Making Poverty History In Africa:  Beyond Debt Relief And Aid

By

Madaki O. Ameh

madakiameh@hotmail.com

INTRODUCTION

A lot has been said and written in recent times about the new found focus on Africa and its debilitating poverty through the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign.  The interesting aspect of this new phenomenon is that the campaign is being championed largely by non Africans, who appear to be genuinely exasperated at the seemingly intractable problems of Africa and its never ending poverty.   It has been widely acknowledged that the more other areas of the world progress, the more Africa retrogresses, and much of the blame has been put on the altar of the debt crisis, and the fact that a huge chunk of resources required to put effective development in place is being applied towards debt service, which continues to grow, no matter the efforts made towards repayment.  This has led many to conclude that the debts are unsustainable, and in the absence of an outright right off, African countries will never be able to break even and deliver the most basic amenities to their people.

These recent efforts and campaigns by good people like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Bob Geldof, have finally culminated in the announcement of a debt reprieve for 18 countries, 14 of which are in Africa, with a total relief package of $40 billion.  Interestingly, Nigeria, Africa’s largest debtor nation, is conspicuously missing from the list of beneficiaries, in spite of the endless trips of President Olusegun Obasanjo abroad since inception of his administration in 1999, ostensibly to negotiate and secure the much needed debt relief.  Even though we are being told that Nigeria’s case may not be entirely hopeless, and that there is yet a window of opportunity through a debt buy back process, the truth is that the international creditor community has correctly assessed the situation and come to the right conclusion that Nigeria is capable of paying its debt and should therefore not be granted a soft landing.  If diplomatic efforts eventually translate to some form of reprieve for Nigeria, it is almost certain that an outright debt cancellation, as has been touted in various quarters, including the recent trip by some members of the National Assembly abroad, will remain a pipe dream.

And this approach by the international community to Nigeria’s debts may not be altogether unjustified, given the profile of the country as the seventh largest oil exporter in the world, especially in these days of consistently high oil prices.  The fact that our foreign reserves have been growing on a daily basis, a fact which is being made a high point of political grandstanding, cannot escape the attention of the ever hawkish creditors, who are genuinely interested in getting some piece of that action.  At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, especially at a time when there is a lot of misplaced patriotism making the rounds, even in high places, this writer is of the view that an outright debt relief, of the form being canvassed for African nations, is not the solution to the development needs of the continent.  We therefore need to take a hard look at ourselves and begin to tell ourselves the truth of why we are underdeveloped, and continue to retrogress when other parts of the world are making steady progress.

ORIGINS OF AFRICA’S POVERTY

It is fanciful to attribute Africa’s debilitating poverty to the era of the slave trade, colonialism, and neo-colonialism.  Such positions have been advocated extensively in writings like Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and several similar materials, such that many Africans see the prosperity of Europe and America as a direct result of the exploitation of Africans during the dark days of slavery and colonialism.  However, my take on this is that, rather than rely on the negative aspects of history as our excuse for current underdevelopment, our current generation of Africans should be asking ourselves, why our forefathers decided to sell their children to slavery in the first place.  It is a well known fact that Africans are probably the first race to be created in the world.  To have allowed the West to overwhelm them, and succeed in persuading our ancestors to sell their own sons and daughters into slavery speaks volumes of the sort of perception and world view we had, in spite of the ancient and well developed civilisations in places like Egypt, the Nok culture, etc. which abound in history.   Also, the fact that other parts of the world, like China and India with many times more populations than Africa, who would ordinarily see children as more dispensable, did not fall for the temptation of exchanging human souls for embarrassing commodities like gin and mirrors, means that there is a basic ill in the entire underdevelopment saga which we must all confront with courage and address fully, if we are to make progress.  The basic lesson we must learn from history, therefore, is not to continue to blame the West for our woes, but to look genuinely inwards for enduring solution.

The attitude of African leaders since independence has also not been any drastic departure from the malaise of their ancestors who sold their children into slavery.  That basic instinct of enslaving others who are not as privileged as those in authority, still persists in our societies today.  This translates into the larger than life image public office holders immediately assume as soon as they mount their high horses and become the lords of those who are supposed to have elected them into office.  It is not unusual for it to become a big insult to call a politician or public office holder by name, no matter how insignificant such offices may be.  In Nigeria, as in most other African countries, once one becomes even a councillor in a local government, his name changes to ‘honourable’, no matter how dishonourable such a person may be.  Not to talk of higher offices, up to the presidency.  This air of superiority and an all-knowing posturing among African leaders has created pseudo-messiahs all over Africa, thereby making accountability impossible, because it is unthinkable to question a man who parades himself as a demi-god.

Democracy and good governance thrive in the West because their people have clearly demonstrated a desire to be led right, and over time, have struggled to entrench this such that it has become their way of life.  The embarrassing questions Tony Blair and his cabinet ministers had to answer over, practically, all issues before the recently concluded parliamentary elections in the UK, speaks volumes of the maturity of democracy in these parts of the world.  Before audiences drawn from different backgrounds, where questions could be asked about practically anything, these leaders sweated it out and had to answer everybody, even those who were clearly bitter about a number of their programmes.  The contrary is the case in Nigeria, where presidential and gubernatorial sessions with the people are usually made up of a select audience, where questions are pre-arranged and screened, so as not to ‘embarrass His Excellency’.  The reality, however, is that, the more we embarrass our leaders and demand accountability for the way they govern us, the better for the entire continent.  The aura of respect and invincibility which we allow to shroud our leaders makes mediocres out of them, and gives them the unfounded confidence that they are doing well, even when we all know that they are achieving nothing.

ERADICATING AFRICA’S POVERTY

The countries which will benefit from the proposed debt relief after the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005 should thank their stars.  But for the relief to be meaningful, the people should enter into a firm pact with their leaders to ensure that the relief thus granted should not be viewed as an avenue for a new wave of irresponsibility and rascality.  After all, the dubious debts were incurred, not for any meaningful development in any of the African countries, but most of it ended up in foreign bank accounts of corrupt leaders, which when they die, disappear into those economies, and so forgiving the debts will mean that the African leaders who stole the money have taken it for free. 

The solution to Africa’s problems goes beyond organising musical concerts and one million-man marches to harass the G8 leaders when they meet next month in Scotland.  Much as I agree that the developed world should do more to help Africa and other less developed areas of the world, the solution lies more with investment by the West in good leadership in African countries, rather than attraction of pity on the  situation in Africa, which is all too well known.  The danger in the way  the campaign is being pursued is that it will make Africans to become  more objects of scorn and disdain than it is currently, and whatever reliefs  are provided will be done, more out of pity than any genuine desire to  correct the ills of the continent in an enduring manner.

There is no doubt that any area of the world is prone to poverty, if they are governed by bad leaders, and what the West has going for it is the fact  that they have a comparatively consistent history of good leadership, due to the structures they have put in place, whereas Africa has consistently bad leadership, and their leaders do as they please, without any sanctions, as their citizens are always too scared to challenge their often all-knowing leaders.

Difficult as it may appear, I am totally against debt relief for African countries in the form being advocated. I would rather advocate   hat the debts be frozen at their current rates, so that they do not continue to compound.  The ascertained debts should thereafter still be paid by the respective countries into special funds to be managed by the World Bank or other multi-lateral agencies for provision of infrastructure in the respective countries, subject to criteria of good governance, eradication of corruption, democracy, free and fair elections and respect for the rule of law, among other criteria that may be developed by the World Bank in association with the G8 countries.  Handled in this way, the debts will translate to compulsory savings for such countries, with the difference that they will not be available for irresponsible spending by their leaders, but actually benefit the citizens through provision of much needed infrastructure.  The danger in an outright debt write off is that the funds currently being used for debt service, rather than going into the productive sectors of the economy, will simply disappear into the national budgets and fund recurrent expenditure on maintenance of bogus lifestyles of public office holders, as a cursory look at most African budgets will show.  In Nigeria, the government has admitted that 85% of the national budget goes into recurrent expenditure, leaving only 15% for capital expenditure, which is usually not even spent on any meaningful projects.  It is therefore clear that debt service is not the real reason for poverty in Africa, as most African leaders would like the world to believe, but misplaced priorities in the allocation of even those resources that are currently available. To do otherwise will be to grant a soft landing to African leaders, who will soon start gloating in their new found reprieve, and again siphon the funds outside the continent, as their greed appears to know no bounds.

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** Madaki Ameh, a Lawyer, is currently a Chevening Scholar in Energy Law and Policy at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK.