Nicolas Sarkozy's Africa

Achille Mbembe's commentary (thankfully translated by my former African Studies prof) is an insightful critique of Nicolas Sarkozy's (and extends to France's elite ruling class in general) skewed view/language regarding Africa. It is chilling to think that this is the man who will rule France possibly for the next 10 years. Mbembe asks some thought-provoking questions such as: What credibility can we afford such gloomy words that portray Africans as fundamentally traumatized beings incapable of acting on their own behalf and in their own recognized interests? How is it possible to come to promise us a fanciful Eurafrica without even mentioning the internal efforts to build a unitary African economic framework? But the article is rather long so keep in mind that the excerpts below only make up about a quarter of the whole commentary.

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Nicolas Sarkozy's Africa - by Achille Mbembe

If they'd had the chance, the majority of French-speaking Africans would have no doubt voted against Nicolas Sarkozy at the last French presidential elections...a high price for his attitude to immigration when he was Jacques Chirac's Minister of the Interior, his alleged collusion with the racist extreme right-wing and his role in sparking the riots in France's deprived suburbs in 2005.

Violation by language
On his first tour of sub-Saharan Africa, he thus arrived in Dakar preceded by a terribly negative reputation: that of a hyper-active and dangerous politician, cynical and brutal, power-crazy, who doesn't listen, speaks his mind and more, doesn't skimp on the means and who, with regard to Africa and its people, shows nothing but condescension and contempt.


Regression
For those who expect nothing from France, the words pronounced at the University of Dakar were nonetheless highly revealing. Indeed, the speech written by Henri Guaino (special advisor) and delivered by Nicolas Sarkozy in the Senegalese capital offer an excellent illumination into the power to harm - conscious or unconscious, passive or active - which, over the next ten years, might well arise from the paternalistic and hackneyed vision that some of the new French ruling elite (on both the left and right) continue to project onto a continent which has nonetheless constantly undergone radical changes, especially during the second half of the 20th century.

The new French president's speech shows how, trapped in a frivolous and exotic vision of the continent, the new French ruling elites claim to shed light on realities that they consider their worst fears or their fantasies (race) but which, in reality, they know nothing about. To address "the elite of African youth", then, Henri Guaino contented himself to lifting, almost word for word, passages from the chapter Hegel devotes to Africa in his work Reason in History, which I again, after many others, recently criticized in my book On the Postcolony.
According to Hegel, Africa is a land of unchanging substance and dazzling disorder, the joyful and tragic country in Creation. Black people, as we see them today, are as they have always been. In the immense energy of the natural arbitrariness that dominates them, neither the moral moment, nor ideas of freedom, justice and progress have any place or particular status. Whoever wants to discover the most appalling manifestations of human nature can find them in Africa. Strictly speaking, this part of the world has no history. What we understand, in short, going by the name of Africa, is an ahistoric, undeveloped world, entirely prisoner of its natural spirit and whose place remains on the threshold of universal history.
The new French elites do not believe anything different. They share this Hegelian prejudice. They now consider that one can only address societies so deeply plunged into the night of childhood by speaking unguardedly, with a sort of virgin energy. And that is indeed what they have in mind when they now openly defend the idea of a nation no longer "hung-up" about its colonial past.
In their eyes, it is only possible to speak of Africa and to Africans by following the path of sense and reason in reverse. It doesn't matter if this is done so in a context in which each word spoken is so in a blanket of ignorance. It suffices to pile on the words, to employ a kind of verbal plethora, to advance in a suffocating wealth of images - all the things that give Nicolas Sarkozy's Dakar speech its abrupt, faltering, and blunt character.

How then, can one be surprised that his definition of the continent and its people is ultimately purely negative? Indeed, our ethno-philosopher president's "African man" is above all characterized either by what he hasn't got, what he isn't or by what he has never managed to achieve (the dialectic of lack and incompletion), or by his opposition to "modern man" (read "white man"), an opposition which apparently results from his irrational attachment to the kingdom of childhood, the world of night, to simple pleasures and a golden age that never existed.
For the rest, the new French ruling elite's Africa is essentially a rural, magical, phantom Africa, partly bucolic, partly nightmarish, inhabited by peasant folk, composed of a community of sufferers who have nothing in common other than their common position on the margins of history, prostrate as they are in a outer-world - that of sorcerers and griots, of magical beings who keep fountains, sing in rivers and hide in the trees, of the village dead and ancestors whose voices can be heard, of masks and forests full of symbols, of the clichés that are so-called "African solidarity", "community spirit", "warmth" and respect for elders and chiefs.

Today, the cultural and intellectual prism through which the new French ruling elites consider Africa, judge it, or doll it out lessons isn't just obsolete. It leaves no place for the amicable relationships that would be a sign of freedom because coextensive with relationships of justice and respect. For the time being, when it comes to Africa, France simply lacks the moral credit that would allow it to speak with certitude and authority.
That is why Nicolas Sarkozy's Dakar speech will not be heard, and even less taken seriously by those he was supposed to be addressing.

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Achille Mbembe is a research professor in history and politics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He has written extensively in African history and politics, and is the winner of the 2006 Bill Venter/Altron Award for his book On the Postcolony (University of California Press, 2001).

Sierra Leone's REFUGEE ALL STARS

Here's a documentary worth checking out. The film follows a group of talented musicians who fled the civil war in their home country of Sierra Leone and met at a refugee camp in Guinea. Scheduled to be released on DVD on August 14th, the film has recently partnered with Netflix and every time a DVD of the film is purchased, $1 goes to ninemillion.org, a human rights campaign to raise funds for refugee children. So please spread the word...




Sierra Leone's REFUGEE ALL STARS
(a documentary film by Banker White and Zach Niles)

The plight of the refugee in today's war-torn world is captured in the African proverb, "When two elephants are fighting, the grass will suffer." So it was in Sierra Leone from 1991-2002, where the government and various rebel factions carried out a brutal civil war in which the terrorizing of civilians, by killing, mutilation, rape, and forced conscription, was common practice on all sides. The war sent hundreds of thousands of ordinary Sierra Leoneans fleeing to refugee camps in the neighboring West African nation of the Republic of Guinea. That's where the remarkable documentary Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars begins.

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars are a band of six Sierra Leonean musicians who came together to form a band while living in a refugee camp in Guinea. Many of their family and friends were murdered in the war, leaving each of them with physical and emotional scars that may never heal. Despite the unimaginable horrors of civil war, they were saved and brought hope and happiness to their fellow refugees through their music.

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars chronicles the band over three years, from Guinean refugee camps back to war-ravaged Sierra Leone, where they realize the dream of recording their first studio album. And so begins a musical phenomenon that is making the world hear the voices of West Africa's refugees through the film Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars have been able to launch an international musical career, while drawing the accolades of Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Ice Cube (one of the executive producers of the film), and Joe Perry.

Through their unflinching spirit, their powerful stories of survival and their joyful music Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars celebrate the best that is in all of us. As violent conflicts multiply around the globe and the worldwide refugee crisis deepens, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars is a humanizing ode to all the innocent survivors of war whose brutal realities are often dismissed by surface mass media sound bytes.

www.refugeeallstars.org
www.myspace.com/refugeeallstarsfilm

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NINEMILLION.ORG
Nine million faces. Nine million names. Nine million stories. Nine million children are refugees right now. Ninemillion.org is a UN Refugee Agency led campaign to raise awareness and funds for education and sports programs for refugee youth, many of whom are forced to spend years of their young lives away from home with little hope of returning. What happens to them now, during their years as refugees, is up to all of us. Please spread the word.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, NEARLY

We've been hearing a lot in the past two months about Yar'Adua needing to act quickly to establish the legitimacy of his government amidst the illegitimacy of the platform on which he won. However, the ND issues have not been at the forefront of these calls to action. Beyond the EFCC, and the fight against corruption that this Economist article highlights, there are the even more pertinent issues of the PEOPLE of the Niger Delta. Is the first step to address the corruption of these governors to ensure that the future pie is larger than it has been in the past (and can hopefully go towards alleviating the plight of the people)? Or do we need to be looking hard at what we can do to rectify the current appalling situation of the ND inhabitants, regardless of what's going on on the anti-corruption war front? On the other hand, do we need to be overhauling our constitution and fitting it to the current times, which call for the need to check the incessant corruption that thrives due to the constitutionally-protected autonomy enjoyed by state governors?

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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, NEARLY - The Economist

After fraudulent elections a new and tainted president faces a mountain of problems


THERE must be few other countries on earth with such a glaring mismatch between their actual state and their extraordinary potential. Some call Nigeria Africa's slumbering giant. It more often behaves like the continent's suicidal maniac.

With 140m people, Africa's most populous country is the world's eighth-largest oil exporter. That has earned Nigeria about $223 billion in revenues over the past eight years alone. Yet so wasted has this windfall been that most Nigerians continue to live in squalor and poverty. The country ranks 159th out of 177 on the UN's human-development index. For all the energy resources that lie under Nigerians' feet, the fitful power supply dips at times to levels last seen when the country became independent nearly half a century ago.

The cause of all this is extravagant corruption and mismanagement, coupled with a political culture that owes more to the principles of gangsterism than to any textbook on democracy. April's elections were marked by violence and fraud on a scale that boggled the imagination even of jaded Nigerian voters. Many therefore regard their new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, who after months of dithering finally formed his cabinet last week, as tainted from the start.

And yet Mr Yar'Adua may yet achieve something in his four-year term. Although he was the principal beneficiary of all the ballot-rigging, his personal reputation, acquired as a state governor, is one of probity and competence. He has certainly been saying all the right things since the election about the evils of corruption and the need for transparency. And he has a receptive audience: voters sick of the looting of their country will back a leader who seems genuine about reform.

To make the most of these slim advantages, however, Mr Yar'Adua needs to act quickly. He could start by ensuring that the next election is less farcical than the last. This requires legislation to take the commission that organises elections, and the decision on who sits on it, out of the hands of the presidency and make it truly independent of the executive. The dismally partisan performance of the commission in April's election showed that it is now "independent" in name only.

Another aim must be to strengthen the anti-corruption drive that was begun by Mr Yar'Adua's predecessor as president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which came to be used as a tool to discredit the government's opponents, must be allowed to go after anyone. It could start by prosecuting some of the former state governors, several of whom it has indicted.
Clean up the Delta, while you're about it

Cracking down on corruption could in turn help resolve the insurgency in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, which has shut down about 20% of the country's oil production. The Delta's problems do not stem from the federal government's miserliness towards local people, as is often claimed, but from the theft of the funds it sends the region. The budget of the main Delta state last year was a hefty $1.3 billion, all of this from the central government. Yet thanks to the avarice of local politicians, most was siphoned off before reaching the people, who remain some of Africa's poorest and sickest.

Mr Yar'Adua should get tough with the Delta governors to ensure that the money goes to its intended recipients. For example, he could channel more federal money into decentralised trusts and so bypass the state governors and their lackeys altogether. The Delta is where all Nigeria's plagues of political gangsterism, corruption and poverty converge. If Mr Yar'Adua can crack the Delta's woes, he may learn how to unpick some of the problems of the country as a whole.

Power Crisis

This article from the New York Times explains one of the reasons why Nigeria like so many other sub-Saharan African nations are performing poorly economically. Even though this article doesn't focus solely on Nigeria, the issue raised: power-blackouts, are reminiscent of the various problems experienced by Nigeria and Nigerians. Power blackouts are hardly a new phenomena in sub-Saharan Africa, where some homes can be without electricity months on end. The lack of such basic infrastructure has devastating consequences for Nigeria and the region as a whole.

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Toiling in the Dark: Africa's Power Crisis - Michael Wines


LUSAKA, Zambia — It is not that Jacob Mwale minds irrigating the 11 acres of land he farms just east of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. It is irrigating his 11 acres in the dead of night that angers him. Two or three times a week, the Mwale farm abruptly loses power, like the homes and businesses of some of Zambia’s 300,000 other electricity users. When the power returns, sometimes late in the evening, Mr. Mwale’s farmhands work overtime, watering the fields by moonlight. “If they shut down the whole day, I have to work nights, and pay extra,” Mr. Mwale, 39, grumbled. “It’s killing us.”

Power blackouts — “load shedding,” in utility jargon — are hardly novel in sub-Saharan Africa, where many electricity grids remain chewing-gum-and-baling-wire affairs. Even so, this year is different. Perhaps 25 of the 44 sub-Saharan nations face crippling electricity shortages, a power crisis that some experts call unprecedented.

The causes are manifold: strong economic growth in some places, economic collapse in others, war, poor planning, population booms, high oil prices and drought have combined to leave both industry and residents short of power when many need it most.

The implications go beyond candlelight suppers and extra blankets on beds. The lack of reliable power has already begun to hamper the region’s development, clipping more than 2 percent off the annual growth rates of the worst-hit African economies, according to the World Bank. Some nations, like Ghana, have tried to deal with their power crises by leasing huge teams of gas generators, producing emergency power at exorbitant rates until power plants can be built.
In Nigeria, Angola and some other nations, virtually all businesses and many residents run private generators to supplement faltering public service, saddling economies with added costs and worsening pollution.

The gravity of this year’s shortage is all the more apparent considering how little electricity sub-Saharan Africa has to begin with. Excluding South Africa, whose economy and power consumption dwarf other nations’, the region’s remaining 700 million citizens have access to roughly as much electricity as do the 38 million citizens of Poland.

Much goes to industry: a single aluminum smelter near Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, gobbles four times as much power as the entire rest of Mozambique. On average, the World Bank says, fewer than one in four sub-Saharan Africans are hooked to national electricity grids. Moreover, some grids are so poorly maintained that electricity suppliers get paid for as little as 60 percent of the power they generate. The rest is either stolen or lost in ill-maintained networks. For decades, the region had enough generating capacity — and few enough customers — to tolerate such waste. No more: sub-Saharan nations are adding about a thousand megawatts of generating capacity each year, World Bank experts say, but need up to twice that to keep pace with demand.

Some governments privatized chunks of their power industry in the early 1990s when free-market solutions to public-sector problems were in vogue, leaving it unclear who is ultimately responsible for providing power. Other governments, as in South Africa, failed to build power plants that experts warned were needed. The government monopoly Eskom, the world’s fourth-largest power utility, was advised in a 1998 report that it would run short of power in 2007, but planning and financing problems — not all within the utility’s control — stalled upgrades. The forecast was actually ptimistic: Eskom began running short in 2006.

Yet South Africa’s woes pale beside those of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Only 19 of 79 power plants work, the government said in April. Daily electricity output has plunged 60 percent from its peak, and blackouts cost the economy $1 billion a year, the Council for Renewable Energy in Nigeria says.

Poor management is but one problem. War has devastated the power grid in Congo, in Africa’s heart, and stalled plans to develop its vast hydroelectric potential. In Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and parts of West Africa, drought has shrunk rivers and slashed the generating capacity of hydroelectric dams. Drought in Ghana, for example, has crippled gold and aluminum production and set off blackouts in Togo and Benin, which buy power from Ghana.

Zambia, where power to customers like Mr. Mwale is rationed almost every day, is a template for such problems. Barely 20 percent of households are wired for power — only 3 percent in rural areas — but the Zambia Electricity Supply Company, known as Zesco, is signing up 10,000 new customers a year, said Christopher Nthala, the utility’s transmission director. Now Zambia is getting a push: a global commodities boom has jolted its moribund metals industry to life. Investors are building two smelters, and doubling the capacity of another, to handle the boom in copper, nickel and other metals, taxing the nation’s power supply.

None of that mollifies customers, who say blackouts are so common that service in much of Lusaka has become totally unreliable.“Every day — it’s either in the morning, when people are going to work or preparing to cook, or in the evening, the prime time when I’m tired and I need to go home and listen to the news and cook my supper,” said Bishop Peter Ndhlovu...Nighttime prayer meetings in his corrugated-roof chapel have been canceled. Bishop Ndhlovu and others say they lave lost refrigerators, televisions and DVD players to the utility’s blackouts and surges.

Zambia’s plan, like the plans of dozens of other nations, is to build its way out of the power crunch. Zesco plans $1.2 billion in generating upgrades and new capacity, financed mostly by China and India...The World Bank says its financing of power projects in sub-Saharan Africa is ballooning, from $250 million five years ago to $660 million last year to $1 billion in 2007.
But many plans remain just that. Issues like creditworthiness, lax regulation, domestic politics and the sheer difficulty of sending power over rundown grids to the customer make outside investments in power stations tougher than they appear, said Tore Horvei, the chief operating officer of South Africa's CIC Energy Corporation.

The best answer, most experts consulted agree, would be for nations to cooperate on regional power solutions. One or two large regional plants, they say, could supply power more cheaply and efficiently than dozens of smaller ones. But while that may be logical, Mr. Horvei said, “it’s very challenging in practice to do so.” “National pride and everything else comes in,” he added. There is an alternative: saving energy. Namibia plans a wind farm on its southern coast, while in South Africa, Eskom has handed out five million fluorescent bulbs and 140,000 insulating blankets for water heaters, and has paid industrial customers to switch off equipment during periods of high demand.

Celebrated Nigerian Women in Development

Following Nawahala's (interesting name choice there, eh?...if you're confused, see 6th comment on "Stop Trying to Save Africa" post)comments, we thought we'd share the link to what seems like a great book celebrating the efforts of some Nigerian heroines in the development arena (thanks for the link Olamide!). Celebrated Nigerian Women in Development is authored by Ayona Aguele-Trimnell, a brand marketing manager in Lagos, and it features women such as author, Buchi Emechetta, sculptor & cultural activist, Ndidi Dike, and model, Oluchi Onweagba, to name a few. An initial scan of the women featured on the website showcases the who's who of Lagos, but a closer look would reveal some truly great women doing their thing and making a difference in their respective fields.

According to Professor Sophie Oluwole (ED, Centre for African Culture & Development):

"The profiles of the 25 women celebrated in this well thought-out and ably presented volume can be multiplied several times over if the limelight is directed at women in the business of traditional herbal medicine, women who produce garri, pepper, vegetable oil, garden eggs and women who sell them; and women who are dress makers, hair dressers, nurses, primary and secondary school teachers, religious and community leaders.

This book provides an immediate answer to the question, 'Where are the women?' by giving a tentative answer 'Here are some of them.'

My message is that we need more books such as this to give us much needed documentation on Nigerian women who have arrived. The challenge to every female reader of this book is to celebrate the proud, resilient and forever hopeful Nigerian women. We need to celebrate ourselves."

How Far can the EFCC Go?

SolomonSydelle's comments spurred me to research the hot news on the naija scene about the governors who have been arrested by the EFCC. Filled with hope and excitement that I would find headlines with Ibori, Odili and the like, I was slightly disappointed at the names I saw. But it is a start, right? Abati's article in last week's Guardian probes the current EFCC manhunt and gives us a few issues to think about. How far can the EFCC go? Can/Will they (Ribadu) really have the guts to go after the "big dogs"? Should we be content with the progress made thus far? After all, no agency in the past has been able to make such progress.

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How far can the EFCC Go? -By Reuben Abati

THE current onslaught of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on former state Governors, who allegedly looted public funds in the last four years, and are no longer covered by Section 308 of the Constitution on immunity, is an act of self-redemption for the organisation, but a lot depends on how far it is willing to go, how fair and transparent it is seen to be, and whether at the end of the day, justice would have been seen to have been done. This is all that matters, not the politics and the grandstanding now surrounding the exercise.

Why redemption? With the coming of the Yar'Adua administration, there had been a kind of lull at the EFCC. Before May 29, the EFCC had boasted loudly that many of the state Governors who would no longer be returning to office would be arrested and made to answer questions about their management of public resources. The EFCC indeed announced that it had investigated about 30 Governors and its findings were very bad. But after May 29, it was as if the EFCC went to sleep. The people expected immediate action knowing that truly the Governors were capable of running away, what they got instead were chest-beating declarations by some of the Governors that they were untouchable.

Then, just when everyone had thought that the EFCC was losing relevance, it bared its fangs and began to arrest the Governors and arraign them in court in batches. In the past week, this has been the top story in the land. This is also about the Yar'Adua government. By allowing the EFCC to go after the former Governors, the Yar'Adua administration is also advertising its determination to punish corruption. But how far also, is the Federal Government willing to go? There are emerging questions.

One, the Governors that have been taken to court so far, or that are being targeted are not in the estimation of the public the only ones that they expect to see in the dock. They want other Governors in court as well to come and explain why after eight years of service, the various states of the federation are in such a messy state. The EFCC insists that it is still investigating those other Governors and that it wants to do a proper home work before spreading its drag net. One major criticism of the EFCC now and in the past is that its morality is too selective and vindictive. It must avoid that pitfall this time around.

Saminu Turaki, former Governor of Jigawa state, Orji Kalu (Abia), George Akume (Benue), Joshua Dariye(Plateau), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Boni Haruna (Adamawa) and Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu) are already having a "fellowship" with the law. But really in terms of the quantum of resources that they managed, and before the law, this is not an excuse, these Governors are not in the big league. For this reason, the public would like to see some of the other Governors, the big budget Governors, the ones with homes in all the major capitals of the world, in the dock. Thirty Governors were originally fingered. The EFCC must make sure that they do not run away before the cleansing process gets to their turn. Lest it be said that it deliberately targeted the present set in order to allow others to flee.

Second, the present exercise appears limited to the activities of state Governors between 2003 and 2007. How about the Governors who served between 1999 and 2003? With the sole exception of Abubakar Audu of Kogi state, there has been no known attempt to investigate this category. If the EFCC cannot do so, the Code of Conduct Bureau and the ICPC should step in and bring them to book. And this should not be limited to the Governors. How about Federal Ministers between 1999 and 2007? President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar? Certainly, the last two should be investigated afresh in the light of the recent declaration by Dr Shamsidden Usman before the National Assembly that the so-called foreign reserve of $43.3 billion is a piece of propaganda because what is actually available to the country is $8.8 billion.

Third, before the present blow-out, the EFCC had made it known that some of the Governors had returned some money and property to the state in exchange for their freedom. This is called plea bargaining. If the Federal Government is going to allow some Governors to escape under the cover of plea bargain then it must allow every other Governor that privilege. But the public must be told why. And the names of all the Governors who have been making reparations should be made known with a complete list of whatever it is that they are returning to the state. Plea bargaining which is part of the EFCC Act is however, an unpopular option with many Nigerians. The Nigerian people have been most affected by the corrupt practices of their leaders. They are frustrated by the absence of growth in their society, and the spread of poverty in their land. Plea bargain must not become an under-hand tool for helping the corrupt to save face.

But perhaps more important in all of this are the moral lessons. How are the mighty fallen. Say it on the streets of Awka, Enugu, Jos, Dutse, or wherever you wish, that these men who used to bestride the land in siren-bearing vehicles, serenaded by a retinue of fawning aides who mouthed "your Excellency, your Excellency" as if they received special training in the pronunciation of that word, men whose word was akin to law, men who ruled and reigned, men who became so self-important they signed documents only with red and green pens, with flourish, are now helpless reeds in the hands of the law!

The poet is right: "Life is but a walking shadow, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Only if they knew. All the people now strutting their stuff in the corridors of power ("Your Excellency....your most distinguished Excellency") should learn from this. E wo iku Gaa, e se ooto.

STOP TRYING TO 'SAVE' AFRICA

This article from the Washington Post is just one of many these days decrying the media's (and the Western world's) portrayal of Africa. The Live Earth concert 2 Saturdays ago was full of messages regarding global warming but somehow the topic of saving Africa managed to come up, as it's been deemed the sexiest topic these days, next to being green (if not ranked higher by the press).

Uzodinma Iweala questions the motives of these self-proclaimed saviours of Africa. We tend to ask, "when will Africans start helping themselves?", but in reality, they never stopped, the rest of us just need to get on board. An argument that comes up regularly is that regarding celebrities' motives behind their sudden "dying need to help Africa"? The Angelinas and Oprahs are no doubt doing some great humanitarian work but would we (Africans) be better off if they just gave the money to NGOs and called it a day without the media circus? Or are these characters more instrumental in that they are putting the African "pandemic" on the ever-busy world map?
(thanks for the article Rukky!!)

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Stop Trying to 'Save' Africa - by Uzodinma Iweala
Sunday, July 15, 2007

Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists.

"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East , the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help.

Perhaps most interesting is the language used to describe the Africa being saved. For example, the Keep a Child Alive/" I am African" ad campaign features portraits of primarily white, Western celebrities with painted "tribal markings" on their faces above "I AM AFRICAN" in bold letters. Below, smaller print says, "help us stop the dying."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom? Why do Angelina Jolie and Bono receive overwhelming attention for their work in Africa while Nwankwo Kanu or Dikembe Mutombo, Africans both, are hardly ever mentioned? How is it that a former mid-level U.S. diplomat receives more attention for his cowboy antics in Sudan than do the numerous African Union countries that have sent food and troops and spent countless hours trying to negotiate a settlement among all parties in that crisis?

Two years ago I worked in a camp for internally displaced people in Nigeria, survivors of an uprising that killed about 1,000 people and displaced 200,000. True to form, the Western media reported on the violence but not on the humanitarian work the state and local governments -- without much international help -- did for the survivors. Social workers spent their time and in many cases their own salaries to care for their compatriots. These are the people saving Africa, and others like them across the continent get no credit for their work.

Last month the Group of Eight industrialized nations and a host of celebrities met in Germany to discuss, among other things, how to save Africa. Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.

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Uzodinma Iweala is the author of "Beasts of No Nation," a novel about child soldiers.

Is Nigeria Ungovernable?

Insight with Richard Cockett and Raufu Mustapha: A new government but is Nigeria ungovernable?

Richard Cockett has been Africa Editor of The Economist since 2005. From 2001 to 2005 he was the their correspondent in Central America and the Caribbean. He covered the Nigeria elections last spring.

Raufu Mustapha is the Senior Researcher responsible for the West Africa Programme at Oxford University.

On July 3rd they met at The Frontline Club. Click below to see the discussion.



Thanks to Silvia for the link!

BABY STEPS...

The clip below is of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's (former Nigerian finance minister) phenomenal speech at the TED Global conference a few months ago. For most of you, this is stuff you already know, but we thought it would be great to share her perspective on the ongoing reform in African countries. We tend to focus on the gaps that are yet to be filled but once in a while, it's important to acknowledge the great strides that have been made. She makes a great point about the importance of Africans needing to take charge of their own destiny, stop being dependent on aid and waiting on the West to help solve our problems. The Aid vs Investment debate is ongoing, some believe aid is extremely harmful and dangerous to Africa's development while others believe it to be the salvation for Africa. What are your thoughts?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/127

These links (courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman's (who blogged the TED African conference in Arusha last month) blog, My Heart Is In Accra) will give you more insight into both sides of the debate that were voiced at the TED African conference by Okonjo-Iweala, Bono and Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda.

The Africa You Don't Hear About?

This post was initially an email sent to us from Nnamdi Awa-Kalu (thanks Nnamdi!) but we decided to share it on the Beat because of the interesting issues it raised. Is it OK to promote the general picture of "the suffering Africans" in order to garner sympathy and aid from the West? Are they (we) essentially "pimping" us (ourselves) to the most sympathetic "bidder"? Does it matter as long as some good ($$) comes out of it?

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A friend of mine recently told me about a facebook group that was opposed to
what it's creator termed "development pornography" which refers to the pseudo-voyeuristic tendencies of those in the better-off world to display pictures of "suffering" and afflicted Africans to the world to earn their sympathy. Her argument was that the inundation of the world with these pictures- constantly depicting Africa's poorest and illest in the most visually- unbearable poses- will desensitize an already ignorant West to the problems of that part of the world.

I did not completely agree with Wendy (my friend). And our argument went on to cover several grounds of pet hatred which we young, vibrant students in diaspora (who are relatively free of "suffering") have to contend with day after day. These included the general portrayal of Africa as a single body, which is the single biggest mistake anyone can make seeing as our proud but tired continent is the embodiment of cultural proliferation and multiple ethnic identities. I generally agree that poverty should not be attached as an emblem to Africa nor should the West continue to be fixated on the immediate impact of horror stories but I definitely feel that Africa is not at a stage where it can debate such issues primarily because it is so dependent...on aid which is solicited by means of sympathetic stories. And nothing is so persuasive as "a picture of a shorty armless," as put so poetically by Kanye West in "Diamonds from Sierra Leone". With regards to the issue of Africa frequently referred to as a sum of its parts, we are unfortunate that we have to band together to summon as much bargaining power as most western nations can command individually. Chronic economic and political instability can tend to that. But that is not the subject of my writing.

I was overjoyed to see that two Nigerians had received literary awards in the last week. Chinua Achebe received international recognition with a Man Booker Award for "literary profundity" over the course of his career and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was rewarded with the Orange Prize for fiction for her excellent Biafran examination "Half of a Yellow Sun". And the title of the article by Rosie Millard: " This is the Africa you don't hear about "encapsulates my viewpoint. It is important for Africa to find it's voice and allow it to ring loud and strong. It was once said that poets (and writers in general) are the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" and these literary geniuses, with their continued brilliance could deflect attention from the struggling underbelly of Africa so that there is at least a balanced presentation of Africa and its numerous peoples. They could and should become a reflection of Africa's own artistic gifts which will compare favourably with anything and everything in the West, and take their rightful position as African leaders.

Not that this hasn't been happening, but it is important that it happens with
this kind of regularity. Achebe beat off competition from the likes of Margaret
Atwood whose work is a personal favourite and Chimamanda's work was standout favourite for the Orange prize and will probably go on to win a Booker. For her own part, Adichie intoned that: “On TV you never see Africans involved in helping Africa. It’s always some kind westerner. If I got my information only from American TV, I would think Africans were a bunch of stupid idiots...The Africa that you see on TV here is not the Africa I know. Africans don’t sit down, filled with despair, at least the ones I know don’t. They move on with life. Even in the poorest areas of Africa there are people who are showing initiative. There are other stories to tell.”

And it is our artists and writers, our talented performers in growing entertainment industries that will tell these stories in the right context, with the right sentiments and in a succesful light. Let's toast to more of this sort of coverage.

Caloo

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Thanks again, Nnamdi...look out for a piece on either Chimamanda or some more up-and-coming artists/writers in the near future! Also, for more "positive" portrayals of Africa, check out the award-winning documentary, "Africa Open For Business" which seeks to dispel the myths about business in Africa by showcasing ten entrepreneurs on the continent who tell in their own words their path to success.

SPEAK OUT!!

This BBC News article brought a rarely-discussed issue to mind...why don't African leaders speak out against the misdeeds of their fellow leaders? Why is it that seasoned Presidents like OBJ, Ghana's Kuffour, SA's Mbeki don't have the guts to openly criticize Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, or Sudan's President Bashir, for their crimes against their countrymen? Some argue that because the West is constantly criticizing African leadership, these leaders believe that it's unproductive to go about criticizing each other. Others say they would be "disrespecting their elders". Do you think that this "quiet diplomacy" is imperative for African Unity or will it lead to the gradual collapse of the continent if it persists?

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ZIMBABWE 'COLLAPSE IN SIX MONTHS'

Zimbabwe will collapse within six months, possibly leading to a state of emergency, says a leaked briefing report for aid workers in the country. Rampant inflation will mean shops and services can no longer function and people would resort to barter, it said. "The memorandum is talking about a situation where there is no functioning government or a total breakdown," an unnamed aid worker told the UK Times.

Zimbabwe's inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world. Some firms were already partly paying their workers in food, rather than money, [the report] said. Shops were doubling their prices twice a month, so they could purchase replacement goods. If this continues, "doubling the current inflation for each of the seven remaining months of 2007 gives 512,000% thus the economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007," said the report, according to the AP news agency.

The security forces who have remained loyal to President Robert Mugabe were also feeling the effects. The report said an ordinary police officer earned less than aid workers paid their domestic staff. It said power and water suppliers were already near collapse. Electricity was last month rationed to just four hours a day to save power for farmers. Just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job. Some 4m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will need food aid this year, according to the UN World Food Programme.

Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic problems, blaming a western plot to bring down his government because of his policy of seizing white-owned land.

Remarks of Bill Gates

Just thought we could encourage you in your daily struggles by sharing this powerful and remarkable speech by Bill Gates at Harvard University's commencement yesterday. For the full text, please email us at info@theafrobeat.com and we'll send it to you.

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What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

...[Melinda & I] were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

...So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities...If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.

You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question.

Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that's why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

...You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

And you thought we were done...

One last shameless plug for the plight of Nigerian higher education... Here's part of an email from a Psychology professor at Enugu State University of Science & Tech. I had asked her a while ago what her views were on the constant strikes by lecturers, etc. and here's what she had to say:

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The strike actions are unfortunate because time is wasted, both for students and staff. Yet the lecturers have no other way of getting the attention of the authorities to the plight of academics in the Universities. Things are appalling, my dear. There is so much corruption and students are cashing in on it. Anybody can get away with a University degree now without working for it. The good ones are so frustrated that some throw in the towel and derail. Look at the world ratings of Universities and see that Nigerian Unversities , (the best 3) rank from 5,600 or 6,000! And yet nobody cares.

Grades are sold by lecturers who are underpaid. There are no libraries. Staff have no access to journals. people are promoted to professorial positions without publications. There are often absentee lecturers who sublet their courses to unathaurized and unqualified lecturers! Tell me why shouldn't the Universities be closed. Meanwhile Government functionaries, (including the immediate past President) get to establish private Universities which are not within the reach of most youth.

So there, that's my opinion. The strikes are in order. But the authorities
don't care.

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OBJ said in a recent interview, "there is no basis for the striking lecturers to go on strike in view of the giant stride of the present administration at improving the take home pay of the nation's lecturers." Are these strikes the only way to get the authorities to increase teacher salaries and work conditions? For more information on the recent ASUU strikes, check out this article.

The Afro Beat takes on Nigerian Universities

Following up Kome's comment on the "Who Needs an Education" post last week and given that the state of tertiary education in Nigeria is a topic we're particularly interested in, we thought it would be nice to discuss this further (you can vote on this through your participation in this discussion but we hope you deem it a worthy cause too). In case you weren't convinced by the afore-mentioned post, we thought this Guardian Newspaper article put it in another perspective.

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Nigerian universities and world ranking

THE latest worldwide universities' ranking shows that Nigerian universities have dropped out of reckoning because of the poor quality and scope of research conducted by indigenous academics. No Nigerian university featured on the world best 500 universities list. Indeed from the African continent, only the University of Cape Town, South Africa made the list. More embarrassing was the fact that even among the contending universities in Africa, the best Nigerian university was ranked number 44, trailing behind some universities in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana.

Last year, five Nigerian universities were among the first 100 universities in Africa. This time, only four...their ascribed positions were embarrassing. While OAU came in a distant 44th position, UI, Nigeria's premier was #65, and Uniben #79. Unilag made an embarrassing 90th position. [No other universities featured.]

This should be bad news to the Nigerian government and educationists. It should also be bad news to Nigerian academics who, under the aegis of ASUU, are currently on strike over working conditions. The verdict of the ranking system speaks for itself. If Nigerian universities cannot feature among the best 500 in the world and are ranked from Position 44 downwards in Africa, then there is something fundamentally deficient in the system. What is the quality of research that goes on in the universities? Are there research opportunities and facilities in the universities? If there are, are these research findings published in reputable journals across the world? Does this not re-echo the call of our nation's eggheads that the universities need resuscitation through a massive injection of funds?

Numerous problems beset Nigerian universities. Inadequate funding, lack of commitment, poor or unavailable infrastructure, epileptic power supply, and paucity of funds to attend international conferences are some of the challenges which the average academic has to contend with. In the universities that are well ranked, funds are routinely available for scholars to attend conferences where their findings and contributions to knowledge are presented and discussed. Also, because of the sound quality of research their essays are accepted and published in international reputable journals.

The Nigerian academic is not so lucky. He is entitled to attend international conferences about once in two years. If he must attend other conferences, he is required to look for funding from other sources.

Universities need to be proactive in the areas of management and resource mobilization. Some Vice Chancellors are so parochial that they simply see the position as a reward for many years of service. They then fail to rise to the challenges of the office. Some Governing Councils also fall into the same trap. Endowment funds and donations from wealthy patrons apart from government subvention are other sources of income for universities. For example, it should be possible for corporate organisations to provide seed money, invested in bonds, securities and real property in form of endowments on behalf of the universities. This was part of the intention behind the Education Tax Fund. Sadly, this has become another bureaucratic waste pipe.

The world ranking of Nigerian universities ought to be a wake-up call to all stakeholders, including the State and Federal Ministries of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the universities.

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So how can we solve the problem? I know this is highly hypothetical, seeing as the first thing that needs to be done is a due diligence on the state of Nigerian tertiary education. But given what we know, what are some practical steps that you would recommend be taken by the administrators of these universities, given that they cannot obtain an increase in funds from the FG anytime soon? We're interested in "little ideas" about how (1) we, (2)the universities, and (3)the government, can most efficiently improve Nigeria's universities.

The Two Sides of Nigeria

Click here for the TIME Photo Story

The Nigerian Proclamation

IN RECENT HISTORY, NIGERIANS HAVE BEEN OVERWHELMINGLY BETRAYED BY THOSE CHARGED WITH ADDRESSING THEIR NEEDS. INSTEAD OF SERVING THE PEOPLE, PUBLIC SERVANTS HAVE SERVED THEMSELVES TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE MASSES. THE RESULT IS A NATION LACKING ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE, ORGANIZATION AND SECURITY.

THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF NIGERIAN LEADERS INDICATES A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE CONSTITUENTS. NIGERIANS ARE NO LONGER RELEVANT TO THE LEADERS, THUS, LEADERS DO NOT FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO THEM.

THE RECENT FAILURE TO CONDUCT A FREE AND FAIR ELECTORAL PROCESS WAS YET ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION THAT THE NEEDS OF THE MANY ARE SECONDARY TO THE WANTS OF THE IMPORTANT FEW.

FROM THIS DAY, ALL NIGERIANS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FUTURE OF THIS GREAT & POWERFUL COUNTRY. CONSEQUENTLY, ALL NIGERIANS MUST COMMIT THEMSELVES TO THE FOLLOWING:


1. WE MUST DEMAND THAT ELECTED OFFICIALS BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS AND IN-ACTIONS.
2. WE MUST EXPECT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES TO BE HONORED, RESPECTED AND MAINTAINED.
3. WE MUST BELIEVE THAT ALL NIGERIANS ARE EQUAL UNDER THE LAW AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH.
4. WE MUST APPLY OURSELVES TO IMPROVING THE LOT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL NIGERIAN REGARDLESS OF GENDER, RELIGION, TRIBE OR SOCIAL STATUS.
5. WE MUST STRIVE TO MAINTAIN A UNITED REPUBLIC DESPITE OUR DIFFERENCES.

ONLY UPON ACHIEVING THESE PRINCIPLES CAN WE AS A PEOPLE FULLY LIVE UP TO OUR POTENTIAL AS A LAND OF GREATNESS. FOR OURS IS A COUNTRY RENOWNED FOR ITS ILLUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, AMPLE RESOURCES AND SHEER PHYSICAL BEAUTY.

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This has been put up as part of Solomonsydelle's movement to show that Nigerian and other interested bloggers are unified in our disappointment with recent and ongoing political events. By using the same document with the same title on May 29th, we hope to attract some attention by making The Nigerian Proclamation 'rise' to attention on Google and various other search engines when anyone uses 'Nigeria' as a search term. Let the world know that Nigeria's people too are far from impressed.

Who needs an education?

Although New York Times article doesn't focus specifically on the Nigerian higher education system, the similarities across African countries in this regard are striking...overpopulated classrooms, decrepit facilities, underpaid staff, jaded students, and so on. We know the scale of the problem but what can we start to do about it? What should we be demanding of our governors in order to revamp state universities? Is the way forward simply pumping $$ into private universities and maybe establishing systems of subsidizing tuition for those who can't afford it? What about soliciting foreign funding? What role can alumni of these universities play? Let's get talking people....

Intro from my African Studies Professor:

Of interest is a report on higher education in Africa...While the comparison with the past is somewhat misplaced (yes, a system designed to enable a very small African elite to reach higher education could allocate more resources per student, but that is not relevant to the current situation) and the critique of the World Bank and IMF is understated (they not only had other priorities but actively sought to reduce allocations to higher education), the overall presentation is informative. The consequences of the deterioration of higher education institutions in most African countries are likely to burden Africa for many years.

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Africa's Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling - Lydia Polgreen

DAKAR, Senegal, May 19 Thiany Dior usually rises before dawn, tiptoeing carefully among thin foam mats laid out on the floor as she leaves the cramped dormitory room she shares with half a dozen other women. It was built for two.

In the vast auditorium at the law school at Cheikh Anta Diop University, she secures a seat two rows from the front, two hours before class. If she sat too far back, she would not hear the professors lecture over the two tinny speakers, and would be more likely to join the 70 percent who fail their first- or second-year exams at the university.

Those who arrive later perch on cinderblocks in the aisles, or strain to hear from the gallery above. By the time class starts, 2,000 young bodies crowd the room in a muffled din of shuffling paper, throat clearing and jostling. Outside, dozens of students, early arrivals for the next class, mill about noisily.

I cannot say really we are all learning, but we are trying,said Ms. Dior. We are too many students.

Africas best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and engineers, writers and intellectuals, are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a result of international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already strained institutions.

The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty.

The Commission for Africa, said in a 2005 report that African universities were in a state of crisis and were failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent. Far from being a tool of social mobility, the repository of a nation's hopes for the future, Africa's universities have instead become warehouses for a generation of young people for whom society has little use and who can expect to be just as poor as their uneducated parents.

As a result, universities across Africa have become hotbeds of discontent, occupying a dangerous place at the intersection of politics and crime. In Ivory Coast, student union leaders played a large role in stirring up xenophobia that led to civil war. In Nigeria, elite schools have been overrun by violent criminal gangs. Those gangs have hired themselves out to politicians, contributing to the deterioration of the electoral process there.

In the early days, postcolonial Africa had few institutions as venerable and fully developed as its universities. The University of Ibadan in southwest Nigeria, the intellectual home of the Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka, was regarded in 1960 as one of the best universities in the British Commonwealth. Makerere University in Uganda was considered the Harvard of Africa, and it trained a whole generation of postcolonial leaders, including Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

The disarray of Africas universities did not happen by chance. In the 1960s, universities were seen as the incubator of the vanguard that would drive development in the young nations of newly liberated Africa, and postcolonial governments spent lavishly on campuses, research facilities, scholarships and salaries for academics.

But corruption and mismanagement led to the economic collapses that swept much of Africa in the 1970s, and universities were among the first institutions to suffer. As idealistic postcolonial governments gave way to more cynical and authoritarian ones, universities, with their academic freedoms, democratic tendencies and elitist airs, became a nuisance.

When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out African governments with their economic reforms a bitter cocktail that included currency devaluation, opening of markets and privatization higher education was usually low on the list of priorities. Fighting poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of World Banks education spending worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to just 7 percent.

Meanwhile, welcome money flooded into primary and secondary education. But it set up a time bomb: as more young people got a basic education, more wanted to go to college. In 1984, just half of Senegal's children went to primary school, but 20 years later more than 90 percent do.

And more of those children have gone on to high school: Africa has the world's highest growth rate of high school attendance...

Even those lucky enough to graduate will have difficulty finding a job in their struggling economies. As few as one third of African university graduates find work, according to the Association of African Universities.

Governments and donors in some countries are starting to spend more on higher education...

Fatou Kiné Camara, a law professor, said she felt the frustration of her students as she struggled to teach a class of thousands. When the students cannot hear her over the loudspeaker, they hurl vulgar insults, a taboo in a society that prides itself on decorum and respect for elders.

They are angry, and I cannot blame them, she said. The country has nothing to offer them, and their education is worthless. It doesnt prepare them for anything.

Attempts to reduce the student population by admitting fewer students are seen as political suicide, student unions play a big role in elections, and the countrys leaders are fearful of widespread discontent among the educated youth. Senegal has created new universities in provincial capitals like Saint Louis, but few students want to attend them because they are new and untested, and the government has not forced the issue.

They fear us because we are the young, and the future belongs to us,said Babacar Sohkna, a student union leader. But where is our future? We are just waiting here for poverty.

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New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen is the winner of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting.

WALK THE TALK...

The idea to put up this article came in response to Pseudo-Independent's comment about hoping that the incoming administration will enforce the Public Procurement Bill. It's a great initiative in writing but will our incoming government walk the talk that the outgoing OBJ administration has been talking for the last 8 years? Reflecting on the past 8 years, do you think that the OBJ regime has put a lot more effort into lip service than actual implementation, when it comes to corruption and good governance? On the other hand, is that effort well placed in that he has at least set up the platform for the next administration to actually DO more?

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Eurasia Group Note - NIGERIA: Obasanjo's fire sale of state assets continue

Mocking its own previous sermons about corruption and good governance, Nigeria's outgoing regime late on 17 May agreed to sell a majority stake in the country's largest oil refinery, the 200,000 bpd Port Harcourt Refinery, for $561mn to a newly created company controlled by some of the ruling party's largest campaign donors. The sale comes barely a week after the government organized a hasty sale of over 40 oil blocks to similar interests. The new owners of the refinery include a company, Dangote, best known for its flour and sugar operations, another, Zenon Oil, which is a major importer of refined products, and a third, Transcorp, which is essentially insolvent and in which outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo has previously conceded that his family held some equity interests. Nigeria which consumes almost 350,000 barrels of refined product a day is unlikely curb its imports anytime soon. Nigeria's top domestic banks helped to underwrite the deal.

On another note, the sale of the Port Harcourt Refinery to the Dangote-led consortium and the previous sale of Nigeria's state-owned fixed line telephone company NITEL to Transcorp, another entity in which Obasanjo admitted to having owned significant equity, as well as the questionable sale of the country's largest hotel, Abuja Niccon Hilton, to Transcorp both raise questions about the sincerity of the country's
anti-corruption efforts. The fact that all these deals were underwritten by the country's largest banks also calls into question the business and good governance credentials of some of Nigeria's leading financial institutions.

Whether President-elect Umaru Yar'Adua takes action to reverse some of these controversial and opaque financial transactions remains to be seen. But unless he does, it is unlikely that any political settlement between him and his major political opponents, who have been completely cut out of all these deals, can't happen. On the other hand, if the supposedly stern and ethically devout Yar'Adua reverses some of these sales, he will run into political problems not only with Obasanjo, but with the country's top banks, almost all of which are exposed to these deals and could see their bad loan books affected.

All in all, these questionable financial transactions in the final days of the Obasanjo administration are a sign that the introduction of "democracy" into sub-Saharan Africa will not decrease corruption in the short term. Indeed, corruption is likely to increase in the short-term as new political parties on the continent need funds from oligarchs to run victorious campaigns, and fire sales of state-owned assets to major campaign donors is likely the only rational consequence, since
most ordinary voters on the continent are too poor to contribute to political parties.

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Eurasia Group is the world's leading global political risk advisory and consulting firm. They cover political, social, security and economic developments worldwide and their impact on business and financial markets on a daily basis.

What about Lagos??

This article lauds the long-overdue commencement of the Abuja Light Railway project. The writer is of the opinion that because the Lagos public transportation system is such a disaster, we need to prevent Abuja from becoming another Lagos, hence the light railway.

Ok, we're not tryin to spark any Lagos-Abuja tension here, but this article hit a nerve...WHY IS THERE A MORE URGENT NEED (IN THE EYES OF OUR GOVERNMENT) FOR A LIGHT RAILWAY IN ABUJA THAN IN LAGOS? Even if we accept the grossly inaccurate census results, Lagos' population is by far greater than that of the FCT, and so does a light railway (if indeed that's where $841 million of our reserves should be going at this time) make more sense in Abuja than anywhere else (even Lagos!)? Thoughts pls?

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THE ABUJA LIGHT RAILWAY - This Day Online

Last week, President Olusegun Obasanjo laid the foundation of the light railway system in Abuja. If properly and promptly executed, the project will provide the nation's capital the much needed back-up to road transportation.
Coming three decades after the founding of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the project is long over due. Over that period Abuja's population, both human and vehicular, has out-grown projections. This has brought strains on the available infrastructure, which has in turn resulted in adverse environmental conditions associated with over-crowding. The situation would have been even worse but for the drastic measures embarked upon by this government to redress the abuses inflicted on the Abuja Master Plan.

Initiating the light rail project to ease the movement of people and goods in the federal capital, though late, is commendable. The comment by the FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on the occasion puts succinctly the rationale for the scheme. His words: "The importance of this ceremony is better captured when we realise that the chaotic transportation system in Lagos was one of the reasons for the re-location of the seat of government from Lagos to Abuja by the visionary leadership of the Murtala/Obasanjo regime of 1976. In accordance with the Abuja Master Plan and globally accepted norms, cities with a population of over 1.5 million people should have integrated public transportation system of which the railway is a major component."

The minister's reference to Lagos should serve as a booster to the determination of government, the contractors, financiers and indeed Abuja residents to accord the plan the prime attention it deserves. Today, despite the shifting of government machinery from Lagos, the city remains a victim of over-population- occasioned largely by the search for the proverbial greener pasture- and a perennial traffic disorder. In that atmosphere, productivity is hampered and the value of life is diminished. Only bold steps like constructing the rail can steer the present capital away from the path of becoming another Lagos.

With a projected capital of $841 million and completion date of four years, the Abuja light rail system will not only enjoy adequate funding, but will also hopefully be accorded priority by the in-coming administration. Its scope is impressive, having been designed to cover strategic locations like Garki Area 10, Central Area, Wuse Neighbourhood Centre, Jabi, Life Camp, Karmo, Gwagwa, Kubwa, National Stadium, Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport among others. Given the huge volume of commuters and vehicles that emanates from these areas, access to the proposed railway would reduce pressure on the roads appreciably and impact positively on the city's well-being and aesthetics. Ultimately, the entire country and its people stand to gain from a decent and orderly federal capital.

The administration of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua should, therefore, ensure that the terms of the contract are honoured and well guided to achieve the desired result.

HIV/AIDS and the African female - Godswill Odeku

This article from Today's Guardian Newspaper and talks about the HIV/AIDS plight of the African female (apparently, we're an endangered species). Do you think he's overstating the effects on the African female (for example, is the stigma of AIDS greater for women)? Should more be spent on HIV/AIDS programmes specifically for women? How should our government go about prioritizing funding for HIV/AIDS amidst other problems like education, public health, the Niger Delta, etc? Thoughts please...

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WITH increasing and intense efforts at contemplating and executing interventions the world over with regards to checkmating the spread of HIV/AIDS and other pandemics such as tuberculosis, malaria, diabetes, and so on and so forth, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there exists a special group that could appropriately be referred to as an endangered species. This unique group is spread out across the African continent. You find them in all the countries that constitute the continent. They are the feminine gender represented here as the African female.

A survey of the African continent gives one a gory depiction of the tragedy the African female is subjected to by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur region in Sudan, Somalia, Congo, South Africa, Kenya and other Southern African countries are flashpoints as per the harrowing effects of this pandemic. Statistics reveal the no-win situation in which the feminine gender finds itself. Sero-prevalence rates in various countries indicate that women are more affected by HIV/AIDS.

The African female by virtue of her socio-economic situation finds herself more prone to be infected than the male. She is bothered for sex at the point of seeking employment. There is workplace sexual harassment. As a student, sex is demanded of her in the school for her to get her scores. Even in a normal heterosexual relationship, she is required to give vent to her professed love by mutual self-giving, which almost always translates into physical sexual acts. Socio-cultural practices such as female circumcision, tattooing, early marriages, and so on and so forth, expose her to infection. The above and the fact of the female genitalia being more or else a receptacle, and thus vulnerable, increases her chances of infection, including HIV/AIDS.

Infected females are hardly able to access care and support facilities and opportunities due to stigmatisation and other hiccups placed by society. On the other hand, antiretrovirals are costly and hoarded even when they are provided and subsidised by governments, international development agencies, NGOs, and so on and so forth. Illiteracy, poverty, political insensitivity, and sundry other factors coalesce to give away the African female with regards to HIV/AIDS.

Were we as a people to demonstrate some conscientiousness towards the checkmating of this pandemic, especially as it affects the women of Africa, there would be an orchestrated response in terms of providing funds for interventions, awareness creation and sensitisation, accessible care and support programmes, strategic capacity building initiatives for organisations working in this area, de-stigmatisation campaigns, enlightenment of both government officials, care-givers, NGOs and the general public. Added to this would be specialised funding for research work on unravelling a cure for this voracious pandemic.

The urgency of these conscientious interventions cannot be overflogged, as the tragedy engendered by this pandemic is critically obvious. The continent is awash with the diverse ramifications of its horrendous effects and it would imply hypocritical denial and criminal neglect of facts not to admit its reality and need for an urgent response. The response needs not be sporadic or unilateral...Corporate bodies, governments, development partners and private individuals all have a role to play to save the African female nay girl child from imminent annihilation courtesy of HIVAIDS.


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Odeku is Executive Director of Development Platform for Africa, a Port Harcourt-based non-governmental organisation working on HIV/AIDs interventions.