Africa 2008: Citizens, Money and Power in Africa

There are many big questions that should inform African conversations but regrettably we are all guilty of small talk in respect of some key and fundamental issues that have to be addressed if Africa is to advance its cause.
The role of citizens, money and power relationships in shaping Africa’s destiny have to form part of the great debates between and amongst us.
Who does Africa belong to? What are the obligations of African citizenship? What should be the role of the state in a developmental state? These are some of the questions that come to my mind in the quietness of my time when occassionally I reflect on the African condition and the seemingly helpless state of affairs that my continent of birth finds itsef in.
After more than fifty years of trying and US$600 billion worth of aid, the frontiers of poverty have not been reduced in the continent. Even those who argue that Africa should be fundamentally an exclusive home for blacks would agree that without the flow of aid funds, the ability of Africa to address its developmental challenges would be severely limited.
In many African conversations, a proposition is often made that development aid is not necessarily good for Africa. This proposition is frequently premised on the allegation that aid distorts the development choices of Africa and is often used to undermine African sovereignty.
We have seen many countries trying to assert their sovereignty notwithstanding their reliance on development assistance from external sources.
One of the key arguments used during the colonial era for denying blacks any civil rights was that Africans had no material interests to defend as would be required in any democratic order that is characterised by a contestation of values and interests of citizens.
The architecture of the colonial state was crafted in such a manner as to ensure that natives did not have any rights to assert in the economic market. The rule of law and property rights is only relevant if citizens have access to such rights. What is evident is that in both the colonial and post colonial states, the majority of African citizens have been denied access to the means to be free and yet in the later a notion of freedom has been accepted as being in existence.
The alienation of blacks from property rights was necessary in ensuring the exclusion of blacks in the democratic process for they had no rights to assert even if they were given the right to vote.
The post colonial state was expected to open the door for citizen engagement in civic and political affairs. It has often been said that in need freedom is latent and no person can expect to be free if he/she lives in someone’s house. Are African citizens freer today than during the colonial era? Do citizens really have a say in shaping their future?
The first address of power for blacks in a post colonial construction invariably becomes the state. Most of the people who assume state power tend to be less prepared for the jobs that they occupy to the extent that it becomes difficult for citizens to reclaim their sovereignty from career politicians who often are not prepared to relinguish power.
He who pays the piper often calls the tune. The state of the financial situation of Africa suggests that it would be naïve for Africa to deny its donors the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the beneficiary states if development assistance is the life blood of such countries. Even overgrown babies who fail to secure their own independent financial resources cannot deny their benefactors the right to lecture them on lessons of life.
At some stage it is important for us to take responsibility for our own problems. Any state should derive its legitimacy from its citizens. Without tax payers the state cannot exist and it would be naïve for non-tax payers to claim more from a state that they constructively refuse to finance. The foundational principle of any state must be a recognition that without the sweat of individual citizens there can be no democratic constitutional order.
If African citizens were responsible for financing their own national budgets, I am convinced that no dictatorship would have been allowed to exist. Many households with single bread winners behave no different from donors. How many households in Africa behave in a democratic manner?
It is true that in many African states the only vote that counts is that of the people who count the votes. Citizens are too fragmented and disorganised to make their governments accountable.
In the absence of citizen participation on governance issues, most African states invariably become laboratories for intellectuals to experiment their development theories. If ever there was a continent populated by intellectual bureaucrats one would agree that Africa is one of the best endowed and yet the fruits are missing.
In any developmental process one needs role models and people who refuse to accept things the way they are but who constructively add their voices and actions to change. The last 50 years has seen Africa fail to raise the standards of living of its people while becoming increasingly dependent on foreign tax payers.
Many of us are often angry when we see Africa’s real tax payers i.e. the donors demanding accountability on the part of seemingly sovereign African states and yet fail to locate such anger in the broader context of our collective inability to take responsibility for our inaction and impotence.
Is it reasonable for any concerned donor to seek to make African states accountable for spending their funds? Some have said that it is not reasonable because the same donors were responsible for systematically exploiting African resources during the colonial era for which no compensation has been forthcoming. Using this argument, many would argue that Africa ought to demand aid from the developed countries and such countries should not interfere with the sovereignty of the beneficiary countries.
Naturally money plays a part in nation building and yet the construction of capital is a subject that has eluded many Africans. Our relationship with money ought to be refined and interrogated.
Those who have it in Africa choose to believe that they have it because they are smart. And those who have no money believe that the rich owe them something and their poverty is a creation of the rich. The rich often are intimidated not to participate in politics or choose not to be engaged in the conversations that should define the future of the continent. Invariably their opinions are largely missing and to the extent that blacks and money are soon parted leaving whites and non-Africans holding the purse of Africa, it is the poor who have the burden of deciding who governs Africa while the rich have the luxury of being protected by the people elected by the poor.
Who then is responsible for the unacceptable African condition? Surely we must and should all take responsibility for allowing some African states to become basket cases.
We have chosen to make the responsibility of changing the African condition someone else’s and not ours. As individuals we have the money to change Africa but have chosen to create islands of affluence in the midst of an ocean of poverty. In any economic collapse it is those people with more to lose who should look at themselves and take responsibility for the loss rather than blame those who have nothing to lose.
The raw materials of African politics will remain the poor who should have the same inalienable right to decide through electoral processes who should govern them. There is no system devised by man in a democratic order that gives the rich more voting rights than the poor.
Given the alienation of the majority from the means to be free, it is not surprising that the choices that are made by many African citizens are not informed by facts. The state in most African countries invariably becomes monopolized by the wickedly wise who see in ignorance a powerful weapon for entrenching themselves in power.
Citizen participation in the political process is regarded by the powerful as treason in most African states. Many of us who call ourselves intellectuals often become the roadblocks to progress and enlightenment of the majority.
We have a tendency to blame our leaders for creating the African condition and fail to look at ourselves critically in terms of what we have failed to do in helping to define and shape the destiny of the continent.
We all may not agree on whom Africa belongs to but I believe that it is important that we begin a conversation on identity, heritage and legacy. I am conforted by the fact that in as much as I may think globally I am compelled to act locally. Nation states will naturally take longer to wither notwithstanding the pursuasive arguments of globalisation. It would be unthinkable, for instance, to have a black Chief Justice in China.
Equally, no matter how economically retarded Africans may look, it is a fact that Africans will have to take care of their problems. The law of gravity has many lessons for anyone who believes that non whites cannot be African because in the final analysis a democratic constitutional order threatens the minority and yet in Africa the majority feels perpetually threatened by the minority. How many of us have a tendency of blaming white people for our own inadequacies.
Many founding fathers of post colonial Africa have embraced the state as a super persona that can solve all problems forgeting that the state is nothing but a creation of organised citizens. The state can only function smoothly if citizens take responsibility for their actions. No development can take place in the virtual world but has to be anchored by the initiative of citizens.
I hope that in my lifetime a day will arrive when Africans in their various shapes realise that there can never be a wrong time to take ownership of their lives. In many countries, evil men and women have stolen the future of nation states to the extent that many rational and patriotic Africans were left with no choices but to join the ranks of those in the diaspora.
If Africa’s brain trust has chosen to domicile itself in the West then surely the gaps greated can only be filled by those non-Africans who see opportunity where many of us see danger. The only question is whether the monopolisation of economic opportunities by the few with limited or no role models is necessarily healthy for Africa.