Although Africa is making significant strides in terms of economic development, with some countries registering economic growth above 6 per cent, situations of instability, poverty, civil war, ethnic violence, electoral theft and violence, impunity, human rights violations, crimes against humanity against own citizens, disaster unpreparedness, and stubbornness of some leaders to discard dictatorial tendencies continue to undermine these milestones. While in many parts of the world, societies are increasingly recognising the importance of political stability and democracy as an underpinning for societal development, the African continent is still bogged down by instability in a number of regions. From a political perspective, quite a significant number of African countries claim some form of ‘independence’ from their former colonial masters. The experiences in specific African country contexts suggest that the reasons for different struggles for independence have not changed despite the shift in leadership from colonial masters to African leaders. In what has been descried as a form of ‘neo-colonialism’, the contemporary Africa leadership has not had a mental or ethical re-calibration in terms of how the treat their own citizens, the society and public goods. Elite-capture of the state institutions, stomach philosophy, patronage, political corruption, nepotism and tribalism in public service and abuse of state power and resources or what is referred in the Kenyan everyday parlance as ‘our turn to eat’ and impunity remain the hallmarks of many governments in Africa. The government is never a government of the people, but belongs to the tribe of the leader. Long term perspective of governance for the sake of the common good, sustainability, regeneration, and innovation are rare concepts to most contemporary African leaders, hence, they tend to be reactionary to situations (both domestic and global) because most of the planning is informed by acts of political expediency and less by the fundamentals of politics and political ideologies. Fifty years on, many Africans still dream of basic services such as clean drinking water, schools, medical care, basic infrastructure, decent housing and dignified living. Many communities in Africa continue to live under one dollar a day with the main sources of livelihood threatened by policies of their own governments. Despite the abundance of natural resources, large populations of Africans continue to live in poverty due to mismanagement of national resources and imbalanced allocation of resources and development inputs. Over the past two decades a wave of democratisation has been sweeping different regions of the continent with resultant features such as transitions from one party dictatorship to multiparty democracy. Additionally, the continent has seen efforts and a shift towards new constitutional dispensation. There are nevertheless some cases where octagorians rule and expanded terms of office are features of leadership that have stubbornly refused to die. In terms of political stability, the continent still experiences bouts of coup d’états, civil wars and revolution-driven transformations taking place in North Africa through the ‘Arab Spring,’ to the latest developments of rebel take-overs in the Central African Republic and Mali. With these unending conflagrations, the African Union has many questions to think about as it celebrates its 50 years of existence. The latest ailment, which seems to be taking root in the relatively stable countries, is the inability to hold credible elections.
Posted on: Fri, 24 May 2013 09:14:06 +0000
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