand usage, including customising schemes for poor customers. The ability of mobile operators to rapidly install networks and provide coverage is an important factor contributing to the success of mobile telecommunications. Mobile telecommunications are also easier to manage and operate than fixed phone lines. Local private operators are the driving force of this project. They have provided an average matching co-financing of 25% of the financed schemes. Forty-one projects are financed so far through this approach, and about 30 business plans are under processing for their technical and financial viability.

(b)  Growth of indigenous business class Economic growth in Africa also owes a lot to the emergence of its Middle Class. According to UN statistics, Africa’s one billion-plus population is on course to reach 1.5 billion by 2030 and two billion in the subsequent 15 years. True, a large population does not necessarily guarantee more opportunities – but the facts state that Africa’s middle class is 30% greater than it was in 2000 (according to the ­African Development Bank) and stands ready to spark the beginnings of a new era for retail. Rising household incomes together with a string of positive indicators mean that those in Sub-Saharan Africa are making their way up the ladder, and a budding middle class is bringing explosive and positive change for a continent that has long been characterised by a lack of opportunity. Research conducted by Johannesburg-based Standard Bank shows that the number of middle-class households is set to rise from 15 million currently to 40 million by 2030, with Nigeria – currently boasting the continent’s largest economy and population – leading the charge. Consumer demand is a motor of Africa’s economic and investment surge, and analysts see middle class buyers with swelling disposable income as fuelling this boom from South Africa to Nigeria and Kenya. In its “Africa Pulse” report of April 2014, the World Bank reported that consumer spending accounted for more than 60% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s buoyant economic growth, which it forecast would accelerate to more than 5% over the

84  African economies

next three years, far outpacing the global average. From mobile phones, cars, food, and clothes to financial services and entertainment, multinational companies are homing in on lucrative new markets as millions of Africans aspire to claw their way out of widespread poverty. Global demand for African commodities, driven by China, has also boosted economic growth along with strong investment in productive industries and infrastructure. At the same time, a greater number of African countries are achieving relative stability in politics and economic policy, allowing the middle class to emerge. Accurately quantifying this African middle class has become an obsession for institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank, as well as consultancies advising corporate clients seeking an edge in this booming continent. There is, however, the need to be cautious about the Middle Class in Africa as there are, indeed, grounds to suspect that its contribution to Africa’s apparent transition may have a string of negative side-effects. First, questions about the sources of their wealth are often ignored, unwittingly encouraging greedy aspirations among youths to acquire wealth through illegitimate means. In many instances, the moral values of the society have been affected by the greedy acquisitive tendencies of African individuals who assume that the source of their riches would not be questioned once they acquire massive wealth. Apart from the impact on societal values, much of the wealth acquired by individuals through illicit means has involved defrauding the state in one form or another, especially through shady business deals and the destruction of public institutions they have managed. Consequently, what the nation gains through the increase in the number of its High Network Individuals, it loses through structural defects c­ reated by these individuals on national economy. Second, although most of these people make their money in Africa, they invest it outside the continent, especially in Western European capitals, and more recently, in Middle East locations like Dubai. ­Because of their lack of confidence in their own national economies, most MiddleClass b­ usinesses have placed the bulk of their investment outside the continent. Indeed, the only African country that has been a beneficiary of intra-African investment is South Africa. Third, business operations of the Middle Class have not resulted in poverty reduction across the continent. Many African cities also host some of the continent’s richest individuals, changing the economies of many of the cities. An overview of some of these may be necessary. Morocco’s bustling tourist centre Marrakesh is in ninth place with 15 of its population worth over $30 million. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ranks as one of the world’s Global Cities of the future, hosting 21 Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals (UHNWIs). Abuja, Nigeria has 23 ultra-high-net-worth individuals in residence. Dar-es-Salaam,Tanzania, has also made the list with the rise in its urban middle class and it is believed to have 36 super-rich individuals. Nairobi, Kenya, is a city whose economy has grown rapidly in recent years and is now believed to host about 70 UHNWIs. South Africa’s Cape Town has remained the continent’s most affluent city with about 120 UHNWIs and the number of individuals worth $30 million in assets set to more than double over the next decade. Lagos, Nigeria, in 2013, had 131 UHNWIs, and the city spent more on champagne than the whole of South

African economies  85

Africa. Cairo, Egypt’s capital has the second highest number of high net-worth individuals – 150. However, Johannesburg, the commercial capital of South Africa, has far more millionaires than any other African city.With 298 people with a net worth over $30 million, it’s the city with the most-ultra-rich individuals in Africa.The discussion on the ultra-rich also raises the gross inequalities in the cities mentioned. So even though there is this huge affluence, it is not equitably distributed. These cities are also sites of under-employment, poverty, gentrification of the city, the overpolicing and criminalisation of the poor that results in extra-judicial killings in slum areas in Nairobi for example. Despite this, it was a major success for Africa’s voice.

(c)  Increase of regional trading Regional trade provides a platform for the growth of the economic sector in Africa. In every individual country within each of nine Sub-Saharan African neighbourhoods, previous-year imports of intermediate goods from neighbours are positively correlated with total exports in the current year. There are more exports when countries cooperate regionally, in terms of scale economies, greater factor mobility, and lower transport costs) as well as integrating globally. Regional trade also provides an opportunity for both foreign and domestic indigenous manufacturers to participate in trade. While exports to the global market are still dominated by large foreign-owned companies, regional markets offer opportunities for smaller domestic manufacturing enterprises. Even microenterprises participate in regional exports to some extent, often in the form of indirect and/or informal trade through traders. Restoration of peace in a conflict-afflicted area leads to an influx of regional manufactured imports from neighbouring countries—for example, Kenyan and Ugandan products in Southern Sudan. The extent of intra and inter-regional trade among African countries has also served to boost national, regional and continental economies. The free movement of people and goods that regional economic communities allow in their charters has served to boost many economies. In some cases, too, trade has gone beyond regions and become continental. A clear evidence of the impact of regional trading integration is in the Banking Sector. Banks in the continent began having regional spreads. According to Okey Iheduru, leading the charge is ECOBANK “a pan-African financial institution with dual-mission – commitment to economic prosperity and social wealth”.40 The bank was founded in October 1985 in Lomé,Togo, as a private sector regional bank initiative led by the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry supported by ECOWAS. It commenced operations in 1988 with an authorised capital of US$100 million and paid up capital of US$32 million, raised from over 1,500 individuals and institutions from across West Africa. As of 2017, ECOBANK remains one of the few genuinely pan-African companies of scale, and Africa’s sixth largest full-service regional bank.The Bank, which is now owned by more than 600,000 local and international institutional and individual shareholders, is probably West Africa’s first multinational corporation with subsidiaries and branches in 39 West, Central, and Southern African countries, as well as

86  African economies

branches in major world financial capitals. By 2015, “its 19,565 multinational employees in 1,305 global branch networks and offices made ECOBANK the largest employer of labour in the financial sector industry in Middle Africa”.41 In 2015, the bank generated revenue of US$4.28 billion, net income of US$398 million, total assets and equity of US$40 billion and US$6.65 billion respectively, and 10 million customers. The regional pan Africanism has been followed by Nigerian banks such as Skye, Guarantee Trust Bank and ACCESS. Even though formal market information for regional trade is limited, indigenous micro enterprises based in industrial clusters often attract customers from neighbouring countries due to their locational advantage of being in clusters. In Suame Magazine (Kumasi, Ghana), for example, a substantial percentage of sales go to customers from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Nigeria, and Togo. Uhuru Market, a cluster of micro scale garment producers in Nairobi, has a portion of sales going to neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Sudan. Rather than exporting directly, micro garment producers in Uhuru are well integrated with small but active regional traders. Clusters attract such regional traders. For more formal larger firms, the presence of crossborder transport bottlenecks encourages them to invest in the regional markets rather than trade. In many cases, prohibitively high cross-border bottlenecks still hamper their exports, encouraging group company networks through foreign direct investments more to serve local markets rather than creating regional exports.

(d)  Increasing diversification of economy Mono-dependent economies across Africa have embarked on major diversification. Indeed, a country like Angola succeeded in diversifying its economy, such that when there was the global plunge in oil prices, the country was still able to manage its affairs. Another oil dependent country, Nigeria, has also tried to supplement its income with its solid mineral resources while at the same time encouraging agriculture. Efforts are also being made to improve the mining sector especially through the rejuvenation of the steel rolling mill in Ajaokuta.42 Ghana, just getting into oil exploration has also learnt lessons about what a dependence on mono-economy can cause and has, since the last administration, tried diversifying its economy. Almost in all cases African countries aiming at diversifying their economies have always looked at agriculture. Although there has been remarkable success such as the Ethiopian case of agrarian-led transformation, the agricultural sector is one big challenge still facing Africa. Although more than 70% of Africans live off the land, the continent has not been able to use agriculture to create jobs or even feed itself. It still imports food and has food importation deficit. Just in 2017, for example, there was shortage of maize in Kenya, despite the availability of fertile land, further underlining the huge conundrum that agriculture has created in Africa. African agencies are however now focusing on agriculture, with the emphasis that the continent needs to develop a value-chain – instead of just exporting raw materials and hoping that the world market will sustain income. The need to

African economies  87

internationalise the value chain is central to Africa fully transiting from problem to voice in the economy.

(e)  Adoption of better tax and pension policies In the last two decades, many African countries have come up with effective tax policies and this has significantly impacted on the economy. Indeed, between 2004 and 2013, the continent more than doubled its tax revenue from US$120 billion to US$300 billion.43 According to figures from the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Africa’s total revenue collection had reached US$527 billion by 2012.44 Indicative figures still believe that the continent can still make more from this source as the continent’s true tax liability is believed to be between US$415 – US$620 billion.45 The situation however varies from country to country. In some countries like Angola, tax revenue has been increased by between 5% and 10% of the GDP in a 4 to 5-year period. Indeed, thanks to this and other policies, Angola has been able to triple its non-oil revenue between 2010 and 2015.46 This indeed made it easier for the country to cushion the effect of budget shortfall that came because of the fall in oil prices. Improvement in ICT has also assisted many countries including Nigeria to plug loopholes in Tax collection. Foreign multinational corporations that had previously escaped without paying adequate tax also had to succumb to the renewed determination of African countries to plug loopholes in tax collection. Many African countries are also perfecting their Pension Funds.This is especially the case with South Africa and Nigeria. A step in this respect was the adoption of the amalgamation of revenue collection under a single agency, often referred to as a semi-autonomous revenue authority (SARA). The previous method was for tax collection to be dispersed among a few departments within the Ministry of Finance, with different people responsible for collecting income tax,VAT and excise taxes. It was not uncommon for these sections not to co-operate with one another and for each to try and strike private deals with taxpayers. SARAs have tended to establish separate offices to deal with large taxpayers. In doing so, they have been able to apportion the necessary skills and expertise to meet the specific requirements of different taxpayer groups.With all these, SARA has reduced the amount of face-toface interaction that takes place between taxpayers and tax collectors. This is where corruption takes place. Tax assessments have been separated from physical revenue collection. Some countries like Burundi for example, have also allowed for tax payments to be done through Banks, while a mobile phone tax payment system – M-Declaration – was launched in Rwanda in September 2012 for businesses with an annual turnover of between US$3,000 and US$770,000 per annum.47

(f)  Surge in commodity prices Africa has also benefited from the surge in commodity prices over the past decade. Oil rose from less than $20 a barrel in 1999 to more than $145 in 2008. Prices

88  African economies

for minerals, grain, and other raw materials also soared on rising global demand. While some African states used this opportunity to embark on some developmental projects, it should also be added that the impact of the opportunity was not felt in some other countries where the money that was made from the increase was lost to corruption. In Nigeria, for example, allegations of corruption that were subsequently levelled against key actors in the country’s oil sector indicate clearly that the country still lost a lot to graft during this period of boom. But having said all this about the impact of commodity price surge, it needs to be added that the commodity boom explains only part of Africa’s broader growth story. Indeed, natural resources generated just 24% of Africa’s GDP growth from 2000 through 2008. The remaining two-thirds came from other sectors, including wholesale and retail, transportation, telecommunications, and manufacturing.

(g)  Improvement of tourism Tourism is another sector that has enjoyed a degree of development in Africa, with various countries looking deep inwards to bring out issues that can attract visitors and generate income. Foreign holiday companies have been flocking to the continent. An example of this trend is Rwanda’s tourism industry which has emerged as the nation’s top foreign currency earner, ahead of coffee and tea sectors. Rwanda’s gorilla tourism—which drew 7,000 visitors to Volcano National Park in 1989—collapsed in the wake of the country’s civil war, robbing Rwanda of muchneeded cash to pay rangers and to provide financial incentives to protect the great apes. Foreign visits to see the gorillas dropped to zero in 1994, when genocide swept across the nation. In 1999, the slowly recovering tourism industry dipped again, after eight tourists were murdered in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest by Rwandan Hutu rebels. With the support of international groups, the country has managed to re-build its gorilla tourism. Rwanda’s park rangers have managed to safeguard the gorillas and the Virunga reserve. Squatters were eventually persuaded to leave the national park, human latrines were cleaned up, and sick gorillas were injected with antibiotics and protected against measles with vaccines provided by UNICEF. In 2007, the tourism industry emerged as the top foreign currency earner, generating revenues of $42.3 million and overtaking proceeds from exports of coffee and tea – $35.7million and $31.5 million, respectively.The industry is also an important source of employment, directly employing more than 34,000 people (1.8% of the workforce). Among the key factors that have driven this success is the government’s strong commitment to developing tourism, especially in gorilla conservation. International groups have strongly supported conservation efforts. The national tourism strategy focuses on lower visitor numbers and higher receipts as its model for sustainable tourism in the country.The government offers a full package of incentives to attract international investment. Growth has been bolstered by strong investment in the sector.Tourism and hospitality were boosted by an expansion of the number of hotel rooms – from 1860 in 2006 to 2,391 in 2007 and an increase in the number of

African economies  89

restaurants – from 75 in 2006 to 82 in 2007. Improved marketing of the mountain reserves through high profile visits, such as those by Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, has built confidence and encouraged more visitors to travel to Rwanda. Indeed, Tourism has helped Rwanda to recover from the economic collapse which followed the genocide. A strategy based only on gorillas has proven successful, at least in the early stages of the development of the tourism sector.The government is now considering diversifying its tourism industry to include exotic birds, cave exploration and water tourism. Consultations are underway to introduce new products such as a boat on Lake Kivu to step up water tourism and establishing Cave tourism in Musanze. Countries with traditions of tourism like the Gambia, South Africa, Egypt, and Zimbabwe have further developed the sector while other countries, like Nigeria have tried other initiatives such as the building of facilities like the Obudu Cattle Ranch in the country’s Cross Rivers State to develop tourism. An object worthy of note in the link between tourism and African voice is the fact that Africa’s assets, despite their attractiveness, do not guarantee success for tourism.There is an extent to which tourism perpetuates the colonial metaphor. Issues like beach tourism and wildlife tourism are arguably colonial constructs. What is therefore also being showcased now are the ways in which Africa is changing the rules and is promoting a different kind of tourism which is adding value to its environmental concerns, policies and aspirations. But tourism also raises a string of considerations relevant to the “problem” and “voice” dichotomy in Africa, as it mirrors the way Africa is being objectified. I­ ndeed, the crucial question here is to what extent is Africa considered as the place where foreigners come to kill game, see wildlife in its natural settings or watch African indigenous people dancing in traditional outfits? How much of an economic force is tourism in the continent? Can there be an ethical tourism? Indeed, from a purely economic perspective tourism has not benefited many African countries, especially those with beach tourism, which has, actually turned out to be more extractive. This is because most of the money spent by tourists goes to the European Holiday package companies in pre-paid holiday packages and very little is spent during their visits.While on the beach, they interaction of the tourists with the local population is limited and its objectives is usually sexual in nature. After their departure, they leave little benefit for the Africans. There are often no real sustainable seasonal jobs for the locals in this equation, with the slight exception of a country like Kenya which has a bigger industry and a national airline that offers attractive flights to destinations with tourist attractions.

(h)  Reduction in continental conflicts While the 1990s witnessed a string of bitter civil conflicts in Africa, including those in countries that had considerable natural resource reserves like Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, the 2000 and 2010 decades showed considerable peace across the continent. This allowed for considerable economic development. The peace that came to some of the hitherto war affected countries

90  African economies

allowed significant economic development. In Sierra Leone, for example, the peace brought an impressive degree of sanity into the diamonds trade. For ­example, there was a remarkable improvement in the diamonds export sectors of Sierra Leone and the DRC between the periods preceding the introduction of the Kimberley Process. For example, diamond exports in Sierra Leone increased from 26,022,480 carats in 2001 to 69,521,142 carats in 2004.48 More effective management of natural resources can also be added to this.While the late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed many wars in countries with natural resource reserves, the subsequent decades witnessed peace in many of these countries. In Nigeria, the incessant conflict in the oil producing Niger Delta region experienced peace when the late Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua came up with policies that were acceptable to the population in the Niger Delta, including the creation of a Special Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the granting of Amnesty to all those who had taken up arms to fight the Nigerian states.The new peace that came to the Niger Delta region resulted in the increase in Nigeria’s oil production.

(i)  Indigenous cooperative initiatives Africa’s economy has also been transformed by local cooperative initiatives and this has increased Africa’s voice in the economic sector. For example, Equity Bank, a privately held Kenyan company, targeted the unbanked rural poor. The Bank grew from 12,000 depositors in 1993 to over 1.84 million depositors in 2008 and it is the leading microfinance institution in the country (with total assets more than $1 billion), serving 3.3 million micro and small clients. Through its social approach to banking, Equity Bank has rolled out unique and affordable financial products and services to support farmers and to commercialise farming. The bank has also collaborated with various development partners in the private and public sector to support the agricultural value chain. There are now more than 120 villages covered by mobile units, a six-fold increase over the original target of 20, and the units are servicing some 40,000 new customers, of which nearly half are women. Developing a market-driven, customer-focused approach was a prime factor in turning around a poorly performing portfolio, increasing deposits, and reaching rural customers. The bank has been innovative, creating new products to cater to the needs of agricultural customers. The institution’s growth can be attributed to staff commitment and leadership, high-quality customer service, effective marketing, low barriers to access (especially compared to traditional commercial banks), appropriate product design, and an enabling environment. More recently, external support from donors has also been a contributing factor. Another indigenous cooperative initiative is the Ethiopia’s Amhara Credit and Savings Institution which provides Financial Products to Rural Communities. The Amhara Credit and Savings Institution (ACSI) has successfully delivered muchneeded financial services to remotely based, poor communities in the Amhara region. In doing so, ACSI has managed to achieve high levels of sustainability and financial independence. ACSI has increased access to lending and savings services

African economies  91

for poor, underserved communities and its loan portfolio has grown to US$150 m, with US$48 m mobilised in deposits. Sixty percent of its borrowers are women. ACSI’s average loan size has more than doubled to $218 during 2003-08. Despite inadequate infrastructure, ACSI is dedicated to serving Amhara State’s rural poor. The institution has grown its portfolio largely from retained earnings. ACSI’s success is that is remains operational and profitable, when many micro finance institutions struggle to provide services to rural, remotely located and poor populations in developing countries. ACSI is largely a self-funding institution, with savings deposits being an important component of its total funding. ACSI has attained a level of financial independence which allows the institution to dictate and map out its own path, without heavy reliance on external funding sources. ACSI has been very innovative in the way it has used, adapted and replicated credit models to local conditions—this represents a combination of home-grown solutions, an intimate understanding of the context, and maximising the learning and experiences from other countries.

(j)  African women’s empowerment in the economic sector While there is no doubt that women in Africa are in the most disadvantageous position in terms of economic empowerment, some changes are beginning to be noticed across the continent and this has shown immediate impact – indicating the far more positive results that it could bring if comprehensively implemented. Ironically, when compared with the United States and the UK, Nigeria has a higher percentage of entrepreneurs among women with 41% as against 10% and 5.7% for the US and UK, respectively.49 According to further figures provided by Yasmin Belo-Osagie, the co-founder of the organisation She Leads Africa, “Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of female entrepreneurship across the globe, with more women starting businesses in Africa than anywhere else in the world”. Indeed, the African Union designated 2010 to 2020 as “Africa’s Women Decade”. The realisation of the importance of African women in economic development has been a major factor in the continent’s recent successes. As is well known, African women constitute nearly 70% of agricultural labour and produce about 90% of all food. For a long time, the percentage of women employed in the non-agricultural sector was one of the lowest of the world (8.5%). This has been due mainly to insufficient access to key resources such as education and health. This is, however, improving significantly and recently new generations of African women have proved and imposed their capabilities, showing that economic power can also be conjugated in the feminine. Across the continent, women have taken over the management of many private companies. Thus, over the years, things have gradually changed and there is now a consensus that the involvement of women in all workings of the economic sector, even the most sensitive, is essential to the continent. However, many of these women, entrepreneurs and sometimes pioneers in the formal economy, continue to suffer discrimination when they create their businesses, mainly because of certain stereotypes and prejudices. After years of

92  African economies

agitation, African women entrepreneurs today are forcing compliance by defusing the toughest prejudices and clichés, and as an acknowledgement to their efforts and to encourage women insertion, the African Development Bank (ADB) launched the idea of “The price of female innovation in Africa” to distinguish women with the most innovative projects and to spend the recognition of their involvement in development efforts of Africa. The last two decades have witnessed considerable empowerment of women in Africa and this has had significant impact on the economy. However, women’s empowerment alone is not sufficient to address institutional, societal and structural barriers that exclude and still stunt women’s participation in the economy. Transformation – which occurs at institutional and structural levels – is still required to ensure women’s equal contribution and participation in the economy. Although there have been improvements with noticeable results that are worth acknowledging, gender inequality is still hampering economic development in Africa. According to the United Nations, gender inequality costs Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) alone an average of US$95 billion a year.50 Consequently, it means that by eliminating gender inequality and empowering women, it’s possible to raise the productive potential of one billion Africans and boost the continent’s development potential. A Women’s initiative worth recording is the Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT), a microfinance institution established by Kenyan women with the goal of providing economically active, low-income women access to sustainable financial and non-financial services to enable these women to improve the economic and social status of their households. KWFT re-opened in 1992, after being saved from the brink of bankruptcy by the trust’s original donors – UNDP and the Ford Foundation – stepped in to help rehabilitate the fund, enabling it to reopen in 1992. By 2006, its financial self-sufficiency ratio had increased to 105% and the fund was able to use its own income for operating and financial expenses. The trust has expanded from 24 branches in 4 regions of the country in 1998 to 46 rural branches in 8 regions in 2008. Member savings have soared to $16.8 million from $2.2 million in 1998.51 In 2006, KWFT disbursed US$52 million in loans to its clients. Clearly, in the past decades the trust has surpassed all its development objectives by a significant margin. More than 100,000 low-income Kenyan women are running small businesses with loans from KWFT, compared with 29,000 in 2000. Equally importantly, KWFT is still reaching its original target group of poor women. While some women have advanced through many loan cycles, creating bigger businesses and taking out larger loans, most of the trust’s borrowers are poor women. First loans for newcomers still start at $100 to $200. Small business loans remain the focal point of the KWFT’s operation, but new products have also been developed based on requests from clients. These include loans for school fees, solar panels, water tanks, cooking gas equipment and community phone lines, as well as voluntary life insurance. KWFT has expanded its funding sources, going beyond donor grants. In 2000, bank loans financed just 2% of KWFT’s portfolio. At the end of 2006, this figure had risen to about 50%. The ability to co-operate and borrow from banks has been crucial for KWFT’s rapid growth. KWFT continues to evolve.

African economies  93

For example, it is beginning to transform itself into a deposit-taking financial institution, to reduce the overheads created by using other commercial banks and to pass on the savings in the form of cheaper loans to its members. KWFT’s responsiveness to its clients’ needs has also been a contributing factor to the institution’s growth and success. The impact of this initiative has started showing in the number of women that have become entrepreneurs. The last few decades have seen a rise in the number of African women owning major business enterprises in Africa, ranging from oil and mining to IT and aviation. Key female entrepreneurs in Africa include Kenyan Njeri Rionge, the founder of “Wananchi Online, East Africa’s first mass market internet service provider, who also later went into Consulting, Angolan Isabel do Santos, who, though had a take-off advantage of being the President’s daughter, has accumulated her wealth in oil, diamonds, as well as in the communications and banking sectors, Nigeria’s Folorunsho Alakija, who started off with Fashion but later went into oil, South Africa’s Sibongile Sambo, who is into ­aviation, ­Zimbabwe’s Divine Ndhlukula who has employed up to 3,500 people in her Security ­Company, Ethiopia’s Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, who is into footwear manufacturing, Kenyan Tabitha Karanja, who made her fortune delving into brewery business, Nigeria’s Bola Shagaya, whose forte include Oil, real estate, banking, Photography and communications, Morocco’s Salwa Akhannouch, whose fortune came through distribution of petroleum products and the ownership of luxury goods, retail, department stores, and shopping mall and South Africa’s Bridgette Radebe who is into mining.

Conclusion In concluding this chapter, it can be seen that the regrouping of Afro-pessimists with their onslaughts on the “Africa Rising” narrative, following the slowing down of recent economic growth in Africa, does not remove anything from the significant economic developments that have taken place in Africa in the last one and a half decades. However, having noted all these developments, a critical evaluation reveals many interesting realities and even contradiction. First, it needs to be noted that the transition in African economy, which in the eyes of the world has given it voice and has resulted in the whole idea of “Africa Rising”, has a major contradiction embedded in it. To a large extent, the process has its roots in African capitalism’s function of liberalisation and privatisation – the very free market policies that the much-criticised Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) had prescribed and imposed. Significant recognition was given to individuals, especially those categorised as High-Net-Worth Individuals, without any question as to how their wealth was acquired. Again, African growth has not led to more than modest reduction in poverty and inequality remains on the rise. So African governments are now faced with another potential downturn and need to look for other avenues of growth that will create employment in the face of the demographic transition and lift millions out of poverty. The publicity on the achievements of these individuals, who, it is

94  African economies

agreed, gave Africa a voice, was more in line with Western understanding of “wealth” as contrasted to the African understandings, which are more communitarian than individualistic.This thus raises the crucial question as to whether Africa is striving to succeed on the world’s terms. Also, it needs to be noted that the essence of the African transition from “problem” to “voice” in the socio-economic policy sphere lies in the way that African expertise engaged, and continues to engage, with the dominant “development regime”. A critical evaluation that should reflect Afro-caution can also be seen in the gross social inequality which makes wealth, income and access to public services glaringly visible. The economy could do more with its ability to generate employment. Many economies are still agrarian and Africa accounts for less than 2% of global manufacturing as compared to Asia’s that was close to 70%. While it is, of course, the case that Africa’s economy is still growing, there are justifiable reasons to say that considerable improvement has been made in this sector, especially in the last one decade. More than ever before, the continent has made more opportunities from its human and natural endowment and the resolve of its population, especially the youths, have become more manifest. The determination to ensure greater participation of some of the hitherto relegated segments of the community, especially youth and women, has been a major factor in the increase experienced in the economic sector. Also, to be added are some good fiscal policies and initiatives that are undertaken in some of the countries. But what perhaps has most assisted in the greater progress of the continent’s economy has been the improvement that has been made on the political front, including the reduction in the continental conflicts and this is the focus of discussion in the next chapter.

Notes 1 An example of a critique of Africa Rising is, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Africa Rising: Who benefits from the continent’s economic growth? http://www.foresightfordevelopment.org/ sobipro/55/1090-africa-rising-who-benefits-from-the-continents-economic-growth 2 See “Partnerships Giving Africa a New Look”, Africa Renewal, August/November 2017. 3 Ibid 4 Ibid 5 UNESCO Report Quoted by State of Education in Africa Report 2015: A report card on the progress, opportunities and challenges confronting the African education sector. 6 Ibid 7 There was the particular case of the Nigerian medical doctor, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, who professionalism prevented the spread of the virus in Nigeria even though she lost her life in the process. 8 See,“World Urbanization Prospect”, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Department, 2014. 9 Ibid 10 For more on this, see, Benito-Spinetto, M., and P. Moll. “Mozambique: Macroeconomic Developments, Economic Growth, and Consequences for Poverty.” Background paper for the 2005 Country Economic Memorandum. (World Bank: Washington, DC, 2005). 11 Steven Radelet, Emerging Africa: How 17 countries are leading the Way. (Washington DC: Centre for Global Development, 2019), 10. 12 World Bank Report on Mozambique, 2017. 13 World Bank figures http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/african-successes

African economies  95

14 Steven Radelet, op-cit, 10. 15 Ibid 16 See, Volker Treichel, “Tanzania’s Growth Process and Success in Reducing Poverty”, IMF Working Paper, February 2005. 17 Markets Yéyandé Sangho, Patrick Labaste, Christophe Ravry, Growing Mali’s Mango ­Exports: Linking Farmers to through Innovations in the Value Chain, World Bank ­Report, February, 2010. 18 Ibid 19 Steven Radelet, op-cit, 10. 20 Rwandan Growing Coffee Sector, World Bank Publication, http://blogs.worldbank. org/africacan/african-successes 21 A brilliant article that speaks to how harmonious living has been part and parcel of the politics of survival in post-genocide Rwanda, although written within the context of Gacaca is Susanne Buckley-Zitsel, “Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Co-Existence in Post-Genocide Rwanda”, Africa 16, no., 2 (2006). 22 http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/african-successes-one-pager 23 Ibid 24 For more on this, see, Kiggundu Rose, “Learning to change: Why the Fish-Processing Clusters in Uganda Learned to Upgrade.” In B. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and D. McCormick, eds., The African Cluster: Pattern, Practice, and Policies for Upgrading. (Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press, 2004). 25 See Zambia,World Bank Report, http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/african-successes 26 For more on the role of Cotton in the Zambia’s economy, see, Kabwe, S. and Tschirley, D., Comparative Analysis of Organization and Performance of African Cotton Sectors: The Cotton Sector of Zambia, Africa Region Working Paper Series, no. 124. The World Bank, 2009. 27 Information released by the Economic Adviser to the President, Dr Yemi Dipeolu. 28 See “Buhari government welcomes exit from recession with cautious optimism”, The Vanguard, (Lagos) September 5 2017. 29 See, “Fiscal consolidation to accelerate growth and support inclusive development: Ghana Public Expenditure Review”, https://www.tralac.org/news/article/1180030 Steven Radelet, op-cit., 9. 31 Zipporah Musau, “Global Companies Give Africa a Second Look”, Inter Press Service, http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/09/global-companies-give-africa-second-look/ 32 Jonathan Berman, Success in Africa: CEI Insight from a Continent on the Rise (Brookline MA; Bibliomotion, 2013), 19. 33 https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/north-africa/algeria/algeria-economic-outlook/ 34 Andre-Michel, “Africa’s rising information economy,” Africa Renewal (April 2011). 35 Ibid 36 Ibid 37 Figures released by Musa Danbatta, CEO, Nigeria Communications Commission. 38 Figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics. 39 See, Africa Renewal, December 2010. 40 Okechukwu Iheduru, “Indigenous business for regional dynamics in Africa” Great Insight 5, no. 4 (July/August 2016). 41 Ibid 42 Olumide S. Ayodele, Sabastine Akongwale, Udefuna Patrick Nnadozie. “Economic Diversification in Nigeria: Any Role for Solid Mineral Development?”, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 4, no. 6 (2013). 43 Acha Leke, Africa’s $300 billion Opportunity: Tax Income, New Africa no. 554 (October 2015). 44 Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, “The War Forward: Resource Mobilisation is Key”, New Africa no. 554 (October 2015). 45 Ibid

96  African economies

46 Ibid 47 Mick Moore, “Taxing Africa”, Africa Research Institute (31 October 2013). 48 Diamond Industry Annual Review, Special Edition on Sierra Leone (2004), 6. 49 Meryem Khaled,African female entrepreneurs fighting their way to the top https://www. howwemadeitinafrica.com/african-female-entrepreneurs-fighting-way-top/57188/ 50 UNDP 2016 Report. Quoted from, “Women’s Economic Empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa” Recommendations for Business Action, Business for a Better World Report, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Report, March 2017. 51 Kenya: Kenyan Women’s Finance Trust, http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/ african-successes

4 AFRICAN POLITICS, PEACE, AND SECURITY

As noted earlier, the view of Africa as a “problem to be solved” is linked in part to the political challenges that confronted the continent in the first few decades after independence. The grounds for Afro-pessimism in the 1970s, 1980s, and even 1990s, are legion. With issues like high levels of political violence, the absence of representative democracy, acrimonious inter-group relations, rigged elections and an enormous leadership deficit, among others, dominating its affairs, no reputation other than being a problem could have been justifiably allocated to the continent. Some of the world’s most brutal dictators, including Idi Amin of Uganda and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, also held sway on the continent, sometimes with the connivance of the then prevailing Cold War politics, and inflicted enormous hardship on their people. Furthermore, the Cold War period also experienced military incursions into politics, witnessing up to 50 successful military coups and several other alleged and unsuccessful ones. In short, at different stages, considerable manifestations of bad governance in Africa. But undoubtedly a major feature that contributed to the “Problem” narrative were the conflicts that occurred in many African countries.1 The inability to address some of the political problems resulted in bitter civil wars that took the international limelight. Apart from the enormity of civilian casualties, African conflicts also saw some of the world’s worst cases of child combatants, refugee influxes and internally displaced populations.2 Again, so profound was the issue of child combatants in the cases of conflicts in Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that the United Nations established a special unit to address the consequences of conflict on children, ironically headed by an African (Olara Otunnu) whose country of origin (Uganda) was at the centre of some of the worst cases of children’s involvement in armed conflict. In the last few decades, however, the political situation in the continent has been changing quite significantly, and, increasingly Africa’s Voice has been coming into prominence. This chapter takes a

98  African politics, peace, and security

critical look at the changes that have occurred in Africa’s political situation and attempts to provide explanations for them.

The new “Voice” of Africa Even before democracy became the order of the day in Africa, a measure of change was coming to the continent through the activities of autocratic leaders who took governance to another level of accountability and selflessness. In looking at the transition of Africa from a problem to be solved into an agency, the ignored role played by these people as a precursor to subsequent progress made in accountability and good governance must be noted. For example, the late Thomas Sankara, who ruled the West African state of Burkina Faso from August 1983 until his assassination in October 1987, set a new standard in accountability, service delivery and good governance. Within the first year of his leadership, Sankara embarked on an unprecedented mass vaccination program that saw 2.5 million Burkinabe children vaccinated. From an alarming 280 deaths for every 1,000 births, infant mortality was immediately slashed to below 145 deaths per 1,000 live births.3 The importation of several items was banned, and encouragement was given to the growth of local industry. Agriculture was encouraged and in less than 4 years, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in foods production through the redistribution of lands from the hands of corrupt chiefs and land owners to local farmers, and through massive irrigation and fertiliser distribution programs. Within 12 months of his leadership, Sankara vigorously pursued a reforestation program that saw over 10 million trees planted around the country in order to push back the encroachment of the Sahara Desert.4 He stressed women’s empowerment and campaigned for the dignity of women in a traditional patriarchal society. He also employed women in several government positions and declared a day of solidarity with housewives by mandating their husbands to take on their roles for 24 hours.5 He tried to carry his crusade to other African countries. For example, during the OAU Heads of States and Governments meeting in 1987, Sankara tried to convince his peers to turn their backs on the debt owed western nations. According to him, “debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa”.6 According to him, “it is a re-conquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave”. He would not request for, nor accept aid from the west, noting that “…welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganising us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs”. 7 In recent decades, the changes that have occurred in Africa’s political situation have taken several forms, but the most important of them include: consolidation of democracy; considerable improvement in the establishment of human rights situation; reduction in civil conflicts, innovative ideas in conflict resolution, improvements in human rights; greater accountability and war against corruption; security sector reform; enhancement of community security; development of civil society; and improvement in gender orientation, among others.This chapter records how some of these have assisted in changing the narrative about the continent.

African politics, peace, and security  99

(a)  Consolidation of democracy In the establishment of democratic rule, Africa has made tremendous progress in the last few decades.8 Even the few remaining autocratic leaders in the continent are increasingly realising the unsustainability of their position. With very few exceptions, all the countries in the continent are undergoing some degree of democratic transition. Successful elections have been organised with incumbent governments in some cases losing to the opposition. These are developments completely unthinkable a couple of decades ago. Of course, there are still a few “sit-tighters” and “third-term seekers”, but things have significantly gone better. The continent has moved from an era when incumbents retained power by avoiding elections to one where elections are a mandatory part of the democratic process, however compromised. Although in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo, there were instances of sons succeeding their fathers in the cases of Joseph Kabila and Faure Eyadema, variance of this practice is not without precedence in other parts of the world. For example, Sirimavo Bandaranike became the Prime Minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after the assassination of her husband, while in 2008 Raul Castro succeeded his brother, Fidel, as the Cuban leader. Africa therefore is not unique in the practice of family members succeeding one another in office. In the last decade, up to 50 elections have been held across Africa. The journey has been quite varied across the continent. Indeed, in some countries like Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania there have been at least three successive successful national elections. In Nigeria, a country that has toyed with every conceivable system of government since its independence in 1960, there has been a somewhat stable democratic order that has now witnessed almost two decades of uninterrupted civilian rule. Even when the political climate in the country gave sufficient incentive for military intervention, such as the time when the late President Umaru Yar’Adua was indisposed and the country momentarily under a period of drift, the military shunned any encouragement to intervene. In 2015, the country also witnessed an occasion where an incumbent who lost elections to the opposition graciously bowed out by conceding defeat. The parliament has also become sufficiently strong as to reject the strong desire of an incumbent executive to seek a third-term after the expiration of the mandatory two-term of office. Elections too had become credible by 2015, when polls across the country won global acclaim and respectability. Also, in Ghana, in 2016, an incumbent lost the election and conceded defeat to an opponent that had made three previous efforts at contesting election. In the preceding 2012 election, civil society groups in the country, especially the Ghana Conference on Religion and Peace (GCRP), had intervened to ensure that peace and stability prevailed during the elections. There are other landmark elections that signalled the dawn of a new era in Africa. Successful transitional elections have taken place in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking an end to more than four decades of undemocratic rule (although this achievement was marred by post-election violence). Although in the country, as with some other elections on the continents,

100  African politics, peace, and security

results were contested in courts, the resort to legal means to seek redress is also an indication of growing democracy. Also, after a 14-year conflict, Liberia held free and fair elections and gave the continent its first female president, Helen JohnsonSirleaf, who, after two terms in office handed over power to an elected member of the opposition party, footballer George Weah who had lost in previous attempts at becoming the president. Post-civil war Sierra Leone has also witnessed a number of successful democratic transitions where opposition political parties have won and outgoing Presidents from a different political party have organised transitions. In 2016 alone, 18 presidential elections took place. In 11 of these, incumbents secured their re-election, while six new presidents assumed office.While there were cases of setbacks, many of the elections were considered free and fair. In Benin, incumbent President Thomas Boni Yayi stepped down after his second term, in line with the constitution and Patrice Talon was elected president. In São Tomé and Príncipe, Evaristo Carvalho defeated President Manuel Pinto da Costa, who had previously served as President. Jorge Carlos Fonseca was re-elected for a second term as the President of Cape Verde in an election considered free, transparent and fair. Also, countries in transition have held successful elections. For example, in the Central African Republic (CAR), Faustin-Archange Touadéra was elected President in February 2016 (see Table 4.1). Gambia presented a major drama when the former president, Yahya Jammeh, who had sworn to rule for a billion years, lost an election after 22 years in office. The election, which was marred by government’s intimidation, killings, closing of the internet and many other things, was a landmark election in the country.

TABLE 4.1:  The Incumbents who have Lost Elections in the Recent History of the

Continent Country

Incumbent that lost

Year

New leader elected

Benin

Mathew Kerekou Nicephore Songlo Pierre Buyoya Andre Kolingba Denis Sassou Nguesso Robert Guei Laurent Gbagbo Tom Thabane Dider Ratsiraka Hastings Kamuzu-Banda Joyce Banda Goodluck Jonathan Abdul Diof Abdoulaye Wade Aden Abdullah Doar

1991 1996 1993 1993 1992 2000 2010 2015 2001 1994 2014 2015 2000 2012 1967

Nicephore Songlo Mathew Kerekou Melchlor Ndalaye Ange Patasse Pascal Lissouba Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Quattara Pakalitha Mosisilli Mare Ravalomanana Bakiri Muluzi Peter Mutharika Mohammadu Buhari Abdoulaye Wade Macky Sall Abdirashid Shermarke

Burundi Central Africa Republic Congo Cote d’Ivoire Lesotho Madagascar Malawi Nigeria Senegal Somalia

African politics, peace, and security  101

What however caused surprise was the ease with which President Jammeh conceded defeat to the elected President Adama Barrow. This concession, which won admiration and respect from across the continent and indeed the world, was however reversed few weeks later. This was accompanied by the deployment of soldiers all over the capital and resulted in considerable pressure from the regional organisation, ECOWAS, which sent a regional force to pressure Jammeh to quit power. Sensing the local and international determination to ensure his removal from office, Jammeh accepted a face-saving device and went into exile.9 However, although there has been major progress, there are also hiccups worth recording. In Uganda, where Yoweri Museveni has ruled for more than three decades, he still managed to secure victory in an election that many considered questionable. Also, in the Republic of Congo, President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled the Republic of Congo for 32 years, ensured his re-election in March through constitutional changes. In Chad, President Idriss Déby Itno secured his fifth term in office having led a constitutional reform that removed term limits in 2005. In Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been in power since 1979, was re-elected with 99.2% of the vote in April 2016. In Djibouti, a weak opposition tried in vain to unseat President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, who has been in power since 1999. Term limits were scrapped in 2010. In the Republic of Comoros, the presidency rotates among the country’s three islands – Anjouan, Mohéli and Grande Comore. Azali Assoumani of Grande Comore narrowly won the election this year. The opposition claimed that the results were falsified but the Constitutional Court dismissed the claim despite public protests. In Zanzibar, the opposition boycotted the election in March 2016 over allegations of electoral fraud. The election was a re-run of the presidential polls in October 2015, which had been annulled due to allegations of fraud. The main opposition party, the Civic United Front, claimed that the cancellation of the October vote on the islands was aimed at preventing its leader – Seif Sharif Hamad – from claiming victory. The opposition boycotted the second round of the election, leading to a comfortable win for incumbent President Ali Mohamed Shein of the Chama Chama Mapinduzi (CCM) party. He won the election with 91% of the vote. The CCM has ruled Tanzania for over five decades. In Niger, President Mahamadou Issoufou secured a second term in office with 93% of the vote. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame remains in power and won his latest term extension in August 2017 and President Robert Mugabe was only removed from office in 2018 after being in power for 38 years. All these demonstrate major contradictions in the progress made in democratic advancements. Elections and pre-election preparations also continue to be marred by violence, as was seen in the August 2017 torture and killing Chris Msando, an Information technology expert in charge of the Kenyan election. The events in Zimbabwe in November 2017 redefined many things, both for the country and for the entire continent. After the removal from office of the Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, President Mugabe incurred the anger of the military who suspected that he was paving the way for his wife to assume the position and later become the President of the country. Because of the continental aversion for military

102  African politics, peace, and security

coups, the “coup” that removed Mugabe from office claimed that it was not a “coup”. Many people were, however, willing to grant this grant concession for military intervention as there was no realistic democratic way to remove Mugabe from power. According to Denis K. Kadima of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, some factors explain the gradual success of elections in Africa. They include: •

• •

African countries have learnt from failed experiments with democracy and have designed innovative electoral systems, including arrangements to include ethnic minorities, contain extremist ethno-regional political parties, and encourage electoral alliances and party coalitions; The continent has developed its own codified standards for free and fair elections; African countries have also made public commitments towards democracy; for instance, 29 countries have agreed to submit to a periodic evaluation through the African Peer Review Mechanism, a system introduced by the African Union to help countries improve their governance. Regional institutions are more willing to play a role in ensuring the success of national elections. This is illustrated by the increased involvement of the Southern African Development Community in Zimbabwe.10

Overall, there has now been a complete disappearance of military rule, coups and other forms of unconstitutional takeover of power in Africa. Africa has, explicitly, via conventions and treaties by the African Union and RECs, and implicitly through strong normative developments, managed to cement elections, however contested and imperfect still, as the dominant and only acceptable form of gaining political power. This is however not to say that there are no challenges. Apart from the few countries where it is still not functional, the “thuggery-fication” of the democratic process in some of the countries also calls for disquiet. In many elections, violence has been employed in ways that cast doubts on the authentication of the process as the genuine wish of the electorates (see Table 4.2).

(b)  Extensive activities in conflict management The last two decades have equally witnessed a significant reduction of conflicts across Africa. Although there are few civil wars, there has, in fact, been almost a complete end to inter-state wars across the continent. This, to a large extent owes much to the existence of strong regional and continental mechanisms to handle such conflicts.The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which, as noted earlier, was a civil war with all the ramifications of an inter-state war lost its unpleasant tag of Africa’s “First World War”. The bitter civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Angola have been resolved. Although countries like the Central African Republic and Burundi still face major instability, the image of Africa as a continent riddled with civil conflicts had significantly gone. Profoundly important in the reduction in civil conflicts in Africa was the success of regional peacekeeping initiatives especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

African politics, peace, and security  103 TABLE 4.2:  Various Experiences African Countries have had with Democracy Since

Independence Country

Experience with democracy since independence

Algeria

In 1988 the FLN government allowed for multiparty election which was won by Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). The FNL then supported a military coup on FIS, resulting in a civil war that lasted between 1992 and 1998. Angola A bitter civil war ensued after independence and lasted till 2002. The same political party, MPLA, has been ruling the country since independence. While there are other political parties in the country, they have not been able to affect the dominance of the MPLA. Benin A single individual, Mathews Kerekou ruled for most of the period in both military and democratic capacities. Since the beginning of the 2000 decade there has been remarkable development in the country’s democratic outlook. As of 2013, the country was 18th in the Ibrahim index of Governance, 53rd out of 169 countries on Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders and 88th out of 159 countries in a 2005 analysis of police, business, and political corruption. Botswana The country has been able to maintain stable democracy that has allowed for economic development. It ranks 30th out of 167 states in the 2012 Democracy Index and Transparency International rates it as the least corrupt country in Africa with figures similar to those of Portugal and South Korea. Burkina Faso Blaise Compraore, having overthrown Thomas Sankara converted to civilian and contested and won elections in 1991, 1998, 2005, and 2010. He was removed by popular uprising in 2015. Burundi Crisis presently going on over incumbent President Nkurunziza’s bid for a third-term. Cape Verde At independence the PAIGC formed a One-Party State. In 1991, following growing pressure for a more pluralistic society, multiparty elections were held for the first time. The opposition party, the Movement for Democracy, won the elections. In the 1996 elections, the MpD increased their majority, but in the 2001 the PAICV returned to power. It is among the most democratic nations in the world, ranking 23rd position in the world, according to the 2016 Democracy Index. Cameroon The incumbent Paul Biya has, however ruled for 36 years and there are serious concerns about the extent of credible democracy in the country. Central African CAR has had a history of successive coups. Republic Chad Chad has had a history of bitter civil wars. The government is still contending with attacks. Comoros Comoros has had a long history of military coups and in 2007, Troops from African Union were sent to help keep peace after Anjouan President Mohamed Bacar refused to step down. Democratic As of 1990, Mobutu was still the Leader. Since then, there has been Republic bitter civil war that brought the involvement of all the neighbouring of Congo countries. (Continued )

104  African politics, peace, and security TABLE 4.2:  (Continued)

Country

Experience with democracy since independence

Republic of Congo Cote d’Ivoire

There are still on-going cases of political instability?

Djibouti

Egypt

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea Ethiopia

Gabon

Gambia

Ghana Guinea Guinea Bissau

Kenya

As of 1990, the country was being ruled by Houphoet Boigny. Although officially democratic, was oppressive. Between the period of his death in 1993 and 2016, there had been cases of instability and refusal to concede defeat in election. Civil war ended in 2001 and a power-sharing agreement was reached between Afar rebels and the Somali Issa-dominated government. The first free multi-party presidential election was held in 2003 and in 2010 the Constitution amended enabling President Omar Guelleh to run for a third term. There have been cases of instability and after the popular uprising widely known as the Arab Spring, former President Mubarak lost power and was replaced by President Morsi who again has been removed from power. The quality of democracy in the country is questionable and many believe that incumbent president Obiang Mbasogo, who has been in office since 1979, has held on to power through intimidation and fraudulent elections. Instability still exists and the democracy is weak. There are also on-going tensions with Ethiopia. Opposition against the government has continued. Although there is multi-party democracy freedom in the country is believed to be severely curtailed. In 2016, thousands of people from Ethiopia’s ethnic Amhara group took part in an anti-government demonstration in the northern city of Gondar. Opposition party was legalized in 1990. Omar Bongo, president for 41 years was succeeded by his son after his death in Ali Bongo in 2009. Although officially multi-party, there are serious concerns about its democracy. Former military ruler,Yahya Jammeh, converted to civilian ruler and won successive election until he lost to Adama Barrow in 2016. After initial refusal to hand over power, he succumbed to pressure from regional organization, ECOWAS. Has held successful elections and has even transferred power to the opposition. After the death of President Conte in 2008, the military seized power but later went ahead to supervise elections. Political instability continues to plague the country. In August 2015, President Jose Mario Vaz sparked a political crisis by sacking Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira in response to a series of disputes between the two men. In November 2016, Umaro Sissoco Embalo becomes the fifth prime minister in little over a year amid a power struggle between President Vaz and opponents in the ruling PAIGC. There was a disputed Presidential election in 2007 that resulted in the death of about 1,500 people. (Continued )

African politics, peace, and security  105 TABLE 4.2:  (Continued)

Country

Experience with democracy since independence

Lesotho

In February 2015, Pakalitha Mosisili became prime minister as the head of a coalition formed after early elections but loses power in June 2017 to Thomas Thabane who returns to power. As of December1990 a major civil war that was to engulf the region was just commencing in the country. In 2011, former military leader, Muamar Gaddafi, was overthrown in a popular uprising that got the backing of the West. Under pressure, democracy was introduced in 1992 and the following year Albert Zafy was elected President. Presently, tensions and instability continues as democracy remains fragile. Late President Banda ruled with heavy hands but democracy is now becoming entrenched in Malawi. The activities of Islamic militant groups continue to threaten political stability. The 2014 Election that gave incumbent President Ould Abdel Aziz a five-year term was boycotted by the Opposition. Democracy is becoming consolidated and there has even been a transfer of power to the opposition. After the Arab Spring, there were calls for political reform and a new constitution curbing the powers of the king and in July 2011, King Mohammed scored a landslide victory in a referendum on a reformed constitution he proposed to placate “Arab Spring” protests. In 1990, government amended the constitution to allow for multi-party politics. After a way of liberation, the country became independent from South Africa and the South West People’s Organization, SWAPO, won election and has been in power since. The same political party has been ruling the country since 2010 Between 1990 and 2017, Nigeria has had cases of annulled election, interim administration, dictatorial rule, and transitional administration before having a civilian administration. Democracy has been stable since 1999. The regime of late President Habyarimana that was in government in 1990 had got in through a military coup in 1973 and converted to democracy in 1978. It was his death through a plane crash that ignited a genocide that killed up to a million Tutsis before the elections that got the RPF party into power. In 1990, a new constitution allowed opposition parties, provides for multi-party elections and restricts president to two five-year terms. Democracy is getting consolidated after a string of military coups. One of West Africa’s most stable democracies and one of the few countries in the region that has not experienced military rule. Seychelles took off with a shaky post-independence start with coup, mercenary invasion and army mutiny. One party rule was established in 1978 by President Rene, but he returned the party of multi-party democracy in 1991. Rene steps down in 2004 and was replaced by James Michel who ruled till 2016, before handling over to current President Danny Fuare.

Liberia Libya Madagascar

Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco

Mozambique Namibia

Niger Nigeria

Rwanda

Sao Tome and Principle Senegal Seychelles

(Continued )

106  African politics, peace, and security TABLE 4.2:  (Continued)

Country

Experience with democracy since independence

Sierra Leone

Had a bitter civil war that left consequences across the region. Democracy is now getting consolidated and there have been two successful post-civil war elections. State structures have collapsed in Somalia and terrorist group Al-Shabab has considerable hold on the country. The first post-apartheid election was won by the ANC, making Nelson Mandela the first president. The political situation is currently unstable and there are currently conflicts between the main ethnic groups in the country. Series of developments in the country including the problem in Darfur and the breaking up of South Sudan. However, in April 2015, President Bashir is re-elected for another five year term. He wins nearly 95% of the vote in a poll marked by low turnout and boycotted by most opposition parties. Persistent pressures and clamour for political reform. These are often clamped down by the Police. In 1992, constitution was amended to allow for multi-party. Since then the Chama Cha Mapinduzi has won all elections in the country. After the death of Gnasingbe Eyadema in 2005, credible democracy started making inroads into the country. The country was a victim of the Arab Spring that spread across North Africa. Guerrilla leader Yoweri Museveni transited to democratic leader and has been winning elections since 1996. For a long time he operated a Zero party system. Multi-party election was however introduced in 2006 and Museveni has been winning elections since them. Stable democracy President Robert Mugabe remained in power from independence in 1980. He lost election to opposition MDC but when he refused to hand over power later formed a government with the opposition. The military eventually pushed him aside in November 2017 and his former deputy, Emerson Munangagwa, assumed office.

Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan

Swaziland Tanzania

Togo Tunisia Uganda

Zambia Zimbabwe

Apart from these major civil wars, communal conflicts that have weakened the already fragile socio-political structures also received attention. According to Emma Elfverssson, “these peace processes usually revolve around consensus-making, truthtelling and restorative justice, and have a strong focus on rebuilding community relationships”.11This has seen the continent engaging traditional authorities, such as chiefs or elders. Local peace processes have played key roles in creating peaceful zones

African politics, peace, and security  107

in some regions of Somalia, and other countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Nigeria have also recorded good examples of this. Elfversson also gives examples of the inter-clan peace process in Somaliland in Northern Somalia in the early 1990s, the initiatives between 2004 to 2009 by elders from the Borana and Gabra clans of the Oromo, an ethnic group mainly residing in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya and the local peace-building took place in the Wajir district in Northeast Kenya in the 1990s.12 All these little known peace-building initiatives reduced communal conflicts and they contributed in the building of political stability at the local level. Also, one of the most important achievements of Africa in the last few decades is the extent of the success of its regional peacekeeping initiatives. In the last two decades, Africa has organised and sustained a few peacekeeping initiatives. The first was in Liberia, where the regional peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, intervened to bring peace. While the world was engaged with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in early 1990, managing the outbreak of a major civil war in Africa’s oldest republic, Liberia, fell on the lap of West Africans. To end the bitter conflict, the regional organisation, ECOWAS, under the leadership of Nigeria, launched a peacekeeping mission, ECOWAS Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG), to go into Liberia. This mission also has historical importance as being the first regional-led peacekeeping mission after the end of the Cold War. As of the time of the intervention, there had been a complete breakdown of law and order and the government of the late Samuel Doe was on the verge of collapse. Indeed, President Doe was arrested by one of the warring factions and subsequently killed just as the regional peacekeeping force was settling down in the country.The Sierra Leone situation was like that of Liberia.The central government was too weak to meet the challenges posed by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Furthermore, a significant part of the national army that was supposed to be defending the government had staged a coup and entered an informal alliance with the rebels. Indeed, the catastrophic consequences of this weakness had effects on the civilian population and some of the neighbouring countries. For example, more than a million persons were displaced and at least 300 000 refugees had fled to Guinea.13 In Guinea Bissau, a military coup in April 2012 had threatened the central government and not even the assistance of the Senegalese and Guinean governments could meet the challenge posed by the country’s military force, to the central government; while in Cote d’Ivoire, the central government was too weak to manage the complexities of security challenges posed by the rebels. In all the cases, there were consequently, enough grounds to justify the deployment of ECOMOG (later ECOMICI in Cote d’Ivoire and ECOMIL in Liberia) into the countries. The achievements of ECOWAS in these peacekeeping initiatives have been widely recognised. Apart from restoring a measure of order and stability, the interventions launched the countries on the path of re-establishing political order. The human and material sacrifices, however, have been enormous. Apart from losing many people in combat, Nigeria spent more than US$30 billion on the Liberia project alone.14 Overall, while there were rough edges in its military operations, which have been discussed and widely published internationally, ECOWAS has

108  African politics, peace, and security

succeeded in establishing itself as an effective force with regional peacekeeping, and many aspects of its operations have become the subject of study in military institutions and training schools across the world. On a much smaller scale, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) also launched a military intervention in Lesotho in 1998. This was undertaken largely by South Africa with contingents from Botswana and its objective was to rescue the landlocked Lesotho from a coup staged by its military against the elected government. Although this intervention was, like the one undertaken by ECOWAS in Liberia, controversial,15 it further underlines Africa’s resolve to handle its conflicts without external intervention. Also, in line with this, there has also emerged a completely new attitude to conflict management in Africa and this has again earned a measure of global respect and admiration. It falls into two categories. The first consists of initiatives that are rooted completely or partially in indigenous mechanisms while the second is made of continental based initiatives launched by the African Union. Among the first category, perhaps the most important is the Gacaca initiative in Rwanda. This initiative was conceived to address the thousands of persons who were still awaiting trial for their involvement in the genocide and to bring about justice and reconciliation at the grassroots level. Under the arrangement, communities elected judges to hear the trials of genocide suspects accused of all crimes except the masterminding of genocide. The courts gave lower sentences if the person was repentant and sought reconciliation with the community. Often, confessing prisoners returned home without further penalty or received community service orders. More than 12,000 community-based courts tried more than 1.2 million cases throughout the country. Also, part of the task of the court was the desire to promote reconciliation by providing a means for victims to learn the truth about the death of their family members and relatives. They also gave perpetrators the opportunity to confess their crimes, show remorse and ask for forgiveness in the presence of their community. It is, however, important not to romanticise Gacaca, as both its structure and selection of person brought before it for trial, were criticised. It is nevertheless worth noting that, while Gacaca revealed the importance of utilising transitional justice mechanisms that are appropriate and suited to the context and the aftermath situation, it should also be emphasised that in terms of number of cases heard and people reached, Gacaca was far more efficient and cost-effective in comparison to the ICTR.16 Another example of indigenous mechanism at handling dispute is the Zwelethemba model in South Africa.This was an initiative piloted by the Community Peace Foundation and University of Cape Town criminologist Clifford Shearing, but which worked with local officials. This was largely a dispute resolution idea which required members to listen to cases, especially petty cases that involve issues like money lending and to resolve the disputes. Central to the approach was also the requirement that participants do not use coercion. This model has since won support from the South African government and is currently being expanded to the larger Cape Town metropolitan. Another local initiative that was known to have recorded a degree of success is the one formed by clans in the Wajir District in Kenya in 1994. This was mainly aimed at resolving conflict and it originated from the initiative by five women

African politics, peace, and security  109

in Kenya to address frequent quarrels among women in the market. After discussions with the market women, an inter-clan committee of ten women was formed to monitor the situation daily and to ensure that everyone followed the rules. Anyone who failed to follow the rules was expelled. The experiment was later expanded to neighbouring districts. With the inability of the state in some African countries to provide security, there has been an emergence and a successful implementation of community-led security initiatives. In many African countries, credible local initiatives complemented government security efforts. These efforts have proved even more credible in some cases than official government efforts. Indeed, across Africa, the Hobbesian idea of a centralised authority in the management of security has significantly dwindled. Although the activities of these groups can sometimes be negative, especially when they have been used to advance clan interests or the designs of political parties, in many instances they have provided credible security and have won the respect and admiration of the local populations to a great extent than national police forces. In South West Nigeria, for example, the group that began as a militant ethno-nationalist force, the Odua People’s Congress (OPC), has perhaps become the most effective policing provider in the region. A similar force, the Egbesu and the Bakassi Boys, undertake similar tasks in the Eastern part of the country. Because of their familiarity with the region, they are also able to gather and process intelligence quicker and more effectively than the police. Also in the Coastal region of Kenya, the Likoni Development Programme (LICODEP) established a community neighbourhood watch in the district purposely to address the problem of insecurity linked to drug abuse. The strategy here is to bring together clusters of homes to provide surveillance, share information and undertake night-time patrols on voluntary basis. What has made the Likoni approach particularly interesting is a inculcation of democratic governance approach in its method, with each ten houses electing a representative to an executive committee overseeing the project in the larger community. On a more continental scale, Africa has also made a significant improvement in recent conflict management initiatives. Indeed, Libya presents, even if in an unintended way, lessons about Africa’s growing experience in the area of conflict management and democracy consolidation. When the crisis in the country intensified, the AU Peace and Security, during its 261st meeting in February 2011 decided to dispatch a mission to assess the situation on the ground.17 At the end, the Council drew a Roadmap that revolved around: (a) immediate cessation of all hostilities; (b) Cooperation of the concerned Libyan authorities to facilitate the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance to needy populations; (c) Protection of foreign nationals including the African migrants workers living in Libya; and (d) Dialogue between the Libyan parties and the establishment of a consensual and inclusive transitional government. These proposals, which were rejected by the international community (to Libya’s detriment, later became the anchor around which the future of the country was considered. Also, the considerable success that has been recorded in South Sudan and in the war against Boko Haram in Nigeria is worth recognising. In South Sudan, after decades of civil war, the country seceded

110  African politics, peace, and security

from Sudan in 2011 and almost immediately went into a bitter civil war. A political power struggle between President Kir and his former deputy, Riek Machar resulted in a bitter conflict that was to attract the attention of all the regional organisations with responsibility towards the country, especially the United Nations and IGAD. Despite a peace accord signed in August 2015, violence continued. South Sudan faces increasing violence, remains on the verge of economic collapse and continues to struggle with widespread food insecurity. More than 1.6 million people have fled the country as refugees, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis. In the case of Boko Haram, the Islamic insurgent group took up arms against Nigeria in 2002 and has been engaged in the killing of several thousands.18 The group came to global attention with the kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in April 2014. Another area where politics in Africa has recorded considerable success is the reform of the security sector.As is well known, much of the damage done to democracy during the first two decades was in the absence of scrutiny and civilian oversight of the security sector. In the last few decades, many steps have been taken to reform the security sector and these efforts have been rewarded with a large degree of success. Admittedly, most of these efforts have been sponsored by external actors, but the will among the African operators to see them succeed is also commendable. Parliaments across the continent have become more aware of their oversight functions and the security sector of many countries hitherto seemingly convoluted is now organised. Many African and Pan African organisations have come to the fore in ensuring the reform across countries and across regions. For example, the Nigerian-based Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) coordinated the reform exercise in West Africa, while the Institute of Security Studies undertook a similar task in southern Africa. Through co-ordinations between both organisations, efforts were also made to bring together and train parliamentarians in both Nigeria and South Africa. This has led to sustained exchange of ideas and initiatives between both sides that have further consolidated the reform in both countries. Special attention was also drawn to countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone coming out of the throes of wars. To further ensure African ownership of the initiative, a pan African organisation, the African Security Sector Network (ASSN) was set up in 2003 as a network of experts and organisations working on SSR.With a Head office in Accra, the organisation also had offices in Juba, Nairobi and Johannesburg and a small office attached to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Since its establishment, the organisation has strived strongly to discharge its mandate to “facilitate programs towards the achievement of effective and democratically governed Security Sector across Africa”, pursuing this “by working to strengthen the capacity of African governments, national security institutions, parliaments, intergovernmental organisations and civil society groups to undertake and own SSR programs”. With the Voice gained from the reduction in conflicts also comes the recognition of some problem areas that keep bringing Africa to the focus of international attention. This again can be brought under two headings: (a) The ongoing civil wars in some African countries; and (b) the issue of religious fundamentalism. The first, the wave of on-going civil wars and instability in some of the countries,

African politics, peace, and security  111

especially in countries like Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Burundi, has had severe repercussions on the continent. In Libya, major instability followed the defeat of the late Colonel Gaddafi, when numerous rival armed militias affiliated with distinct regions, cities and tribes, fought for the control of central authority in the country. Although there have been efforts at conducting elections in order to bring peace, Libya has been riven by conflict. In South Sudan, there have been political power struggles between President Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar, with the President accusing his deputy of attempts to overthrow him in a coup d’etat. This led to another round of civil war. Ugandan troops were deployed to fight alongside South Sudanese government forces against the rebels. The United Nations had peacekeepers in the country in the form of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Numerous ceasefires were mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)) between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and SPLM in Opposition but they were subsequently broken. A peace agreement was signed in Ethiopia under the threat of United Nations sanctions for both sides in August 2015. Machar returned to Juba in 2016 and was appointed vice president. Following a second breakout of violence in Juba, Machar was replaced as vice-president and he fled the country as the conflict erupted again. Up to 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed and about 3 million people out of a total population of 12 million have been displaced, of which about 2 million are internally displaced and about 1 million having fled to neighbouring countries, especially Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda.The current conflict in the Central African Republic started in 2013 when a coup led by Michael Djoboti and his rebel group, the Seleka, toppled the government of President Bozize. In Burundi, unrest broke out in April 2015 when the ruling party announced President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek a third term in office. Protestors claimed Nkurunziza could not run for a third term in office, but the country’s constitutional court agreed with the President (although some of its members had fled the country at the time of its vote). An attempted coup on 13 May failed to depose Nkurunziza. He returned to Burundi, began purging his government, and arrested several of the coup leaders. Following the attempted coup, protests however continued and over 100,000 people had fled the country by 20 May causing a humanitarian emergency. There are reports of continued and widespread abuses of human rights, including unlawful killings, torture, disappearances, and restrictions on freedom of expression. The second and perhaps more profound challenge is the issue of religious radicalisation, especially through the activities of groups like Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar Dine, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and others. What has made the violence associated with these groups particularly worrisome are the “borderless” nature of its theatres, the indiscriminate extent of its victims, the spectacular forms of its targets and the relative weakness of most of the affected countries to cope with its consequences. The manifestations of radicalisation in sub-Saharan Africa are complex, as they often bring together different variables that may, on the surface, appear unconnected. For example, issues like ethnicity, political governance, and socio-economic

112  African politics, peace, and security

factors have come to underline the phenomenon in the region. Going briefly into specifics, perhaps the first noticeable thing about radicalisation in Sub-Saharan Africa is that it is largely linked to the politicisation of the Islamic religion. Indeed, except for the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, there are no known cases of Christian radicalisation. Secondly, they are often targeted against the state, specifically determined to weaken its internal stability. The objective here is to give the population the impression that the state is “incapable” of providing protection. The targeted outcome of this is to swerve the loyalty of the population from the government, thereby further weakening its structure and legitimacy. Thirdly, often they go for spectacular targets, especially those that would give them the publicity they so much crave for. Previous attacks of these groups have included major Malls, Embassies, United Nations Offices, Police Headquarters, Oil installations, and other similarly soft targets. Fourthly, they often have their bases in the rural areas, especially in those areas where the impact of governance is least felt, and they only come to major cities to implement their terrorist activities. For example, Al-Shabaab concentrates attention on the hinterland, where they appeal to nationalist sentiments of the local population against “foreign occupation” and Boko Haram operates in the Borno area of Nigeria. Fifth, apart from the widely known radical groups across the region, a string of new and smaller organisations seems to be emerging, which use the Islamic religion to address local political grievances. An example of this is the UAMSHO fighting for the autonomy of Zanzibar. Finally, most of them finance their activities through illegal operations like smuggling and kidnapping and through direct financial assistance from the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions. Religious radicalisation in Africa raises a few issues that are important for the future of the Voice of the continent. Two of these are particularly important. The first are the profound challenges radicalisation poses for development, especially as the region contains some of the least developed countries in the world. This will require a deeper understanding of the process of radicalisation and further investigation into specific phases of the process during which policies may be executed in order to interrupt the process before it ultimately escalates into violence. The second comes in the increasing inter-connectivity and links among radical groups in the region and their growing participation in wider global networks.

(c)  Progress in Human Rights With the gradual consolidation of democracy has also come remarkable progress in Human Rights. While Human Rights abuses were taken for granted in the period immediately after independence, they had become, by the 1990s, more of an exception than the norm. In November 1987, the OAU established the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to provide oversight and interpretation of the African Charter. Specifically, the Commission was mandated to perform three main functions: the protection of human and peoples’ rights; the promotion of human and peoples’ rights; and the interpretation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Commission was inaugurated in Addis Ababa,

African politics, peace, and security  113

Ethiopia, and the Secretariat was subsequently located in Banjul, The Gambia. Since the establishment of the Commission, the continent has adopted regional treaties on the rights and welfare of children, on the human rights of women and on internal displacement. There have also been landmark cases. For example, as Chidi Odinkalu has noted, “the family of murdered journalist Norbert Zongo benefited from an African Court ruling that found that the previous government may have been complicit in his killing and in failing to find out who killed him”.19 Also, parliaments of many African countries have passed laws to establish independent national human rights institutions that can monitor human rights violations and bring them to the attention of relevant institutions, the latest of these countries being Mali and Burkina Faso in October 2016. In all cases, the establishment and operations of these institutions have conformed to the United Nations principles relating to the Status and Functioning of National Institution for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights widely known as the Paris Principles.To further ensure the strengthening of Human Rights across the continent, the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI) was formed as a regional representative body that brings together the African National Human Rights Institutions. The Network was created in Kigali (Rwanda) in October 2007 for the purpose of facilitating the coordination and strengthening the effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions in Africa; and for encouraging cooperation among National Human Rights Institutions and with intergovernmental and governmental institutions. A new African initiative to promote the rule of law and to end impunity for human rights violators was put into effect through the establishment by the African Union (AU) of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights.20 This adds an enforcement arm to existing human rights institutions on a continent known more for the impunity of those who govern than the strict defence of the rights and liberties of citizens.The court has thus strengthened the work of the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights. This movement started around 2000. Indeed, by the start of the year, some 24 African countries had provisions in their laws for a national human rights commission of some sort.21 Also, apart from the wider continental initiatives, the establishment and consolidation of democracy in individual countries have also brought along with them measures of advancements in respect for human rights. Although not all issues have been addressed, there has been major progress made. Looking broadly, Odinkalu has recorded some of the progress made in this area, noting that “the reality of institutions that receive complaints from citizens and can decide against powerful governments in cases of human rights violations is taken for granted” and that “the African Commission … received over 600 of such petitions since it began and had decided nearly 450 by the end of 2016”.22 He also noted that countries that hitherto ignore decisions of the bodies have changed. Among examples cited include the Cameroonian government’s decision to reinstate and adequately compensate Judge Abdoulaye Mazou, who was wrongly fired from his job, Botswana’s reinstatement of citizenship of an opposition politician, John Modise and his children, after they were unlawfully rendered them stateless, the overturning of the death sentence passed on the Nigerian General, Zamani

114  African politics, peace, and security

Lekwot, sentenced to death by a military tribunal, and the payment of compensation by the Burkina Faso government to the family of Nobert Zongo after African Court found that the previous government may have been complicit in his killing and in failing to find out who killed him.23 Other major achievements of the Commission that Odinkalu noted include how several special procedures have been patented for diverse human rights issues, including extra-judicial killings and human rights of women, the issuance of standards and guidelines on various issues from free expression to counter-terrorism, the Model Law on Access to Information in Africa which has inspired “the adoption of about 15 new national level laws on the same subject across the continent”.24 Although there are still many areas of concern, considerable success have been recorded here.

(d)  Progress in accountability and anti-corruption While Africa had fared very poorly in the fight against corruption in the first few decades after independence the last few decades have witnessed considerable developments. Apart from regional anti-corruption initiatives, such as the one developed by the UNECA in collaboration with the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption which aimed to intensify the fight against corruption on the continent, a few national initiatives have been particularly successful. To mention some examples, the Obasanjo administration in Nigeria established the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in 2003 to address the considerable concerns regarding corruption. Although subsequent administrations did not pursue the fight with similar vigour until the Buhari government took up the struggle with renewed dynamism, a few high-profile cases were pursued during the first decade of the establishment of the anti-graft body, include the successful prosecution and jailing of a former governor of one of the country’s oil producing states and of the Inspector General of Police. In recent years, the fight has been extended to military chiefs and High Court and Supreme Court judges. In Ghana, strong anticorruption legal frameworks have been put in place, including the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, the Serious Fraud Office, and the Public Procurement Authority. The Serious Fraud Office was later replaced by the Economic and Organised Crime Office with additional powers to investigate and prosecute corruption cases. In South Africa, the government introduced a requirement for companies to adopt the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recommendations to curb corruption in the private sector with regards to tenders and procurement in the public sector. Indeed, many African countries are signatories to many agreements on corruption, including the UN Convention against Corruption, the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Despite all these, there still remains a high level of corruption, as in the cases of the Judges in Ghana,25 the Boko Haram arms purchase in Nigeria26 the arms deal scandal in South Africa,27 and the development project money in Uganda.28 There has also been, however, a greater commitment on the part of many African countries to fight corruption.

African politics, peace, and security  115

(e)  Rise in African civil society There has also been a significant rise in civil society activities in Africa and again some of these actions have won global recognition. While initially the activities of civil society groups were limited to countries engaged in bitter civil conflicts like Liberia and Sierra Leone, the movement soon spread to other countries where concerned groups came together to agitate for civic causes. Women’s organisations across Africa have been at the forefront of the fight against issues like gender-based violence and female genital mutilation, while youths came together to address issues like vulnerability and exclusion. Also prominent in civil society agitation is the fight against corruption. The rise of citizens’ power as seen in the exercise of “street power” through huge demonstrations effected political transition in Burkina Faso, Tunisia and Egypt also illustrates another dimension of change across the continent.This signifies a rise of citizens’Voice, and their capacity to challenge dictators and effect regime change without the massive killings that often accompany similar efforts in other places like the Middle East or necessitated the intervention of major global powers (US and NATO) in places like Afghanistan and Syria. In Libya, adverse circumstances and negative developments were largely the consequences of the rejections of the position held by the AU from the onset of the crisis in 2011 that political negotiations/settlement was the way forward. Key civil society groups in Africa include “Women In Nigeria” (WIN) under Joe Okei Odumakin and AFRICOG in Kenya under Gladwell Otienno. The role of civil society is bringing about a “Second liberation” of Africa from one-party state, military dictatorships and presidents-for-life is also worth recognising. Across the continents, groups rose up to challenge entrenched autocracy and dictatorship.

(f) Reconciliation efforts in Africa and the attendant Truth and Reconciliation Commissions Africa has gained considerable Voice through activities in the field of reconciliation. As noted earlier, the ability to embark on reconciliation after bitter civil conflicts was one of the main factors that marked the emergence of Africa’s Voice. A subject with which Africa has made considerable mileage is the Truth and Reconciliation Committees set up in a few African countries to consolidate peace after periods of conflict or injustice. The practice started in South Africa during the dismantlement of Apartheid and it aimed at finding the truth about the past in order to build solid foundations for the future. The practice allowed those who felt aggrieved to identify their perpetrators who, in turn, could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Despite criticisms about the process, the commission has been a major factor in bringing about a degree of stability in South Africa. Two countries that went through major civil wars, Liberia and Sierra Leone, also had their own Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The Liberian process took place between 2006 and 2009 and it was tasked to “to promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation” by investigating gross

116  African politics, peace, and security

human rights violations and violations of humanitarian law, sexual violations, and economic crimes that occurred between January 1979 and October 2003.29 Sierra Leone’s commission sat between 2002 and 2004 and came up with a string of recommendation about how to move the country forward. Its tasks included: to establish an impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law related to the armed conflict from the beginning in 1991 to the signing of the Lomé Peace Agreement in 1999; to address impunity, to respond to the needs of the victims; to promote healing and reconciliation and to prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered. Nigeria’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, also called the Oputa panel, was set up in 1999 with the aim of investigating human rights violations committed between 1966, when the military first intervened in the country’s politics, and 1999, and recommended appropriate redress.The commission submitted its report in May 2002, but this report was not accepted by the Nigerian government. Elsewhere too, reports met with varying degrees of success, but the whole experience of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have been largely successful, and they have served to increase Africa’s Voice. Although not without their own imperfections, peace and reconciliation commissions contributed to the reestablishment of stable civil order that further contributed to Africa’s Voice.

(g)  Freer movement of people across countries Although there is still a long time before 2063 when it is envisaged that Africa would become a “continent of seamless borders”, free movement across borders in the continent has increased and this is having impact, albeit still small, on regional trade. It is, indeed, easier for an American or European to travel across Africa than for Africans themselves. Here too, however, there have been improvements. As of May 2017, 13 African countries offer electronic visas.30 In Ghana, the government announced in 2016 that it would provide visas on arrival for the citizen of every AU member state visiting the country, while citizens from all the 14 ECOWAS states are exempt from entry visa.The Seychelles also provides visas-free access to all Africans. Despite some remaining serious challenges with regards to free movement across the continent, important progress is however taking place.

(h)  Successful forming of political coalitions Creation of coalitions by ideologically opposed parties to unseat incumbent dictators or unpopular governments are another recent development that has increased Africa’s prestige and this practice is being copied even by Western Europeans. In Nigeria, many political parties came together to form the All Progressive Congress (APC) that ultimately removed the incumbent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which had been in power for the previous 16 years. Realising the absence of any possibility of defeating the PDP, all the other parties came together and selected as their candidate, Mohammadu Buhari, who had previously lost elections three times.

African politics, peace, and security  117

The unpopularity of the PDP had increased because of corruption and its inability to address the security situation, best illustrated by the kidnap by Boko Haram of about 300 school girls in Chibok. Another place where coalition politics had served to remove an unpopular leader was The Gambia, when all non-governmental political parties came together to vote out President Yahya Jammeh, who had ruled the country for 23 years and to elect Adama Barrow as the new President. As noted earlier, this practice is being exported by Africa even to Europe.The united front of French political parties in 2017 to deny the extreme right-wing politician, Marine Le Pen, an electoral victory seems to take inspiration directly from Africa’s coalition politics. The changing attitude to gender matters has also resulted in the emergence of a new narrative about Africa. While the continent has been widely reputed for its patriarchal features, things have begun to change, and quite significantly too, in the ways gender issues are currently been addressed in the continent. While, of course, total equality between genders has not yet been attained on the continent, it can boast of significant improvements. The changes in approach has been due to several factors, including the avowed determination of women groups to agitate for equality, the involvement of external agencies to support the continental call for gender equality and the activities of African international organisations, among others. In this chapter, there is a discussion of the agencies that have accounted for the change in narrations about gender in Africa and how these changes have manifested across board.

(i)  Greater involvement of women in politics Africa has, in recent times, seen a significant improvement in gender orientation, even though this still falls far short of desirable standards in many significant areas. One area, however, where there has been considerable improvement in some countries at least, is female participation in politics. Indeed, the continent has made the greatest gains in the world in the improvement of women’s representation in politics (see Tables 4.3 and 4.4).31 TABLE 4.3:  Female Heads of State

Year

Name

Country

1984 1993–94 1996–97 2004 2006–18 2012–14 2012–15 2014–16 2015–18

Carmen Pereire Sylvie Kinigi Ruth Perry, Chairperson, Council of State Elizabeth Alpha Lavalie Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Joyce Banda Monique Agnès Ohsan-Bellepeau Catherine Samba-Panza (Acting head of state) Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

Guinea Bissau Burundi Liberia Sierra Leone Liberia Malawi Mauritius CAR Mauritius

Source: Worldwide Guide to Women Leaders.

118  African politics, peace, and security TABLE 4.4:  Female Prime Ministers

Year in Office

Name

Country

1993–94 1993–94 2001–02 2002–04

Sylvie Kinigi Agathe Uwilingiyimana Mame Madior Boye Maria das Neves Ceita Batista de Sousa Luísa Días Diogo Maria do Carmo Trovoada Pires de Carvalho Silveira Cécile Manorohanta Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé (Acting) Adiatu Djaló Nandigna Aminata Touré Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila

Rwanda Burundi Senegal Republic of São Tomé e Príncipe Mozambique São Tomé e Princípe

2004–10 2005–06 2009 2011–12 2012 2013–14 2015–Till date

Madagascar Mali Guinea Bissau Senegal Namibia

Source: Worldwide Guide to Women Leaders.

Also, a study by Aili Mari Tripp, revealed that Rwandan women hold 64% of the country’s legislative seats. This is the highest of any country in the world. In Senegal, Seychelles and South Africa had, as at 2015, more than 40% of parliamentary seats were held by women, while in Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Uganda women occupy over 35% of the seats.32 Even in a predominantly Muslim country like Senegal, women held 43% of parliamentary seats. It is worthy to note that during this period, women in the United States held 18% of the seats in the House and 20% in the Senate. Apart from better representation in legislations, women also held important executive roles. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected President of Liberia in 2005 while Joyce Banda took over as president in Malawi in 2012. Also, between 1993 and 2015 Africa counted nine female prime ministers and 12 female vice presidents, including Wandira Speciosa Kazibwe in Uganda. In recent years too, there have also been female vice presidents in Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Gambia, Malawi, Burundi, and Djibouti as well as South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Burundi. According to Aili Mari Tripp there are also female speakers of the house in 20% of African parliaments, which is higher than the world average of 14%.Women are taking over key ministerial positions in defence, finance and foreign affairs, a significant break from the past when women held ministerial positions primarily in the so-called “softer” ministries of education, community development, sports, and youth. South Africa currently has a female defence minister, Nosiviwe MapisaNqakula, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala served as Nigeria’s finance minister and has again been replaced by another female, Kemi Adeosun. Again, “women hold close to or more than 40% of ministerial positions in South Africa, Cape Verde, Burundi, and Uganda. Of the ten countries with the highest percentage of women in the cabinet, a disproportionate number (six) are post-conflict countries, suggesting that post-conflict dynamics influence women’s leadership in distinct ways”.33

African politics, peace, and security  119

Two Liberian women – President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (the country’s first female leader) and the activist Leymah Gbowee –won the Nobel Peace Prize. Although there was a slight controversy over the timing of the announcement, which came just after the President had signalled her desire for re-election, many people in the country found the recognition of the work of Sirleaf and Gbowee to be well-deserved. Gbowee is particularly impressive: during what looked like a hopeless civil war in the 1990s, her peaceful, all-women prayer protests, sit-ins, and appeals to rebels to sign a peace deal effectively ended the fighting. The roles of women like Wangari Maathai and Nadine Gordimer have already been identified. Even at the local level, women make up almost 60% of local government positions in Lesotho and the Seychelles, 43% of the members of local councils or municipal assemblies in Namibia, and over one-third of local government seats in Mauritania, Mozambique,Tanzania, and Uganda. More women than men vote in countries like Botswana, Cape Verde, Lesotho, South Africa and Senegal, although overall rates for men seem to be about 5% more in countries surveyed by Afrobarometer. These patterns are evident in the judiciary as well with the prominence of women judges at all levels. African women judges are even making it into the international arena with Fatou Bensouda from Gambia holding the post of chief prosecutor in the International Criminal Court. By contrast, all but one of the current five African judges on the International Criminal Court, are women. Women are similarly visible in regional bodies, holding 50% of the African Union parliamentary seats. Gertrude Mongella served as the first president of the Pan African Parliament and in July 2012, South Africa’s Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma took over the leadership of the African Union Commission – a position she held until early 2017. These changes in the African political terrain can be explained by four interrelated factors: 1) the decline of conflict in Africa; 2) the expansion of civil liberties, particularly in the context of shifts from authoritarian to slightly more liberalised hybrid regimes, along with the emergence of autonomous women’s movements that accompanied this opening; 3) pressures from international actors like UN agencies, regional organisations, donors and other external actors that influenced the state; 4) increased determination by women across the continent to strive for equality and justice. An agenda whose intention was noble but whose implementation has been marred with controversy is the idea of “First Ladies”. These are the activities of spouses of Executive Heads of Governments across Africa, who often engage themselves in a string of pet charity projects ostensibly to assist poor or disadvantaged sections of the community. While this initiative is not completely new as it was in operation right from the time of independence, the last three decades have witnessed a controversial expansion in the activities of these individuals. The exact time of change may be somewhat difficult to determine, but by the time the late Mariam Babangida assumed office as the first lady of Nigeria, considerable glamour was brought to the position and it has remained so since the time. Other African countries have also followed suits, such that the office of the First Lady has become arguably one of the most important non-executive positions in most African countries, sometimes having a specific budget allocated to it to pursue pet-projects as

120  African politics, peace, and security

may be deemed suitable by the wife of the President. In Nigeria, as well as other countries where structures of governments were divided into states or provinces, spouses of the executive heads have equally played similar roles. Indeed, a magnificent continental Headquarter for the group was later constructed in Abuja, Nigeria. The role of the First Lady raises a number of fundamental questions that should be examined in the politics of the rise of African Voice. While, no doubt, it marks the further consolidation of female Voice that has long been silenced in the continent, there have been considerable criticisms at what many see as the excesses of some of the activities undertaken and the extent to which some individuals have gone in the usurpation of the roles of other legitimate actors in the fledgling democracies operating in many of the countries. In the first place, the extent to which some of the projects being undertaken by the First Ladies are in the interest of their communities have been questioned. Pet projects like the protection of the welfare of rural women or the welfare of children have ended up been more grandiose than real. Allegations are often levelled that more money was spent on ceremonies than on the actual objectives of pet projects.There have also been issues raised about the sources of the budgets for financing these offices. No constitution in Africa recognises the office of First Lady. Consequently, there are no formal budgetary allocations for the office. However, over the decades, money scraped from different sources has been allocated to offices of First Ladies to implement projects that have not passed through any approval process. There have also been concerns that some First Ladies have gone further to usurp the functions of legitimate office holders recognised by the constitution. An example that has often been cited here has been that of Grace Mugabe. The general impression in Zimbabwe, and indeed across the continent, was that the former Zimbabwean First Lady was over-ambitious and was openly looking at the possibility of replacing her husband. In what was seen as a major ambition, two Vice Presidents, Joyce Mujuru and Emmerson Munangawa were removed from office as a result of falling out with her. Indeed, as noted earlier, the coup that removed her husband from office was believed to have been targeted towards ensuring that she did not assume that position. Although there are no other First Ladies that went as far as Grace Mugabe went, many First Lady across the continent are believed to have wielded considerable influences on their spouses in ways that have weakened democratic institutions. The financial cost of maintaining the offices of the First Lady is another factor that has attracted attention. In almost all cases, a full retinue of staff, sometimes up to the capacity of a government ministry are employed to serve the office of the First Lady. Apart from the financial cost of paying the salaries of the staff, many of these staff follows the First Lady during official local and international engagements, thus also sustaining the cult of personality that has been known to negatively affect African politics. Also, to be added to this are the ostentatious lifestyles that are being lived by some first ladies have also attracted criticisms to the office. Allegations and rumours are often spread that some first ladies are roaming round the streets of major European capitals buying expensive designer goods. Having noted all the above, it would not be accurate to think of the involvement of Africa’s First Ladies in purely negative light. Indeed, they have played important

African politics, peace, and security  121

roles in raising awareness about gender issues and have sensitised the population on issues like child-health, girl-child concerns, education, and others. Also, African women have been deeply involved in mediation and peacebuilding. In Sudan, women formed the Sudanese Women’s Voice for Peace (SWVP) in March 1994 to end the country’s long war. This group carried out education and peace awareness campaigns to promote peace in Sudan, using workshops, seminars and meetings to reach the masses at the grassroots. Local Sudanese women were brought to Kenya. Religious women have successfully joined together, and effected change as was in the case of Liberia. In 1994, they came together to form the Liberian Women’s Initiative (LWI). LWI is credited for pressuring the warring factions to make peace [through] organising demonstrations and raising money to attend peace talks. These efforts successfully culminated in the Liberian Peace Accord of 2004. The LWI also led to the formation of an interfaith women’s peacebuilding network, the Liberian Women’s in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) which brought together women from both Christian and Muslim faiths.WIPNET reportedly helped force Charles Taylor to attend peace talks in Accra with the rebels and a delegation of women from WIPNET, [who] monitored the negotiations.WIPNET, under the leadership of Leymar Gbowee, barricaded the building that hosted the negotiations between Charles Taylor and the rebels, when the talks stalled. The women forced the continuation of the peace talks with threats to keep them in the room without water, without food while policemen’s intervention were met with threats by the older women, led by Gbowee to strip naked. These aggressive measures resulted in the completion of the treaty two weeks later. In Rwanda, the Pro-Femme/Twese Hamwe is a success story of women in peacebuilding, having even received the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the promotion of Tolerance and Non-violence in 1996. Pro-Femme has made great strides in its efforts at promoting peace after the genocide of 1994, while supporting the empowerment of women in positions of leadership and increase[ing] the capacity of Rwandese women in providing sustainable solutions to national problems [which] include refugees, repatriated people and fugitives. This effectively promotes the inclusion of women in national decision-making processes. Pro-Femme has also improved the economic status of women through “creating micro-actions to ensure food and generate income especially for women and children”. In the Burundian conflict, women have played a very important role. The first protest was the call for the integration of gender equality into democratic governance and the peace building framework. Because of pressures from women’s organisations a new approach was adopted in the peace process. Of the 17 different political parties that started the first round of Arusha Peace talks in July 1998, none represented Hutu and Tutsi women. They thus joined force to protest this exclusion. This resulted in the formation of a number of numerous women’s NGOs, including the Group of Associations and Feminine NGOs of Burundi, Women’s Network for Peace and Non-Violence, and the Women’s Association for Peace. Women in the country also came together to form a movement, the Dushirahamwe [Let us reconcile] to bring together displaced and refugee women. To consolidate

122  African politics, peace, and security

the activities of these Women groups, UNIFEM and the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation sponsored the All-Party Burundi’s Women Peace Conference in July 2000 in Arusha, Tanazania. In the end, each of the 19 Burundi organisations represented at the peace negotiation sent two women delegates, thus bringing about 50 Burundi women and observers to participate in the event.

(j)  Greater involvement of International Organisations The significant transformations that have occurred in Africa’s regional and continental organisations have also contributed to the transition of the continent’s image. Indeed, as noted earlier, the birth of its first regional organisation, the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) in 1975 was in itself a public statement that the continent was determined to assert itself through the harnessing of regional resources for economic development. The formation of the African Union in May 2001 was among the latest manifestations of the assertiveness of this Voice. Indeed, the formation was in confirmation that the OAU, created against the backdrop of attaining continental decolonisation, had outlived its usefulness,34 and that a reinvigorated continental organisation was needed to take Africa to higher levels in the search for socio-economic and political advancement. Consequently, the very idea of the AU formation was a manifestation of a strong desire to give Africa “Voice”. The formation of the Union also coincided with the era when regional economic communities (RECs) that had been formed the previous decade also started making impacts. From ECOWAS in West Africa and the Southern African Development Community SADC) in Southern Africa to the East African Community (EAC) in East Africa and the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Horn of Africa, regional Economic groupings were attempting, with varying degrees of success, what the renewed African Union was itself attempting to implement at the continental level. It should however be noted from the outset that not all these organisations are at similar levels of effectiveness. Right from their renewed emergence, African organisations have identified key areas where impacts were needed to give the continent a Voice. Specific areas include: Peace and Security; Gender Matters; Democratisation; Civil Society; Diaspora Affairs; management of natural resources, and others. After decades of appreciating the importance of unity in the response to common challenges, African countries have, through their organisations come together to address a broad range of issues, including conflict management, cross-border movements, gender and youth concerns, and several others. The future of this trend seems to be promising as memberships and contents of some of these organisations are expanding. For example, Mauritania, which left ECOWAS in 2000, has shown clear indications of seeking closer collaboration with the organisation with the signing of a partnership agreement in May 2017, while Morocco, which had left in protest to the admission of Western Sahara, returned in January 2017. Developments such as these are among the issues the rest of the world is bound to respond to in their recent dealings with an Africa that is fast regaining

African politics, peace, and security  123

Conclusion While there are still many African countries with serious political challenges, the last two decades seem to have witnessed remarkable advances on the political front such that were unthinkable a decade or so previously. The Voice of the continent is increasingly being heard in political development and democratic transition. A few factors account for this change, the most important of which was perhaps the end of the Cold War which brought about enormous changes in global politics. With the end of the Cold War, external powers whose pursuit of national interests had propelled instability in Africa have reduced their presence.The end of the Cold war has also stimulated the global march towards democracy and Africa began to enjoy the fruits of representative democracy. It is also now widely appreciated that the end of the Cold war has starved African conflicts of external funding and has thence contributed to the establishment of political stability in Africa.

Notes 1 This has been the subject of several studies. Although many of these studies have discussed the occurrences in many of these conflicts, analysis of the actual occurrences and the root causes of many of the conflicts are sometimes littered with interpretational biases. Many of the conflicts are often (mis)labelled tribal, when in actual facts there are other deep-rooted issues associated with them. 2 Among the conflicts that have created significant child combatants in Africa include the civil wars in Mozambique, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. See, Alcinda Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa (The Ethnography of Political Violence) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). 3 See Thomas Sankara and the Assassination of Africa’s Memory, https://chikaforafrica.com/2013/10/15/thomas-sankara-and-the-assassination-of-africas-memory/ comment-page-2/ 4 Ibid 5 Ibid 6 For more about Sankara and his brand of revolutionary militancy, see, Amber Murray, A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara (London: Pluto Press, 2018). 7 Ibid 8 Many scholars have written on the new wave of democracy in Africa. See, for example, Nic Cheeseman Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) and also Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments, also by Nic Cheeseman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 9 For a detailed discussion of this, see, Christof Hartmann,“ECOWAS and the Restoration of Democracy in the Gambia”, Afrika Spectrum 52, no. 1 (April 2017):85-99. 10 Denis K. Kadima, “Successful Elections in Africa”, http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/ insights/2008/elections-and-the-democracy-challenge/successful-elections-in-africa#. WToz102GNjo 11 Emmma Elfversson,“Inspiring examples from African countries, Peace Monitor, May 12, 2011. 12 Ibid 13 See, Comfort Ero, ECOMOG: A Model for Africa? ISS Monograph Series, February 2000. 14 See Abiodun Alao, The Burden of Collective Goodwill: The International Involvement in the Liberian Civil War (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, 1996).

124  African politics, peace, and security

15 A major cause of controversy was that South Africa had hidden national interest for the intervention. For more on this, see, Fako Johnson Likoti, “The 1998 Military Intervention in Lesotho: SADC Peace Mission or Resource War?” International Peacekeeping 14, no. 2 (April 2007). 16 Some readings include: Buckley-Zitsel, S. We are Pretending Peace: Local Memory and the Absence of Social Transformation and Reconciliation in Rwanda, P. Clarc and Z. Kaufman, eds. After Genocide:Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond (London: Hurst, 2008), 153-171; Clark, P. The Gacaca Courts and Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Doughty, K. Law and the Architecture of Social Repair: Gacaca days in Post-Genocide Rwanda, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21, no. 2 (2015): 419-437; Reyntjens, F. Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 17 Peace and Security Council 275th Meeting Communique, 26 April 2011. 18 For more on Boko Haram, see,Abdulbasit Kassim and Michael Nwankpa (Eds.), The Boko Haram Reader: From Nigerian Preachers to the Islamic State (London: Hurst, 2018). 19 Chidi Ansalem Odinkalu,Three Decades On, the Protection of Human Rights in Africa Comes of Age? https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/05/31/three-decades-on-theprotection-of-human-rights-in-africa-comes-of-age/ 20 Michael Fleshman, “Human rights move up on Africa’s agenda, African Court on Human and People’s Rights”, Africa Renewal (July 2004). 21 These are: Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia. 22 Odinkalu, op-cit. 23 Ibid 24 Ibid 25 In a widely publicised sting operation by a Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, some judges were caught on Camera demanding bribes and sex to pervert the course of justice. Twenty judges were subsequently dismissed. 26 Major scandals broke out in Nigeria when it was revealed that the $2 billion meant for arms purchases for the country’s on-going war against Boko Haram, were diverted to private accounts and used for election campaigns. 27 A major arms corruption in South Africa also saw the jailing of senior police officers. 28 The country’s auditor general publicly accused several officials—including some in the prime minister’s office—of diverting up to $15 million from public funds. 29 See Paul James-Allen, Aaron Weah, and Lizzie Goodfriend, “Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:Transitional Justice Options in Liberia”, International Centre for Transitional Justice Publication (May 2010). 30 A Dream of Schengen, The Economist, June 10–16 2017, 49. 31 Source: Paxton, P. & Hughes, M.M. Women, Politics and Power: A Global Perspective. (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014), 343. 32 Aili Mari Tripp,“Women and Politics in Africa Today”, Democracy in Africa, 9 December 2013, http://democracyinafrica.org/author/aili-mari-tripp/ 33 Aili Mari Tripp, “Women and Politics in Africa”, http://africanhistory.oxfordre.com/ view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-192 34 Although the organisation registered considerable success, especially in the struggle for national liberation in southern Africa, it soon became apparent that it could not meet up with the diverse challenges that plaguing the continent. Ironically, some of the problems that confronted the organisation emanated from aspects of its charter, especially the ones that endorsed non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. Even the provision of the Charter for the recognition of inherited colonial boundaries created problems. In fact, it led a key member state, Morocco, to withdraw its membership from the organisation over the issue of the contested territory of Western Sahara.

5 WRITING AND RE-WRITING AFRICA The arts, sports, and information technology

Because of its weaknesses in the economic and political sectors, the immediate impression is often that Africa’s contributions in the areas of arts, sports, and information technology have remained consistently minimal. But, this has not been the case. Indeed, Africa has always been recognised as a source of global sociocultural-influences. Museums across the world have evidences of historical artefacts forcefully taken European raids that were euphemistically termed expedition.1 The transportation of several millions of Africans to other parts of the world through Slavery also contributed to the spreading of some African culture to other parts of the world, especially America. Again, as noted in the introduction, African music and culture have always attracted people to the continent and Africans, both within the continent and the diaspora have celebrated a number of global festivals of ­African arts and culture, including the 1966 First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar Senegal, the 1969 Pan African Cultural Festival in Algiers, Algeria, the 1977 Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria, the 2009 Second Pan African Cultural Festival in Algiers, Algeria, and the 2010 World Festival of Black Arts Festival in Dakar, Senegal. But despite these, political instability and economic weakness prevented the continent from fully manifesting all the potentials.With considerable changes in the political and economic spheres, there has been a major increase of Africa’s global influence in the socio-cultural sector. In the last few decades, there has been an explosion of African cultural assets and creative industries both within the continent (creating authentic African brands/icons and raising consciousness of about them amongst Africans), and globally.The improved portrayal of a new Africa has added a significant dimension to the transition from problem to be solved to a voice to be heard. But as with other aspects of the transition from Problem to Voice, progress in this direction also needs to be cautiously measured. The objective of this chapter is to examine the changes occurring in Africa in the field of socio-cultural development and to show how the continent is impacting

126  Writing and re-writing Africa

the world in these areas. It is, of course, difficult to capture all the ramifications of socio-cultural influences in a single discussion. This chapter will therefore concentrate its attention on some of these areas, such as the changes to socio-economic and infrastructural developments, entertainment, fashion, sports, architecture, the impacts of Social-Media, and the emergence of vibrant cities.

The entertainment industry (a) Music In the socio-cultural field, Africa’s contribution to music stands out quite distinctly and this has further increased in recent decades. As noted in the introduction, long before independence, a dynamic entertainment industry existed in Africa. Indeed, the current revolution in this sector can only be better appreciated when considered against this background. Also noted in the introduction was how a great impact was made through the consequences of slavery in the 19th century up to the 1920s. The development of Blues, Jazz, and the beginning of their exportation through the activities of individuals like Josephine Baker marked a turning point in global music.The 1950s witnessed the activities of Rock n’ Roll as well as Jazz players, especially those from France. The first real boom, however, came in the 1960s with Europe awash with Black music. While most of this was American, the origin, clearly, was African. The 1960s, through the 1970s, however, witnessed a real departure in direct impact, through the activities of individuals like Miriam Makeba, (South Africa) Fela Kuti, (Nigeria), Manu di Bango (Cameroon) Hugh Masekela, the South African trumpeter and composer, Lady Smith Mambazo male choral group, also from South Africa and several others.Their brand of music was also used as a tool of identity and political development. Furthermore, and somewhat ironically, even though the acclaimed godfather of Afrobeat, Nigeria’s Fela Kuti, wasn’t exactly known for his progressive views on gender issues, despite his mother’s history as one of Nigeria’s leading feminists, the current Afrobeat Renaissance, in later years spawned a number of bands who feature women in central roles. These i­nclude Femm Nameless, Afrodesia, and Chopteeth, as well as strong women who perform solo including Wunmi Girl”.2 The 1980s, through to the 2000s brought out the real impact through the entire continent and there have been numerous music festivals across the continent, including the Lake of Stars in Malawi, Festival of the Sakere in Tunisia, Gnaoua World Music festival in Morocco, Festival in the Desert in Mali, Dakar Biennal in Senegal, and several others. In looking at the contribution made to Africa’s “voice” through music, there is the need to put this in context and not get carried away by the success that has recently attracted the attention of Africa’s hip-pop musicians.3 Much as the contribution of African hip-pop musicians in revolutionising American hip-pop is important, the extent of their contribution to Africa’s voice is not as important as it is not the case of Africans impacting the world but the American impacting Africa. It may, in fact, be seen as a case of where Africans are changing American

Writing and re-writing Africa  127

music for their own consumption. In short, although Africa’s revolutionising of America’s hip-pop culture is often considered as a major channel through which the continent’s voice has been heard loudly in recent times, the continent’s musical contributions are much more important than mere improvement of foreign music. More recently, many African musicians have made remarkable influence globally. Among others, individuals and groups like singer and composer Youssou N’Dour from Senegal,Tinariwen, the Grammy Award winning Tuareg musicians from Mali, multi-instrumentalist Ali Ibrahim “Ali Farka” Touré also from Mali, Khaled Hadj Ibrahim, the Algerian musician, singer and songwriter, Abdoulaye Diabaté a singer and guitarist from Mali, Senegalese Touré Kunda, Angélique Angélique Kidjo from Benin, Jonathan “Johnny” Clegg, from South Africa, and several others are all internationally acclaimed musicians. There have also been duets between African and European/American musicians, sometimes not without controversies, as was the case of Paul Simon and South African musicians In the last decade, there has been a rise of new generation African international hip-pop singers, many of whom have attained the status of global icons such as Tuface, Olamide, Wizkid, Davido from Nigeria; Sarkodie, R2Bees, Joey B, and Guru from Ghana; Houyem Ghattas and Iskander Dridi from Tunisia; Arabian Knighz, Karin Essa, and Shaaban Abdel-Rehim from Egypt; Franky P Davodka and Duc-Z from Cameroon; King Kaka, Khaligraph Jones, and Octopizzo from Kenya; Thandiswa Mazwai, Simphiwe Dana, Amanda Black, DJ Black Coffee, A.K.A, The Soil amongst others from South Africa.4 Other artists include Zandisile – South Africa, Kelela – Ethiopia/US; Jojo Abot – Ghana; Thandiswa Mazwai – South Africa; Ayo Awosika – Nigeria, Shishani, Namibia; Somi – US/Uganda/Rwanda.5 In this area, African youths have been quite innovative, revolutionising in Africa and across the world, American hip-pop culture. Endorsements and recognition of African importance have also come from American musicians, with the latter turning to the African continent. American musician, Beyoncé, launched one of her latest albums, with dance moves by Mozambican Kwaito dance group, Tofo Tofo. Kanye West, the American rapper and Nigeria’s D’Banj played together and the Ghanaian rapper, Sarkodie, has made an impact in the United Kingdom rapping in the Twi language from Ghana. The Senegalese artist, Akon, has been working with Lady Gaga. In the UK, West African rappers like Tinie Tempah, Dizzee Rascal, and Tinchy Stryder are making waves. African rapper and musicians have also contributed to the on-going efforts at entrenching democracy and establishing peace across the continent. For example, the Angolan rapper Luaty Beirao, aka Ikonoklasta, has used his music to mobilise opposition against the 33-year rule of José Eduardo dos Santos during the last elections in the country. In Mali, the rap collective, les Sofas de la republique, has provided collective defiance to the military coup and virtual partition of the country by Islamists who have captured the north. In South Africa in 2016, a Free Education Live concert was to be held, as a space to challenge the militarisation of campuses and the criminalisation of student movements, to fight and wage support for de-colonial free higher education as a public good and to raise funds for students at Wits. All these new set of African musicians

128  Writing and re-writing Africa

were building on the legacies laid by African musicians like Nigeria’s Fela Kuti and South Africa’s Miriam Makeba. Another brand of African music that has made global impact is the Juju music. This brand had its origin among the Yorubas in South West Nigeria.6 It is believed that juju music was first recorded in 1920 by Babatunde King and Ojoge Daniel. After the Second World War, juju musicians who emerged to shoot the brand to global fame included Tunde Nightingale, late Fatai Rolling Dollars, late I.K. Dairo, Adeolu Akinsanya, Sunny Ade, and Ebenezer Obey. In 2018, Shade Arewa broke the jinx by performing juju music in English, blending it with Maccossa and hiphop. However, it was Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey that have been the most exceptional juju musicians.7 Overall, it needs to be pointed out that African music is impacting directly by standing alone and no longer needs the Big (Western) Brother to guide it through and help it get accolade. Many Western musicians are influenced by African music, continuously producing music with African roots. There are also African musicians who produce their own traditional music but use western instruments to present a peculiar brand of music. An example here is the Tinariwen, a group of Tuareg musicians who created a brand of music dubbed “Tuareg blues”.8

(b) Cinema Another area where Africa has made the greatest impact as it concerns entertainment is in cinema. Unlike music, African cinema is more about self-proof – a kind of self-esteem and confidence to show that Africans can be proficient. Here again, however, the sequence of how it occurred is worth recording, especially as one is vulnerable to measuring the achievements against the background of the success of Nigeria’s Nollywood.9 Indeed, much as Nollywood has contributed to the voice of Africa, it will be inaccurate to rate Africa’s success exclusively against it. Indeed, the history (and success) of cinema in Africa is long, dating to the early independence period. In the period immediately after independence, African governments, appreciating the importance of cinema, sent students to Western countries like France and Eastern European countries like Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to study cinematography. Most of the productions at this stage were for internal African consumption but not for successful commercial release. The 1970s through the early 2000s witnessed the activities of many film actors like Algerian Lakhdar Hamina, who won the Palme d’Or award, Malian Souleymane Cisse and Senegalese Sembene Ousmane and others. Moving on to the achievements of Nollywood, it is the case that it has attained such global success that it became the second largest in the world, after India’s ­Bollywood and surpassed the American Hollywood that started several decades before it. How Home Videos have contributed to the transition of Africa from being a problem to be an Agency is worthy of elaborate discussion. First is through its contribution to the economy. Within two decades, for example, Nollywood has built itself into a $590m industry.10 This is a major contribution to Nigeria’s economy

Writing and re-writing Africa  129

and a source of employment for many young people in the country. Second, it has contributed in satisfying the hunger of diaspora Africans for home-grown content and the resourcefulness of online entrepreneurs who stream Nollywood content on the internet for public distribution without permission or a license and make money from the content without payment of due royalties to the movie producers. This may have led to a surge in online piracy but has also led to the birth of online sites such as iRoko, Afrinolly, Pana TV, and doBox, which serve a dual purpose – making Nollywood accessible to the masses and sustaining the industry through the signing of revenue sharing agreements with the content owners. At the early stages of the new phase, the African Film industry was under fire for producing low quality movies, compared to its Western counterparts.The huge chunk of this criticism is directed towards Nollywood. Indeed, in 2010, the BBC questioned whether Nollywood was destroying African film industry with its mass production of low-quality contents. However, in recent times, the narrative is changing. Considerable intra African harmony has also been built because of these movies. The introduction of DsTV which has allowed for the global transmission of these movies has made them easy to be watched across the continent. African families, especially children have thus learnt about other African cultures apart from their own. While in the 1960s and 1970s, foreign films, especially from the United States, China and India dominated the continent, the last few decades have seen these replaced by authentic African movies. Consequently, names like John Wayne, Shashi Kapoor, and Hema Malini are now being replaced by those of Omotala Ekeinde, Kola Odunlade, and Stella Damascus. An added advantage is that this has given a sense of belonging to African children who no longer have to watch the Chinese and Indian movies that dominated the 1960s and 1970s. Nollywood has indeed ­impacted on Nigerian and other African cultures, with the industry becoming a pillar for preserving and transforming these cultures. Using their various pidgins and their cultural attires they promote and preserve their heritage and put ­Nigerians to the forefront as cultural beings. Also, since the existence of Nollywood, other African cultures began to promote their languages and cultures through film. There has also emerged the creation of continental Role Models who have again, served in several other ways to impact on the continent. For example, ­Nigerian Nollywood actors were engaged by the United Nations offices in Liberia and Sierra Leone to assist in bringing about the disarmament and demobilisation of ex-combatants after the countries’ civil wars. Their visit to these countries resulted in several of the combatants thronging out to see their heroes. The industry is also encouraging more continental collaboration than competition, with actors from different countries all coming together to further celebrate the peculiarities of African entertainment.11 Finally, Nollywood movies have been used as a medium for teaching history. For example, efforts have been made to depict key aspects of African history in movies as were the cases of the civil wars that ravaged Nigeria in the 1960s and more recently the Liberian and Sierra Leonean civil wars. Much as Nollywood may have advanced the image of Africa, some believe that it may inadvertently be damaging the image it was trying to project. For example, it’s

130  Writing and re-writing Africa

portrayal of magic in some of its movies is being seen by some critics as portraying the continent, especially Nigeria, where the films originated from, as a place where people place much premium on metaphysics. The logic here is however lost because expressions of magic in movies is not a monopoly of Nollywood. ­Hollywood too has a plethora of films depicting magic, supernatural, horror, witchcraft as evidenced in films like The Exorcist, Dracula, Ghost Busters, The Oman, Blair Witch, and many others. Apart from Nollywood, another major African initiative that has gained global recognition is the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou or FESPACO). This is a film festival held biennially in Burkina Faso. The festival offers African film professionals the chance to establish working relationships, exchange ideas, and to promote their work. FESPACO’s stated aim is to “contribute to the expansion and development of African cinema as means of expression, education and awareness-raising”. It has also worked to establish a market for African films and industry professionals. Since FESPACO’s founding, the festival has attracted attendees from across the continent and beyond. It has evolved into an internationally recognised and respected event. As the festival became more prominent, its budget and sponsors increased. Donor countries include Burkina Faso, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and Republic of China and donor organisations include Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) the Agence de cooperation culturelle et technique (ACCT), UNDP UNESCO, UNICEF, the European Union, and Africalia. Due to its ­international recognition, FESPACO has enabled African filmmakers to show their talents and sell their products in the international market, as well as to promote development of African products and technicians in the industry. To further consolidate the place of Africa as a major film centre and to provide diversity in the continent, the African International Film Festival (AFRIFF) was established in 2010. The festival also has among its objectives the desire to push the boundaries of the creative power of the film industry in the continent. Other film festivals across the continent include those in Calabar (Nigeria), Cairo (Egypt) Alexandra (Egypt), Carthage (Tunisia), Maputo (Mozambique), Durban (South ­Africa), Marrakech (Morocco), Ouagadougou, (Burkina Faso), Zanzibar (Tanzania), and Kigali (Rwanda). Overall, the impact of Africa on the global entertainment industry is remarkable and undeniable. The great success of the African film sector rests in its capacity to show showcase quality production. The festivals listed above showcase quality cinema from Africa and attract other film makers and critics from outside the continent. Although the snag comes when the showcase does not have enough African quality or there is inadequate distribution because of lack of money, the films and film festivals constitute a dual effort to make a voice heard.The increasing impact of the socio-cultural aspects of globalisation, which has encouraged the “synthesisation” of culture, the “deterritorialisation” of borders, and the revolutionalisation in the flow of information, has further assisted in the spread of Africa’s influence on global ­entertainment.The diversion of efforts in the direction of revolutionising American

Writing and re-writing Africa  131

hip-pop music has however meant that African indigenous music has suffered neglect and the determination of even local musicians to inject hip-pop culture into their music may be a self-inflicted sabotage of eliminating African voice.

Vibrant cities Also important is the major transformation that has become noticeable in the ­development of vibrant cities across Africa. In the last few decades, the continent has become home to some of the world’s fastest growing megacities, including Cairo (Egypt), Accra (Ghana), Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town (South ­ Africa), Khartoum (Sudan), Kinshasa-Brazzaville (Democratic Republic of the ­ Congo and Republic of the Congo), Lagos, Kano and Abuja (Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya), and Marrakesh, (Morocco). Indeed, going by the present rate, over the next five years, 13 of the 20 fastest-growing economies in the world are forecast to be in Africa. The UN calculation that the world’s urban population would have increased by two-thirds in 2050, focuses more on Africa where it is estimated that 20% of the world’s urban population will be living in African cities. Most of the urban population growth will likely take place within medium sized cities of less than one million people or small settlements of under 500,000 people. But in several African countries, new mega-cities of more than 10 million people are rapidly emerging. Africa is already home to three mega-cities (Cairo, Lagos, and Kinshasa) and this number is predicted to double by 2050. Cities on this scale are a relatively new phenomenon. New York was the first mega-city to emerge in the 1950s and to date only 21 countries have any experience with them. As such, they pose a unique set of problems as well as opportunities. The changes in Africa’s architecture have also contributed to the transformation of the image of the continent. In the last few decades, the architectural outlooks of Africa’s major cities have changed. In 2014 alone over $200 billion was spent on building projects across the continent. Although some of the architects involved are foreign, indigenous architects have also emerged to introduce unique local features. In some cases, African architects have also exported their aesthetic abroad. Indeed, the lists of African architects transforming the face of the continent and projecting its image outside Africa are many. For example, Ghanaian David Adjaye designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. This was designed with an African aesthetic, with the exterior made up of aluminium panels coated with bronze, and it has employed ornamental techniques once used by former slaves and developed in African cultures. Adjaye also designed the Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory (MEMO) in Portland, UK. Kunle Adeyemi, the Nigerian-born founder of NLE Architects, made waves through his design of a floating, three-storey A-frame school built in Makoko, a slum on the waterfront of Lagos, Nigeria. Burkina Faso-born architect Diébédo Francis Kéré also designed several schools around his home village. Unlike their predecessors, which were made of concrete and made it difficult for students to concentrate in the heat, Kere’s schools are well-ventilated and made with

132  Writing and re-writing Africa

heat-absorbing earthen bricks. South African firm SAOTA has carried on many projects for Africa’s elite.The Cliff House, built on the site of a World War II bunker in Dakar, Senegal, is the residence of a Senegalese businessman. Ghana’s Joe OsaeAddo, formerly based in Los Angeles has returned home to add to the changing face of architecture in the country. Other major architects include Mokena Makeka Y. Tsai, Mokena Makeka, Nina Cohen, and Fiona Garson from South Africa, Mick Pearce from Zimbabwe, Diebedo Francis Kere’s Architecture firm from Burkina Faso (based in Berlin), and several others. In looking at the changing nature of Africa’s architecture and architects however there is also the need to recognise the contribution that has been made by foreign architects, especially those from China, Spain, and Netherlands.12 However, just as the change in African architecture can be linked to increasing economic prosperity of the continent, it is also connected to the emergence of vibrant cities across Africa. One of Africa’s internationally renowned architects, Tanzanian born but England based David Adjaye, opined that “what defined contemporary trends in African architecture was the movement away from colonial and modernist construction and the adoption of local materials and designs”.13 He concluded that new African buildings speak more and more to the climate and culture of contemporary African life.

The impacts of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) Although measuring and assessing the impacts of ICT is difficult because it is a technology whose influence extends to different facets of human endeavours, there are clear indications that it has contributed to the development of Africa. ICT’s ability to redefine time and space and reinvent the nature of relationships through real time networking has impacted on inter-continental trade. Indeed, small scale enterprises in Africa have benefited, with some successful stories of business ventures who got seed capital through virtual space. The extent of the influence of ICT on commerce is inestimable; in 2015, the total global internet crowdfunding industry was estimated at $34 billion. In the same financial year, there were 57 active crowdfunding platforms spread across the continent of Africa.14 Initiatives such as Wanda Organic and M-Changa in Kenya as well as 234give used ICT platforms such as Indiegogo to raise funds for business and development projects. Remittance ventures like the M-Pesa mobile money technologies are typical examples of the impact of these technologies on commerce. Citizens’ agency has also been strengthened with the tools of ICT. The concept of open democracy only gained significant traction with the opening up of the digital technologies space across the world. The tools of ICT enabled citizens to participate actively in national governance and policy discourse. It also allowed a few revolutionary changes of government in countries of North Africa; ICT may not necessarily be responsible for the change of regimes, but it definitely served as a viable mobilisation tools for protesters. In the past, governments had absolute control over information, and they were able to clamp down on newspapers and organisations which they considered non-favourable; but the nature of Information

Writing and re-writing Africa  133

Technology makes it nearly impossible to shut down access to information outright. There are lots of online fora where citizens can actively interrogate government policies; such as the JamiiForums in Tanzania and Nairaland in Nigeria. There are also other platforms designed to monitor elections and governmental authorities; they include Ushahidi in Kenya and Mzalendo in Zanzibar. ICT impacts are noticeable in other areas such as humanitarian interventions, healthcare, education, etc. A few Africans have also made names through blogging and there are now various blogs on fashion, politics, sports, etc. Information technology is also being used in many other ways. In the Health sector, for example, Rwanda uses information systems for HIV and AIDS services, including TRACNet, a mobile phone-based system that allows tracking the use of anti-AIDS drugs through text messaging. This has been further improved by the introduction of data transfer via mobile phones and personal data assistants.15 Also in the health sector, the internet is allowing greater use of remote diagnosis, treatment, and education. Technology-related benefits in healthcare could range from $84 billion to $188 billion by 2025—and the broader social and economic impact of improved health outcomes will be far greater. Indeed, through ICT, there are, for the first time, good quality data that can tell the number and causes of death and the spread of illness and areas where clusters of disease are occurring. By removing much of the guesswork, this information has a huge potential for informing global and national health strategies. Indeed, this is already happening. At its most basic level it is providing a way of getting a more accurate headcount. Cell phones are now making it possible for parents to register the birth of their child easily and consequently help reduce the number of children who slip through the net.This, in turn, helps governments to plan interventions such as vaccination schedules, more accurately. Cell phones are also allowing the improvement of vaccine supply chains. By allowing real-time data of stock levels in remote facilities to filter back up the chain, it is possible to prevent unnecessary stock-outs and to ensure that vaccines are available when infants and children are brought in to be immunised. Meanwhile, health-care workers in the field are now able to access health records and can schedule appointments using their phones. They can even issue automated text reminders to parents about when vaccine clinics are being held. These are simple, yet highly effective measures. 16 The area of e-commerce also shows promise, particularly in large markets such as Nigeria, where the Jumia Group has just been valued at over $1bn, making it Africa’s first tech “unicorn”. The group, which encompasses multiple digital ­ventures from shopping to classifieds, to taxi applications, operates not only in the continent’s most populous market but in 22 others as well.17 With internet penetration rapidly growing across the continent, e-commerce is making a significant in-road. In a new way of estimating the importance of e-commerce, McKinsey has developed what it calls iGDP, which measures the percentage that ­e-commerce contributes to the GDP of a country. iGDP presents a realistic picture of how e-commerce shapes the economy of a country. Thanks to this decision, seven African countries, Senegal, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa,

134  Writing and re-writing Africa

and Ghana are making remarkable progress in e-commerce. In many of these countries, indigenous initiatives are now coming into the equation. In Senegal, initiatives like the Jjiguene Tech Hub – (Jjiguene means “woman” in Wolof) are designed by women for women in Senegal, it aims to help women enter the world of IT-driven businesses.The potential of this initiative has been recognised by many investors including IT giant Microsoft. In Kenya, the government launched a $14.5bn project to build a city to shape African tech businesses – something like the Silicon Valley and called it the African Silicon Savannah. This city is designed to become a hub for outsourcing of BPO operations and general IT support, as well as helping to foster growing businesses. In Morocco, projects like Casablanca Finance City and Casablanca Technopark are transforming the country into a major financial hub. South Africa also has IT hubs all along the Western Cape Province. In the education sector, many schools which currently lack enough textbooks are increasingly having access to the world’s best educational content on affordable tablets or e-books; teachers, too, are beginning to benefit from more effective training. The technology-related productivity gains in education could grow from $30 billion to almost $70 billion—enabling governments to increase the impact of their education budgets and to provide millions of students with the foundation for a better future.18 On economy, it has been realised that, “If the internet were to follow a path similar to mobile telecoms in Africa, internet GDP (iGDP) could account for as much as 10% of total GDP by 2025 or more than $300bn, roughly the size of ­Nigeria’s economy today”. Economic growth goes together with job creation, and in 2014 the mobile ecosystem supported 4.4 m jobs; that number is expected to rise to 6 m by 2020.19

Sports In sports, Africans, especially youths, have been raising the stake quite high. The game of football has been the one that has brought out the impact of Africans the most. This started at the end of the 1970s, when Cameroon’s Roger Milla joined the French Club,Valenciennes, and later moved to Monaco in 1977. Although the 1980s saw a significant increase in the number of African players in Europe, the great surge really took place in the 1990. Indeed, during that decade, footballers from more than 15 African countries joined European leagues and encountered a great deal of success. Africans who raised the image of the continent during the decade included Didier Drogba from Cote d’Ivoire, Yaya and Kolo Toure, from Guinea, Daniel Amokachi, Jay Jay Okocha, Victor Ikpeba, Nwakwo Kanu and ­Celestine Babayaro from Nigeria, Samuel Eto’o, Rigobert Song, from Cameroon, Abedi ‘Pele’ Ayew from Ghana and George Weah from Liberia, among others. It was also during this decade that an African, George Weah, won the African, European, and World footballer of the year all at once. By the decade of the 2000, a new set of Africans entered the scene. These are Africans born in Europe but were rooted in the African continent. Among them

Writing and re-writing Africa  135

are Alex Iwobi and Axel Tuanzebe. With 596 players, Nigeria is placed 5th among exporters of players in the world after Brazil, Argentina, France, and Serbia. Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Ghana came 10th, 11th, 13th, and 14th with 377, 370, 366, and 365 players, respectively. The survey was conducted on the basis of 18,600 from 194 countries. Even footballers of African origin whose dual nationalities allowed them to play for European countries like Zinedine Zidane of Algerian origin who played for France, Paul Pogba from Guinea who also played for France, Jerome Boateng from Ghana who played for German, Saido Berahino originally from Burundi but picked England, Wilfred Zaha who opted for England over his country of birth, Cote d’Ivoire and Divock Origi who played for Belgium instead of Democratic Republic of Congo – have all contributed to brining recognition to the African continent. In 2015, Nigeria’s under-17 team won the FIFA world cup for the fifth time, an unprecedented feat in the history of the competition. Moreover, football leagues on the continent are becoming well-organised. In the field of athletics, sportsmen and sportswomen from Africa are bringing positive attention to Africa, such that in the 2016 Olympics, Kenya, for example, finished 15th – ahead of Western ­European countries like Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden. African officials also play important roles in international sport bodies. Africans who, though live abroad but still associate with the continent also contribute to the positive image of Africa, like Anthony Joshua, born of Nigerian parentage but resident in the United Kingdom who, in April 2017, won the unified Boxing Heavyweight title. China has become the new base for African footballers. Between 2004 and 2018, up to 100 African footballers have played professional football in China, including Nando Rafael of Henan Jianye (Angola), Abdoul Nikiema of Qingdao Jonoon (Burkina Faso), Christian Boumal of Hernan Jianye (Cameroon), Cedric Bakambu of Beijing Sinobo Guoam (DRC), Kevin Boli of Guizhou HFZC (Cote d’Ivoire), Ali Ghazal of Guizhou HFZC (Egypt), Emmanuel Boateng of Dalian Yifang ­(Ghana), and the Nigerian skipper, John MikelmObi of Tianjin Teda. In athletics, during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Africa recorded a few astonishing moments. Among others, Julius Yego, Kenya’s Youtube-self-taught javelin thrower and two-time world champion, picked up a silver medal, despite suffering an injury during his second throw in the final. Also, Kenya’s Faith Chepng’etich Kipyegon, pulled off an upset while she was ill to win a gold medal in the Women’s 1500 m race. Ethiopian runner, Almaz Ayana, obliterated the 10,000 m world record. Also, Kenya’s Jemima Sumgong won a gold medal in the marathon and Tunisia’s Ines Boubakri became Africa’s first woman to win an Olympic medal in Fencing. In the Men’s marathon race, Ethiopian Feyisa Lilesa won a silver medal and, in the process, drew home solidarity for his Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group that has been protesting discrimination at the hands of the government. South Africa’s Luvo Manyonga won silver in the men’s long jump and his compatriot, Wayde van Niekerk clocked an unimaginable 43.03-seconds for 400 m and thus obliterated American track-and-field great Michael Johnson’s 17-year 400 m world record by 0.15 of a second. Finally,

136  Writing and re-writing Africa

Britain’s all-time greatest athlete, the Mogadishu-born distance runner, Mo Farah, added two more gold medals to his storybook career. In taking first in the men’s 5,000 m and 10,000 m events, Mo Farah became the first runner to win the coveted “double” of 5,000 m and 10,000 m gold medals in consecutive Olympic Games since Finland’s Lasse Viren in 1976. He also became the first British track-and-field athlete to win four gold medals. Africans are also not limiting their involvement to athletics and football but take part in sports which are generally not widely practiced in the continent, such as Basketball. The list of key players from Africa in the NBA is impressive. It includes: Akeem Olajuwon (Nigeria); Dikembe Mutombo (DRC); Steve Nash (South ­Africa); Serge Ibaka (Congo Brazzaville); Luol Deng (South Sudan); ­Andre Iguodala ­(Nigeria); Manute Bol, (Sudan); Bismark Buyombo (DRC); Festus Ezeli, (­ Nigeria); Luc Mbar a Moute, (Camerron); Emeka Okafor, (Nigeria); Hasheen ­ Thabet ­(Tanzania); Christian Eyenga, (DRC); De Sagara Diop, (Senegal); Ekpe Udoh, (Nigeria); DJ Mbanga, (DRC); Pape Sow, (Senegal); Solomon Alabi, (­Nigeria); Mohammed Sena, (Senegal); Boniface N’Dong, (Senegal); Kerema ­ Azubuike, (Nigeria); Cheick Samb, (Senegal); Ndudi Ebi, (Nigeria); and Gani Lawal, (Nigeria) among others. In Table Tennis, Omar Assar and El-Sayed Lashin (Egypt), Quadri Aruna, and Segun Toriola (Nigeria) feature in global rankings. This success also has a backlash.The progress made by Africans in global sports, while it has increased the voice of the continent, has, nevertheless, resulted in the weakening of the domestic bases of many of the competitions. For example, in the case of soccer competition, local football leagues in many African countries have been considerably weakened. While in the 1970s and early 1980s local clubs like Zamalek in Egypt, Tonnerre Kalala in Cameroon and Enugu Rangers and IICC in Nigeria enjoyed enormous support from African youth, it is now ­foreign clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and ­others which attract their interest and loyalty. The support for these foreign clubs in Africa often reaches fanatical level and sometimes even result in confrontations during which supporters of one club have killed fans of rival club.

Fashion Africa has recently made a bold entrance into the fashion world, such that a new narrative about the continent is emerging and gaining resonance. African designers, like Duro Olowu, Ituen Basi, (Nigeria) David Tlale (South Africa), Sally Karago (Kenya), Maureen Ayite (Benin), Teta Isibo (Rwanda) and many others are taking the fashion world by storm. Indeed, Duro Oluwo can boast of Michelle Obama as one of his fans. Princess Caroline of Monaco wore an Olowu evening gown at the BAL De La Rose – an annual event in Monaco attended by the reigning family. Opportunities are made possible by a growing and influential middle class and a skilled workforce of artisan producers. The expansion of the middle class has caused a marked increase in disposable income and a growing appreciation of luxury brands. The middle class already makes up a third of the population, and

Writing and re-writing Africa  137

it is growing at such a pace that total consumer spending in Africa is expected to double by 2020. The prints and fabrics of sub-Saharan Africa have long served as inspiration for fashion creators. At a recent conference, King of Heels Manolo Blahnik and Louis Vuitton’s Kim Jones explained how growing up in Africa influenced their work. Blahnik reminisced about the designs for Yves St Laurent’s 1968 African collection and how Cecil Beaton told him, “You always have a bit of Africa in your shoes”. Jones attributes his deep connection with the continent to his arrival in Africa at the age of three: “The nobility, pride and warmth of the people have influenced me”. Guillaume de Seynes, managing director of Hermès International, recalled how his great-grandfather, Émile Hermès, found a creative stimulus during visits to Africa. Leading the way for him was the Tunisian-born Leila Menchari. She has been the fairy-queen inspiration of Hermès’ windows in Paris since 1977 while the gardens of her home in Hammamet inspired the fragrance Jardin en Méditerranée and other Hermès perfumes. There has also been a massive appropriation of African creativity in fashion and textile design by Western fashion houses. In spite of being a form of intellectual theft of African cultural property, this is, nevertheless an additional way the African “voice” is engaging the world. This process is not completely new, and African ­cultural artefacts are to be found in museums, public squares, and private collections everywhere in Western countries. When designer Max Osterweis set up the New York-based womenswear ­label SUNO with designer Erin Beatty, their first collection was based on vintage Kenyan textiles that he had been acquiring for years and it was produced predominantly in Kenya (Osterweis’ second home). Since then, SUNO’s production has evolved to include Kenya, India, Peru, and New York, and the collection is sold internationally by Opening Ceremony, Harvey Nichols, Matches, and Colette. Another important aspect of this success is the part played by African fabrics in the rise of African fashion industry. For example, the Nigerian fashion designer, Ituen Basi, has gained an international reputation through the use of the Ankara fabric. It would be fitting here to pay homage to the market women and men and to ­local fashion designers who will never enjoy international acclaim but continue to use their skills and creativity to clothe whole nations. Indeed, summing up African contribution to global fashion, the New African Magazine in its October/November edition notes that “today, African dress and cloth influences fashion worldwide… African fashion and traditional styles have been adopted and adapted by Africans of the diaspora and even non-Africans … Many European cities celebrate African culture and ­traditional dress”.20 One may also argue that African fashion, because of its success, has also become an instrument for the objectification of the continent. African fashion designs are now being appropriated by the West to the detriment of the continent. Fabrics originating in Africa are taken abroad, repackaged, given a designer label and are sold back to Africa at exorbitant prices. This is somewhat similar to the oft-told story of how palm oil was taken from Nigeria to Malaysia and now Nigeria is

138  Writing and re-writing Africa

importing palm oil from the Asian country. In the fashion industry, the gullibility of the African middle class and its avidity for western products have transformed it into a consumer of products which are originally the intellectual property of Africa. A classic example here is the Congolese “Sapeurs”.21 On a different plain, the African hair has become a centre of attention and a focus of politics, identity, and defiance. Increasingly, Africa is witnessing the emergence of certain assertiveness.22 For a long time, African hair has been considered an unprofessional trait in the work place and untidy gesture in the school environment. In September 2016, however, a 13-year-old South African girl led a successful protest against her school, Pretoria High School, and its racist policy that required black students to straighten their hair, while girls of other races wore their hair in its natural form. The school, which had been an exclusive white school until the end of apartheid, was forced to reverse its policy after these protests.

African business interest in Europe Since the late 1980s, the perception of Africans has begun to change with regard to emigration and settling down in other parts of the world. In the period before and shortly after independence many Africans who studied abroad went back to the continent after the completion of their studies, but those who left Africa in the 1980s and stayed abroad established business interests in many cities in Europe and North America. Hospitality is a major area for them and there is hardly a major city in Europe or North America which does not have African Restaurants. From Restaurant Kodjo, Ose African Cuisine, Le Petit Dakar in Paris, and Tomi’s Kitchen, Ikoyi Restaurant and “805” in London, to Ponti Bistro, Madiba, Mssawa in New York and Lalibela Restaurants, Wazema Restaurant, and the Suya Sport in Toronto, Africa’s voices have been heralded through the attention brought to its cuisine. While most of these restaurants have yet to make it to mainstream food industry, there is a growing awareness of, and love for, African cuisine. Indeed, there is an annual New York African Restaurant Week which celebrates African cuisine and culture, and which attracts New Yorkers and people from all over the world. During this period, people are invited to taste and experience the rich and diverse cuisine that Africa has to offer.

Innovativeness of youth Africa’s greatest asset is in its population, especially its youth. Presently, more than 60% of the continent’s population is under 35 years. These youths are resilient and resourceful. While previously they had seen themselves as the abandoned segments of the society, African youths are now coming out forcefully to be the Voices of the continent. For example, from nothing to start with, youths in Nigeria developed the Nollywood film industry, making it the second largest in the world after India’s Bollywood – a feat that was attained without government interference. The struggle to eke out a living has resulted in many of these

Writing and re-writing Africa  139

youth coming up with innovative ideas, even in places where the government is not offering any meaningful assistance. It is also not uncommon to see African youths coming together to undertake joint business initiatives, sometimes cutting across countries in the continent and sometimes connecting Africa and Europe. Also taking advantage of the advancement in Information Technology, many of these youths are taking e­ nterprises beyond familiar grounds and are operating in virtual trading. Even in countries where youths had been involved in violent civil conflicts like Liberia and Sierra Leone youths have also been considerably involved in peace consolidation and socio-economic emancipation. Indeed, there is a new generation of peace builders in Liberia raising their voices, building bridges across communities, often unnoticed, working together, educating each other, and helping to manage conflict and promote peace in schools and communities. African youths in the diaspora too are making waves. In May 2016 at Howard University in ­Washington DC, history was made when 43 out of 96 graduating Doctor of Pharmacy and 16 out of 27 award winners were Nigerians. Indeed, 60% of Nigerians in the United States have College degrees. This is double the American National average of 30%. Many Ivy League institutions have welcomed African students, with high degree of excellence, some of whom have gained admission to all the Ivy League institutions at once. As usual, having noted all these positive achievements, it must be mentioned that some youths are engaged in fraudulent activities, especially Internet scams, and this has brought a negative reputation to Africans. While the actions of those engaged in these acts are often roundly condemned, some argue however that it takes the combination of intense greed and unimaginable foolishness to fall their victim.23

Reverse migration In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of reversed migrations in Africa, with many of those who had left the continent in search of better lives now coming back to resettle in their respective countries. With the downward plunge in the economy of many Western European countries and the series of government incentives and economic booms, the return of Africans in the past decade has been remarkable. Many of the immigrants have gone back to play active roles in the politics of their countries with many going to parliaments and serving in the national executives. The group of returnees has included young professionals, in particular in the IT field. Exact figures may not be available but anecdotal evidence points to an impressive figure. Again, whilst in the past only the older, retired members of the diaspora came back to the continent, now the young and the skilled are also now returning. These people have decided to confront lifestyle changes heads-on; power outages, poor roads, inefficient healthcare systems, or the high cost of doing business in some parts of the continent. An important organisation to include in this discussion is Move-Me-Back created to facilitate reverse migration from the UK to the continent.

140  Writing and re-writing Africa

Conclusion Africa’s voice has been extremely loud in the areas of socio-cultural and social economic activities. From the entertainment industries and fashion, through sports and information technology, Africa has shifted significantly from being a problem to be solved into being a voice to be heard. One of the most significant aspects of this transition is that most endeavours have been achieved without government interference. The self-driven innovation often without government support/assistance also reflects another important dimension of Africa’s voice in the world, the resilience of the people to eke out a living and, in the process, to further advance the image of the continent. Efforts are also being made to transfer successes and accolades acquired from socio-cultural enterprise into the political arena. For example, Liberian acclaimed footballer, George Weah, has become the President of Liberia after having contested once and served as a Senator while a movie actor, Desmond Elliot, is a parliamentarian in his state House of Assembly in Nigeria. However, the ramifications of Africa’s voice are better appreciated when they are then considered against the background of how the voice has been projected by religion and this is the objective in the next chapter.

Notes 1 The British Museum for example has many historical artefacts forcefully removed from the Benin Kingdom in present day Nigeria during the “expedition” of 1897. 2 For more on this, see Gendering Knowledge in Africa and the African Diaspora (edited volume) Chapter 7: Queens in Flight: Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat Queens and the Performance of “Black” Feminist Diasporas Oyebade Ajibola Dosunmu Afrobeat, Fela and Beyond: Scene, Styles and Ideology http://d scholarship.pitt.edu/10261/1/OADosunmuDissertation_ ETD_1.pdf,Women that Danced the Fire Dance: Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat Queens, Performance and the Postcolonial identity https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/38107 3 Eric Charry, Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World (Indiana University Press, 2012). 4 Thandiswa Mazwai’s most recent album, Belede, was an ode to “FeesMustFall debate in South Africa. 5 See, http://www.okayafrica.com/news/afro-cuban-artists-intellectuals/; https://www. redbull.com/gb-en/afro-b-interview-UK-afrobeats; http://www.factmag.com/2016/05/ 18/afrobeats-uk-dance-abrantee-kwamz-flava-new-age-muzik/ 6 Ogisi, Aboyowa Arugh, “The Origin and Development of Juju Music, 1990 – 1990”, Ekpoma Journal of Theatre and Media Arts 3, nos 1 & 2 (2010). 7 See Tunji Ajayi, King Sunny Ade the Legend: Cultural Communication Via a Genre of African Music (Outskirt Press, 2009) and Ebenezer Obey, The legend’s own story (Egret Books, 1992). 8 Jon Pareles, “Hot Breath of Saharan Rock Blows in From Africa”, The New York Times, February 19, 2010. 9 Emily Witt, Nollywood:The Making of a Film Empire, Columbia Global Report, 2017. 10 http://newafricanmagazine.com/the-rise-of-nollywood/#sthash.pB1gF13X.dpuf 11 For example, there are several Ghanaian actors in Nollywood, including Nadia Buari, Jackie Appaiah, Joselyn Dumas, Martha Ankomah, and Juliet Ibrahim. 12 Edwin Heathcote, “African Architecture: Infinitely, Thrillingly Divers”, Financial Times, March 27, 2016.

Writing and re-writing Africa  141

13 Contemporary African Architecture: Examples & Trends, Contemporary African Architecture: Examples & Trends, https://study.com/academy/lesson/contemporaryafrican-architecture-examples-trends.html 14 http://afrikstart.com/report/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Afrikstart-CrowdfundingIn-Africa-Report.pdf 15 [http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/insights/2009/making-health-markets-work-for-poorpeople/the-impact-of-icts-on-health-care -. WTgn2sblS1s] 16 [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/519041/how-cell-phones-are-transforminghealth-care-in-africa/] 17 [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/25/can-the-internet-reboot-africa] 18 [http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/lions-go-digital-theinternets-transformative-potential-in-africa] 19 [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/future-of-african-broadband/connectionsthat-make-leap/] 20 New African Woman, October/November 2016, 17. 21 Congolese Sapeurs (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes (the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People) are young Congolese people who parade the streets of Brazzaville, dressed in ways to impress and give the impression of taste and class. 22 For more on the politics of hair,see FeministAfrica 21 (2016): The Politics of Fashion and Beauty in Africa; http://agi.ac.za/journal/feminist-africa-21-2016-politics-fashion-and-beautyafrica; TeamNatural: Black Hair and the Politics of Community in Digital Media http:// nka.dukejournals.org/content/2015/37/70.abstract; The Politics of Black Womens’ Hair http://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=jur Black Hair Culture, Politics and Change by Paul Dash, International Journal of ­Inclusive Education 10, no. 1 (2006) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 13603110500173183?src=recsys&journalCode=tied20 Reclaiming our Roots: The Influences of Media Curriculum on the Natural Hair Movement by Rhonda Baynes Jeffries et al, Multicultural Perspectives (2014); Black Beauty: Shade, Hair and Anti-Racist Aesthetics by Shirley Tate, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2007); Fading, Twisting and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop as Cultural Space by Bryant Keith Alexander in Qualitative Inquiry Vol 9 Issue 1 (2003); Taking the Kinks out of Your Hair and Your Mind: A Study on Black Hair and the Intersections of Race and Gender in the United States https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/UEP/ Comps/2012/2013/Brewington_TylerFinalCompsDraft3.pdf; Tendai Mutukwa, Dreadlocks as a Symbol of Resistance: Performance and Reflexivity, Feminist Africa 21 (2016) M. Kuumba and Femi Ajanaku. Dreadlocks: The Hair Aesthetics of Cultural Resistance and Collective Identity Formation. Mobilization. An International Quarterly 3, no. 2 (1998): 227-243. 23 Those involved in internet scams have been called various names, the most common being 419, named after the Nigerian Criminal Code that makes advance fee fraud a criminal offence in Nigeria.The most common method is to send mails to unsuspecting victims that they stand to benefit huge amount of money if they take part in colluding to defraud the Nigerian government. Once they agree to participate, they supply their foreign bank account into which the stolen money will be wired. Once the account number is supplied by the unsuspecting victims, they become victims of fraud.

6 RELIGION AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN AFRICA

In the last three decades, religion has significantly impacted the African continent. While in some cases some of the aspects of this have admittedly been negative, there are, indeed, ways that religion has contributed to Africa’s transition from a problem to agency. In some cases, too, aspects of this transformation have gone beyond the African continent into all other regions of the world, where religious bodies with African origins have impacted the socio-economic and political life. In this chapter, there is a discussion of the ways through which religion has impacted on Africa’s image, both within and outside the continent and has assisted in the transformation of narrative. Among others, the chapter looks at the role religion, (as re-packaged by Africans) has played in socio-economic emancipation of the continent.The chapter also interrogates the role African led Christian and Moslem churches and mosques have played role in addressing the needs of Africans in the diaspora. There is also a discussion on the role of religion in addressing post-conflict reconstruction in some of the conflict affected societies in Africa. However, apart from focusing on the positive role of religion, the chapter also identifies and discusses issues that dictate caution in the current role of religion in the continent. Although as noted in the introduction there are many religions across Africa, three: Christianity, Islam, and an African Traditional Religion are the key ones. Even before independence, these religions had been playing important roles in the provision of socio-economic life of African communities. Largely through the roles they played in the provision of social amenities like hospitals and educational institutions, religious institutions, especially those of Christians and Muslims, have contributed to social infrastructural developments in Africa. In almost all African countries, religious institutions have been involved in the establishment of schools and hospitals and in the provision of social infrastructure. Indeed, in most of the countries, the oldest post-primary academic institutions were those established by missionaries during colonial rule.1 Equally, the first sets of educated Africans were beneficiaries

Religion and social transformation in Africa  143

of missionary education provided by Christian churches. After independence, these schools continued, and they were joined by new ones, thus laying the foundation of missionary impact on education in Africa. Across the continent, religion continued to play other roles in ensuring peaceful co-existence and inter-group harmony. In the last few decades, however, the face of religion in the continent has changed, and a new phase has emerged to give colouration to faith and its link with the society in the continent. Although as noted earlier, Africa met Christianity even before European nations, the version of Christianity that is the antecedents of the one currently in existence in the continent came as a result of European’s interactions with the continent. However, it needs to be noted that it was not long after the formal introduction of the latest brand of Christianity to Africa, that African societies began to look for ways of repackaging the religion to suit local idiosyncrasies. Indeed, J.D.Y. Peel’s and B.G.M. Sundkler have done authoritative studies to show how local Christians in Nigeria and South Africa, for example, have, right from the outset, tried to bring out African versions of imported Christianity – steps that were later to be taken to another level by African Pentecostal Christian churches.2

The beginning of a new “phase” and “face” of religion With the coming of the 1970s, the face of religion across the continent changed significantly, with all the three main religions experiencing transformations that altered the face of Africa, especially in the provision of social infrastructure. The timing of this transformation – at the time of the negative consequences of the structural adjustment programme – made religious institutions came up more forcefully to stand in to fill the gaps created by government’s inability to provide social i­nfrastructures. The concurrent emergence of a new wave of Christian Pentecostalism and Islamic new-Dawah movements just about this time resulted in the deep involvement of churches and mosques in provision of social infrastructure. The desire too to seek supernatural intervention to socio-economic problems also meant that people looked more and more into religion. The new phase and face of religion represented by Christian Pentecostalism and Muslim New Dawah ­movement have significantly altered the continent.With Christianity, several Charismatic groups, also called Pentecostals, swept across the continent and later expanded tended to other parts of the world. Although virtually all African countries were into this, some are more engrossed in it than others. In Nigeria, for example, several new churches emerged, while some older ones assumed “Pentecostal” flavour. Among the new churches that emerged during the period included the Winners Chapel, under David Oyedepo, Christ Embassy under Chris Oyakhilome, Latter Rain Assembly of Tunde Bakare, Synagogue Church of all Nations, led by T.B. Joshua and several others. Other churches, like the Redeemed Church of God, led by Enoch Adeboye, which though had been in existence before attained new status and gained newer grounds. All these churches extended to other countries. Indeed, there are very few countries in the world where there are no branches of these

144  Religion and social transformation in Africa

Churches. The speed at which these groups have risen is also remarkable. ­Although their origins have been traced to American Pentecostalism, African brands later evolved from them and have taken over, giving a distinct colouration to the phenomenon. The emergence and activities of these churches has been the subject of numerous scholarly studies and there is no need to add to them here. Discussions here are thus limited to how they have contributed to transforming the image of the continent. Although on a lesser scale, the same thing has been applicable to the Islamic religion. A new phase of proselytising emerged across the continent. During the 1980s, the successful revolution of the Iranian people against their Shah led to an awakening of Islamist tendencies across Africa. The emergence of an Islamic government under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini and the subsequent humiliation it meted out to the US provided inspiration to Muslims all over the world and, in particular, to the youths, who saw in Islam a viable alternative to the bi-polar systems of capitalism or communism. The Islamist revival began in the 1980s, as young Muslims, radicalised by the revolution elsewhere, began introducing variants of Islam that were of more radical dispositions. Across Africa, but especially in West Africa, proselytising increased quite significantly. Indeed, in places like Senegal and Northern Nigeria, it was not uncommon during this period to find audiocassettes containing radical teachings of these Islamic scholars in market places and commercial motor garages across Northern Nigeria. Another factor that changed the face of Islamic religion in Africa was the influx of enormous sums of money to the Arab oil-producing countries, part of which went to finance the Islamic humanitarian sector and its organisations. As will be explained later, the new Islamism filled gaps left by the near-collapse of local services, from road upkeep to education. In a study of how Africa is changing global faith, Philip Jenkins points out some figures that further show the increasing importance of religion in Africa and how this will further be impacted in the immediate future. He notes: Africa is now home to some of the world’s largest Christian and Muslim communities. Ethiopia’s Christian population, at 6 million in 1900, will grow to a projected 100 million in 2050. In Nigeria, the population in 1900 included 4.2 million Muslims and 180,000 Christians. Today, the country claims about 80 million of each faith, and each should grow by another 100 million by 2050. By then, the 10 countries with the largest Christian populations will include several African states, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, and probably Uganda. African Islam has also benefited mightily from these changes. The World Christian Database suggests that in 1900, the African continent had about 35 million Muslims, or 17% of the global total. Today that figure has increased to 27%, and it may be as much as one-third by 2050.3 In the same vein, during the 20th century, the Catholic population of sub-­Saharan Africa went from 1.9 million to more than 130 million—a staggering growth rate of 6,708%. Africans started the century as less than 1% of the global Catholic

Religion and social transformation in Africa  145

population and finished it at around 16%. There are now over 200 million African Catholics, whose numbers could double by 2050, when they would constitute a quarter of all believers.

Religion and humanitarian services Religious bodies have been prominent in the provision of humanitarian services across the African continent. Churches and Mosques have undertaken outreach programmes that have been dedicated to the delivery of humanitarian services. This is also done to supplement the efforts being made by governments across the continent. For example, in Nigeria, churches like the Deeper Life Bible Church and the Redeemed Christian Church of God have taken part in the provision of free food and free transport for its members on specific occasions. Also,T.B. Joshua’s ­Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos provides for the poor and destitute. In 1997, the Living Faith World Outreach provided food, clothing, and other relief materials to indigenes of Koma Hills in Adamawa State, where natives had long been disconnected from civilisation. A year before then, the church gave relief m ­ aterials to victims of the Liberian Civil war. Churches and Mosques have also gone into humanitarian activities like the sinking of boreholes for rural communities. There is also an international dimension to the humanitarian activities being performed by African religious organisations, with African churches based in Europe and the United States responding to humanitarian challenges facing Africa. For example, a church like the Grace Outreach Church based in Dartford, Kent, in the United Kingdom has, for the past decade, been sending humanitarian assistance to Rwanda. The practice in most cases is for these churches to have “partner” churches in African countries with which they ensure the delivery of such humanitarian assistance. The Redeemed Christian Church of God has similar initiative across Europe and America to its African churches. Also, in line with humanitarian assistance by Europe based African Churches, some of the churches are engaged in community services, for example, using their churches as places of shelter for the homeless during winter seasons. As part of humanitarian services, many of the leaders of the Pentecostal Churches are involved in the campaign against HIV/AIDS. For instance, the Redeemed Christian Church of God is in partnership with the National Agency for the control of AIDS, NACA. Some of the churches also have scholarship programmers for indigent students. The Living Faith Church has been rendering service on road repairs most especially the Ota/Idiroko road that leads to the Church is regularly rehabilitated. Islamic organisations too have been active in conflict resolution. In Somalia, a movement called Al Islah was created by Somali exiles and was made to join the Muslim Brotherhood to address the growing humanitarian concerns in the country. The initial focus was to support primary and secondary education. A string of other local Islamic NGOs, such as the Zam Zam Foundation, Al Tadamun, and the Imam Shafi ’i Foundation soon joined. Somali diaspora also played a major role

146  Religion and social transformation in Africa

in this regard. Indeed, Al Isah the mobilised diaspora population and some even came back home to head local Islamic organisations. For example, Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir came from Kuwait to run the Islamic NGO Africa Muslim Agency, which had begun activities in Somalia in 1987. The mobilisation of the members of the movement who were resident abroad improved the involvement of foreign NGOs. Although the Islamic credentials of some of the activities of partner organisations that joined Al Isiah was sometimes concealed, their links to the strategy of social development put in place by the Islamist movement Al Isah remain distinctly visible. When UNOSOM’s withdrawal resulted in the degeneration of security in Somalia and foreign NGOs began to leave local Islamic NGOs were the only ones left to hold humanitarian emergency.

Religion and education Across Africa, religious institutions have been actively involved in the education sector. Initially, concentration of attention was focused on primary and secondary education where several schools were established to complement government’s efforts. Parents were also particularly attracted to these schools because of the high moral value they believe the school give to their wards. In the last decade however there has been deep involvement of religious bodies in the provision of tertiary education, building on the successes they have recorded in the primary and secondary sectors. Across countries in Africa, laws are being revised to give room to deep involvement of religious agencies in the education sector. In Nigeria, the previous policy that dispossessed religious bodies of their ownership of schools has been reversed in many states. On its part, religious institutions see involvement in the education sector as a chance to regain the opportunity it missed to champion transformation of society through education. The situation reports in Nigeria can be used as examples of this. In Nigeria, religious institutions have been responsible for the establishment of up to a million primary and secondary schools and up to 30 universities as listed in Table 6.1: The role in the educational sector has brought a lot of attendant opportunities. In all cases, the citing of these universities in the communities has transformed the societies, resulting in the provision of jobs for local communities and the provision of employment opportunities for those from outside the communities who eventually came into the universities to take up teaching and other senior management positions. It also provided admission opportunities for students.The contents of the curriculum of these faith-based institutions, which teaches the students to eschew violence and other societal vices also assists in building strong societies.

Religion and the health sector In the health sector, religious institutions have again come to the fore of attention and have made tremendous contributions. It needs to be noted though, that like in education, religion has always intervened in the health sector in Africa especially

Religion and social transformation in Africa  147 TABLE 6.1:  Faith-Based Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria

No Name of Institution 1 2 3

Ajayi Crowther University Oyo Anchor University Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Al-Qalam University, Katsina Augustine University Babcock Benson Idahosa Bingham Bowen Caritas University Enugu Covenant University Ota Crawford University Igbesa Crescent University Evangel University, Akaeze Fountain University, Oshogbo Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji Kings University Landmark University, Omu-Aran Madonna University, Okija Mcpherson University, Seriki Sotayo, Ajebo Mountain Top University Redeemer’s University, Mowe Renaissance University, Enugu Rhema University, Obeama-Asa - Rivers State Salem University, Lokoja Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa Summit University Tansian University, Umunya Veritas University Wesley University. of Science & Technology, Ondo

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Mission Anglican Church Deeper Christian Life Ministry Islamic Foundation AROIF based in Nigeria and World Assembly of Muslim Youths WAMY based in Jeddah Islam. First Islamic University in Nigeria Catholic Church Seventh Day Adventist Arch Bishop Benson Idahosa Ministry ECWA Church Nigerian Baptist Convention Catholic Church Winners Church Apostolic Faith Mission Islamic Mission for Africa Assembly of God Church Nasrul-Lahi-Il-Fatih Society (NASFAT) Christ Apostolic Church Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) Winners Catholic Foursquare Christian Church Mountain of Fire and Miracle Redeemed Christian Church of God Rhema Church Salem International Christian Center The Apostolic Church Ansar ud Deen Society of Nigeria Rev Prof John Bosco Akam Ministry Catholic Church Methodist Church

through the building and equipping of hospitals and health care centres. Medical practitioners also came in from Europe and the United States to assist in health care delivery across Africa. In the last three decades however, religious bodies have come to play more important roles across the continent in health care delivery and in increasing public awareness. In a study carried out by Jill Olivier, a Research Director for the International Religious Health Assets Program at University of Cape Town’s

148  Religion and social transformation in Africa

School of Public Health and Family Medicine, it was discovered that faith-based facilities provide healthcare services to more than 40% of the Kenyan population.4 The study further shows that in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Kenya, the faith-based market share is estimated at more than 30%. Faith-based missions have also provided reliable supply of medical items to facilities in Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Chad, and Cameroon. While in most cases these religious bodies are not African in their origin, some clearly are. Faith-based medical institutions also have two other advantages of being around much longer and of penetrating areas where nonreligious organisations find difficult to reach. African faith-based organisations have also played roles that should be recorded. For example, the African Christian Health Association Platform (ACHAP); a Network of Christian hospitals, health centres, clinics, and training institutions providing healthcare and related services has been at the forefront of Advocacy, Networking and communication; Capacity building/Institutional strengthening; Resource mobilisation (recipient of donor funding); Implementation of health programs; Supply chain management and Health Information. It has also been at the forefront of Information Sharing; promoting partnerships and facilitating regular dialogue on technical issues. Religious organisations have also been Powerful Voices in Social Mobilisation such as in awareness programmes like immunisation. For example, the collaboration of Islamic and Christian leaders in the Marklate Social Mobilisation Program in Sierra Leone brought improvement in vaccination rates 6% to 75%.5 Building trust through immunisation and belief. Religious organisations have also been at the forefront of medical campaigns across Africa, playing roles in advocating against breast milk substitutes, against “donations” of expired, useless and even dangerous medicines, developing standard guidelines for donors and recipients, establishing efficient, sustainable joint procurement programmes to enhance access to essential drugs at reasonable costs, to replace unhealthy donations. Religion is a powerful social force that influences health behaviours. There are, however, aspects of religion’s role in the health sector that may be difficult to quantify. First, regular attendees of religious programs interact with more people and benefit from building health healing communities. This apart, faith provides a moral foundation for health and healing and may forge spiritual connections between individual impulses and public health issues. It also helps people internalise an orientation to public goods, with profits measured differently. Because faith has such power to transform lives, faith-based programs can enjoy success where secular programs have failed. They teach values relevant to health and healing including compassion, forgiveness, fairness, and respect for others beyond self. They are engaged in public issues of the day and can play a role in helping communities overcome distrust, animosity, and sometimes violence to contribute to health and healing. Religious institutions have also played important roles in the continental fight against HIV/AIDS. Apart from providing compassionate care and

Religion and social transformation in Africa  149

material support, they have also provided spiritual encouragement. Also, during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, churches were at the fore. For example, the United Methodist Church and its partners have been actively responding to the outbreak when it began in Liberia. The church’s effort involved treatment, prevention, communication, and public education. West African United Methodist church leaders and regional health boards, denominational health facilities, missionaries, and the denomination’s general agencies have all been part of this joint effort.

Religion and politics While in the past religious institutions have shied away from politics, in the last decade they have come out most distinctly in the call for political reform, fight against injustice and corruption. Christian and Muslim religious leaders have also been at the forefront of calls to sensitise populations across Africa of the need to participate in electoral processes. In some of the countries, they have, in fact, become the main voice of reason. The Catholic Church has been quite prominent in this regard. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the spoke against the political situation and a leading Catholic Father, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya encouraged independent observers to disrupt the re-election of President Joseph Kabila. In Zimbabwe, Bishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo and other Church leaders were outspoken against the corruption of Robert Mugabe’s regime as well as its failure to implement authentic land reforms. In Nigeria, too, clergymen have been at the forefront popular struggles. Tunde Bakare, the Head of the Latter Rain Church led the country-wide Protest, “Occupy Nigeria” to protest the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s removal of fuel subsidy. In recent times also, many Christian leaders have spoken against other acts they consider unjust, the latest being the activities of Fulani herdsmen across the country. In some of the struggles, church leaders have suffered persecution. For example, Church officials have been murdered and attacked in countries such as Cameroon and Burundi, where the apostolic nuncio was murdered in 2003. Nigerian religious leaders, both of Christian and Muslim faiths, were also involved in the controversial attempt to reconcile former President Obasanjo of Nigeria and his erstwhile Vice President Atiku Abubakar, with Christian Pastors like Bishop Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto and David Oyedepo of the Winner’s Chapel being joined by the Muslim preacher, Ahmed Gumi in October 2018.

Religion and socio-economic life Charismatic leadership in Africa has facilitated religious tourism on the continent, a tendency that has participated in socio-economic development. The number of foreign visitors to Redeem Church’s Holy Ghost Convention, Winner’s Chapel’s Shiloh and Synagogue’s annual convention far outreach those who have visited Nigeria for any other purpose.This did not decrease even after many South Africans

150  Religion and social transformation in Africa

died during the collapse of the Synagogue’s building collapse in 2015 in Lagos, Nigeria. Also, worth noting here is what may be described as the “professional” dimension of radicalisation, which took the form of Christian professionals coming together to form associations under the banner of religion. Of all the groups, perhaps the best known is the Businessmen Christian Fellowship. The primary aim of this group is to advance Christian religion through the establishment of honest business principles. Although most members are businessmen, it is also open to those who may not be in business but belong to other professions that give them social and financial clout.The last decade has also witnessed increased radicalisation on university campuses, where Christian lecturers with radical Christian views have become important power blocks on University campuses, and those contesting political offices within Universities have to seek the support of this block. Christian lecturers organise weekly meetings in Staff Quarters and many of them have become Associate Pastors in various Pentecostal Churches. Within their respective countries of operation, the evangelical “industries” have made considerable impact. Apart from turning their attention to the spirituality of the populations, they have also contributed to socio-economic development, especially in those areas where governments are failing.At the same time, new cities, with their own social networks, grew around these Churches. A completely new town with a population of up to half a million, to cite but one, grew around the Redeem Church on Nigeria’s Lagos-Ibadan Express Way. Other Charismatic Churches in the country like T. B. Joshua’s Synagogue of All Nation’s Church, Kumuyi’s Deeper Life Ministry, and Oyedepo’s Winner’s Chapel, have all had socio-economic and commercial activities woven around the locations of their headquarters. Some of the churches are also into recreation. For example, T.B Joshua’s Synagogue Church runs a Football Academy and the academy provided two players to the Nigerian U-17 World Championship in 2009. The Living Faith Church has been rendering service on road repairs most especially Ota/Idiroko road that leads to the Church is regularly rehabilitated.

Religion and employment generation Because of the extensive network of activities most of the religious bodies, especially the Pentecostal Churches, now perform, teeming young people now gain employment within their establishments, thus further assisting in addressing the unemployment challenges facing these countries. Activities such as the production of tracts and church magazines, engagement in church audio-visuals are some of the ways these institutions are contributing to employment. While it is the case that some of these activities are voluntary, there have been cases where people have been engaged full-time to undertake the tasks, especially in big churches. An extension of employment opportunities coming from religious groups can also be seen in the number of people engaged in radio and television programmes propagating religious messages. Programmes on radio include devotional services which involve

Religion and social transformation in Africa  151

only morning and evening prayers mostly on government stations, Sunday worship services, giggles and announcement of revival meetings and church programmes, full length preaching/ teaching programmes, and occasional interviews granted to church ministers.The radio and television method of communication is a common phenomenon today. Some of the Pentecostal pastors have regular and appointed times to preach the gospel on the radio and television at the Federal, State, and Private Stations.

Religion in peace and conflict management Also important in the process of reducing conflicts are the roles played by religious groups. In several conflict prone societies across Africa, religious leaders have been at the centre of conflict prevention and resolution. In the aftermath of the 2012 election in Ghana, violence was largely averted because of the intervention of the country’s religious leaders. Also, in Togo, the church intervened to prevent major bloodbath after both the legislature and the presidency has resulted into sociopsychological frictions. In South Africa, the role of Archbishop Desmond Tutu easily comes out clearly as a leading advocate of peace during and after the attainment of majority rule. His involvement as the chair of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission is also uniquely recognised as demonstrating the growing importance of religion in peace building. In other Truth and Reconciliation Commissions across the continent, especially those in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, religious leaders have been crucial to the establishment of social justice. In violent communal conflicts, religious leaders have boldly involved themselves. A significant initiative that indicates harmony between different religious groups in religious conflict is the one organised by Pastor James Wuye and Imam Mohammed Ashafa, who were respectively leaders of the youth wings of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Islamic Society of Nigeria (ISN). Both had been violent radicals in the forceful propagation of their faith and both had personal tragedies as a result of the role they played. Apart from the loss of members of their families in riots, Wuye for his part also lost one arm. Amidst trepidation in the community among their followers, the two came together to form the “Pastor and the Imam Project”, which has won several national and global awards and has contributed to achieving peace in some parts of Northern Nigeria.6

Religion and commerce In the last few decades, however, African Christianity has moved towards a new brand, termed Pentecostalism, with many churches using “highly entrepreneurial forms of marketing and evangelism to spread that faith, commonly employing the most advanced technology”. Little-known in the West, one of the main expressions of popular evangelical faith in Africa is the Nigerian-based video industry. Since the 1990s, hundreds of popular religious and charismatic videos have appeared, teaching doctrines of deliverance and sanctification while reminding believers of

152  Religion and social transformation in Africa

the dangers inherent in occult dabbling. Nigerian Christian videos enjoy distribution throughout Africa on satellite networks and cable channels and are also easily available in North America and Europe. African religious organisations have also gone into Real Estate. The Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) has a Housing Estate where it engages in the commercial activities of selling land and apartment to individuals. The Head of the Church, Matthew Ashimolowo, also runs series of seminal on investment and “wealth creation”, training participants on how they can maximise their income and invest markets. Another example is in the United States, where the Redeemed Christian Church in Washington DC, offered its facilities for a presentation by four Nigerian Real Estate agents to provide advice to its members on buying houses in Maryland area.

Religion and Africa’s image abroad Africa’s image abroad has also been improved through the activities of Africa’s religious groups. Christian churches have littered European cities such that there is hardly any major city in the world that there are no African churches, especially those of Pentecostal flavour. African churches are now firmly established in the United States in such urban centres as Atlanta and Houston. Atlanta is, indeed, the home to many mutual aid and support networks by African religious organisations. Houston, on its part, is in some ways the Nigerian capital of America, with at least 25 African churches, some on a very impressive scale. African churches are also thriving throughout Europe, including in some unlikely settings. The most spectacular example is the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, based in Kiev, Ukraine, founded and pastored by Nigerian-born Sunday Adelaja, which claims some 50,000 (mainly non-African) followers in Ukraine alone. In Britain, Africans lead the nation’s four largest megachurches. And the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God operates in dozens of countries, growing so widely and quickly that it could well become a new global denomination. Today, some African-founded churches in Europe are even reaching out with new missions to the African homelands of their members’ parents, in what we might term “double reverse mission”. The external impacts of the activities of these churches have been quite profound. Apart from addressing the spiritual concerns of Africans in the diaspora, they have also attracted non-African members who wanted to move away from mainstream Christian churches. Indeed, in many European countries, the membership of African charismatic Churches has included non-Africans in search of what in their eyes is a more vibrant version of Christianity. This has resulted in the recognition by them of African brands of Christianity and leadership. Indeed, the leader of Nigeria’s Redeem Christian Church, Enoch Adeboye, has been recognised as being among the world’s 100 most influential individuals. These churches have contributed to the development of their communities and their impacts are felt in many of these communities. In a research carried out by Leslie Fesenmyer on Pentecostal churches in East London, it was reported that one

Religion and social transformation in Africa  153

of the churches started a lunch programme six days each week to an average of 25–30 “clients” daily.7 Church members volunteer their time to cook, serve, and clean the kitchen and dining area after each meal. According to her “members act as chef, kitchen assistants, servers, and cleaners, with the roles breaking down along gendered lines whereby women primarily handle the food preparation, while men serve the meals, {funding} the programme through tithes and donations, rather than rely on money from the local council or other sources”. The main beneficiaries here are originally from Eastern Europe who migrated to London to take advantage of the construction boom in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics. The churches have also been recognised as opportunities for politicians to canvass for black votes. For example, the bi-annual Festival of Life organised by the Redeemed Christian Church played host to the British Prime Minister, David Cameron in April 2015. The impact of African churches in Europe was widely recognised in November 2007 when the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, celebrated his 59th birthday with the Nigerian-originated Redeemed Church in London. During his visit, the Prince commended the church for being a role model and a marvellous example of how so many people whose families originate from the Commonwealth, have brought themselves new life into the Christian church in the United Kingdom thereby completing the cycle started by missionaries from Britain so many years ago. Prince Charles commended a great contribution made to the British society by a great number of churches operated by black people. “I want you to remember that it is highly appreciated by me and more and more by other people,” he said. African Religious bodies in the diaspora have also been have also involved in community works. There are initiatives that connect the institutions community educational initiative of KICC. The London-based KICC organised its Breaking Educational Barrier (BEB) initiative which seeks “to equip young people and their parents with the tools to prepare for educational excellence, regardless of background, ethnicity or gender”. This initiative was first conceived in 2012 and by February 2013, the Church partnered with Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard Universities to bring quality education to local communities, especially those areas populated by Africans. African churches and Mosques in Europe and the United States have also been involved in raising funds for charities including the Sickle Cell Foundation, World Vision UK, Diabetes UK, The Anthony Nolan Trust, British Association for Adoption and Fostering, African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (Daniel De Gale), the Pinnacle Project, and the Centre for African Development and Mayor of Waltham Forest Charity Appeal. Efforts are also made to offer Counselling advise to members of the local communities desirous of accessing legal services while symposia are regularly conducted to cover various areas of law, for example Asylum, Immigration & Nationality, Housing & Conveyancing, Debt Issues, Welfare Benefits, Criminal Law, and Family Law. African religious organisations in the diaspora have also encouraged political participation. As Jacob Olupona has noted “immigrant churches and mosques

154  Religion and social transformation in Africa

assume a congregational structure that engenders a spirit of democracy and voluntarism [providing] a vital springboard for developing civic and political activity”. The Muslim Friday prayer forum and Christian Sunday services have become avenues for dissemination of ethos of political participation. African Pastors and Imams have also taken political stands in local election as it happened during the 2016 American elections. Jacob Olupona also noted examples of how African pastors preached in ways that will influence the interests of their congregants towards particular candidates during elections. African religious organisations have also played roles in influencing foreign policy especially of their host countries on issues about their home countries, especially on issues relating to establishment and consolidation of democracy. Also, Nigerian Christian Churches overseas have played major role in the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign to secure freedom for the Chibok girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram militant group.

The negative aspect of religion There are, however, aspects of religion that are at the centre of problems in Africa. First, as noted in Chapter 4, religious radicalisation has been at the centre of perhaps the most profound security challenge currently facing Africa. Indeed, the activities of armed groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb continue to give particular colouration to religion in the continent. Apart from the major conflicts evoked by these groups, there are also occasional communal conflicts rooted to religion in some African countries, especially Nigeria. The way religion is currently performed in Africa has also created complication as it is not only devoid of any logical thinking, but it is wrong and potentially very dangerous.The spread of Christian Pentecostalism has brought some real advantages to Africa, but some of its doctrines are inimical with the progress of the continent. Some doctrines, especially those focusing on Prosperity have led to gregarious and ostentatious displays of wealth by some “General Overseers” and “PastorFounders”.The prevailing doctrine which emphasises instant miraculous wealth for which the owner has not worked has been known to kill incentive. Popular preaching like “Sow a seed”, “Give and it will be given to you” have been misinterpreted and exploited by Pastors. Spreading messages of instant success has led to a generation of people who are thirsty for instant results. Their aspired impression that God is the rewarder of laziness through preaching that their members can “reap” where they “did not sow” may also have longer term consequences. The doctrine of prosperity has implicitly shown that laziness can bring instant success has led to the emergence of a generation anxious for instant success and effortless profit. To rectify this, churches should stop glorifying wealth acquired through “miraculous” sources and spread the importance of innovative and hard-work. The leaders of these churches are often showered with gifts and flattered with trivialities. Attitude to material wealth is another aspect of the nature of some Pentecostal Churches. A survey of Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria shows considerable flamboyance, with

Religion and social transformation in Africa  155

many of the leaders driving the gospel of Christianity on the wheels of material evidence. A major damage here is that most pastors do not q­ uestion the origin of the tithes and offerings being given to the Church or the gifts being given to the Pastor. This has led to further graft in the society. For example, in March, 2003, a cashier at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Lawrence Agada, was arrested for stealing 40 million naira which on interrogation he confessed was given to the Christ Embassy church.8 Another individual, Dipo Kehinde of Eko International Bank, stole 39 million naira from his employer out of which he gave 10 million to the same Christ Embassy.9 “Miracles” that have turned out to be fraudulent have also not helped the Pentecostal cause. In March 2019, for example, a popular South Africa Pentecostal Pastor made a public display of a “miracle” of “raising the dead”. It however later turned out that the victim was hale and hearty and that the whole process of lying in the coffin only to be “raised” through “miraculous healing” was part of a wide deception. The clergyman in question was later sued for deception by the Funeral Parlour where the alleged miracle took place. So profound was the impact of this deception that the South African President Cyril Ramophosa, warned clergymen to desist from manipulating their members.10 Also connected to this is the practice of deception that has allegedly been associated with claims of some religious leaders in their attempts to their exploit the members of their congregation.11 In a discussion on the negative aspects of religion in Africa, Kofi Asamoah Okyere has identified a number of key issues. First, he re-asserts that religion is one major cause of conflicts, with each sect, or congregation believing in the superiority of its way over others. This has led to verbal and sometimes physical confrontations, especially in countries like Nigeria and the Central African Republic.12 The constant clashes between Sunni and Shiite sects in Nigeria shows the dangers involved in differences even between people of the same religion. Okyere also added that “a lot of religious misunderstandings, misinterpretations and so-called prophecies have brought about conflicts among family members, leading to destruction, broken homes and even death”.13 Religion has also been linked to laziness in Africa, with people preferring to spend more time “praying” and “worshipping” than getting engaged in productive things that can improve national economy and individual wellbeing. With more time spent in religious activities, less time is expended on endeavours that can increase individual income and fight poverty.The preaching of some religious leaders that more efforts should be expended into storing for life after death is also one that is inimical to economic development. Religion has also made many Africans to be lethargic, especially on issues that relate to their health. This has resulted in many African preferring to “pray” out diseases that are better handled with the seeking of medical help. Religion also creates a sense of fear or timidity in its adherents, as most religious sermons “are usually warnings or threats to people to do or refrain from doing one thing or the other to avoid a curse or damnation from God”.14 Statements like

156  Religion and social transformation in Africa

drinking alcohol qualifies people for hell, payment of tithes can withhold blessings will be withheld by God and many similar ones have intimidated many people to conformity and have created a population of timid people who cannot think critically and independently. Added to the above, many governments in Africa use religion as a vehicle to foment trouble or create disaffection among the populace, all to advance their political and parochial interests. This leads to a fragmentation of the society along various lines. A typical example was the political campaign season in Ghana where the NDC and the NPP were busy exploiting religion. Also, in the 2019 election in Nigeria, religion was exploited in the differences between the two main political parties, the APC and the PDP. All these were done for selfish reasons to the total exclusion for considerations for social cohesion. But having pointed out the negative aspects of religious leaders across the continent, there are aspects of religious leaders’ practices that, quite ironically, could be helpful if adapted. Perhaps the first is their organisational capacities. The effective ways many of the churches are managed, with clearly defined structures that allow for effective management. Some Charismatic Churches have also been known to have delved into sociocultural issues in ways that are not only controversial but detrimental to society, Perhaps the most worrying manifestation of this is the tendency by some of some Pentecostal Churches to label young children, some as young as three months, as witches and to have them either killed or expelled from the society. The antecedents of this have been traced to the activities of a Pentecostal Pastor, Helen Ukpabio, of the Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, whose controversial films resulted in many children being branded as witches.

Conclusion Religion has indeed played an important role in Africa’s transition to Agency, even if aspects of it have been quite controversial. For example, its roles in the areas of delivery of social services as well as its involvement is the struggle of democracy and post-conflict reestablishment of harmony have further assisted in building the foundation of peace around which economic development has also taken place. However, the picture of Africa’s transition from problem to agency will not be complete until the reactions of the world to developments in the continent are discussed, and this is the objective of the last substantive chapter.

Notes 1 This is the case in virtually in Anglophone West Africa, as with institutions like the CMS Grammar School, Lagos and the CMS Grammar School Freetown, Sierra Leone. 2 J.D.Y. Peel. Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the Yoruba (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968) and B.G.M. Sundkler. Bantu Prophets in South Africa (1948). 3 Philip Jenkins, “How Africa Is Changing Faith Around the World”, Trend July 2016. 4 Health & Medicine Faith-based health care in Kenya Human Needs, August 05, 2010, https://www.pri.org/stories/2010-08-05/faith-based-health-care-kenya

Religion and social transformation in Africa  157

5 UNICEF 2004. 6 Francis Falola, “27 years after, Handshake between Islam and Christianity”, Sunday Punch (1 February 2009). 7 Leslie Fesenmyer, African-initiated Pentecostal churches are on the rise in the UK – what role do they seek to play in wider society?http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionpublicsphere/2016/11/ african-initiated-pentecostal-churches-are-on-the-rise-in-the-uk-what-role-do-theyseek-to-play-in-wider-society/ 8 “Inside Nigerian Churches, the Good and the Bad,” News Magazine 33, no. 24 (21 December 2009). 9 Ibid 10 Naledi Shange and Nico Gous, “Pastor Alph Lukau breaks his silence while Cyril Ramaphosa wades in on ‘resurrection’” South African Times, 28 February 2019. 11 A story was once told of a Pentecostal Pastor selling “healing water”. He claimed that he had collected it from the Red Sea to his members. Scientists from the University of Ghana later discovered after proper examination of the liquid that the water came from taps in the country. 12 https://www.modernghana.com/newsphoto/1/50/712435 13 Ibid 14 Ibid

7 GLOBAL RESPONSES TO AFRICA’S NEW NARRATIVE

The remarkable changes that have been going on in Africa in the last few decades have attracted a plethora of external interests, with both “Traditional” global powers and emerging actors busy defining long-term strategies for engaging the continent. Remarkable developments in certain key areas across the continent have also forced many previous external Afro-pessimists to have a rethink about the continent, some with the view to devising strategies of hijacking this success for their own advantage. This chapter looks at how the world is engaging Africa. To capture as much as possible of the issues involved here, this chapter adopts a somewhat peculiar approach. Issues are measured through two angles: the responses and attitudes of the “Traditional” western Powers, especially countries in Western Europe and the United States; and the reactions of emerging economic powers, mainly the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Although examples are drawn from across the continent, the discussion on the relationship between BRIC and Africa concentrates mainly on Nigeria, with an additional discussion on China in its relations with Zimbabwe. These choices in both cases are not random. The choice of Nigeria to discuss the relationship with the entire BRIC is based mainly on the country’s position as the continent’s most populous country and currently its biggest economy – characteristics which make the country a credible barometer for measuring BRIC’s reactions to the increasing importance of the continent. Also, and possibly as a consequence of the first, Nigeria exhibits most of the features present in the changing relations with Africa. The choice of Zimbabwe in the discussion of China’s specific relationship with Africa has been predicated by the need to recognise the importance of China as a major emerging actor in Africa and to show how China is responding to African countries that have clearly exhibited disagreements with the traditional western powers and also one with whom China has developed a relationship from the period before independence till date. The central argument of the chapter is that main external actors from both ideological

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  159

and geographical divides now look at Africa differently and more positively, even if there are strong needs for caution about the fears of another round of external exploitation of Africa and its people.

Responses from “Traditional” powers To a large extent, the changes that have occurred in the West’s perception of Africa have been underlined by events occurring simultaneously on three levels: Africa; individual Western countries; and the world. The great change occurring in Africa, especially in the areas of economic transformation and democratic change could not have escaped the attention of the traditional global powers. With the ­reduction in continental conflicts and the gradual development of democratic values, it became easier for Western countries to benefit from Africa’s enormous natural resource endowment. Indeed, the EU Commissioner for Development ­noted that “there is no denying that Africa has become a sought-after continent in a short space of time, thanks to its strategic importance.Today Africa really matters”.1 The changes in Africa’s economic and political life were also seen as opportunities by the west to become more engaged in Africa, especially against the growing influence of China on the continent. Developments inside some of the Western European countries and the United States also determined why they had to take Africa seriously. In all the countries, significant African populations, largely immigrants, have become key constituencies that need to be wooed during elections. In some countries, African immigrants have become Members of Parliaments, Mayors, Local Councillors, and prominent politicians.2 The peak of Africa’s political glory in the countries classified here as “Traditional” power was, however, undoubtedly, the accession of office of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. More than any singular occurrence, this event brought attention to the role which individuals with links to the African continent can play in the national politics of major countries. At the global level, the West’s change of attitude towards Africa was the result of two factors: the end of the Cold War and the rising influence of China.The end of the Cold War made it unnecessary for the West to endorse dictatorships in Africa while the growing influence of China forced a charm offensive on the West in the bid to compete with China in the continent.

The UK The United Kingdom has always maintained links with Africa, especially its former colonies through the Commonwealth, but the ties between the Commonwealth and its African members began to change from around 1991, when the organisation issued the Harare Declaration, the set of principles designed to guide its members through to the coming millennium. This Declaration set the Commonwealth on a new course that promotes democracy and good governance, human rights and the rule of law, gender equality, and sustainable economic and social development. Informally, this declaration also served, to a large extent, as guide to the way Britain

160  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

related to many of the Commonwealth states. With the end of the Cold War and the reduced relevance of Africa in proxy conflicts, it was possible for the United Kingdom to advance the pursuit of credible governance in Africa and the Harare Declaration met with a measure of success in Africa. Two key African countries, however, fell short of the Declaration. These were Nigeria, through the hanging of Environmental activist, Ken Saro Wiwa, by the Abacha administration in 19953 and Zimbabwe through its questionable elections.4 Nigeria was suspended from the organisation but was readmitted after its restoration of democracy in 1999. Zimbabwe’s Commonwealth membership was suspended in 2002 for a year but when the suspension was renewed, the country withdrew from the organisation. It is, however, worthy of note that despite the disciplinary measures taken by the Commonwealth, these countries did not completely severe their relations with Britain. Africa’s growing importance in the area of trade became increasingly noticeable in the UK, especially in the specific case of the continent’s three largest economies: Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. Although trade between the UK and Africa has been fluctuating, its importance is, nonetheless, increasing. According to the UK Office of National Statistics, the bulk of UK’s trade with Africa is in goods which accounted for 68.3% of total trade between the two regions in 2014, with the remainder accounted for by services. South Africa has traditionally been the UK’s largest export and import market in Africa.The UK ran a trade deficit in goods and services with South Africa in the period between 2004 and 2010, which averaged £1.2 billion. Still in the area of trade, Britain showed a measure of pragmatism in the way it handled its relationship with Libya when the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, paid a visit to former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi in 2004. Despite continuous domestic opposition from the British public, as a result of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the 1984 murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London, Blair felt that Gaddafi had made significant improvements in his human rights record which deserved encouragement. Not long after the visit, it was announced that Anglo-Dutch oil firm Shell had signed a deal worth up to £550 m for gas exploration rights off the Libyan coast.5 As Britain prepared for the exit from Europe, the importance of Africa seems to be increasing. In August 2018, Prime Minister, Theresa May, made her first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming the Prime Minister in 2016, accompanied by a 29-strong business delegation. The visit, which took her to a number of countries including Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, was to “deepen and strengthen its global partnerships” as it prepared to leave the EU. It was during this trip that the British Prime Minister announced that the UK has secured its first post-Brexit trade deal with Britain confirming that it would replicate a deal the EU currently has with six southern African nations.6

France France, with deep seated links with Africa, has also tried to revise its position towards the continent in the last few decades. Although this new engagement still

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  161

initially had remnants of the paternalism of the past, as was the case when France had to intervene in Cote d’Ivoire after former leader Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office after an election defeat,7 France has been taking stock of the continent’s growing importance. Even as former President Sarkozy was making his declaration that Africa has never actually entered history, his country’s dependence on Africa was already pronounced. As noted earlier, the Republic of Niger, which is the world’s fourth-largest producer of uranium, supplies up to 10% of electricity for France. In an attempt to mitigate the comments of former President Sarkozy in Dakar, his successor, President François Hollande, in his speech before the Chamber of the National Assembly of Senegal revealed a new paradigm and his new vision of Franco-African relations. Unlike Sarkozy’s, Hollande’s speech, also in Dakar, in ­October 2012, acknowledged and lauded the contributions of African soldiers and their roles in the liberation of France during the Second World War.8 Trade with Africa has gained new importance in France. Shortly after Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warned France that it was in danger of “missing the boat” or could be “missing the opportunity of a lifetime” in Africa,9 President François Hollande called on French business leaders to double their trade with Africa, as this would lead to the creation of some 200,000 jobs in France.10 The country’s former Finance Minister, Pierre Moscovici, said unequivocally that France needed to develop a new, mutually beneficial economic relationship with Africa. “We have to speak the language of truth: African growth pulls us along; its dynamism supports us, and its vitality is stimulating for us … we need Africa”.11 The determination to maximise opportunities from the new Africa dominated the France-Africa summit of December 2013, which brought together President Hollande and 40 African leaders, against the backdrop of increasing involvement of China and India in the continent. Indeed, between 2000 and 2011, France’s share of sub-Saharan imports fell from 10.1% to 4.7% while China’s rose from 2% in 1990 to over 16% by 2011. The second half of 2013 saw the signing of a spate of lucrative contracts for the French industry. France has now recognised the increasing importance of opportunities that can come from Africa. For example, the Defence contractor Thales, signed three agreements worth several hundred million euros in South Africa and Egypt and the construction firm, Eiffage, won a €26 m ($35 m) contract in June contract for building work at the container terminal in Lomé, Togo.12 In September, a €200 m deal was signed with the Mozambican government to buy 200 fishing trawlers and six patrol boats from Cherbourg-based shipbuilder Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie; and in October, President Hollande ended a visit to South Africa by announcing a €3.8 bn agreement for French rolling-stock manufacturer Alstom to provide 600 trains and 3,600 wagons to the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa between 2015 and 2025. Almost simultaneously another deal worth €1.5 bn was signed between the South African government and French energy giant GDF SUEZ to build a thermal power plant.13 Some aspects of French policy towards Africa, however, still reflect the old impression that Africa is still a problem to be solved. They can be found mostly in the

162  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

country’s response to security challenges in the continent. In January 2013, France launched Operation Serval, a military operation against jihadists in Mali. In December of the same year, another military initiative was put together to address the instability in the Central African Republic (CAR) and a military intervention took place in the Cote d’Ivoire. Operation Serval has since been replaced by Operation Barkhane, a broader offensive against Islamist groups with some 3,000 French soldiers deployed in five African countries. Also, France’s willingness to genuinely support Africa’s voice has been questioned, especially in relation to the establishment and the strengthening of democratic values. For example, when the Chadian leader Idriss Deby – who has been in power for 25 years – launched a tough crackdown on protestors and banned demonstrations before his re-election, there were no words of condemnation from France. Also, when Gabon’s controversial president Ali Bongo Ondimba was re-elected in 2016 amid allegations of electoral fraud, France refrained from becoming overly involved. Africa has, however, realised the inconsistency of France and the French president got a stint of Africa’s new assertiveness when the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo Addo, told the French President, Emmanuel Macron that Ghana does not need aid to develop.

The USA The United States’ renewed interest in Africa seems to recognise the continent’s growing importance. As is shown in the chart below, there was a steady increase of America’s imports in Africa from 2001. Despite falling significantly in 2009, it increased steady again until 2012 and later in 2013 (see Figure 7.1). In 2013, the US President, Barrack Obama announced his own US-Africa Summit which took place the following year. This announcement, at a time when America’s annual trade with Africa was US$85 billion, compared with China’s US$200 billion was intended to demonstrate America’s commitment to trade, 60

US billion dollars

50 40 30 20 10 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Crude petroleum

FIGURE 7.1:  US

All other products

imports under AGOA, 2001–13

Source: United States International Trade Commission (USITC) DataWeb/USDOC

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  163

investment, and security in Africa. Since it was first held in August 2014, the meeting has become an annual occurrence. Recognition of Africa’s potentials began before President Obama’s election and it grew significantly during his administration. From the beginning of his presidency, Barrack Obama prioritised US trade with, and investment in, Africa, including the strengthening of the continent’s trade capacity, and extending preferential access to the US market for African products. Between 2009 and 2015, US non-petroleum imports from Africa increased by 46% and US goods exports to Africa increased by 59%, especially since 2009. The government also began what it called “Doing Business in Africa” (DBIA) campaign. This was an unprecedented whole-of-government approach to strengthening the US commercial relationship with Africa, which made clear that “Africa provides substantial opportunities for US companies”. In 2000, the United States signed the Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) as the cornerstone of the US-Africa trade relationship. It was given a 10-year ­extension in 2015 a decision that sent a strong signal that America’s bilateral trade relationship with Africa is attaining new level of importance. To facilitate US business activity in Africa, the Department of Commerce: •

Doubled its presence in sub-Saharan Africa over the past year, by opening new offices in Angola, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, while expanding its operations in Ghana, and re-establishing a position at the African Development Bank; • Supported 16 private sector deals in Africa worth approximately $7 billion, with $4.1 billion in US export content, since the USABF; • Will lead several members of the PAC-DBIA on a fact-finding trip to Africa to engage with partners and stakeholders to discuss how US Government programs and policies can better support economic engagement between Africa and the United States; • Will launch a multi-stop Institutional Investor Roadshow – with an inaugural stop on the margins of the UN General Assembly Session – in September 2015 to provide a platform for US institutional investors and African heads of state to discuss best practices to reduce governance risk, strengthen capital markets and increase long-term investment flows to mobilise US private sector capital and introduce US exporters and US financial institutions to specific export and investment opportunities in African markets; • Will launch, in coordination with the Department of State, a whole-ofgovernment approach to support US companies pursuing infrastructure projects in Africa. To pilot this mechanism, the US and Kenyan governments have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to promote US commercial participation and investment in Kenya’s infrastructure sector; • Will launch in October 2015 the Cold Chain Assessment Initiative with the Global Cold Chain Alliance to develop a modern cold chain in Kenya and plans to replicate it across the region.14

164  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

But even in the execution of AGOA, it needs to be pointed out that Africa is trying to assert its voice. For example, in July 2017, President Paul Kagame refused to accept second-hand clothes for Rwanda’s citizens and Tanzania’s President John Magufuli followed suit. Although these acts are seen to contravene AGOA and could entail the loss of US$250 million for East Africa in market access under AGOA, Kagame and Magufuli stood firm, arguing that their countries need the space to develop their own garment industries and thus internalise the value-chain. Rwanda and Tanzania reflect the way African countries are challenging agreements which seem favourable on the surface, but which are increasingly found lacking. This constant interrogating of the script is a measure of Africa’s growing assertiveness and may herald an improbable future for AGOA and other similar agreements. One event that brought together all the major Western traditional powers to reflect on Africa was the “Arab Spring”.When the uprising began, the initial reaction of the West was cautious optimism. While Britain, France, and the United States welcomed some degree of democracy in the Arab world, they were cautious that the entire process could become chaotic and feed on the general instability created by the activities of Al Qaeda and religious radicalisation in general.When the revolution reached Libya, the dynamics of Western involvement seemed to have changed and under the guise of enforcing a UN mandate, NATO forces intervened in Libya to ensure the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.To many Africans, NATO’s intervention was as unnecessary as it was illegal, and the belief was that it was motivated by the desire to tap into Libya’s vast oil deposit which Gaddafi had jealously guarded from Western Powers. A look at how the “Traditional Powers” have reacted to Africa’s Regional Powerhouses, namely Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Egypt also shows an important worthy of note. Since the attainment of majority rule, South Africa, has won the recognition and respect of the key traditional powers. Trade with all has increased and the countries membership of the G 20 is a further recognition of the level it has attained in global ratings. The “US goods and services trade with South Africa totalled an estimated $17.5 billion in 2017, with exports figures being $7.9 billion and import being $9.7 billion. This puts South Africa as the United States’ 38th largest goods trading partner with $12.8 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2017”.15 With Nigeria, US goods and services trade in 2016 “totalled an estimated $9.0 billion in 2016 [with] export being $4.4 billion [and] imports [being] $4.6 billion, making Nigeria America’s 48th largest goods trading partner”.16 Although Ethiopia was the United States’ 82nd largest goods export market in 2017, with US goods exports in 2017 being $877 million, this was up 423.7% from 2007.17 In the case of Egypt, it ranked No. 53 in total trade value through November 2018 with a total of $6.85 billion and exports totalling $4.63 billion and imports being $2.23 billion.18 United Kingdom’s relationship with the regional powers also shows increasing level of recognition, and it is expected that as Britain exits Europe, Anglo-African trade, especially with the African commonwealth country, is likely to increase. Nigeria’s thriving service industry and the growing contribution of its agricultural sector to the export markets is expected to increase trade with the United Kingdom

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  165

from $4.4 billion to $4.5 billion.19 Trade exchange between Egypt and the United Kingdom recorded $1.33 billion during the first half of 2018. “British investments in Egypt recorded $5.6 billion through 1450 projects in fields of industry, services, constructions, tourism, finance, agriculture, telecommunications and information technology”.20 Again, as recently as November 2018, Britain and Ethiopia agreed to expand their bilateral relations.21 France has also identified the regional powerhouses for special interest. Moving beyond its normal affinity with the Franco-phone African countries, France too has recognised African powerhouses as places of special interest. The French President Emmanuel Macron for example has shown interest in Ethiopia, recognising the changes that are taking place in the country and the resolution of the age-long conflict with Eritrea. President Macron recognised Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ambitious reforms and diplomatic peace efforts. In Nigeria, France has been involved in a wide array of things. From involvement in the public Rail System, where a $100 m infrastructure loan from the French Development Agency was invested, otherwise known in its French form AFD, to active involvement in the regional response to the Boko Haram insurgents.22

Responses from emerging powers Recent intensification of engagements between some emerging powers and Africa has a long history. As noted earlier, Brazil’s relationship with Africa goes back to the Slave Trade when many people from different parts of the continent were taken to the country. India’s relationship with the continent started during the colonial era, and there were recorded cases of Indians trading in some West African countries, especially Nigeria as early as the 1890s. The pursuit of independence without violence and other principles promoted by Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were inspirational to African leaders.23 India was also forthcoming in its promise to provide credible leadership for non-Caucasian countries under colonial yoke after independence and its subsequent membership of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations to declare its determination to act “in the emancipation of colonial and dependent countries and in the recognition of the theory and practice of equal opportunities of all races”. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, summed up the relationship quite aptly when he noted during the first Asian Relation conference in 1947: [We stretch out our] hand in friendship to Europe and America as well as to suffering brethren in Africa. We of Asia have a special responsibility to the people of Africa. The freedom that we envisaged is not to be confined to the people of this nation or that to a particular people but must spread out over the whole human race.24 China’s links with Africa, which also have a long history, were intensified during the anti-colonial struggles in Southern Africa, when China provided strong support

166  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

for Southern African Liberation movements like ZANU in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and FRELIMO in Mozambique. Similarly, the Soviet Union also supported several liberation movements in Southern Africa, including ZAPU in Zimbabwe and the MPLA in Angola. In short, all these countries had a deep understanding of the “Africa as a Problem” narrative, and against the background of their earlier roles in Africa, it was relatively easy for the BRIC countries to establish themselves in Africa without their credentials being strongly questioned. In the last two decades, the connection between these countries and Africa has changed quite significantly as they become aware of the increasing importance of the continent. All the BRIC countries have recognised the new importance of Africa through the increase in the trading activities with the continent. As noted earlier, Nigeria will be used largely for discussion in this section, even though occasional reference will be made to other countries.

Intensification of trade and commercial links Trade between Africa and some Emerging Powers, notably India and China has increased considerably in the past two decades. According to the Indian High Commissioner in Nigeria, trade between India and Nigeria was recently valued at about $10.7 billion, of which $8.7 billion is in favour of Nigeria in the form of exports. Nigeria is now arguably India’s largest trading partner in Africa. On the industrial front, Indian companies in Nigeria are ranked second in terms of employment of Nigerians. India’s former High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mahesh Sachdeva said, India is Nigeria’s second largest trading partner with the total volume of trade according to our statistics nearly $10.3 billion. India is one of the biggest suppliers of pharmaceuticals to Nigeria. When NTH triple vaccines were introduced in Africa in 2000, it cost more than $10,000 per patient, per year. Thereafter, India came up with a version that costs about $100.

India Banking in Nigeria is an enterprise that Indians have engaged in intermittently.The country was first involved in Banking in Nigeria in 1962, when the Bank of India opened a branch in Lagos. This bank, which changed its name to Allied Bank, later went out of business. From this period, Indians have not shown much interest in banking in Nigeria mostly because, until in the last decade, the sector had not been properly regulated. However, an Indian family, the Mahtanis, held considerable stake in the Chartered Bank, established in 1988, and the Regent bank, established in 2005. Both banks merged with others to form the IBTC and the Mahtani family still holds considerable large stake in the bank. Recent reforms in the Nigerian banking sector open the way for potential renewed interest by India. Telecommunications are a major sector of activity in Nigeria which constitutes the largest market in Africa. The first company to enter the business in Nigeria was the South African company MTN but it has since been followed by a number of

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  167

other providers, including local business concerns like Globacom and India has also made a noticeable entry into the telecommunication business in Nigeria. India’s largest cellular service company Bharti Airtel invested US$600 million in Nigeria’s mobile market when it took over Zain Telecom’s African business for around US$10.7 billion. Its involvement in Zain has allowed India to go into other aspects of enterprise in information technology. For example, the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), an Indian company, trains about 15,000 Nigerians in IT annually, thus greatly improving their access to employment (see Table 7.1). On the whole, India’s involvement in Nigeria is part of its deep realisation of the increased importance of the continent. In the past decade, India has intensified its investment in Africa and is now reaching out to new territories, especially Francophone countries, which were hitherto less accessible owing to language barrier. The country launched an initiative (Team-9 Techno-Economic Approach for India

TABLE 7.1:  List of Indo-Nigerian Joint Ventures in Nigeria

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Name and Address of Joint Ventures

Field of Collaboration

Nigeria Engineering works, Plot No. 49, Trans-Nigeria Industrial Layout, Port-Harcourt Pan African Consultancy Services (Nig.) Lagos Best & Crompton Engineering (Nig). Ltd., Lagos

Light engineering goods

Ranbaxy Montari (Nig) Ltd., Ikeja, Lagos Nigeria Abestos Industries Ltd., Bauchi Nigeria Machine Tools Ltd., Ibadan

Chellco industries Ltd. Plot A1 & F2, Kaduna Prestige Assurance co (Nig) Ltd., Lagos Indo-Nigerian Merchant Bank Ltd. Allied Nigeria Ltd., 22 Breadfruit Street, Lagos Allied Nigeria Ltd. P.M.B. 0264, Bauchi Telecommunication consultants Nig. Ltd., Lagos Ballarpur Glass Nig. Ltd. Plot 4-8 Kaduna, Bye-Pass Road, Kaduna Hilltop Bottling Co. Ltd., 13 Rwang Pam Street, Jos MECON (Nig) Lagos

Consultancy services Execution of contract for transmission lines, substations, and rural electrification Manufacturing of drugs, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals Technical services and know-how Machine tool complex with foundry, tool room, and captive training centre for manufacture of machine tools Manufacturing of blankets and allied products Insurance services Merchant banking Commercial banking Manufacturing of cables and conductors-technical and financial Consultancy services Manufacturing of glass, bottles, and containers Manufacturing of glass, bottles, and containers Consultancy services

168  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

Movement) specifically seeking cooperation with West African countries like Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, and Burkina Faso. India also pledged US$500 million as a concessional gift to these countries. India’s involvement in the Oil and Gas sector is significant. Its interest in Nigeria’s oil in particular is part of a wider interest in the politics of oil in the whole West African sub-region. Against the background of China’s enormous presence in Africa (discussed later), India’s own interest in the continent has increased and oil rich West Africa is topmost in its consideration and extends to regions hitherto neglected, like the Francophone countries. As part of its comprehensive policy towards Africa, India has developed close trading links with the continent, through mainly the establishment of the India Africa Forum Summit. Stated in 2008, the initiative is now at its third summit held in October 2015. While only small selections of countries were invited to the first two summits, all African leaders got invited to the 2015 meeting. India has used the opportunity of these summits to showcase its interest in Africa and to portray the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship. At the third summit in October 2015, in New Delhi, themed “Partners in progress: Towards a dynamic and Transformative development agenda”, a call was made for India and Africa to work together towards an inclusive economic growth in order to eradicate poverty and to allocate resources for sustainable development as defined in Africa’s Agenda 2063 in its first 10-year implementation plan, and in the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.

China China’s financial interests in Nigeria are extensive, ranging from oil and gas to telecommunications and railways. In 2009, Nigeria came fourth among the Top two-way trade partners of China in Africa (after Angola, South Africa, and Sudan) and second among the top African importers from China (after South Africa). The Nigeria–China Chamber of Commerce acts as an instrument to ensure further development of trading relations between the two countries. The development of the Nigerian Railway project was a key component of the relationship between the two countries. Begun during the Murtala Muhammed/ Obasanjo regime of 1975-1979, the initiatives failed because of the alleged greed and corruption on the part of some Nigerian leaders, but was later reactivated, with a team of Chinese engineers from China Civil Engineering Construction ­Corporation (CCECC) visiting Nigeria for an on the spot assessment of the Nigeria Railway Project. The contract for the project was signed in December 1995 with a price tag of US$528.60 million. It involved the supply of coaches, locomotives, wagons and guard vans, as well as the restructuring of rail lines. During the 1990s, China undertook other activities such as irrigated rice plantations in Itoikin, Lagos; water resources in Borno State and Nigeria National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), now Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). China was also involved in Nigeria’s controversial steel projects in Ajaokuta and Aladja. An enabling agreement was signed between the two countries in May 1997, but it was later caught in a

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  169

serious corruption scandal involving the late President Sani Abacha and other key Nigerian leaders. During the Obasanjo civilian administration, Nigeria and China signed several economic agreements, including in June 2002, four agreements on consulate matters, cooperation against illicit trafficking and abuse of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and the diversion of precursor chemicals. Others were on provision of goods between the two countries and on tourism cooperation. Among its multi-fold activities in Nigeria, China’s main interest in the West African nation, however, remains oil, but this too is surrounded by controversy in Nigeria. Of the several oil deals which have been signed over the past few years, the most significant is the one which allowed China to invest $4 billion in Nigeria’s infrastructure in return for the first refusal rights on four oil blocks.25 This investment inevitably put China on a collision course with the militants fighting the Nigerian state over the management of oil in the country’s Niger Delta. On a number of occasions, Chinese oil workers were taken hostage by militants and were only freed after the payment of ransom. In January 2006, China’s national offshore oil company acquired a $2.3 billion majority stake in a major oil field. Other major Chinese investments of the last decade include China National Overseas Oil Company Limited (CNOOC)’s, 45% stake in OPL 246, worth $2.7 billion, in an offshore deep-water oil field operated by Total – the French oil giant. This is reported as the CNOOC’s largest foreign investment ever. CNOOC will pay $424 million for financing, operating, and capital expenses. Profits will be shared with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in a ratio 70:30 in favour of CNOOC. China has also recently agreed to spend $2 billion to build refineries and downstream infrastructure while Sinopec paid $7.2 billion for Addax in 2009. With the Chinese government and banks assuming the financial risk, Chinese companies, over the past two decades, have been encouraged to invest in Nigeria. In April 2005, ZTE Corporation, a Chinese firm, entered a deal with NITEL to expand Nigeria’s CDMA network following a successful 10,000-line trial in Maiduguri, Borno State.The project is meant to provide local telecom components and other ancillary services. The Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC) built the Nigerian Communications Commission building in Abuja and Huawei, a giant Chinese telecom company has begun to operate in Nigeria. China has also supplied an enormous fleet of Okada motor cycles which line Nigerian roads. Shao Huixiang, Deputy Director-General of Shanghai municipality, where many of the motor-cycles fleet are produced confirmed the increase in transactions between China and Nigeria and noted that the backup trade destination between Nigeria and Shanghai alone amounted to about $172 million. A single state in Nigeria, (Bornu) awarded six major contracts to Chinese construction and engineering firms for the purpose of limiting flooding, drainage construction, and the for the construction of an all-year-round water channel called water fall out. A Chinese conglomerate, Zhuhai Minghong Group Corporation Limited surveyed the 350 acres moribund Awoomama Resort in Oru East Local Council of Imo State and agreed to revive it. The president of the Guangdong Chamber of Commerce emphasised the excellent position of the resort in two

170  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

commercial cities, Aba in Abia State and Onitsha in Anambra State, and its proximity to the projected Oguta inland port. These are assets which would help promote effective patronage and provide job opportunities for Nigeria’s unemployed youths. A state-owned company, Genetic International Corporation of China (GICC) bought its first consignment of 100,000 metric tons of fresh cassava chips from Nigeria in July 2005.This deal continued over a period of six months on a monthly basis and GICC also expressed its readiness to import cocoa beans and rubber directly from Nigeria. China has thus increased the volume of its agricultural imports from Nigeria. Nigeria has shipped 80,000 tons of cassava chips to China and thereafter received an order to supply another 102,000 tons. There are currently over 500 Chinese experts and technicians in various fields of agriculture in 20 states of the Federation. Twenty Chinese companies participated in the 2007 Lagos International Trade Fair. The participation of Chinese companies in this most important international trade fair is an annual ritual. Put in a nut shell, the volume of trade between Nigeria and China increased from US$178 million in 1996 to US$1.44 billion in December 2001. The trade figure for 2002 was US$1.168 billion and it rose to US$1.858 billion in 2003. In 2004, the figure rose to US2 billion and stood at US$2.83 billion in 2007. China is one of Nigeria’s top ten trading partners and it has set up 30 companies (some solely owned, some jointly owned with Nigerians) in Nigeria. These companies are involved in construction, oil and gas, technology, service, and training sectors of the Nigerian economy. China has signed oil exploration contracts worth over N4 billion and its involvement in the oil sector has extended to building a power generating station that would add substantial megawatts of electricity to the existing supply. Banking links between Nigeria and China are part of the overall program, albeit on a comparatively low scale. Broadly, the Sino-Nigeria banking links can be brought under two major headings: the sponsorship by Chinese banks of development activities in Nigeria and the link between commercial banks of the two countries. The first category counts a number of Chinese banks involved in development activities in Nigeria. For example, in 2006, the China Development Bank (CDB) gave a $20 million support package to Reliance Telecommunications Ltd. (RelTel), and the China ExIm Bank is involved in the development of oil facilities and railway in Nigeria. As mentioned earlier, the link between Chinese and Nigerian banks is not as extensive as that of other sectors. It consists in two categories of activity: the activities of individual Chinese and those between the Chinese state and Nigeria’s commercial banks. In terms of the relationship between individual Chinese and Nigeria’s commercial banks, a particular aspect is the existence of Chinese individuals with significant financial investments in key Nigerian banks. One of these was said to have, at a point, held up to 5% of one of the major banks in Nigeria. By contrast with the state, individual interests are largely anonymous. Three Nigerian commercial banks in particular have established links with China. The first of these is Nigeria’s oldest Bank, First Bank, which has now been

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  171

granted license to operate in China. This development provided First Bank a foothold in the Asian region. First Bank also has other banking relationships with Chinese institutions including a Memorandum of Understanding with Yuemei Group Company Limited, a textile manufacturing firm, with a value of $50 million, a partnership with Shenzhen Energy Investment Co. Limited (Shenzhen Energy Group) in the building of a 3,000 mega-watts gas turbine power plant in Nigeria, worth $2.4 billion, and a Memorandum of Understanding with another Chinese firm, Guangdong Xinguang International China-Africa Investment Limited for a $500 million investment in Ogun State. The Guangdong Xinguang Group’s collaboration with First Bank extends to the areas of investment banking, project financing, business advisory services, and correspondent banking relationship. First Bank also has a Memorandum of Understanding with China Construction Bank to cover global banking collaboration. The Standard IBTC is another bank which has now established banking links with China.26 It has links with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), whose chairman Jiang Jianqing, visited Nigeria in March 2010.The ICBC has now acquired a 20% stake in the Standard bank Group – the banking group to which Standard IBTC Nigeria belong. ICBC’s association with the Standard IBTC has also made it possible for the ICBC to become involved in a number of other economic interests in Nigeria.The chairman’s visit gave the Nigerian financial sector the opportunity to showcase the country and to help the Chinese understand how things work in Nigeria. Yet a third bank, the Nigerian Export-Import Bank, which is at the core of Nigeria’s trade-oriented activities, has links with the Chinese bank. It provides short-term guarantees for loans granted by Nigerian banks to exporters and offers credit insurance against the event on non-payment by foreign buyers. The bank deals with Chinese financial institutions such as the Export-Import Bank of China and contributes further to the opening climate of opportunities in the Nigerian banking sector.

Zimbabwe Another country whose ties with China have been as important as they have been controversial is Zimbabwe. Between 2003 and 2013, China’s economic and commercial links with Zimbabwe became so extensive and so diversified that there was hardly any aspect of Zimbabwean life that did not feel the Chinese impact. Zimbabwe was one of the countries which experienced the most extensive Chinese influence, ranging from mining, construction and agriculture to telecommunications, retail, and hospitality. In most cases, the relationship consisted in the Chinese contribution to Zimbabwe’s development in exchange for Zimbabwean natural resources. Nothing qualifies the relationship between China and Zimbabwe better than the remarkable growth in the trade links between the two countries. Bilateral trades between them surged by 20% to $533 million in the first five months of 2012. By

172  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

the end of the year, Zimbabwe’s trade with China stood at $800 million, double its levels of 2011.27 In contrast, exports to the EU fell sharply from $1 billion in 1997 to $476 million in 2008.28 Although the growth in Zimbabwean exports to China is attributable mostly to minerals, among them diamonds, many Chinese individuals also started small-scale businesses in the country. The Chinese embassy in Harare claims to have records of about 5,000 Chinese nationals living and working in Zimbabwe.29 Officially, 53 Chinese companies were registered with the Chamber of Chinese Enterprises in Zimbabwe in 2012.30 Although both Chinese investments and trade exchanges involve a large diversity of domain, certain key areas are, nevertheless, the object of specific efforts. Some of these are discussed below.

Mining Mining is a subject around which China and Zimbabwe’s interests converge: China needs the strategic mineral resources available in Zimbabwe, while the latter needs the income from these resources, especially after its show of defiance against the West. Cash-strapped Zimbabwe had very little choice but to seek a country that was willing to accept its resources in exchange for meeting its developmental needs. Thus, viewed from the perspective of individual needs and desires, the mining arrangement between China and Zimbabwe was destined to work, at least initially. Figures made available by the Zimbabwean government reveal that between January and May 2013, “China accounted for 74% of the $134 million of foreign direct investments and during the same period, Chinese businesses invested $16 million in mining”.31 However, despite this convergence of interests, there has also been a string of controversies, especially as a result of the involvement of the Zimbabwean military in the politics of mining, of allegations of Zimbabwean workers suffering human rights abuses at the hands of the Chinese employers, Chinese lack of consideration for the environment (discussed later) and what is believed to be the contractual inequality between the Chinese and Zimbabwean governments. China’s initial interest was in minerals such as iron, steel, chrome, and platinum, but this interest expanded when diamonds were discovered in Zimbabwe on a commercial scale.32 As a result, several trade agreements have been signed since November 2004 in the mining sector,33 one of which concerns the establishment of a joint venture with China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO). NORINCO is a leading armament company and this agreement indicates the mutually reinforcing links that exist between mining, defence, and other economic sectors economy in Sino-Zimbabwean relations. China’s involvement in mining in Zimbabwe changed significantly with the rise of the importance of diamonds in the African country’s economic profile. Since the early 2000s, China has invested enormously in diamonds in Zimbabwe, especially through the activities of the Chinese company Anjin, which invested $400 million in a joint venture with the Zimbabwean government to mine diamonds in the Marange fields. This concession was given in exchange for the construction of the country’s National Defense College for a value of $98 million. Anjin Investments

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  173

is controlled to the value of 50% by the Chinese, 40% by the Zimbabwe National Army through its subsidiary company Zimbabwe Defence Industries, and 10% by another company linked to the army.34 This has resulted in the militarisation of the extractive sector in Zimbabwe, where the generals have become company directors and shareholders on behalf of the government. In March 2011, China signed nearly $700 million in loan deals with Zimbabwe, at that time the biggest loan package made to the country. In exchange, the Chinese government requested that Chinese companies in Zimbabwe be protected from the country’s nationalisation plans. Earlier, the Mugabe government had announced an indigenisation plan that would give 51% of all companies worth more than $500,000 – including mining companies – to local shareholders.While discussing the $700 million loan with Zimbabwean Deputy Prime Minister Joyce Mujuru in 2011 the then Chinese Vice Premier, Wang Qishan, specifically noted that he “hope[d] Zimbabwe will protect the legitimate right [sic] of Chinese businesses in the country”.35 The previous month Zimbabwe had announced that a Chinese-owned alluvial diamond mine in the country’s eastern region, Marange, would be exempt from nationalisation.36 The fact that many aspects of Chinese involvement in Zimbabwe’s diamond mines are not public, has led to various speculations about the arrangement. The close relationship between the two countries is also alleged to have underlined the severe human rights abuses which plagued the country’s mining sector. The retail sector in Zimbabwe has also felt the impact of the Chinese presence, with many small-scale businesses being started by Chinese nationals, such as internet cafes, barber shops and hairdressing salons, grocery stores, electrical and home appliance stores, entertainment venues, and fast food outlets. The Chinese are also involved in the hospitality business, as with the construction of hotels in Mutare and Harare and a shopping mall on wetlands in Borrowdale on the outskirts of Harare. The downside of these activities is that Chinese textiles and leather goods have flooded Zimbabwean markets at prices that drive locals out of business and as will be discussed later, this has seriously threatened the producers of local products. It is estimated that as early as 2004 Chinese activities in these sectors alone threatened about 30,000 local jobs.

Agriculture Agriculture, like other sectors, has received special attention from the Chinese, especially after Western sanctions against Harare became pronounced. A detailed study recently conducted by Langton Mukwereza showed that37 [a]id programs completed, underway and planned between Zimbabwe and China in agriculture include the Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre (ATDC), Emergency Food Aid, a loan agreement with the China Export and Import Bank, a donation of agricultural machinery by the Sichuan Provincial Government of China, and the training of key staff in the government of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture.

174  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

In 2011, the China Export and Import Bank extended a loan facility of $334.7 million for procuring tractors and supporting the mechanisation of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, but despite its ratification by the Zimbabwean Parliament, the agreement has still not been enforced. Among the inroads made by China in the telecommunications sector, a credit facility agreement worth $35 million was reached in September 2004 between Powertel Communications, a subsidiary of Zimbabwe Electric Power Authority, and the state-owned Chinese telecommunications company China Putian, for the construction of a public fibre-optic data network. A major part of the agreement was the provision of equipment for the building of a fibre-optic network running from Chitugwiza to Plumtree, with plans to extend cables from Harare to Mutare, Bulawayo to Beitbridge, and Bulawayo to Victoria Falls.38 In November 2004, representatives of Huawei accompanied the vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Wu Bangguo, to sign two agreements with Zimbabwe’s state-owned fixedline and mobile operators worth a total of almost $330 million.

Health The Chinese financed the construction of a 129-bed hospital in Mahuseka equipped with advanced Chinese medical equipment and another in Chikomba. In March 2011, the Chinese government and the parastatal Export-Import Bank of China signed an agreement with the Zimbabwean government for a $99.5 million loan for the procurement of medicine. China has become a popular destination for prominent Zimbabweans for the purpose of medical treatment, especially after it became difficult to seek treatment in Western Europe.39 Conversely, Chinese medical personnel came to Zimbabwe under the auspices of the Chinese Zimbabwe Medical Team and provided free medical treatment in December 2012 for Zimbabweans living around Bindura, the capital of Mashonaland Central province.

Transport China has provided funding in all areas of public transportation in Zimbabwe. This includes the acquisition by Zimbabwe of commuter buses for the staterun Zimbabwe United Passenger Company, a co-operation agreement signed in November 2004 between the National Railways of Zimbabwe and China Northern Locomotive and Railing Stock Industries,40 and in the area of air transportation, the delivery in December 2009 to the Zimbabwean national airline, Air Zimbabwe, of two Chinese aircraft, with an agreement in 2004 with the Chinese National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation for the further acquisition of a long-haul plane. Air Zimbabwe received a gift of an MA60 aircraft for its local and regional routes for the purpose of boosting tourism in Zimbabwe. Although there were initial reports of technical unreliability, these were largely unfounded. At one stage the MA60 carried 50,000 to 70,000 passengers annually, accounting for 20% of the

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  175

total number of passengers carried by Air Zimbabwe. In parallel, the Chinese government made a $150 million concessional loan to Zimbabwe for the upgrading and expansion of Victoria Falls Airport.

Energy The Chinese presence in Zimbabwe also extends to the power generation industries. Its importance is illustrated by China’s holding of a 70% stake in Zimbabwe’s only electricity generation facilities at Hwange and Kariba.41 China installed two generators worth $4 billion at Kariba South through the Sino-Hydro Company. Other activities in this area include China International Water and Electric’s contract to build a mini-hydro power station, and the construction of a solar power project. In June 2003, Catic China took part in the purchase of the Rural Electrification Agency equipment worth over $6 million. In June 2005, a $1.3 billion agreement was signed for the rehabilitation of the National Power Grid in return for chrome resources. In May 2005, a contract of $145 million was awarded to China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic and Technology Cooperation for the construction of the Kunzi Dam for hydro-electric power. Also, in July 2005, a Memorandum of Understanding for loan financing was signed for the expansion of Zimbabwe’s Hwange Power Station.

Education The impact of China has also been felt in the educational sector, including in the form of building schools, among which are in Harare and another in Bindura. In August 2006 an agreement was signed to establish a Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe to promote the Chinese language and culture. As a contribution to physical education and recreation, the Chinese renovated at a reported cost of $10 million, the Rufaro Stadium in Harare.

Russia Russia has traditionally played a junior role in Africa compared with Western countries. With the active involvement of India and China, this role was threatened with slipping even further down. To ensure that it will still remain a relevant player in engaging with what is recognised as fast growing economy, Russia has started to increase its investments across Africa. Its overall trade with the continent has consequently increased more than tenfold over the past decade or so, with exports jumping from under $950 million to $4 billion, and imports from Africa rising from $350 million to $1.6 billion. Russia’s change of attitude towards Africa is the result of strategic calculations. Although it holds up to 35% of the world’s reserves in mineral deposits, the bulk of this is located in remote areas of Siberia and it is expensive to extract. Consequently, acquiring minerals from countries like Angola, South Africa, Guinea, or Nigeria is

176  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

much more profitable than exploiting its own resources.42 Its oil and gas reserves are also plummeting while Europe’s consumption of energy is on the rise, thus sparking this search for alternative energy sources. Recently, Russian natural gas giant Gazprom has partnered with Algeria’s state gas company, a move which would have given Russia and Algeria control of nearly 40% of Europe’s gas consumption. This agreement which caused a great deal of resentment in Europe with warnings about the creation of a gas cartel, finally expired before its realisation.

Intensification of defence links Nigeria Defence cooperation has been a vital tool to enhance the relations between India and Nigeria, which share similarities in their struggle against colonialism and in their ethnic diversity and geo-political outlook. The defence cooperation between India and Nigeria has existed since 1963 and the Indian armed forces have contributed significantly in laying the foundation of various army training establishments in Nigeria. Some of these include: (i) Assistance in the building of various military institutions, including the Nigeria Defence Academy in Kaduna and the Command and Staff College, Jaji including the provision of physical structures; (ii) Provision of Military training of officers for various Nigerian Military institutions; (iii) Provision of Scholarships for officers in the Nigerian Armed forces to train in Indian Military Institutions; (iv) Selling of defence equipment to Nigeria and engaging in military collaborations with members of the Nigerian Defence Forces. Many members of the Nigerian Defence Forces attended training institutions in India among whom are three of Nigeria’s former Heads of State (Late Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Ibrahim Babangida) and thus a keenness to nurture this cooperation. The armed forces of the two nations have therefore cooperated in training of both the Nigerian military and of UN peacekeeping forces.

Zimbabwe The military links between Zimbabwe and China, although controversial in certain aspects, have not been as extensive as their economic cooperation. A number of reasons could account for this. First, China did not play a big role in the establishment of the Zimbabwean Defence Forces, an exercise that was largely carried out by the British, and there was no role left for China in the subsequent development of the security establishment.43 Second, the negative outcome of a program in which North Koreans trained a segment of the Zimbabwean Army (the 5th Brigade)

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  177

dented the Mugabe administration from any further initiative to allow a country from “the East” to train the Zimbabwean armed forces. 44 After the ill-fated North Korean experience, Zimbabwe did not keep any serious contact with the “Communist” bloc for military purposes until its relationship with the West deteriorated and its military assistance to Zimbabwe was cut short. Arms supplies from China were substantial between 2000 and 2009 as China accounted for 39% of Zimbabwean imports of major conventional weapons.45 China has also provided training for the Zimbabwean military, especially at the Army Staff College, and has supplied military hardware and fighter jets to Zimbabwe. In November 2009 the Zimbabwe Air Force took delivery of six fighter jets at a cost of over $120 million in total. Before that, in 2005, 39 military trucks and education equipment were supplied as a $3 million grant to Zimbabwe, and in 2006, military machinery and construction equipment worth $1.5 million were delivered to the Zimbabwean Defence Forces. Also, in 2005, Zimbabwe received six K-8 trainer aircraft and a second batch of six in 2006.46 Between 2006 and 2007, 55 military officers were trained under a technical co-operation agreement signed between the two countries. The most controversial aspect of Chinese military cooperation with the Mugabe government has been the infamous An Yue Jiang incident of March 2009, relating to a shipment of Chinese arms to Zimbabwe at a time when the country was preparing for an election widely expected to witness a considerable government clampdown.47 The sale of the weapons, which included AK-47s, 3 million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and a 3,000 mortar rounds and mortar tubes, was agreed in January 2008 and the shipment was sent to landlocked Zimbabwe on 15 March 2009 via the South African port of Durban. However, when the weapons arrived in South Africa on 14 April, dockworkers in Durban, realising what the weapons could be used for, refused to allow the ship to dock. After a diplomatic furore that ultimately reached the Durban High Court, China had no choice but to recall the ship. It is not known whether the shipment eventually reached Harare, as there were different versions of what happened to the contents of the ship.48

Intensification of socio-cultural links India made an important contribution in the areas of education in Nigeria. With the standards of education believed to be falling in Nigeria and with the massive proliferation of private elementary, secondary, and even tertiary institutions, many foreign institutions made provisions for the education of their citizens and other expatriates as well as for wealthy Nigerians. India has also established strong links with Nigerian Universities. In 2010, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between LBS, the Pan-African University and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Under this Memorandum of Understanding, an Indian academician will head a Rotating Chair for Indian Management Studies at LBS which will cover disciplines such as management, marketing, strategy, and finance, with

178  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

strong emphasis on Indian experience. This is the first such arrangement with a Nigerian institution.

Energy The provision of electricity is one of the major problems that have faced successive governments in Nigeria since independence. The Nigeria government has decided to privatise the National Grid and an Indian Power Grid Corporation is among the three firms shortlisted by Nigeria to manage the African nation’s electricity grid to be constructed at a cost of $3.5 billion. Other rival bids on the shortlist include Canada’s Manitoba Hydro and the Electricity Supply Board of Ireland. However, it is believed that the Indian company submitted the least bid. In September 2010, the Nigeria government asked India to re-submit its technical and financial proposals to obtain the management contract for Transmission Company of Nigeria.

Transport One area where India increased its presence in Nigeria is in the public transport system and in particular, the Railways.The Nigerian Railway has not been effective for several years and India’s reputation for having one of the best rail services in the world was attractive to Nigeria. This led to the creation of the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) 1978–82, whose remit was to: rehabilitate the rail network using advice from Rail Indian engineers; recover and maintain obsolete and disabled rolling stock and give foreign experts authority over the highest decision-making body of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. All these mission objectives were achieved, and NRC was given a new lease of life. Staff were well paid and motivated, services became more regular, suitable, and safer. India exports motor vehicles to Nigeria through two companies, the DANA group and the Stallion Group. The Dana group has been responsible for the importation of KIA vehicles into Nigeria and the Stallion Group for vehicles from several manufacturers like Hyundai, Honda, and Audi VW. Finally, Nigeria is the biggest importer of Indian tricycles and these vehicles are one of the most common sights in Lagos.

Intensification of diplomatic relations The close relations between India and Nigeria are demonstrated in many ways. There are about 35,000 Indians living in Nigeria as of October 2010 and many Nigerians residing and running businesses in India.The former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, was invited to India in January 2000 as Guest of honour at the 50th Republic Day celebrations and the Honourable Speaker of Lok, Sabha Shri Somnath Chatterjee, at the head of a large delegation, attended the 52nd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Abuja. The contemporary bilateral context was defined during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s official visit to Nigeria on 14–16 October 2007 after a gap of 45 years and an Abuja Declaration

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  179

on Strategic Partnership was issued laying out the future contours of the bilateral relations. Both sides have remained committed to this. A high point in the diplomatic relations between India and Nigeria was the signing of a strategic partnership called the “Abuja Declaration” in 2007, during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Abuja. Among the documents signed were two Memorandums of Understanding on promoting interaction between foreign office backed institutes; one Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation and a protocol for foreign office consultations, which covers other issues such as drug trafficking, extradition, promoting trade & investment, and cultural exchange program. These pacts were intended to set the stage for a more intensive relationship between the two countries within six months. The documents provided an institutional framework to back investments and commerce, which was absent in the relations between the two countries.

Sincere partners or new set of colonisers The nature of the growing relationship between Africa and emerging powers, especially China has become the most controversial. Summarising views on the relationship, an African writer notes: The Chinese have managed to accomplish at least one impressive thing in Africa – they have made everyone else uncomfortable. The Americans are uneasy, worried about (and perhaps jealous of) China’s rapid and profitable investments throughout the continent … Europeans have only to look at trade figures: the share of Africa’s exports that China receives has shot from one to fifteen per cent over the past decade, while the European Union’s share fell from thirty-six to twenty-three per cent … Some Africans [too] have become … unhappy with unbalanced relationships in which China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labour and equipment without transferring skills and technology.49 A major criticism to which China has often had to respond to that it has a hidden expectation of national advantage in its relationship with Africa and that its ultimate ambition is to be the latest in a series of external countries to exploit the African continent. The persistence of this accusation has made it necessary for China to deny it at every opportunity. In 2007, the country’s Commerce Minister, Bo Xilai, made one of the strongest rebuttals of this assumption when he noted: What China has for Africa is out of sincere feeling, out of friendship from the bottom of the heart forged in past decades, but I have heard some ­criticism … An important criticism is that China is taking oil from Africa, but according to statistics last year, of Africa’s total oil exports, China took 8.7%, Europe took 36% and the United States 33%. If importing 8.7% means exploitation, how about 36% and 33%? … We hear non-stop that China is

180  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

becoming a new colonialist. Africa in [the] past let its natural resources be taken away at very low prices, but now it is not the same. China and Africa, according to reasonable market prices, conduct normal and reasonable buying and selling. 50

Conclusion Broadly, reactions to changes in Africa from other parts of the world seem to have come in four different phases: Scepticism; Selective Engagement; Fudging of SelfServing alliances; and a Degree of genuine Collaboration. Having realised the growing importance of the continent as the world’s largest underdeveloped market, all the regions of the world are already showing extra interest in Africa. While the continent appreciates the attention, critical look at these external attentions shows clearly that there the intentions are not completely altruistic and that the continent must see the hidden expectations of personal advantages in the activities of both the Western powers with long historical relationships with the continent and the emerging powers currently taking the world by storm. In all considerations, Africa saw that its transition from being a “problem to be solved” into a “voice to be heard” would not go completely unnoticed by the international community that sees advantages in both phases of the spectrum. Some of the various strands of possibilities and their opportunities and challenges are discussed in the concluding chapter of this book.

Notes 1 Quoted in Padraig Carmody, The New Scramble for Africa (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 1. 2 African politicians have become quite prominent in the UK since the 1980s. For example, Paul Boateng of Ghanaian parentage rose to become a British Member of Parliament and later Ambassador to South Africa. Other prominent politicians in the 1980s and 1990s include. In the current UK parliament there are nine members that are connected to Nigeria alone. 3 All the issues here are extensively discussed in Kunle Amuwo, Daniel Bach and Yann Lebeau, eds, Nigeria During the Abacha Years, 1993 – 1998 (Ibadan: Institut français de recherche en Afrique IFRA-Nigeria), especially the chapter by Ricard Skla, “An Elusive Target: Nigeria fends off sanctions, 259–287. 4 See, Ian Taylor and Paul Williams, “The Limits of Engagement: British Foreign Policy and the Crisis in Zimbabwe”, International Affairs 78, no. 3 (July, 2002). 5 Blair’s trip generated varied domestic reactions. Opposition leader Michael Howard said it was “very odd timing” coming immediately after a memorial service for those killed by terrorists in Madrid. Again, while, in principle, he was not against contact with Libya, he felt it should have been at a less senior level. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said the potential prize of helping Libya “in from the cold” is a risk worth taking. 6 See, Joe Watts, Theresa May announces UK has secured its first post-Brexit trade deal during trip to Africa, The Independent (28 August 2018). 7 This is discussed at some length in Maja, Bovcon, “France’s Conflict Resolution Strategy in Côte d’Ivoire and its Ethical Implications”, African Studies Quarterly, 11, no. 1 (Fall 2009).

Global responses to Africa’s new narrative  181

8 See, “François Hollande praises Senegal in first Africa visit”, https://www.theguardian. com/world/2012/oct/12/francois-holland-senegal-africa-visit 9 http://www.france24.com/en/20131204-france-must-double-trade-ties-africahollande-economy 10 Ibid 11 Ibid 12 Sébastien Dumoulin and Charlie Hamilton, France-Africa:Trade romance back on track, The African Report, 24 March 2014. 13 Ibid 14 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, July 26, 2015, FACT SHEET: Deepening the U.S.-Africa Trade Relationship, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ the-press-office/2015/07/26/fact-sheet-deepening-us-africa-trade-relationship 15 Figures from the https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/southern-africa/south-africa 16 https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/west-africa/nigeria 17 https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/east-africa/ethiopia 18 https://www.ustradenumbers.com/country/egypt/ 19 https://www.nipc.gov.ng/trade-nigeria-uk-reach-4-5-billion-post-brexit/ 20 Egypt Today, July 31 2018. https://egypttoday.com 21 “Ethiopia, UK Agree to Expand Bilateral Cooperation”, Ethiopian News Agency, Addis Ababa, 28 November, 2018. 22 What France means to Nigeria, Punch, July 27 2017. 23 It is something of an irony that sentiments towards Gandhi, leading to the removal of his statue from the University of Ghana, Legon, because of his racist sentiments towards blacks in South Africa and his desire to maintain the Indian caste system, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/ghana-academics-petitionremoval-mahatma-gandhi-statue-african-heroes 24 Quoted from Ramachandra Guha, Makers of Modern India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2010), 346. 25 Cindy Hurst,“China’s Oil Rush”, The Institute of Analysis of Global Security (July 2006), 11. 26 This bank was established through a merger between Stanbic Bank of Nigeria and the Industry giant IBTC Chartered Bank. 27 Moyo, J, “China tipping the trade balance in Zimbabwe”, Mail & Guardian, 8 February 2013. 28 Kaminski, B, & F Ng, “Zimbabwe’s Foreign Trade Performance during the Decade of Economic Turmoil:Will Exports Recover?”, World Bank Report, 2011, 44. 29 Moyo, op. cit. 30 Ibid. 31 “China remains Zimbabwe’s top investor”, Newsday, 3 July 2013. 32 Although diamonds were discovered in 1971, production did not start until 1995 and had to stop in 1998 because of low diamond prices. Commercial production started in 2000. See Hawkins, T, “The Mining Sector in Zimbabwe and its Potential Contribution to Recovery”, United Nations Development Programme, Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe, Working Paper Series No 1, 2009, 14. 33 For example, in November 2004, six agreements and contracts were signed, including an agreement and technical cooperation agreement. 34 See “Army farm owns diamond mines – Minister”, New Zimbabwe, 14 June 2012, http:// www.newzimbabwe.com/news-8255-Army+firm+owns+diamond+mine+minister/ news.aspx Army. 35 See “China lends Zimbabwe $700m, seeks protection”, New Zimbabwe, 21 March 2011, http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/china-lends-zimbabwe-700m-seeksprotection-2011-03-21. 36 “China signs nearly US$700 million in loans with Zimbabwe”, Mining Review 22 (March 2011). 37 Mukwereza, L, “Chinese and Brazilian Cooperation with African Agriculture: The Case of Zimbabwe”, Future Agricultures, CBAA Working Paper, March 2013.

182  Global responses to Africa’s new narrative

38 Aid Data, “Zimbabwean Telecom receives Chinese funding”, http://aiddatachina.org/ projects/17503. 39 For example, the former Vice President, the late Simeon Muzenda, was known to have travelled to China for treatment. 40 “Zimbabwe, China sign agreement to strengthen trade relations”, Xinhua News Agency, 21 February 2004. 41 Melville, C, and O Owen,“China and Africa: A new era of South-South cooperation”, (Gweru: Midlands State University, 2005). 42 Christina Goldbaum “Russia’s Quite Rise in Africa” Daily Dose, Dec 20 2015. 43 For more on the role of the British in the formation of the Zimbabwean army, see, Alao, A, “The metamorphosis of the unorthodox: The integration and early development of the Zimbabwean National Army”, in Bhebe, N, and T Ranger, eds, Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. (London: James Currey, 1995). 44 The training was deemed unsuccessful. After almost a year of training, the 5th Brigade was undisciplined, low in morale, and hopeless in the sort of counter-insurgency operations they were meant to tackle. For example, despite the brigade’s considerable presence in Matabeleland, it could not trace six tourists abducted by dissidents in June 1982. 45 Jeuck L, “Arms Transfers to Zimbabwe: Implications for an Arms Trade Treaty”, SIPRI Background Paper, March 2011. 46 Ibid. 47 This was first revealed by South African investigative journalist Martin Welz. 48 As Lukas Jeuck points out, there are people who believe that the weapons were unloaded in Pointe Noire, Republic of the Congo, and then flown to Harare, Zimbabwe by transport aircraft. There were also those who claimed that the consignment eventually got to Zimbabwe through South Africa. See Jeuck, op. cit. 49 Okeowo, A, “China in Africa: The new imperialists”, The New Yorker, 12 June 2013. 50 Adebayo, op. cit., 26–27.

CONCLUSION “Problem”, “voice” and “agency”: the past in the present and the present in the future of Africa

Africa’s considerable progress in recent times makes the pitiable image of a “basket-case continent” worthy of serious rethink even by the most vociferous of Afro-pessimists. There have been considerable improvements in the economic sector; the political situation is becoming more stable and military coups that once dominated its political spaces have all but disappeared; the socio-economic situation is showing visible signs of positive change; some of the conflicts that brought the continent to the tribunal of international attention, like the Rwandan genocide and the civil wars in Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone, have been resolved, and all the other continents of the world have realised the considerable promises coming from Africa. Despite all this, some important contradictions continue to make Africa something of a mystery, dictating the need to be cautious and reject any euphoria. The paradox of a decade of stellar economic growth that has failed to reduce poverty and has even increased inequality; the improving indicators of good governance amidst entrenched rule, persistent corruption and continuing repression; the welcome pivot away from traditional aid towards new partners (China), taking the continent away from one set of neo-colonial relationships to new relations that can be argued to be equally if not more exploitative; the irony of a youth that is impacting the world through innovations in music and sporting talents, but still sees itself as the neglected majority in an unjust social order; the set of international organisations making giant strands at harnessing regional and continental resources for the advancement of regional and continental growth but at the same time having members that treat each other more as rivals than partners, and so on, are some of the contradictions that make an enigma out of Africa’s transition from a “problem to be solved” into an “Agency”.This concluding chapter, has four objectives: the first is to provide an overview of the “problem to be solved” phase of Africa’s history; the second is to reiterate the features exhibited by the metamorphosis from problem to voice; the third is to interrogate the various

184 Conclusion

politics and issues surrounding the “African voice”, while the fourth is to discuss the challenges Africa still faces in its search for audible and enduing “voice”. As shown in this book, it needs to be re-asserted that Africa suffered far more take-off disadvantages than are often appreciated in most analysis about the continent’s post-independence developments. Indeed, the fundamental disadvantages that existed at the time of independence of most African states may have imposed the scenario of “inevitability of instability” from the outset. As noted earlier, the peculiar historical evolution of the continent, especially its connections with slavery, colonialism, and the consequences of its wiring into an international system that was not designed to recognise its existence, created a string of challenges for postindependence Africa. The continent was also “conscripted” into a Cold War whose origins and intents it did not fully understand. The political choices made because of the Cold War also entailed economic decisions, and this resulted in Africa making choices that ended up having serious distorting effects on the economy and on the way the continent became engaged with the global economy. But apart from these somewhat external factors, there were also some self-inflicted dynamics, including the nature of leadership and aspects of its culture that equally explained Africa’s weak base. The challenges of having to respond to the consequences of some of these exogenous and endogenous factors, especially against the background of weak structural base and the inability to control the narrative that circulated about the continent sank Africa deeper into socio-economic and political difficulties that brought about the “problem to be solved” narrative. As shown in the preceding chapters, the transitions that have brought recognition to Africa have been made among others, in the areas of economy, democracy, and political stability, as well as in socio-cultural and in its international institutions. Again, and as noted earlier, the transition from being a problem to be solved into a voice to be heard has a few features that are worth recalling. First, what brought about the transition were the simultaneous occurrences of events both within and outside the continent. Apart from intense commitment on the part of many agencies, institutions, and individuals on the continent to bring about positive changes, issues like the end of the Cold War, the emergence of other actors, notably the BRIC countries, the global clamour for democracy also played their own part. Secondly, the processes that brought about the transition have not been a coordinated whole. As shown in the preceding chapters, a diverse range of actors, including academics, policy practitioners, creative youths, civil society groups, and others have individually undertaken scattered tasks that all came together to form the transition. Third, while some of the events were clearly targeted to give Africa “Voice”, most were not clearly planned with that objective in mind, events and acts just crystallising and coming together to reach this conclusion, and fourth, several aspects of the transition also have embedded in them inherent contradictions that seem to portray the transition carry within themselves further efforts to consolidate in order to result in genuine development in the continent. Before going deeper into the discussion of the African agency, it may be better to acknowledge the historicity of Africa’s voice. Indeed, Africa’s positions on

Conclusion  185

decolonisation and liberation struggles, non-aligned movement, etc. were text-book cases of voice. Thus, voice is not new to, for and by Africa. However, what one can advance is that Africa is now entering or entered a new era of agency – a so-called “New Voice”, that is markedly different from historical type/nature/outlet of voice. This new Africa’s voice can be conceptualised as a mix of traditional/orthodox and non-traditional/unorthodox voices. The former being the ones expressed via national governments, AU, RECs, and important personalities, the likes of Soyinka, Mandela, Tutu, Mbeki, Kagame, Meles, etc. The traditional voice focuses on strategic level issues such as key wars and armed conflicts, trade deals, and negotiations, etc. The non-traditional/unorthodox voice, however, is that by non-governmental entities including citizens, civil society organisations, etc. This dimension of voice reflects more truthful narratives of the day to day realities of Africa. Crucially, ICT, namely revolutions in mobile telephone and the explosive growth in internet penetration and access to social media across Africa have triggered the new era of voice. Reaffirming the objective of Africa’s voice to be providing a truthful narrative of the continent, the new voice is challenging and transforming the negative stereotypes that have proved catastrophic for Africa. The new voice is already leading to the discovery of new talents, new resources, and the many positive aspects of day to day life in Africa. Three things make the voice “new”, namely the citizens elements (unorthodox dimension), the changing landscape of the traditional sources of voice (AU and many RECs have been transformed, especially to acquire supranational status, and new leaders have emerged/emerging on the scene as part of the continued process of democratisation); and the increasing ability of citizens at home and diaspora to hold African governments and their foreign collaborators (businesses, foreign governments, biased international media, etc.) to account or at least to task regarding the proper presentation and representation of Africa. But the whole discussion about Africa’s “voice” raises a string of considerations that should be addressed in this conclusion. Key questions arising here include: what exactly is Africa voice and what does it (or should it) entail? What are the centres, institutions, mechanisms, indicators, and signposts of Africa’s voice and how best can these be captured? Who, indeed, can speak as the African voice? Is Africa striving to succeed on the world’s – the “West’s”– terms? Should the continent set its own standards for “voice” and “agency”? Beyond “Voice”, should Africa’s ability to break out of the essentialist Orientalist tropes of “object of development” and to re-invent the notion of progress be sufficient to make the continent an “Agent”? How are Africans “leap-frogging” and finding non-linear pathways to progress and are sharing these with the world? While comprehensive answers to these and similar questions are still awaiting their own scholars, a brief discussion of them can be attempted here. First, what exactly is the African Voice and what should it entail? After a long marginalisation, the nature of Africa’s voice is one that asserts that the continent is not all about gloom and doom. It is one that recognises that while there are still challenges, there are also important achievements about the continent worthy of identification. It is one that is gradually realising the importance of its physical and natural resource endowments to the world that relies on these resources. It is also

186 Conclusion

one that notes the existence of take-off disadvantages that were reinforced by inequalities in the international system. In short, having been for a long time at the receiving end of global vicissitudes, Africa’s voice is one that displays a great deal of confidence that it is not less accurate than voices from the outside, even if it is less amplified. A second consideration worth identifying relates to the sources of the authentic African “Voice”.The central question here is: who can or should speak for Africa; is it notable Africans with academic, political, or financial pedigree or is it continental and/or regional organisations? To what extent can one say that some individuals who are intellectual opinion leaders like Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka, Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiongo, or Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz speak for Africa; or business magnates like Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote, Ethiopia’s Hussein Ali Al-’Amoudi, or South Africa’s Nicholas Oppenheimer; or even still political leaders like Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, or Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, all speak for Africa? Or must one only look up to the African Union and the regional organisations? In short, who is the custodian of the African Voice? In recent times the categories of actors identified above have spoken for and about the continent and their voices have been audible and have attracted attention, if not always in agreement. This was the case in Mbeki’s position on Sarkozy’s Dakar comment about Africa. The answer to the question as to who the custodian of the Africa voice is somewhat complex as the criteria for what constitute Africa’s voice are broad. Indeed, while the categories of individuals and organisations identified above can be authentic Africa’s voices, provided they present a position on Africa that is correct and is in consonance with the views of the people of the continent, Africa’s voice can also be in the custody of every individual who attaches to the continent and one who is willing to provide a truthful narrative of the continent. This would mean appreciating its seized chances and missed opportunities, its successes and setbacks, its intense hate and exulting comedies, its ambitious aspirations and dwindled attainments, its enormous potentials and unattained desires, its moments of glory and its quagmire of despair, and its endowed blessings and self-inflicted misfortunes. In short, the objective of the African voice is not necessary to talk about the positive things about the continent, but rather, the truthful things. A third consideration centres on the topics or subjects around which there can or should be a “voice”. Must there be a voice on every issue or on key issues? Who determines what is important and deserving of a voice? These again are questions that have no direct answers. While there are issues of continental importance that should necessarily require a voice, like the crisis in Libya, the 2017 Gambian crisis, the issue of HIV/AIDS or the Ebola crisis, a continental position can be expressed on any issue, in the same way the continent did during the liberation struggles. Since it is not conceivable, nor is it, in fact, necessary, to have a “voice” on all issues. Africa’s voice only needs to be limited to those topics that have multiplier effects on the continent and its population or those which determine its relations with other parts of the world. These, among others should include major conflicts, trade negotiations, especially with EU countries and China, deliberations and relationships

Conclusion  187

with entities like OECD and G7 countries, issues relating to development, the environment, or poverty reduction, etc. What were the implications of rejecting Africa’s voice and what were the cases in which acceptance of Africa’s voice has made a huge positive effect? While it would remain one of the tantalising conjectures of history as to what would have happened if the world had accepted Africa’s view on Libya, there are grounds to believe that the AU’s position was based on legal and politically logical stands. According to Alex de Waal, the AU’s position on Libya was based on “the realistic appreciation of the perils of civil war in Libya and the shortcomings of forcible regime change” and that “a combination of NATO pressure and AU diplomacy might have avoided some of the problems that emerged during and after the regime transition in Libya”.1 The West, however, had a different agenda and the crisis was to have severe consequences for Libya and the entire region. In contrast with this case in which Africa’s voice had been ignored, an example of where the respect for Africa’s voice has prevented a crisis is Zimbabwe. While the West had made widely known its preference for Mugabe’s removal from office, especially after the controversial election of 2008, the SADC presidents held a different views and they worked together to come up with an arrangement that accommodated both Mugabe and the opposition leader, late Morgan Tsvangirai, an imperfect position was but one which may have saved the Southern African nation from the throes of a bitter civil conflict. The question as to whether Africa is striving to succeed on the West’s terms or is setting its own standards for “voice” and agency requires a slightly more detailed elucidation, especially as the continent is manifesting its fatigue with externally developed agendas. This calls for a brief discussion of the evolutionary trend towards this new set of thinking. In the immediate post-independence period, the prevailing pattern of development was the one that endorses a high degree of continuity between the end of colonialism and the beginning of the post-colonial state. A prevailing theory of development during this period was “Stage-ism”, with Walt Rostow’s theory arguing that all developing countries and regions of the world needed to go through the same stages of development that the developed countries went through. This idea of “Path-dependency”, as it was known then, meant that developing countries are to follow the same path as more developed countries. “Stage-ism” later became controversial and was contested partly because it was realised that the industrial countries were not willing to assist the developing states in living through those stages. “Stage-ism” was a relation of dependency in which developing countries would export raw-materials which would be processed in industrial countries and the finished products would then be brought back to developing countries.The 1960s saw various efforts to change the theory, in particular in Latin America through the Economic Commission of the Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and this led to the theory of Import Substitution Industrialisation, (ISI). According to this, instead of exporting raw materials, developing countries will finish the products and send them out in exchange for foreign currency. This was, to some extent, adopted in a few African countries. But there were some problems with this approach and one of these is that in Latin American

188 Conclusion

countries, the elites who were involved in the production would export the foreign exchange. Consequently, the gain was offset because the money was not kept in the country. However, what is important is that this constituted an attempt by developing countries to ensure that they were not stuck in a perpetual dependency arrangement with the developed countries. Another theory was based on basic needs.This means that countries must satisfy the basic needs of their populations, a principle related to the MDG agenda. This led to the PRP regime (Poverty Reduction Program) produced under the agenda of the World Bank and the IMF which served as a condition for unlocking aid. These theories later gave way to national-owned development strategies, some of which took on the PRP agenda, but others discussed wealth creation, industrialisation, structural transformation, and infrastructural development. These did not curry favour with donors who were more interested in supporting residual reduction in poverty, not in Africa’s vision of industrialisation. Besides nationally held strategies, there were also continental strategies such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063, adopted during President Zuma’s tenure and is a strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent with specific goals. For national, regional development in wealth creation, agriculture, and other parts of the Pan African agenda. The Agenda 2063 links the MDGs and the national development plans. So, the voice is asserting itself at the national level as well as continentally in relation to the global context. The asserting of Africa’s Voice should not to be interpreted as Africa’s rejection of external idea. It is rather a situation in which African voice has been amplified even in its engagement with the global context. Since the continent does not exist independently from the world, it has acted like an outsider keen to learn from the rest of the world. The frequency of Africans visiting China for example reflects the extent of Africa’s outward looking tendencies. Indeed, the desire to adopt and adapt speaks to a certain type of pragmatism which calls into question the issue of ideological binary opposition between the Western-led development, which is neo-liberal initiative, and African-led development which is, often called “communitarian”. Beyond “Voice”, Africa’s ability to break out of the essentialist Orientalist tropes of “object of development” into the re-invention of the notion of progress has now made the continent an Agent. As the South Korean scholar, Ha-Joon Chang, has noted in “Kicking Away the Ladder”, developing countries no longer need to use the same avenues as the industrialised North to develop. Having used cheap labour with slavery and military force and religion, to subdue the local communities, former colonial power exploited labour, and took natural resources of other countries but developing countries do not have these privileges. Having to some degree acquired voice, Africa is moving ahead to ensure that the voice is a stimulating agency, with strings of transnational projects and greater collaborations. It can be said that Africa is leap-frogging and finding non-linear pathways to progress and sharing these with the world. For example, the abovementioned experiment on the MPESA, an innovation developed in Kenya, has won global acclaim and has, in fact been transferred to European countries, especially

Conclusion  189

Romania. It has become one of the biggest and most high-valued applications in the market that has been developed. In a country like Kenya, where about 80% of earnings are not included in the formal economy, the MPESA initiative has provided the opportunity to address the deficit in financial inclusion. Also important is the issue of Energy. Some of the energy solutions at the household level are being developed in Africa for the African market, including solar powered lamps, panels for charging mobile phones with some being able to power small fridges, TV, or radio. Kenya is now increasing to 70% the amount of energy it produces through renewable resources. So a big shift from fossil fuel to renewable resources is also manifesting itself in Africa to a larger extent than in Europe and North America. Even though the continent is only responsible for 3% of global warming, it is already leap-frogging in the transitioning to renewable sources. Having considered issues associated with Voice, it is necessary to examine and identify the impediments to the continued rise of Africa. Indeed, in all the areas where there is remarkable progress there are also challenges that can impede this voice. The areas of significant improvement still have also causes for concern. For example, in economy, the feeling of euphoria, though inevitable, should not be allowed to obscure many issues of concern. While some countries are making considerable progress, others are still struggling and the bulk of their population still living below poverty line.The increase in the High Network Individuals should not obliterate this reality. A major issue still is the number of on-going conflicts. While the number of major civil wars has gone down, conflicts remain in places like South Sudan, Burundi, Central African Republic, and a few others. These conflicts continue to weaken structures and impede socio-economic and political development. However, by far the most threatening conflicts are the activities of religious radical groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, and the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The challenges posed by these groups have been amplified by the failure of governments in the affected states to address them. The groups’ links with global radical groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda make their challenges even more difficult to address. Until the problems emanating from religious radicalisation and political violence are addressed, Africa’s voice will continue to be impeded. The quality of leadership in the continent also deserves mentioning. While individuals of younger generations are acceding to leadership in several African countries, many countries are still being led by older generations that have occupied the corridors of power since independence. Indeed, as shown in the table below, as of 2017, 20 African leaders are above the age of 70. While the experience these individuals bring to office cannot be underestimated, there are also grounds for concerns regarding their mental and physical ability to meet their responsibilities. The Table 1 shows the age and length of tenure of some African leaders. Other issues affecting the future of Africa’s voice include the only one that is external and relates to the implications of increasingly inward-looking tendencies of key nations. These are exemplified by the election of Donald Trump as the American President and the British exit of the European Union.While most African

190 Conclusion TABLE 1:  African Presidents and their ages as at 2017

S/N

Name

Country

Age

Year of assumption of Office

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Isaias Afwerki Ismail Omar Guellel Ibrahim Boubacar Keita Omar Bashir Pakalitha Mosisii Yoweri Museveni Akufo Addo Denis Saao Ngueso Mohammadu Buhari Jacob Zuma Alassane Ouattara Jose Eduardo dos Santos Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo Hage Geingob Peter Mutharika Alpha Conde Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Abdelaziz Bouteflika Paul Biya Beji Caid Essebsi

Eritrea Djibouti Mali Sudan Lesotho Uganda Ghana Congo Nigeria South Africa Cote d’Ivoire Angola Equatorial Guinea Namibia Malawi Guinea Liberia Algeria Cameroon Tunisia

71 71 72 73 73 73 73 74 74 75 75 75 75 76 77 79 79 80 84 91

1993 1999 2013 1989 Left office 1986 2017 1997 2015 2009 2010 1979 1979 2015 2014 2010 2006 1999 1982 2014

countries may not have wanted either of these developments to have occurred, they now realise that they must prepare for the consequences of both. Both could still, however, turn out to have unintended advantages for Africa, especially if they urge the continent to become also inward looking. This now leads to the next question: how Africa can ensure that its “Voice” continues to be heard. First, the continent needs to recognise the weakness of institutions and the need to rebuild them. Indeed, while my objective in this book is to dismiss the option of Afro-Pessimism, it should openly be admitted that African institutions are weak. Indeed, there are very few institutions across Africa around which sustained and credible structures can be built. Institutions on the continent are either completely weak or selectively efficient. The implications of this can be seen in everything. Consequently, the first step that should be taken is to ensure that the institutions are strong and credible. There is the need to repudiate cultural principles that are antithetical to development. Questions and inquiries should be encouraged; orthodoxies should be challenged; unhealthy conventions should be rejected; useful dissensions should be encouraged; critical thinking should be prioritised; and innovative and path-breaking ideas, especially in youths, should be commended. Africa and Africans should understand that change must come, and certain old practices just have to go. Hiding under cultural practices to avoid doing practical things that can advance the continent is downright unreasonable.

Conclusion  191

Also, for the “Voice” of the continent to be heard, the mortgaging of its resources has to stop. Across the continent, foreign countries and multinational corporations are acquiring huge expanses of land under arrangements whose awkwardness is visible to the blind. As all Africans know, land is undoubtedly the most important natural resource in the continent. Its importance transcends economics into a breadth of social, spiritual, and political significance. Among other things, land is considered as the place of “birth” and the place where ancestors are laid to “rest”; the place which the “creator” has designated to be passed down to successive generations, and the final “resting place” for every child born on its surface. Consequently, every society in Africa sees land as a natural resource that is held in trust for future generations, and the sacredness of this trust should be paramount in the minds of those negotiating the future of Africa’s land. Indeed, in Africa, people don’t fight over diamonds or gold, not even oil. Rather they fight over the land that accommodates these resources. Indeed, in my research into natural resource conflicts in Africa, I have not come across any case where resources like diamonds, gold, or oil have caused conflicts; the publicity these resources have had in the security calculus is mainly due to their connections with the prolongation of conflicts – not as their causes. The issue has always been on land. Therefore, leasing out the land has wider ramifications. In a callous world where multinational corporations and countries bargain with most minimal conscience, African leaders should realise the saying that, in life, you don’t get what you deserve; rather, you get what they negotiate; and that you should always be careful over what you bring to the negotiation table. This now leads to a broader discussion on the place of natural resources in the politics of Africa’s voice. No doubt, Africa is a continent rich in natural resources but poor in governance. It is this poverty in governance that explains many conflicts over natural resources in Africa. Interestingly, research has shown that there is no direct correlation between natural resources and conflict beyond the structures, processes and actors associated with the management and control of these resources. For example, while diamonds were at the centre of conflict in Sierra Leone, the same resource has been responsible for Botswana’s phenomenal economic growth; the gold that has thrown the Democratic of Congo into chaos, is the one enabling South Africa to laugh all the way to the bank. In short, as I have argued elsewhere, the impact of natural resources on the security calculus is mainly a function of the laws and practices guiding the exploitation and management of these resources and not the circumstances of their mere physical presence. Africa thus needs to get the management right. It must also be publicly admitted that corruption is still a major problem and one that can undermine the effectiveness of the African voice. Although efforts are being made to put structures in place, public office holders are still using existing legal loopholes to escape conviction. Until corruption is curbed, the voice of the continent will continue to be stifled. On the politics of knowledge, as much as African academics are struggling to ascertain themselves, the odds against them continue to be enormous. In several ways,

192 Conclusion

the politics surrounding the production of knowledge also has imbibed in it subtle efforts to stifle Africa’s voice. First, due mainly to lack of fund for research, African institutions have found themselves succumbing to research agenda designed from outside of the continent. The desire to have access to major funding opportunities have meant that African institutions have had to toe the lines of research agendas that fit more into the objectives of outsiders than the continent, especially as those funding bodies are not known to have consulted the continent in the framing of their research objectives. They are thus being forced by the desire for donor money to compromise their research. Often, Africans are not writing what is relevant to their development but rather what donors want them to write. Second, African scholars, especially upcoming ones, are being confronted with the inappropriate tasks of seeking validation and endorsements from non-African publishing outlets, many of them are forced to seek outlets for their works from key journals and publishing outfits that are under the control of those who have constituted themselves as the custodians of the discipline. Apart from access, they also seek endorsements of foreign experts through reviews of their books and articles.The problem here has not been helped by the policy of some African universities requiring that a certain percentage of publications of University academics should be in foreign journals and publishing outfits. While this policy was originally conceived ensure quality control, it can also be an implicit endorsement of the assertion that excellence is domiciled in those places where accreditations are sought. It may also result in the situation that only views that suit certain agenda or have been vetted by some who may consider themselves as the custodian and gatekeepers of the discipline only get published. The only way to get out of these problems is for Africa to be ready to fund its own development. In the next few decades, six issues will define Africa’s place in the world. These are: the demographic considerations and the benefits Africa can lose or derive from it; the complications that can come from the challenges of climate change; the politics of agricultural, manufacturing, and technological production; the problem of social exclusion, especially as it ties to the issue of youth vulnerability and exclusion; the challenges associated with the ownership, management and control of natural resources; and the complexities connected with identity, especially ethnic and religious identities. All these offer opportunities and challenges. But in all these, Africa should take over the process of controlling its own narratives. Dogmatic acceptance of narratives from outside is not only banal and devoid of any logical thinking but wrong and potentially very harmful. African Universities should stop assuming that excellence is defined by domicile outside the continent. Indigenous erudition must be encouraged and teaching and research must be seriously revamped.

Note 1 Alex de Waal, “The African Union and the Libya Conflict of 2011” (Reinventing Peace: World Peace Foundation, December 19, 2012).

INDEX

Abacha, Sani 36, 160, 169, 180n3 Abdulmultalab Umar 40 Abdulraheem, Tajudeen 59 Abiola, Moshood 27 ACCESS Bank 86 Achebe, Chinua 11, 31, 57 Addo, Akufo 132, 162, 190 Adeboye, Enoch 143, 152 Adedeji, Adebayo 48–9, 64n3, n5–7, 65n10–11 Adelaja, Sunday 152 Adeosun, Kemi 118 Adiche, Chimamanda 57 Adowa, Battle of 10, 59 African Association of Political Science (AAPS) 59 African Development Bank 65n23, 70, 79, 80–1, 83–4, 92, 163 African Peer Review Mechanism 102 African Security Sector Network (ASSN) 110 African Union (A.U) 12, 27, 42n2, 53–4, 63, 66n42–43, n46, 81, 87, 91, 102–3, 108, 110, 113–14, 119, 122, 186, 188, 192n1 Afropolitans 12 Afwerki, Isaias 190 Ahmadu Bello University 58 Ahmed Kathrada 4 Aidoo, Ama Ata 57 Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo: 147 Ajayi, Jacob Ade xii, 8, 42n15 Ake, Claude 39, 44n46, 58, 65n31 Akhannouch, Salwa 93

Akinsanya, Adeolu 128 Al Qaeda 111 Al Tadamun 145 Alabi, Solomon 136 Alakija, Folorunsho 93 Albania 81 Alemu, Bethlehem 93 Algeria 3, 60, 65n29, 71, 80, 95n33, 103, 124n21, 125, 127–8, 135, 176, 190 Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin 147 Alpha Lavalie, Elizabeth 117 Al-Qalam University, Katsina 147 Amhara Credit and Saving Initiatives 90 Amin, idi 36, 97 Amokachi, Daniel 134 Anchor University 147 Anglican Church 147 Angola 6, 23, 31, 34, 46, 52, 61, 65n20, 71, 86–7, 89, 93, 102–3, 118, 127, 135, 163, 166, 168, 175, 183, 190 Annan, Kofi 57–8 Ansar Dine 111 Ansar ud Deen Society of Nigeria 147 Apostolic Faith Mission 147 Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) 54 Arab Spring xii, 13, 21n49, 104–6, 164 Aruna, Quadri 136 Ashafa, Mohammed 151 Assar, Omar 136 Assembly of God Church 147 Augustine University 147 Ayana, Almaz 135 Ayew, Abedi 134

194 Index

Ayite, Maureen 136 Azubuike, Kerema 136 Babayaro, Celestine 134 Babcock University 147 Bakambu, Cedric 135 Bakare, Tunde 143, 149 Baker, Ginger 9 Banda, Joyce 100, 117–18 Banda, Kamuzu 35, 44n37, 100, 105 Baradei, El 58 Barclays Bank 46, 79 Bashir, Omar 106, 190 Basi, Ituen 136 Battuta, Ibn 2 Belgium 24, 29, 78, 135 Benin City 9, 24, 140n1 Benin Republic 23, 28, 39, 100, 103, 124n21, 127, 136 Berg Report 48 Bibliotheque Nationale 29 Bingham 147 Biobaku, Saburi 8, 20n21 Bishop Benson Idahosa Ministry 147 Biya, Paul 103, 190 Boateng, Emmanuel 135 Boateng, Jerome 135 Bokassa, Jean Bedel 35, 37 Boko Haram 60, 109–12, 114, 117, 124n18, 154, 165, 189 Bol, Manute 136 Boli, Kevin 135 Boni-Yayi, Thomas 100 Botswana 4, 71, 80, 99, 103, 108, 113, 119, 191 Boumal, Christian 135 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz 190 Boutrous, Boutrous Ghali 57 Bowen University 147 Brazil 12, 49–50, 73, 135, 158, 165 Britain x, 10, 30, 55, 136, 152–3, 159–60, 164–5 Buhari, Mohammadu 78, 95n28, 100, 114, 116, 190 Burkina Faso 37, 42n15, 86, 98, 103, 113–15, 130–2, 135, 168 Burundi 13, 40, 86–7, 100, 102–3, 111, 118, 122, 134, 150, 189 Buyombo, Bismark 136 Cameroon 13, 21n49, 23, 29, 37, 57, 71, 103, 113, 124n21, 126–7, 134–6, 148–9, 190 Cape Verde 42n15, 100, 102, 118–19 Caritas University Enugu 147

Carvalho, Evaristo 100 Central African Republic (CAR) 35, 37, 101–3, 111, 124n21, 155, 162, 190 Cesaire, Aime 9 Chabal, Patrick 15–16, 21n55–56, n58, 60, 66n35 Chad 37, 55, 72, 101, 103, 124n21, 148, 162, 168 Chama Chama Mapinduzi 101 Chechnya 4 Chibok 110, 117, 154 Chimurenga 59 China 7, 18, 34, 49–50, 61, 68, 70–1, 73, 84, 129–30, 132, 135, 159, 161, 165, 168–80, 181n25, n27, n31, n35–36, 182n38–41, n49, 183, 186, 188 Christ Apostolic Church 147 Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) 151 Clinton, Bill 62, 66n39, 89 Cohen, Tannoudji 58 Common Market for East and Central Africa (COMESA) 54 Commonwealth Scholarship 56 Comoros 101, 103 Conde, Alpha 190 Congo, Democratic Republic of the 7, 19n18, 23, 28, 36, 42n6, 52–3, 89, 97, 99, 102–3, 131, 135, 148–9 Congo, Republic of the 3, 23, 100–1, 104, 136, 182n48 Cote d’Ivoire 23, 47, 68, 72, 86, 100, 104, 107, 134–5, 161–2, 168, 180n7, 190 Council for the Development of Social Sciences (CODESRIA) 58 Covenant University Ota 147 Crawford University Igbesa 147 Crescent University 147 Cuba 12, 34, 61 Daloz, Jean Pascal 15, 21n56, 60, 66n35 Damas, Leon 9 Damascus, Stella 129 Dangote, Aliko 55, 186 David Oyedepo 113, 149–50 Davidson, Basil 11 De Gaulle, Charles 35 Deeper Christian Life Ministry 145, 150 Deng, Luol 136 D’Estaing,Valery 35 Días Diogo, Luísa 118 Dike, Kenneth 8, 20n19 Diop, Cheikh Anta 8, 20n20 Diop, De Sagara 136 Djaló Nandigna, Adiatu 118

Index  195

Djibouti 101, 104, 118, 190 Do Santos, Jose Eduardo 93, 127, 190 Doe, Samuel 53, 107 Dowden, Richard 21, 43n17 Drogba, Didier 134 Duignan, Peter 24, 42n9 Ebenezer Obey 128 Ebi, Ndudi 136 ECOBANK 85–6 Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) 59, 64n5, 68, 70, 87 Economic Community of Central African States (ECSA) 54 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) xi, 47, 53, 85, 101, 104, 107–8, 116, 122–3n9 ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF) 54 ECOWAS Observer Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) 104, 123n13 ECWA Church 147 Egypt xi, 9, 11, 20n24, 21n49, 42n15, 45, 55, 57–8, 65n29, 71–2, 85, 89, 104, 115, 127, 130–1, 135–6, 160–1, 164–5, 181n18, n20, 186 Ekeh, Peter 32, 43n31, 60, 66n37 Ekeinde, Omotola 129 Emecheta, Buchi 57 Equatorial Guinea 23, 101, 104, 168, 190 Equity Bank of Kenya 90 Eritrea 104, 165, 190 Essebsi, Beji Caid 190 Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) 106 Ethiopia 5–6, 9–10, 12, 18–19n17, 20n27, n30, n34, 27, 34, 38, 55, 59, 68, 71–2, 79, 84, 86, 90, 93, 104, 107, 110–11, 113, 124, 127, 135, 144, 148, 163–5, 181n17, n21, 186 Eto’o, Samuel 134 Evangel University, Akaeze 147 Eyenga, Christian 136 Ezeli, Festus 136 Fanon, Franz 9 Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir 146 First, Ruth 4 Foccart, Jacques 35 Ford Foundation 92 Foucault, Michel 16–17, 21n63 Fountain University, Oshogbo 147 Foursquare Christian Church 147 France 14, 29, 35, 47, 51, 64n2, 126, 128, 130, 135, 160–2, 164–5, 180n7, 181n9, n12, n22

Gabon 23, 71, 104, 163 Gacaca 62–3 Gaddafi, Muammer 106, 111, 160, 164 Gambia 23, 37, 89, 100, 104, 113, 117–19, 123n9, 186 Gann, Lewis 24 Gates, Bill 89 Gbowee, Leymah 58, 119, 121 Geingob, Hage 190 Ghana 19n14, 23, 37, 42n15, 57–8, 64n7, 68, 71–2, 78–9, 86, 95n29, 99, 104, 114, 116, 124n21, n25, 127, 131–2, 134–6, 140n11, 151, 157n11–12, 162–3, 168, 180–1n23, 190 Ghazal, Ali 135 Global Witness 52 Goodluck Jonathan 100, 149 Gordon, George Charles 10 Great Lake Region 6 Greece 6 Greek 4 Guellel, Ismail Omar 190 Guinea 23, 37, 82, 104, 107, 134–5, 175, 190 Guinea-Bissau 23, 54, 104, 107, 117–18, 168 Gulf of Guinea 51, 65 Gurib-Fakim, Ameenah 117 Hampate Ba, Amadou 8, 20n20, 57 Haroche, Sarge 58 Hindu 19n14 Howard University 139 Ibadan School of History 8, 20n21 Ibaka, Serge 136 Ibrahim, Ali 127 Ibrahim, Jibrin 58 Ibrahim, Mo 55 Idahosa, Benson, Archbishop 147 Igbo-Ukwu 29 Iguodala, Andre 136 Ikeduru, Okey 85 Ikpeba,Victor 134 Imam Shafi ’i Foundation 145 India 2, 6–7, 11, 18n2, 42n16, 46, 50, 68, 70, 74, 81, 128–9, 137–8, 158, 161, 165–8, 175, 177–9, 181n22–23 Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) 54, 110–11, 122 International Monetary Fund 33 Isibo, Teta 136 Islamic Mission for Africa 147 Islamic Society of Nigeria (ISN) 151 Italy 27

196 Index

Jackson, John 11 Jammeh,Yahya 10, 101, 104, 117 Jews 4 Johnson-Sirleaf, Ellen 58, 100, 117–19, 190 Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji 147 Joshua, Anthony 40, 135 Joshua, T.B. 143, 145, 150 Kabila, Joseph 99, 149 Kagame, Paul 101, 104, 185 Kaïdama Sidibé,Cissé Mariam 118 Kanu, Nwakwo 134 Karago, Sally 136 Keita, Ibrahim Boubacar 190 Kenya 2–3, 20n27, 30, 39, 42n15, 43n26–27, 44n41, 55, 57–8, 63, 66n40, 68–72, 81, 83–4, 86, 89–90, 92–3, 96n51, 102, 104, 107–9, 111, 115, 121, 124n21, 127, 131–7, 148, 156n4, 160, 163, 186, 188–9 Kenyan Women Finance Trust (KWFT) 92–3 Kenya-Ugandan Railway 3 Kerekou, Matthew 100, 103 Kimathi, Dedan 39, 59 Kimberley Process 90 King, Martin Luther 26 Kings University 147 Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) 147, 152 Kinigi, Sylvie 117–18 Kuti, Fela 126, 128, 140n2 Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, Saara 118 Kuwait 107, 146 Lagos Plan of Action 48, 64n6 Lake Albert 6 Lake Edward 6 Lake Kivu 6 Lake Malawi 6 Lake Tanganyika 6 Lake Turkana 6 Lake Victoria 6, 38 Lalibela 9, 138 Landmark University, Omu-Aran 147 Lashin, El-Sayed 136 Lawal, Gani 136 Laye, Camara 57 Leon, Damas 9 Leopold, King 29, 43n23 Lesotho 100, 105, 108, 119, 124n15, 190 Levitt, Michael 58

Liberia 7, 23, 27, 37, 52–4, 58, 62, 65n22, 98, 100, 102, 105, 107–8, 110, 115, 117–19, 121, 123n2, n14, 124n21, 129, 134, 139–40, 145, 149, 151, 183, 190 Libya xi–xii, 2, 105, 111, 115, 164, 180n5, 186–7, 192n1 Lilesa, Feyisa 135 Lint Company Zambia 77 Lord Resistance Army 112 Lumumba, Patrice 30, 35 Maathai, Wangari 52, 58, 119 Mabudere, Dani 58 Machar, Riek 110–11 Machel, Graca 42n15, 62 Madagascar 23, 100, 105, 118 Madior Boye, Mame 118 Madonna University, Okija 147 Makeba, Miriam 42n15, 126, 128 Makuch, Jilliana 57 Malawi 6, 35, 44n37, 81, 100, 117–18, 124n21, 126, 148, 190 Mali 9–10, 37, 39, 60, 75, 81, 86, 95n17, 105, 113, 118, 124n21, 126–7, 162, 168, 190 Mama, Amina 63 Mamdani, Mamood 21n48, 32, 43n32 Mammeri, Mouloud 57 Mandela, Nelson 42n15, 57–8, 61–2, 106, 185 Manorohanta, Cécile 118 Masiyiwa, Strive 55 Matisse, Henri 10 Mau Mau 30, 39, 43n26 Mauritania 37, 82, 105, 119, 122, 124n21, Mauritius 99, 105, 117–18 Mazrui, Ali 18n1, 42n15, 57 Mbasago, Obiang 101, 104, 190 Mbeki, Thabo 22, 42n3–5, 185–6 Mcpherson University 147 Menelik, Emperor 59 Methodist Church 147 Mikel Obi, John 135 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 16, 188 Millennium Development Goals 8 Mombasa 3, 9 Morocco xi, 9, 28, 68, 72, 84, 93, 105, 122, 124n21, n34, 126, 130–1, 133–4 Mosepe, Patrice 55 Mosisii, Pakalitha 190 Mountain of Fire and Miracle 147 Mountain Top University 147

Index  197

Mozambique 6, 23, 28, 31, 34, 42n15, 43n19, 46, 61, 71–2, 94n10, n12, 105, 118–19, 123n5, 127, 130, 161, 163, 166, 183 M-PESA 81–2, 132 Mugabe, Robert 101–2, 106, 120, 149, 173, 177, 187 Museveni,Yoweri 58, 101, 106, 190 Muslim Brotherhood 145 Mustapha, Raufu 58 Mutombo, Dikembe 136 N’Dong, Boniface 136 Nairobi 2, 82, 84–6, 95n24, 110, 131 Namibia 3, 29, 43n24–25, 46, 61, 99, 105, 119, 127, 190 Nando Rafael 135 Nash, Steve 136 Nasrul-Lahi-Il-Fatih Society (NASFAT) 147 Ndebele 29, 59 Ndhukula, Divine 93 Neolithic Revolution 9, 20n24 Network of African National Human Right Institutions (NAHRI) 113 Nguema, Dennis 100–1, 190 Ngueso, Denis 190 Ngugi, James 57 Niger Delta 8, 20n19, 23, 78, 90, 169 Niger Republic 101, 105, 124n21 Nigeria 6, 8–9, 12, 16, 19n6, 20n21, 21n50, 23, 27–8, 30–1, 36–7, 40, 42, 44n44, 46–7, 50–1, 53–8, 60–3, 64n1–2, n5, 65n10, n30, 66n33, 68, 70–2, 77–8, 81, 84, 86, 88–9, 91, 93–94n7, 95n37, n42, 99–100, 105, 107, 109–10, 112–14, 116, 118–20, 124n18, n21, n26, 125–31, 134–9, 141n23, 143, 145, 147–53, 155, 157n8, 160–1, 164–71, 175, 177–9, 180n2–3, 181n16, n19, n22, n26, 186, 190 Nigerian Baptist Convention 147 Nikiema, Abdoul 135 Nkrumah, Kwame 35, 42n15, 44n40 Nkurunziza, Pierre 103, 111 Nok 29 Nyerere, Julius 9, 122 Obama, Barack 159, 162–3, 181n14 Obama, Michelle 136 Obasanjo, Olusegun 114, 149, 168–9, 176, 178, 186 Odinkalu, Chidi 113–14, 124n12, n22 Odua Peoples’ Congress 109

Odumakin, Joe Okei 63, 115 Odunlade, Kola 129 Ogaden Region 34 Ogunlesi, Adebayo 55 Ohsan-Bellepeau, Monique Agnès 117 Okafor, Emeka 136 Okocha, Jay Jay 134 Okonjo-Iweala, Ngozi 95, 118, 161 Okri, Ben 57 Olajuwon, Akeem 136 Olduvial Gorge 9, 20n23 Oluwo, Duro 136 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 47–8, 53–4, 58, 64n7, 98, 112, 122 Otieno, Gladwell 63, 115 Otieno, Silvano 63 Otieno, Wambui 63 Ouattara, Alassane 100, 191 Oyakhilome, Chris 143 Oyewumi, Oyeronke 44n45, 63 Pereire, Carmen 117 Perry, Ruth 117 Picasso, Pablo 10 Poland 78, 128 Queen Idia 9 Ramaphosa, Cyril 79, 157n10 Redeemed Christian Church of God 147 Redeemer’s University, Mowe 147 Renaissance University, Enugu 147 Rev Prof John Bosco Akam Ministry 147 Revolutionary United Front 107 Rhema Church 147 Rhema University, Obeama-Asa - Rivers State 147 Rhodes 12, 56 Rhodesia 3, 6, 11, 31, 46, 61, 65n29, 166 Rionge, Njeri 93 Rockefeller Foundation 56 Rodney, Walter 58 Romania 81, 189 Roper, Hugh Trevor 5, 19n10 Russia 34, 49–50, 73, 158, 175–6, 182n42 Rwanda 7, 18, 19n18, 29, 40–1, 62, 68, 71, 76, 87–9, 95n20–21, 101, 105, 108, 118, 121, 124n16, n21, 127, 130, 133, 136, 145, 148, 164, 183 Saadawi, Nawal 57 Sahara Desert 98 Salem International Christian Centre 147 Salem University, Lokoja 147

198 Index

Samb, Cheick 136 Samba-Panza, Catherine 117 Sambo, Sibongile 93 Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa 147 Sankara, Thomas 98, 103, 123n2, n6 Sankore 9 Sao Tome and Principe 100, 105, 118 Sarkozy, Nicholas 19n10, 22, 42n2, n4, 161, 186 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) 14 Sena, Mohammed 136 Senegal 6, 20n36, 21n48, 23, 28, 37, 58, 68, 81–2, 100, 105–6, 118–19, 124n21, 125–6, 128, 132–5, 144, 161, 168, 181n8 Senghor, Leopold 9–10, 57 Sese Seko, Mobutu 30, 36, 97 Seventh Day Adventist 147 Seychelles 105, 116, 118–19 Shagaya, Bola 93 Shivji, Issa 58, 65n31 Shona 28, 59 Short, Clare 41 Sierra Leone 7, 23, 28, 37, 52–3, 62, 65n19, 89–90, 96n48, 97, 101–2, 107, 110, 115–16, 118, 124n21, 129, 139, 148, 151, 156n1, 183, 191 Slovo, Joe 4 Somalia 4, 6, 34, 57, 100, 106–7, 145–6, 148, 154, 189 Song, Rigobert 134 South Africa 2–4, 12, 19n14, 21n49, 22, 30–1, 34, 41–2n3, n5, n13, n15, 46, 50, 55, 57–8, 61–2, 65n29, 66n38, 68–9, 71–2, 77–9, 81, 83–5, 87, 89, 93, 99, 105–6, 108, 110, 114, 118–19, 124n15, n21, n27, 126–8, 132–6, 138, 140n4, 143, 149, 151, 155, 156n2, 160–1, 164, 166, 168, 177, 180n2, 181n23, 182n47–48, 186, 190–1 South Sudan 2, 7, 106, 109–11, 136, 148, 189 Southern African Development Community (SADC) 54, 108, 122, 124n5, 187 Sow, Pape 136 Soyinka, Wole 19n6, 57, 65n29, 185–6 Standard Bank 1, 71, 79, 83 Sudan 6, 9–10, 20n24, 40, 86, 106, 110–11, 121, 124n21, 131, 136, 168, 190 Sumgong, Jemima 135 Summit University 147 Sunny Ade 128 Swahili 2, 6, 9

Tansian University, Umunya 147 Tanzania 3, 9, 53, 58, 65n31, 69, 74–5, 81, 84, 86, 95n16, 99, 101, 106, 118–19, 130, 132–3, 136, 148, 163–4 Taylor, Charles 53 Thabet, Hasheen 136 The Apostolic Church 147 Timbuktu 9, 20n31 Tlale, David 136 Togo 23, 85–6, 99, 106, 124n21, 151, 161 Toriola, Segun 136 Touré, Aminata 118 Toure, Kolo 134 Toure,Yaya 134 Ttali, Miriam 57 Tunisia 81, 106, 115, 124n21, 126–7, 130, 135, 137, 190 Tutu, Desmond 65n29, 115, 151 Udoh, Ekpe 136 Uganda 3, 21n49, 30, 36, 57–8, 68, 72, 76–7, 85, 88, 95n24, 97, 101, 106–7, 111–12, 114, 118–19, 123, 124n21, 127, 144, 148, 190 Ultra-High-Net-Worth-Individuals (UHNWI) 84 UNDP 92, 96n50, 130 United Nations 2, 7, 41, 52, 58, 70–1, 92, 94n8, 97, 111–13, 165 United States of America 12, 41, 51, 56–8, 60, 73, 91, 118, 129, 139, 141n22, 145, 147, 152–3, 158–9, 162, 165, 179 University of Ibadan xii, 8 University of Tanzania 8 Uwilingiyimana, Agathe 118 Veritas University 147 Weah, George 100, 134, 149 Wesley University of Science & Technology, Ondo 147 Winners Church 143, 147, 149–50 Wiwa, Ken Saro 52, 162 Women in Nigeria (WIN) 63 World Bank 33, 43n33, 48, 59, 64n7, 70–1, 75, 79, 81, 83–4, 94n10, n12–13, 95n17, n20, n25–26, 181n28, 188 Wuye, James 151 Yacine, Kateb 57 Yar’Adua, Umaru 90 Yemen 2, 4

Index  199

Zam Zam Foundation 145 Zambia 77, 95n25–26, 106, 124n21, 186 Zanzibar 3, 9, 101, 112, 130 Zewani, Ahmed 58 Zimbabwe Ruins 9

Zimbabwe 3, 6, 9, 11, 20n29, 28, 46, 59, 61, 65n29, 71, 89, 93, 101–2, 106, 118, 148–9, 158, 160, 166, 171–7, 180n4, 181n27–32, n34–37, 182n38, n40, n43, n45, n48, 187 Zuma, Jacob 119, 188, 190

http://taylorandfrancis.com