Underdeveloping Africa through Corruption

This extract in two sub-headings is from the discussion: “INSINCERE POLITICS AND ETHICS INHIBITING SOCIAL/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”, (page 65 to 86). From the book “UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: My Hands Are Clean”, as was published earlier this month, (10th of November, 2010). Footnotes and images are omitted; see the book for more on the argument.

–Corruption As A Deliberate Scheme To Facilitate Exploitation–

“Whenever an argument is tabled about corruption in Africa, many people are usually enticed to jump in, flashing their numerous facts and figures on how a local politician have offered or accepted bribe; most especially in the dealings with Western businessmen. So, since the real effect of these practices is usually the lack of infrastructural development, the mass hunger and ill-enlightenment among many Africans, there is sometimes the need to look beyond just the 'corrupt practice' so we might realize what is actually sustaining the practice. In that way, people could understand how the corruption in African system is often used to facilitate the exploitation of African natural resources, while allowing few local elites to enrich themselves and lord over the larger but helpless population.

For example, it is true that corruption is prevalent in the Nigerian political system. But what is even truer is that the corruption in Nigeria is more in favour of the multinational companies, a group of extraordinary organisations who are freely reaping off the Nigerian natural resources, with little or no regard to the Nigerian people and their environment. This is the tragedy, the unholy romance between the local politicians and some foreign companies, operating on the African soil. So, just as it has remained necessary to talk about these anti-developmental practices, it is also necessary to find out how the scheme is producing 'a lose-lose result' in the social/economic development of Africa.

For the fact that some local politicians have chosen to pursue their personal interests, instead of the collective interests of their people, the multinationals companies are able to go away with enormous natural resources from the African soil. And as for the money often given to them (the local leaders) as collaborators in this scheme, it is usually taken to private bank accounts overseas, thereby leaving Africa like a dried bone. The majority of the local population has access to an amount of resources that is barely enough for them to be alive, therefore they have very little strength to resist the vicious circle. This is the consequence of corruption as a scheme to facilitate exploitation and it is also part of what prolongs the system (inevitably), in that the more the local people are handicap and unable to resist the system, the more it will prevail on them.

In case you are wondering about the alternative of corruption in African political system, it is simple. It means that the Nigerian oil will no longer be stolen and shipped across the ocean to the European and American markets, while some local conflicts are stirred up to cover the theft; that the ancient African artefacts from Benin, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Egypt will no longer make their way into Europe, because a corruption free African state will be able to checkmate its territory and safeguard its properties. It also means that each African state will manage to develop infrastructures and put their population to work, so they can feed themselves through their own labour. Don't tell me that African leaders do not know that their population will eat, even if they have not developed the capacity of local production to meet the need of the same people.

You only need to calculate how much an African state is spending annually on the importation of just food from Europe and America; then you will understand what a self-sufficient Africa will mean to the capitalist European and American economies. If we expand this argument, we will see more evidence on how some undue Western influences are indirectly sustaining corruption in the African system for the sole purpose of taking advantage on the situation. However, since some individual Africans have chosen to be leaders over their local people, those leaders will have to defend the interests and survival of the same people or they shall take responsibility for failing to do so.

Nobody has said that this world is overflowing with justice and fairness, so Africans should learn to defend their local interests for them to be relevant and be taken seriously as a people.

On the 23rd of March, 2009, a Ghanaian web news agency “Modern Ghana” published an article titled, “Hiding Africa's Looted Funds: The Silence of Western Media”. In line with the ongoing discussion, this article is rather explosive.

See the extract as follows:
“Corruption is rife in Africa because banking institutions in Europe especially Switzerland, France, Jersey Island, Britain, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria and US among others accept money from African leaders without questioning its source. According to the UN and the AU around $148 billion is stolen from the continent annually by political leaders, multinational corporations, the business elite and civil servants with complicity of banking and property industries in Europe and North America…”

This is where the underdevelopment in Africa has to be taken more seriously, because the situation is very practical and can be understood almost be everybody. If few people have to share the National Cake, in the sense of sharing the public funds among them, which money is going to be used to build good roads, hospitals, schools and research institutions? Which money is going to be used to rescue local businesses when in difficulties, so they wouldn't fold up and throw their local employees to the streets? Who is going to fund the building of public facilities for the collective use of the population?

I do not know about you, but I think the above questions are rather fundamental, not only because they can help guide against corruption in public life. They will equally promote a situation whereby the African human and natural resource will be rightly channelled for the development of African society.

In staging an exceptional argument about the Nigerian political and economic quagmires in 2009, Princeton Lyman, a former US ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa said (during an Achebe Colloquium at Brown University, Rhode, United States):

“I know all the arguments: it is a major oil producer, it is the most populous country in Africa, it has made major contributions to Africa in peacekeeping, and of course negatively if Nigeria were to fall apart the ripple effects would be tremendous… We often hear that one in five Africans is a Nigerian. What does it mean? Do we ever say one in five Asians is a Chinese? Chinese power comes not just for the fact that it has a lot of people but it has harnessed the entrepreneurial talent and economic capacity and all the other talents of China to make her a major economic force and political force. There is a de-industrialization going on in Nigeria, a lack of infrastructure, a lack of power means that with imported goods under globalization, Nigerian factories are closing, more and more people are becoming unemployed...”

Just to show that the Nigerian situation is more largely the fault of the local leaders, as against the view that it is merely natural or an African situation, it should be noted that Nigeria as a country both had a flamboyant economy and a bright political footing (some 45-35 years ago), until bad policies and self-centred leaders ruined everything along the line. Before then the Nigerian system was working and there were much confidence in it. In the 70s, for example, young Nigerians could not line up in the Sahara desert and across the Mediterranean Sea, all to reach the non-existing European paradise. Underage Nigerian women could not stand in the awful cold on Italian streets as sex workers. And young Nigerian men could not load their stomachs with kilograms of cocaine in order to get rich quickly. Yet, they were the same Nigerians as the ones of today.

According to Biodun Adedipe, Chief Consultant, B. Adedipe Associates Limited, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria:

“By the time Nigeria became politically independent in October 1960, agriculture was the dominant sector of the economy, contributing about 70% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employing about the same percentage of the working population, and accounting for about 90% of foreign earnings and Federal Government revenue...

The early period of post-independence up until mid-1970s saw a rapid growth of industrial capacity and output, as the contribution of the manufacturing sector to GDP rose from 4.8% to 8.2%. This pattern changed when oil suddenly became of strategic importance to the world economy through its supply-price nexus… The monetization of oil revenue has been a major factor in liquidity management in Nigeria”

The analyses went on and on, showing how Nigeria gradually moved from a producer country to its present state of handicap. The high population that Nigerian politicians boast of, they equally frustrate and confuse with some of their self-interest policies. While ordinary Nigerians remain in penury and joblessness, those in political offices spend unimaginable amount of 'oil' money on alliances. And some don't even see anything wrong in it, as if government were just about 'governing', not about 'the people who are been governed'. Infrastructure is zero and power has been standing still for decades. A population of about 150 million people is struggling with less than 5000 megawatt of electricity, a capacity that could barely be enough for one of the 36 states in Nigeria. Welcome to the show of Nigerian local development.

–The Nigerian Power Crisis: A By-Product Of Corruption And Insincerity Towards Local Development–

Quite frankly, there is no need pretending about this. The above issues clearly demonstrate insincerity towards local development. This is worthy of note because if true development must take place, those who drive the process must be sincere about the project and be accurate in their calculations. Also because since development requires a lot of sacrifices both on the part of the government and on the local people, the government should demonstrate a minimum of sincerity on why project “A” is more important than project “B” and how project “A” can be brought to reality and be useful to the local population. So that it is wrong to keep wasting the state's money on a particular project, whereas the project will never be realised, as can be seen on the Nigerian power sector.

One amazing part of the Nigerian light dilemma was that the Yar'Adua's administration told the Nigerian public in 2008 that it was declaring a state of emergency on the Nigerian power sector. And the self-assigned target which they never met was a meagre of 6000 megawatt of electricity; yet the captains of Nigerian industries were expected to rejoice that light has come for them to power their industries. The reality is this: if 6000 megawatt of electricity is divided only for the houses in Nigeria, the result will still be a shame in the eyes of any enlightened person. So, how can it be surprising if the Nigeria economy cannot grow beyond the expectation of few local elites and their international cartels? How, on earth, can 6000 megawatt of electricity be used to project the economic take off in a country like Nigeria? Somebody should explain this mathematics.

I'm going to tell you this short story because it is real in Nigeria. Some people are very famous in using harsh word whenever their light suddenly goes up. Maybe they have been watching an interesting movie or busy calculating how their favourite football game will end, unexpectedly, the light will go off. As a result of that everybody will shout at once, as if it were a national tragedy. Just imagine if you are there. Your only enemies will be the men in the Nigerian Power Holding Company, as though they are so wicked that they can just put off the light for no reason. The truth is that the power has never been generated, so the Power Holding Company cannot release to the Nigerian public what they do not have. This is where someone should begin to understand the agony of the Nigerian factory owners and how they are surviving this artificial hardship.

As was reported of Ibrahim Ayagi, (December 2009), the then economic adviser to former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo:

“We import almost everything, from the important items such as food and medicines to the frivolous ones such as toothpick and razor blade. In 2007 alone, Nigeria spent about 39 billion dollars on imports, according to the World Bank, while the CIA factbook puts the value of imports for 2008 at 46 billion dollars”

Like the former US ambassador has said therefore, the Nigerian high population has not yielded much to the country's economic development. It has not yielded because the local leaders have refused to invest in their people and the needed social infrastructures, so that the local economy can truly grow. And not until the local people are provided with better tools and good trainings (as this sophisticated time is rightly demanding), their limited strives might not lead to any big success in terms of meeting their needs and the challenges of the 21st century, one of which is the global economic competitiveness.

Ewanfoh Obehi Peter