THE AFRICA WE WANT
THE AFRICA WE WANT
Furthermore, from the area of human resource, the continent plays host to the largest numbers of youth in the world, thus setting it on the vantage of productivity with regards to labor-force. Against this backdrop, Africa should be the greatest place on the planet Earth.
However, this supposed greatness has incessantly strode the elusion path as Africa and Africans have been often categorized with the most undeserving class (Third World Countries) within the global comity of states. This brings to mind the big question: Is there a possibility of getting the African continent to work again. The answer to the foregoing is: Yes emphatically (as it is not rocket science).
Worthy of note, at this juncture, is the incontrovertible fact that the undeveloped state or backwardness of Africa is very avoidable if only the required factors that are paramount to stemming this tidal retrogression are putting in place.
Some vital areas to be addressed for this much desired change to materialize will include, but not limited to:
a) INSTITUTIONS: contrary to what obtains in advanced democracies, which seem to be our role models, the African continent is characterized with little or generally weak institutions whose norm is job abdication. Our institutions are often inefficient, lacking directions, politicized, personified and other times grossly inadequate.
It is therefore important, as a matter of necessity, that African Nations across the continent build institutions that are capacitated, independent, unflinchingly people-driven, and result-oriented. In a nutshell, the continent must champion, like the advanced nations do, what Acemoglu and Robinson, in their magnum opus (Why Nations Fail), called inclusive political/economic institutions as against the extractive political/economic institutions that prevail currently within the continent.
The rationale for this recommendation is not far-fetched. While the inclusive political and economic institutions are development-driven and pluralistic in nature, the extractive are exploitative and elitist. The foregoing accounts for the hitherto developmental difference between the Northern and Southern Korea drawing from history.
Thus, African Nations must go on a full-blown institutional reforms in order to salvage the continent.
b) LEADERSHIP: There can be no progress in the absence of purposeful leadership. No wonder the economic narratives of the Chinese people were altered immediately after the death of the Communist Party Chairman: Mao Zedong in 1976 and the emergence of Deng Xiaoping with the reforms of 1979.
Another pointer is the Land and Education reforms that changed drastically the economic trajectory of South Korea. This purposeful leadership is on the whole lacking in the African continent and there is a dire need for African leaders to inculcate this form of charismatic leadership style if development must be enthroned in the continent for posterity sake. What is being stressed at this juncture is a crop of leadership whose mantra shall be "service before self" or if possible, "service, service, service". A leadership that is people-oriented, responsive, result-driven, empathetic and development-committed rather than being self-obsessed/motivated.
To this end, Africans must learn to start electing their leaders on the basis of issues-based politics and not religious/ethnic caste loyalties as hitherto prevalent. Also, the antecedence of prospective leaders must be well-studied in order to unearth the leadership in their personalities so that wrong individuals do not reign supreme in the corridors of power.
c) COST OF GOVERNANCE: So much will be saved for development purpose if the cost of running for and holding offices are drastically reduced in Africa; especially that of holding offices which has proved continuously, with no exceptions, to be a great burden on the continent.
The leadership of the Nations we look up in terms of development cannot afford the unnecessary luxury that most of our leaders own. Also, the take home pay of politicians in other parts of the world clearly shows that: leadership is all about service and not self while the otherwise holds sway in Africa where leadership is one of the most effective ways to eschewing poverty (greatest investment indeed).
Thus, governmental funding/remuneration should be reviewed constitutionally, across board in Africa, in such a way that the political terrain attracts only service renderers and not political investors.
d) ENTREPRENUERSHIP/TECHNOLOGY: The "silicon valley" domiciled at San Francisco of the United States, U.S., is a very handy example of how a Nation can intelligently key into the innovative/entrepreneurial/technological powers of its citizens and thus cause what Joseph Schumpeter rightly called; "creative destruction" (a gradual and technical change of archaic economic/technological orders for new and invigorated ones).
The insensitivity of the typical leadership that obtains across the continent of Africa has often lead to a situation where young enterprising minds are either left to fall prey to the brain-drain policy of the West or just wander about the continent with little or no serious achievement. Against this background, in order to take Africa from its current state to one of global recognition, leadership across the Continent must be committed to encouraging entrepreneurship/innovations in the continent by way of Public Policy and Social Investment . Acts of Parliament should be passed to safeguard the property rights of the individuals, the incentives as well as the enabling environment for innovations and entrepreneurial strides should be created.
The greatest men across the globe, who have thus created the greatest nation, all happened to be Entrepreneurs/Innovators from the United States Super Power) where they drive the scheme of things generally (thanks to the likes of Gate, Zuckerberg, Buffett etc). The African leadership could encourage such men in their continent by replicating the essentials for their emergence as done by advanced nations. The Japanese in their early days of development became an entrepót - buying technologies from other nations and improving them (e.g. assembling) before re-exporting. The African continent can be hinged on such a policy, pending when it becomes technologically-independent, where it imports and assembles a varieties of technology (thus consolidating them) and then reexports them to other nations.
e) EDUCATION: As the eternal words of the most renowned African Leader, Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use the world. No wonder the South Korean government has been able to grow exponentially ahead of its sister nation North Korea.
And also, no wonder the Nigerian state and, by extension, virtually all African Nations are ridden by plethora of negative economic indices. The foregoing renders an adequate juxtaposition for the differences between a state that is passionate about its educational sector and that that is lackadaisical about this crucial sector. Thus, the African leadership must at all times invest in Education. Through the African Union and other regional integrative fora, a mandatory benchmark recommendation of 15% of the annual budget of all African Nations should be made and this should be given a legal framework so that leaders cannot longer go below (except higher).
f) TAXATION: Public (Government) Finance harps heavily on taxation which is one of the basic means of generating governmental revenues. Such taxes as Personal Income Tax, PIT; Company Income Tax, CIT; Capital Gains Tax, CGT; e.t.c, that are supposed to be the sources of governmental funding are often evaded in Africa due to political affiliations/loyalties and other similar factors. This is highly detrimental to the exchequers of the various nations across the continent.
In addition, some citizens have also done this often times as a way of registering their displeasure with the government of the day which they think is insensitive and not responsive to societal plights. Thus, the leadership across the African continent must standardize the taxation system through adequate institutional reforms of the continent while inculcating the habit of responsiveness so as to arrest this political apathy that is gradually taking hold of some Africans.
CONCLUSION
The Africa we want is not an illusion but one that is earnestly achievable if all hands be on deck and the required modalities employed efficiently. If the advanced nations who have little or no resources in their territories could achieve such heights that had thus made them our models, we can do more since we are overly blessed with all the prerequisite resources.
The Africa we want, on a final note is one in which:
1. There shall be no political discrimination of any sort on persons on the basis of Sex, Religion, Creed, Ethnicity, Disability etc. (Thus, all Legislative organs of government across the continent must pass the required laws to guarantee the above);
2. There shall be population and demographic planning i.e. employment of proper planning, control and projections mechanisms, so as to allow optimum utility of governmental resources. (E.g. in the early 1960s, while Nigeria was about a 45 million people, the United Kingdom was about a 50 million. Currently, while the United Kingdom is 60 million plus, Nigeria is approximately 200 million people (what an irony!).
3. Youth, who are the most invigorated spectrum of the population, would be the vanguards and forerunners of leadership and in extension-development.
Ozemhoya Donatus I. I
Email: ozemhoyadonatus@gmail.com;
Telephone: +2348034025284;
About the author;
Donatus Ozemhoya I. I. is a Nigerian Public Affairs Analyst. A prolific Writer, a seasoned Speaker and a Social Commentator, passionate about the issues of Development.
- Ozemhoya Donatus I. I
- INTRODUCTION
Furthermore, from the area of human resource, the continent plays host to the largest numbers of youth in the world, thus setting it on the vantage of productivity with regards to labor-force. Against this backdrop, Africa should be the greatest place on the planet Earth.
However, this supposed greatness has incessantly strode the elusion path as Africa and Africans have been often categorized with the most undeserving class (Third World Countries) within the global comity of states. This brings to mind the big question: Is there a possibility of getting the African continent to work again. The answer to the foregoing is: Yes emphatically (as it is not rocket science).
Worthy of note, at this juncture, is the incontrovertible fact that the undeveloped state or backwardness of Africa is very avoidable if only the required factors that are paramount to stemming this tidal retrogression are putting in place.
- CORE
Some vital areas to be addressed for this much desired change to materialize will include, but not limited to:
a) INSTITUTIONS: contrary to what obtains in advanced democracies, which seem to be our role models, the African continent is characterized with little or generally weak institutions whose norm is job abdication. Our institutions are often inefficient, lacking directions, politicized, personified and other times grossly inadequate.
It is therefore important, as a matter of necessity, that African Nations across the continent build institutions that are capacitated, independent, unflinchingly people-driven, and result-oriented. In a nutshell, the continent must champion, like the advanced nations do, what Acemoglu and Robinson, in their magnum opus (Why Nations Fail), called inclusive political/economic institutions as against the extractive political/economic institutions that prevail currently within the continent.
The rationale for this recommendation is not far-fetched. While the inclusive political and economic institutions are development-driven and pluralistic in nature, the extractive are exploitative and elitist. The foregoing accounts for the hitherto developmental difference between the Northern and Southern Korea drawing from history.
Thus, African Nations must go on a full-blown institutional reforms in order to salvage the continent.
b) LEADERSHIP: There can be no progress in the absence of purposeful leadership. No wonder the economic narratives of the Chinese people were altered immediately after the death of the Communist Party Chairman: Mao Zedong in 1976 and the emergence of Deng Xiaoping with the reforms of 1979.
Another pointer is the Land and Education reforms that changed drastically the economic trajectory of South Korea. This purposeful leadership is on the whole lacking in the African continent and there is a dire need for African leaders to inculcate this form of charismatic leadership style if development must be enthroned in the continent for posterity sake. What is being stressed at this juncture is a crop of leadership whose mantra shall be "service before self" or if possible, "service, service, service". A leadership that is people-oriented, responsive, result-driven, empathetic and development-committed rather than being self-obsessed/motivated.
To this end, Africans must learn to start electing their leaders on the basis of issues-based politics and not religious/ethnic caste loyalties as hitherto prevalent. Also, the antecedence of prospective leaders must be well-studied in order to unearth the leadership in their personalities so that wrong individuals do not reign supreme in the corridors of power.
c) COST OF GOVERNANCE: So much will be saved for development purpose if the cost of running for and holding offices are drastically reduced in Africa; especially that of holding offices which has proved continuously, with no exceptions, to be a great burden on the continent.
The leadership of the Nations we look up in terms of development cannot afford the unnecessary luxury that most of our leaders own. Also, the take home pay of politicians in other parts of the world clearly shows that: leadership is all about service and not self while the otherwise holds sway in Africa where leadership is one of the most effective ways to eschewing poverty (greatest investment indeed).
Thus, governmental funding/remuneration should be reviewed constitutionally, across board in Africa, in such a way that the political terrain attracts only service renderers and not political investors.
d) ENTREPRENUERSHIP/TECHNOLOGY: The "silicon valley" domiciled at San Francisco of the United States, U.S., is a very handy example of how a Nation can intelligently key into the innovative/entrepreneurial/technological powers of its citizens and thus cause what Joseph Schumpeter rightly called; "creative destruction" (a gradual and technical change of archaic economic/technological orders for new and invigorated ones).
The insensitivity of the typical leadership that obtains across the continent of Africa has often lead to a situation where young enterprising minds are either left to fall prey to the brain-drain policy of the West or just wander about the continent with little or no serious achievement. Against this background, in order to take Africa from its current state to one of global recognition, leadership across the Continent must be committed to encouraging entrepreneurship/innovations in the continent by way of Public Policy and Social Investment . Acts of Parliament should be passed to safeguard the property rights of the individuals, the incentives as well as the enabling environment for innovations and entrepreneurial strides should be created.
The greatest men across the globe, who have thus created the greatest nation, all happened to be Entrepreneurs/Innovators from the United States Super Power) where they drive the scheme of things generally (thanks to the likes of Gate, Zuckerberg, Buffett etc). The African leadership could encourage such men in their continent by replicating the essentials for their emergence as done by advanced nations. The Japanese in their early days of development became an entrepót - buying technologies from other nations and improving them (e.g. assembling) before re-exporting. The African continent can be hinged on such a policy, pending when it becomes technologically-independent, where it imports and assembles a varieties of technology (thus consolidating them) and then reexports them to other nations.
e) EDUCATION: As the eternal words of the most renowned African Leader, Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use the world. No wonder the South Korean government has been able to grow exponentially ahead of its sister nation North Korea.
And also, no wonder the Nigerian state and, by extension, virtually all African Nations are ridden by plethora of negative economic indices. The foregoing renders an adequate juxtaposition for the differences between a state that is passionate about its educational sector and that that is lackadaisical about this crucial sector. Thus, the African leadership must at all times invest in Education. Through the African Union and other regional integrative fora, a mandatory benchmark recommendation of 15% of the annual budget of all African Nations should be made and this should be given a legal framework so that leaders cannot longer go below (except higher).
f) TAXATION: Public (Government) Finance harps heavily on taxation which is one of the basic means of generating governmental revenues. Such taxes as Personal Income Tax, PIT; Company Income Tax, CIT; Capital Gains Tax, CGT; e.t.c, that are supposed to be the sources of governmental funding are often evaded in Africa due to political affiliations/loyalties and other similar factors. This is highly detrimental to the exchequers of the various nations across the continent.
In addition, some citizens have also done this often times as a way of registering their displeasure with the government of the day which they think is insensitive and not responsive to societal plights. Thus, the leadership across the African continent must standardize the taxation system through adequate institutional reforms of the continent while inculcating the habit of responsiveness so as to arrest this political apathy that is gradually taking hold of some Africans.
CONCLUSION
The Africa we want is not an illusion but one that is earnestly achievable if all hands be on deck and the required modalities employed efficiently. If the advanced nations who have little or no resources in their territories could achieve such heights that had thus made them our models, we can do more since we are overly blessed with all the prerequisite resources.
The Africa we want, on a final note is one in which:
1. There shall be no political discrimination of any sort on persons on the basis of Sex, Religion, Creed, Ethnicity, Disability etc. (Thus, all Legislative organs of government across the continent must pass the required laws to guarantee the above);
2. There shall be population and demographic planning i.e. employment of proper planning, control and projections mechanisms, so as to allow optimum utility of governmental resources. (E.g. in the early 1960s, while Nigeria was about a 45 million people, the United Kingdom was about a 50 million. Currently, while the United Kingdom is 60 million plus, Nigeria is approximately 200 million people (what an irony!).
3. Youth, who are the most invigorated spectrum of the population, would be the vanguards and forerunners of leadership and in extension-development.
Ozemhoya Donatus I. I
Email: ozemhoyadonatus@gmail.com;
Telephone: +2348034025284;
About the author;
Donatus Ozemhoya I. I. is a Nigerian Public Affairs Analyst. A prolific Writer, a seasoned Speaker and a Social Commentator, passionate about the issues of Development.
Nice one👍
ReplyDeleteHmm... The Africa we want. We truly desire a new Africa but it can't just happen by dreams. The truth must be said that Africa leadership is poor. Our leaders are too selfish that they neglect the service. Selfish interest is the major problem in Africa and without it being eradicated, there's a doubt about a new Africa. But if we truly desire one, leadership is very essential in making a new Africa.
ReplyDeleteNice one mentor.... More grease to your elbow.... God bless you..
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Nice write up. Don't forget that Africans also hate there fellow Africans without solving our internal hatred for each other there can't be unity among us even with a good leader it's can't work because we are not on the same page
ReplyDeleteGreat piece. As we seek progressive ways to helping Africa rise from mediocrity, this will serve as a great tool.
ReplyDeleteThank you guys for the scholarly work.
Nothing is wrong with being African, nothing is wrong with Africa: the only thing wrong with Africa are Africans in Africa.
ReplyDelete'A place does not make the people, the people make the place'; we have no choice but to rise and build Africa.
Rise up Africa! Rise up to the challenges ahead; see the potential for this great continent. There are no poor places but mentally poor people who cannot think.
Poverty is both spiritual and mental. So stimulate your thinking. God's power through prayer in concert with your capacity to think critically and creatively will produce greatness.
The African society is backward not because we are created inferior to other races in the world, but rather our problems stem from the African mentality.
African has lean too much to the past and has refused to do away with superstitious and all its attendant problems though we claim to be religious. We blame our misfortune and under-development on colonialism and depletion of our resources by our colonial masters, but one begins to wonder ever since African independence which was rapid in the nineteen sixties, why has Africa remained in this condition?.
The fact lies in our thinking which in turn reflects in the administration of our various countries. For any race or group of people to be progressive they need more than government policies, they also need individual initiatives.
Africa is yet to realize her potentials but this cannot be until Africans rises from their slumber and embrace positive thoughts and a determined spirit that will put her where she belongs - THE TOP.
Africa is a continent endowed with all it takes to be greater than other continents; all it requires is for us to unleash our potential and soar in the sky of possibilities.
In Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya the animals are amazingly beautiful, flourishing beyond the citizens of these countries who are struggling to survive poverty. The animals prove it nothing is wrong with Africa. It is not about the place, it is about the people in the place. People make the place; the place does not make the people.
Transfer all Americans to Africa, and they will blossom and transform the continent. It is not about the resources; it is about how resourceful the people are, and how supportive the national atmosphere and government policies of these countries can enable the creativity of the people flourish. RESOURCEFULNESS of the people comes first, RESOURCES is secondary.