ENUMERATE AND EXPOUND THE INTERNALLY ENGENDERED PRESENTED BY USMAN BABA ABDULMALIK SOURCES OF AFRICA’S POVERTY INTRODUCTION In Africa today, the people contend more with moneybags who aspire to leadership positions not so much because they have solutions to existing social and economic problems or because they understand the rubrics of governance but simply because they wish to crown their personal achievements with political power. Most of the problems bedeviling the continent have in recent years become highly exceptional in their magnitude and persistence as mass poverty, economic stagnation and political instability, alongside their implications abound all around the continent amidst great resources of which other countries of the world are envious. Four hundred long years back Africans began forced labour for developing a new found continent called America and the result is visible today, whereas in Africa, millions of human inhabitants still share water from the same source with animals; water infested with bacteria and viruses. Many countries in Africa lack the leadership that could institute policies and the enable milieu by which to engender the economic growth and development and as s result structures by which to absorb emerging battalions of unemployed graduates, school leavers and others who never attended school are virtually absent. Millions live in want for functional hospitals, roads, harbours, rail, infrastructure, irrigation facilities, electricity, affordable shelter and sanitation facilities among other infrastructures which for decades have been ranking among amenities taken for granted in the developed world. Many children are orphaned and malnourished and many do not have access to education and healthcare because funds meant for public welfare have been hijacked by leadership and are sitting in swiss banks denying the the chance to escape poverty and forcing the best of africa’s people to seek greener pastures abroad. Millions of other die of starvation, hunger, malnutrition, polio, meales, turberculousis and rest of the killer diseases. The crime of who die and those who continue to suffer and are denied opportunity to escape poverty is that they happened to have come under corrupt and incompetent leaders and counterparts I Europe ready to protect the stolen wealth. The nature and character of these problems and how they are associated with the failure of leadership to ameliorate them while proffering solutions. These are group into four: Identity Crisis Poor Innovative Value System Poor industrialization policy Poor Diplomacy Identity Crisis one of the foremost impediments to Africa’s economic progress lies in the widespread character of ethnic feuds existent among constituent ethnic groups comprising each of the countries of Africa’s and which must be reconciled before issues like regional integration of African countries can become effectual. Numerous conglomerating tribe and ethnic groups within virtually all countries of Africa especially those less populated than the others believe they are suffocating under the influence of the larger ethnic and tribal groups of the same country. The unimaginable results such feudal generate came clear a few years back from the character of the Rwandan genocide. For most ethnic groups in Africa founded and unfounded fears of dominion by neighbouring tribes typify the level intolerance and acceptance of one the other and which bears on the economic progress of the country in question. In view of problem associated with tribal boundary disputes, resource allocation, religious intolerance, fear of domination, etc. most of the tribal groups from colonial time have been silently dagger-drawn at each other’s throat and it never comes into the purview of leadership to evolve permanent solutions to these problems. All showing that the character of leadership in Africa may best be qualified as leadership without responsibility as against those of the developed world whose leaders would neither sleep nor rest till incontrovertible solutions are devised for any seemingly intractable problems. The case of crisis in the southern fringe of Nigeria now popularly called the Niger Delta region also comes into purview as squarely a case of social identity crisis other than merely a case of frustration aggravated by disparity between value expectation and value capabilities (deprivation) and which when arrested early enough, leads to frustration and consequently aggression (frustration- aggression theory) as quite a library of explications on the armed instruction have surmised. During the last four decades, it is estimated that Nigeria has generated over US$500 billion from petroleum exports, yet the 2002 Economic report on Africa that affirms that on all accounts Nigeria is a desperately poor country while the World Bank estimates that 92.4 percent of Nigerians in 2006 are living on less than $2per day. The social identity theory becomes analogous to the case of the Niger Delta because beyond the agitation for improved standards of living, the core aspiration of the people of southern Nigeria hinge on sdequate identification hence massive internal agitations never take place against Niger Delta Governors whose governance rarely impact on the peoples’ lives amidst great sums allocated to the states. Poor Innovative Value System Several well-meaning Pan Africanists have variously blamed colonialism as basis for Africa’s underdevelopment. The contention that Africa is poor, illiterate and sick because it benefits the developed world for her to be so call in the prime question: was colonial Africa rich and successful before colonialism? And a second: was colonial Africa better or worse off than post-colonial Africa? The Second World War reduced several countries like Germany and Japan to rubbles yet they rebuilt themselves rapidly and very successfully, but Africa was not looted to rubbles by colonialism. Yet Africans cannot be said to be lazy or socially lethargic but have been simple too torn apart by social feuds to work harmoniously for growth. Four hundred years back Africans under forced labour began to build the then new found continent America and made it the superpower it is today. The same Africans could not build Africa into the mega superpower it is meant to be if there exist leaders to channel the people’s efforts and resources in that direction. But sadly, majority of Africa’s leaders have variously shown they have no interest in the future of the continent. Africa is rich, with plenty of oil, minerals, precious metals, natural gas besides funds from aids and grant pouring into the continent for several decades now to spur economic growth, yet one hardly sees any improvement at all as the productive use of these resources and not the resources in themselves can make the differences. Sihlongonyane believes that underdevelopment of African countries lies with the differences between Eurocentric and African values. Whereas Eurocentric values inform the development paradigm and planning models, the models of development of African societies, are conformist, depriving African societies of self-reliance and self-determinism. that
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 06:48:45 +0000
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