All the continents of the world problems and challenges of one kind or the other, ranging from social, economic, political, environmental, and many others. However, some of Africa’s problems such as the endemic poverty, corruption and poor governance are unique in the sense that they breed out of wanting leadership. It is ironic that a continent that is the richest in terms of endowment of resources actually trails all the other continents in development. With all its vast array of minerals, precious metals, natural gas, oil reserves, well watered fertile lands, a huge landmass surrounded by waters that provide natural harbours, friendly climates all year round, an abundant highly educated human resource, Africa’s share of the world trade is a pitiful seven percent. The culprit for this state of affairs, as we all know and continue saying day after day, is bad leadership and corruption.
Chinua Achebe , the famous Nigerian author said “The trouble with [Africa] is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the [African] character. There is nothing wrong with the [African] land or climate or water or air or anything else. The [African] problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenges of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
Hmmmmm……. Corruption has no doubt posed a serious challenge to many countries, but in Africa the consequences have been especially severe. The questions that we must now ask ourselves are these; for how long shall we keep lamenting about Africa’s problems? For ho long shall we blame our leaders? When shall we start doing something to remedy the ills that afflict the continent?
My argument is that Africa needs to unite and speak with one voice against the vices that bedevil its people. We must rekindle the Pan Africanist ideals borne and initiated by the “founding fathers” of the continent in the 1960’s, notably the late President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The dream enshrined in the movement entailed dealing with African challenges on a united front. It was founded on the belief that Africa could only move forward on a platform of unity and harmonization of initiatives to free Africa from the stranglehold of backwardness. In one of his famous speeches which he delivered in 1960 on the topic “Continental Government of Africa”, Kwame Nkrumah had this to say about African unity;
"We have seen, in the example of the United States how the dynamic elements within society understood the need for unity and fought their bitter civil war to maintain the political union that was threatened by the reactionary forces. We have also seen, in the example of the Soviet Union, how the forging of continental unity along with the retention of national sovereignty by the federal states, has achieved a dynamism that has lifted a most backward society into a most powerful unit within a remarkably short space of time. From the examples before us, in Europe and the United States of America, it is therefore patent that we in Africa have the resources, present and potential, for creating the kind of society that we are anxious to build.
Nkrumah’s vision of a united and prosperous Africa was drawn from his observation of the paths other continents, notably Europe, Asia and the Americas had charted for themselves, which resulted in the continents emerging as world leaders in all spheres of human development unlike Africa, despite the match in resources.
The root causes of corruption vary from place to place depending on the political, social, economic and cultural circumstances. In Africa, some of the identifiable causes of corruption include the negative colonial legacy, poor leadership, politics of the belly, omnipotent state, greed and selfishness, clientelism and patronage nepotism, absence of popular participation of the public in government, weak institutions of governance, lack of accountability and transparency, lack of political will, weak ethical values, centralist nature of the state and concentration of state power, weak judicial system and constant insecurity and conflicts.
Despite the myriad factors that contribute to or cause corruption, in the case of Africa, the deep seated governance problem seems to explain why the continent is viewed as very corrupt. At independence most African states, and by extension leaders, preoccupied themselves with ‘politics of survival’ using military coups or other means to consolidate power through de-jure or de-facto one party states which guaranteed them security of tenure but which they also used to propagate their so called development agenda for the nation. This only worked to perpetuate neo-colonialism, exploitation of the people and resentment of any dissenting voices. Nepotism, ethnicity, race and other factors became key considerations in the allocation and application of national resources. Individuals in high offices in both the public and private sector used their power and influence to amass wealth to the detriment of the common person. This coupled with insensitive donor programmes, created and sustained bad governance, entrenched corruption and impunity and increased poverty levels.
Generally, regardless of ideological persuasion, from the post-independence era to date, Africa has produced few States capable of creating enabling environment for economic development. The states are not only guilty of unproductive interventions in the economy but also for retarded economic development through parasitic and corrupt activities that discouraged and made business success dependent on political connection. This led to the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the 1980s geared towards restoring economic growth, restructuring the political-economic patronage system of the post-colonial era, pursuing economic and political reforms and improving infrastructure. While the effects of SAPs on the poor and vulnerable remain controversial to date, they contributed to expansion of democratic space, increased agitation for transparency and accountability from government, reforms of key governance institutions and improved service delivery. The challenge to the full realization the benefits of democratic governance remain weak systems and lack of political will among Africa leaders. Therefore effects of corruption and bad governance are far reaching.