Leonard Shilgba
Now is the time for Africa to stop the blame game and confront herself with the truth, the uncomfortable truth. The current rush for Africa by the two largest global economies, USA and China, tells us two pieces of truth: The oranges in daddy's orchard are ripe for harvest at home, but the Africans are fast running out for various reasons; and there is need for Africans to position themselves to drive the new trend and bargain for a better deal than they did or could have done during the sad era of colonialism.
As the story of the Ebola plague ravaging much of West Africa broke, I was struck yet again by disturbing evidence of inefficient public service, and how this contributes to increasing levels of poverty on any people. I saw on an international news station, an African man, suspected of having the Ebola virus, lying helplessly and unattended to for hours on a street in Liberia. In contrast, some Americans who reportedly contracted the virus in Africa, were flown back to their home country in specially prepared cubicles and offered special medical attention. I learned later that they had started the journey of recovery to good health. Why is life not respected in Africa? Poverty cannot be reduced without proper and productive labor.
Effective public service begins with high quality of personnel in charge of public affairs. And the quality of personnel engaged for public service depends on the recruitment procedure, the reward, training (including on the job), and work environment in public service. All of these determine the level of motivation of the public servant; and this motivation affects quality and speed of public service, which determines whether or not the welfare of the people will improve or suffer.
In my State, Benue State of Nigeria, it is reported that there are less than 40 medical doctors. This is a state with more than 4 million inhabitants. That is, the ratio of doctors to inhabitants is less than 1:100,000 or 0.001 per cent! Poverty is usually an appendage of poor health. Poor health results in poor productivity of the citizens, which exacerbates poverty. If in 40 years since its creation in 1976 the government of Benue State has been unable to improve this horrid ratio, what then is a more glaring evidence of poor governance? African leaders usually travel abroad in search of good medical care, which they have refused to provide at home, in spite of huge commonwealth. It is true that Benue State is only a metaphor for many other African provinces or regions.
In the same State, the State governor decided to take N 11 billion bond ( i.e. about $69 million) in the twilight of his government in 2014, purportedly to "complete public infrastructure projects." The governor had taken N 15 billion bond before. The State House of Assembly, reportedly, demanded for about N1 billion ( $ 6.8 million at the rate then) in cash before giving approval, claiming that they received no "returns" after giving approval for the first bond. This was offered and the approval was granted. Now, what would you say is the quality of public service that those legislators offered to citizens of their state? And what should be your conclusion about the governor's motive for the bond if he so quickly granted the request of the lawmakers?
African public servants usually see their offices as the honey pot that must first satisfy themselves and offspring, with surplus put aside for a long line of personal inheritors, before mere mortals, whom they consider as subjects, are given even a second of thought. Service to the people is certainly not a motivation for public officials, but personal gain is. This explains the brazen ferocious and murderous pursuit for power and public office on the continent. The interest of the people is certainly not the goal that instigates this much hatred and blood shed in the quest for power. Public civil servants become private servants to the "kings" of Africa, and must do their bidding even if the consequence is clash with or even destruction of public expectation, public trust, and public good. Those civil servants, having faithfully and traditionally done the will of elected or selected public officers of state, using public institutions and instruments, have turned themselves wild upon the people, offering them spite for care, harassment instead of needed help, and oppression in the place of honest and proper service. The result is the blistering material poverty among the people.
Privatization of public assets in Africa, which is often applauded by the "civilized world," is, in fact, an official looting of the public wealth by a few privileged folks in government. Improvement of service is thrown up as a goal, but it is only a devious pretext. The recent privatization of public electricity
Infrastructure in Nigeria has rather yielded a new ownership by people in power who arranged the deal. The common experience of consumers is that of unreliable supply or service and increased tariff. The promise of improving service with endless failure has been an adopted language by the new owners. Consumers receive no information either by email or text messaging about schedule of supply of electricity to their neighborhood even as generation cannot presently meet demand. Almost three years after privatization, there is nothing in terms of service improvement that suggests respect for the consumer. The Jos Electricity Distribution Company ( JEDC), which serves my home district, and which is partly owned by a former Nigerian governor, is very sloppy in service delivery. Service has worsened since the privatization, and yet consumers are in the dark about plans by the company to improve; transformers are not adequate and secondary load-shedding is a norm, but consumers remain at the mercy of the new oppressors, who are being protected by the government, even this APC government. The Nigerian people are certainly without respect in the eyes of their leaders.
I have observed among Africans a despicable obsession with personal accumulation of western toys just to provoke envy and worshipful adoration among their fellows. As long as Africans celebrate unfounded wealth, unregenerate wealth, and foreign-acquired wealth, their public officers will continue to be motivated by the prospect. Deliberate impoverishment of the people is a means, and crippling of public dissent is a goal. The people have lost any hope for a better life.
There are weapons of endless impoverishment that African public officers use:
Inadequate public infrastructure: What would motivate a leader to neglect transport infrastructure such as roads, and allow their people to drive on pothole- filled roads to their untimely death? I know some African national and regional leaders that have genuinely made commendable efforts to provide public infrastructure for their people's good health and wealth. However, the preponderance of African leaders can go for monsters who delight in the suffering of their people. And this is the bane of their regions and nations.
Unreliable legal system: The rule of law in Africa is a strange thing in the land, and is often observed only in breach. The brutality of African chiefs, kings, and political leaders, is only possible because of a weak judicial system, which usually gives justice to the rich and powerful. The pathway of justice is very long for the poor, but short for the rich and powerful in Africa. It is a puzzle in Africa when the rich and powerful suffer improbable mishap in the temple of justice. Quite often, the explanation is that they have fallen out with their more powerful colleagues.
Non- functional public education: Functional education is that which prepares the people to demand of their leaders service rich in accountability, befitting of their civilization, and influenced by the search for public good and noble legacy. It is the kind of education that trains the people to engage in sensible and reasonable debates and discourse without pettiness. It awakens in them self-respecting volunteerism without expectation of immediate personal gain.
It teaches the people that individual survival or prosperity is only guaranteed in the same for the collective. Such education prepares the mind to create and not just consume wealth.
Lack of productive imagination is not only delaying Africa's integration, it also opens up Africa for exploitation. When will Africans wake up from this frightening dream of artificial colonial-instigated boundaries between brothers and sisters? A continent of more than one billion people and rich natural and human endowment can transform into an enviable huge country, and reduce poverty for her peoples while promoting healthy economic and social competition among her states, and developing humongous public infrastructure across her length and breadth in order to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. For now, our poverty is only artificial, man-made.
Many Africans have been too traumatized by poverty to think rationally about governance. Such have rather turned themselves into apologists for government and thugs for public officers, harassing those who dare stand up to their masters. Democracy in much of Africa has claimed more precious lives than military rule did. Elections are usually dreadful prospects to contemplate, fetching huge military deployments like in war time. If Africans should wait for their leaders to suddenly get some spiritual transformation and change without pressure from them, redemption will be long delayed. Their leaders hastily buy into foreign-designed initiatives such as removal of fuel subsidy, privatization of public assets, currency devaluation, etc., which have increased poverty in the land and killed public assets in order to protect the interests of a few businesses, whose proposperity thereby is often flaunted as an index for "economic growth". I have argued that the term "privatization" is foreign to an African, who is traditionally groomed in an environment of common ownership and social mutual assistance.
Ghanaians woke up to find that their government threw at them fuel subsidy removal amidst depreciating local currency value, high tuition fees in government colleges and universities, and low public wages, but without any social shock absorbers. Nigerians have fared worse: In order to provide mobile telecommunications services, a "democratic" government sacrificed public-owned Nigerian Telecommunications company (NITEL) and threw Nigerians out of work, stultified deployment of landlines, closed down beautiful and functional phone booths that had been built across the country, including on university campuses, by NITEL , replaced phone call plastic cards that were being purchased and used by callers with nothing but road-side human call merchants. Fuel subsidy was removed or reduced in 2012,and completely taken away this year without verifiable public pacifiers. In 2012, the federal government announced supply of about 700 buses to serve 774 local government areas and more than 160 million people, and called that a "cushioning" approach to people's suffering! We indeed have comedians in government. OCUPPY NIGERIA protests were organized like the Ghanaians attempted, but the efforts did not change anything significant even as organized labor seemed to have compromised the struggle. Maybe they were too occupied to occupy Nigeria.
History has been a faithful witness that publicly accepted change does not come cheap. South Africans, here at home, paid a price for what they enjoy or appear to enjoy today, even though corruption and crime are now creeping in under black majority rule. The French Revolution was an open statement against the aristocracy that executed its excesses with the collaboration of the religious leaders. The North African protests in the Maghreb region and Egypt were also a bold statement that even docile people can bite when pushed to the wall. The silence by other Africans or inconsistent and unsustained protests by them has not sent a strong enough message to their oppressing leaders that they are angry. Elections are clinically rigged now with impunity, using various surreptitious means, and the aggrieved are challenged to go to the courts that have lost credibility. As the case is in Nigeria, a 180-day time limit has been constitutionally set through the cunning brinkmanship of the former ruling party, PDP, during which the aggrieved can seek redress at the Election Tribunal. Thus all sorts of legal speed bumps are built on the road to justice, which cannot be navigated before time is up. It is all in the hands of the suffering and sometimes smiling Africans. External colonialism has transmuted, internal colonialism has got the hold, and the people have the final say.
Great piece!
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