Africa's Quagmire

Africa just had another Africa Day.

For many years now, Africans have relished our victimhood-- with many eloquent griots stepping forward to recount our depressing history. Whenever the occasion demands, there are African apologists, who eloquently explain our enslavement and colonization and continued oppression at the hands of other races.

Almost invariably, these accounts include Nkrumah's valiant but doomed attempt to forge a United States of Africa which was foiled by imperialist and neocolonial forces acting through their African lackeys! This is invariably followed by our half-century of struggle and how we have been stymied at every turn by evil Western powers determined to keep us in bondage. In recent times, two of the most outspoken apologists for Africa's failures have been former A.U. Commission Ambassador Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao and lawyer P.L.O. Lumumba. While their advocacy has been admirable, it has been sometimes untethered to facts.

To begin with, Nkrumah's crusade for a United States of Africa, while inspiring, was not practical. To unite a land mass three times the size of the United States with two thousand languages and over a thousand tribes was just not realistic-- and we should stop villifying those who stood against this for pragmatic reasons. Besides, history has vindicated those who saw a United States of Africa as a mirage.

Since then, with the sweep of independence across Africa, we have witnessed the breakup of some countries, including Ethiopia and Sudan and secessionists wars in many more, including Nigeria and Cameroon and Angola. Indeed, this has not just been an African problem. We have seen the splintering of nations like the former USSR and in the Balkans. And even in the European Union which has repeatedly been help up to us, Britain has just "brexited". Thus, it seems that the march of history has tended to vindicate centrifugal nationalistic trends.

Putting aside our failure to unite, we have, albeit with some assistance from the West, done a lot to harm ourselves.

When we have 60% of the world's arable land and we spend 35 billion USD a year projected to reach 110 billion USD a year in 2025 importing food while our youth perish by the thousands every year in the sands of the Sahara and the Mediterranean sea in their quest for greener pastures, it is on us.

When half of the around 10 million who graduate from our Universities every year cannot find jobs, that is on us.

When 1 in 5 African countries cannot raise enough revenue for state functions, that is on us.

When we spend scarce national resources on white elephants like the Yammosoukorou Cathedral, the Gbadolite Palace and on-going National Cathedral in Accra, even while our children lack classrooms and libraries, that is on us.

If, as the covid 19 pandemic rages, there are barely 2000 ventilators outside South Africa on our continent and most of our governments have more V8 vehicles that ventilators-- that is on us.

Even the theme of the 2020 Africa Day, "Silencing the guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa's development " is a silent indictment of our ambitions and vision. The 800,000 Rwandans, as well as the millions who have perished in our civil wars were killed by other Africans. And even if the weapons were supplied by others, it is on us.

In a Communique issued to the nations of the world , the first Pan-African Congress declared in 1900 that "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line". A few days ago, former South African President Thabo Mbeki said, "In the 21st Century, the problem of the colour line still exists".

This line exists, in large part, because of us. Only the black man will build Africa. Others may help but no outsiders will do for us what we must do for ourselves.

Nkrumah had three other ambitions.

He was determined for us to show the world that "the black man is capable of managing his own affairs."

On this, we have failed miserably. Even as we decry the old imperialism of the West, we are happily collaborating in the building of a new, Chinese imperialism from the East. Our leaders are more inclined to show up to China in response Xi Jinping's summons than to attend O.A.U. meetings here on the continent. We are busy piling up debts for future generations to pay. As President Kagame asked, "When there is a problem in Africa, why do we have to be summoned by some external power to discuss it?"

The second commitment of Nkrumah was the addition of value to our raw materials through industrialization. To this end, he built a dam to power our industries and local industries in many spheres of the economy. Today, most of those industries have been auctioned off or decommissioned under the misguided advice of the World Bank and/or IMF.

Many indigenous businesses that could have been global behemoths now have been killed off by African regimes for ideological, ethnic or personal reasons.

Third, Nkrumah truly believed in excellence and in the indispensable role of the African diaspora in our development. He believed there was no difference between Africans born in Kingston in Jamaica, Kenyasi in Ghana or Kalamazoo in the United States. In his heart, he internalized the African proverb, "No matter how long a log stays in water, it will never become a crocodile ". He therefore wanted the best Africans to join hands in transforming Africa.

We should, as the Africa Development Bank suggests, light up, feed , Industrialize and integrate Africa with the ultimate goal of improving the life of Africans-- from Cape to Cairo.

There was a time when we could invoke the excuse that we needed time. That excuse has been removed by China's lifting of over 600 million people out of poverty in the last forty years and transformations witnessed in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. There is no excuse for our backwardness anymore.

We have, as Pogo said, seen the enemy and he is us.

But as Obama said, "We are the men we have been waiting for"

Let us build Africa-- together.

Happy Africa Day.

Arthur Kobina Kennedy

(26th May, 2020)