WEEKEND with Ibraheem Sulaiman
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On May 11, 2000, The Economist, ran an editorial on Africa which even today, more than a decade after, still makes an interesting reading. It depicts most of African states as 'shell states', meaning: 'On the outside, these have all the trappings of a modern state: borders, flags, ministers, civil services, courts. Inside, they have been hollowed out.'
In these states, there are no distinctions between the state and the president, between the state and the president's party, between the state treasury and the president's pocket, and the president is free to use the panoply of state institutions, notably the police and the army, to force himself into power. He must not lose, he must win. 'Today, only a few countries have a middle class, a body of professionals and businessmen with an allegiance to a national entity, laws and institutions which they regard as greater than the ruler or his party,' the paper asserts. 'The African ruler finds himself trapped. He wants power and control; but the outside world makes demands about democracy, human rights and good governance, which weaken his position and could cost him his job. If he cannot use the treasury as his private bank account and the police as his private army, he tries to create alternative sources of wealth and power. This is why more and more African rulers are turning their countries into shell states.'
As a result all the high hopes for Africa, most importantly the hope of an African Renaissance, have proved to be an illusion. Industrialization did not take place. Economic growth of a level sufficient to lift the people from poverty in years rather than decades did not take place, and most of Africa is just growing poorer, not richer. 'The figures-not to mention the recent crop of disasters and wars-now suggest that Africa is losing the battle,' The Economist notes. 'All the bottom places in the world league tables are filled by African countries, and the gap between them and the rest of the world is widening. According to Paul Collier of the World Bank, only 15% of Africans today live in "an environment considered minimally adequate for sustainable growth and development." At least 45% of Africans live in poverty, and African countries need growth rates of 7% or more to cut that figure in half in 15 years.'
Many have hoped that Nigeria could fulfill Africa's hope. But unfortunately that, so far, has not materialized. Instead, Nigeria, contrary to all expectations, has lagged embarrassingly far behind all the nations with which it was more or less in the same league at independence, such as India, Indonesia, Brazil or Malaysia. In fact while Brazil is now the sixth largest economy in the world, Nigeria has joined the ranks of the 25 poorest nations on earth. Instead of breaking the poverty cycle Nigeria has only entrenched it. Every year it pushes millions more of its own people below poverty line. Between 2004 and 2011, the number of the poor in Nigeria has risen from 68.7 million to 112.4 million. From the outside you see a state stupendously rich, but inside it is hollow, having been emptied of its treasures by its governments. That is the paradox: a very rich nation, a very poor people.
Absolute personalization of power even to the extent that one person alone decides how to dispose of the strategic resources of the nation, whatever the constitution says, has undermined the national institutions and rendered democracy a sham. Here is a nation where president and nation mean the same thing. Perhaps you will be excused if you believe that the resources that had been plundered from the treasury in order to install a few people in power in the Nigerian type democracy would be quite sufficient to bring an end to the cycle of poverty and place the country on the path of sustainable industrialization and prosperity. Most of the factors that make a nation to grow to the level of viability and strength are missing. Instead of increasing and consolidating vital infrastructure, Nigeria allows its shrinking and decay. Instead of producing, it is consuming. Instead of investing sufficiently in agriculture and industry so as to provide food for the nation and jobs and wealth for millions of people, the nation appears lost in an ignoble, undesirable atrophy. As poverty holds Nigeria by the jugular vein there may no longer be an escape from the cancer of turmoil and instability that is plaguing nations worldwide.
What is it that is responsible for this distinctive, colossal national failure? The Economist blames it all on psychology. 'In most places, effective European rule lasted a couple of generations or less: just long enough to undermine African societies, institutions and values, but not long enough to replace them with new ways of life or establish new systems of government,' the paper claims. 'Colonialism, in short, undermined Africa's self-confidence. A full 40 years after independence, it still looks to Europe and America for aid, goods, services and guidance. One example: the East African reported recently that a white foreigner had been appointed to head the Kenya Commercial Bank, since "it became clear that the appointment of an indigenous Kenyan might lead to a run on the bank." Much worse than that has Nigeria done. Indians, Chinese, British, and virtually every one with white, red or yellow skin has been invited at one time or another to take over one strategic national asset or another.
Matters have now gone even worse. Not only is there no confidence in Nigeria, but quite ominously there doesn't appear to be any faith in it either. See how Nigeria has shown a total lack of confidence in itself so much so that, despite its proud and dependable defense force, it is calling on some foreign powers to bail it out in the face of ongoing security challenges within its own territory, within its own jurisdiction, within its own competence, fifty years after independence. The same slave mentality, the same infantile disposition, the same sense of inferiority - even the feeling of not being completely human - runs through the entire gamut of the management of Nigeria. The idea of perpetually looking up to some superior master somewhere in Europe or America for solutions to problems at home is indeed a cause of Nigeria's backwardness.
Where then does the hope lie? The Economist says: 'More than anything, Africa's people need to regain their self-confidence. Only then can Africa engage as an equal with the rest of the world, devising its own economic programs and development policies. Its people also need the confidence to trust each other. Only then can they make deals to end wars and build political institutions: institutions that they actually believe in.'
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