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Prime
Minister Tony Blair
and
the African Poverty Crises
By
Uche Nworah
Africans should not blame Mr Tony Blair, the newly
re-elected Prime Minister of Britain, for attempting to redress
through the Commission for Africa report, decades of imbalances
and injustices visited on Africans by both African rulers and
their western collaborators. It is this callous and wicked
conspiracy that has brought the beautiful and virgin continent
on its knees, largely impoverishing its people and turned them
into beggars, cry babies and laughing stocks of the global
community.
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Sickening
image of a child searching for food in the anus of a
cow. (Photo source: Consumption Junction) |
As an African living in the United Kingdom, I have lost
count of the number of times, my tummy has ached, and my senses
insulted by the shocking images of dying children, dilapidated
infrastructures, population mass and war-torn and savaged
villages in rural Africa, largely peddled in the western media,
on each of these occasions, my only thoughts have been that God
did not destine poverty, wars and suffering for Africans, else
Africa would not have been richly blessed with abundant natural
and human resources, Africans by default, willingly and
unwillingly are Africa’s
worst enemies.
It is our collective failure as a people, and the
failure of successive African governments to get their acts
together, that has led Tony Blair and the other world leaders,
to try from the West to solve the largely evident problems in
Africa. On this note, praise should go to Mr Blair and his
Commission for Africa team for the vision, and also for showing
a willingness to back this vision with a political will.
| Prime
Minister Tony Blair and members of the Commission for
Africa (Photo source: commission for Africa) |
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The good thing about the report is that it talks about
a partnership between Africa and the West, this new approach to
dealing with Africa is most welcome, it not only shows that
Africa as a continent has grown up, it also challenges Africa to
rise up and accept its responsibilities as a grown up, the
report entrusts Africa’s destiny into Africa’s hands.
Further evidence of this is seen in the large
representation of Africans in the 17- man commission, such as
Nigeria’s Fola Adeola (founder of Guaranty Trust Bank PLC
& Chairman of Fate Foundation), Meles Zenawi (Ethiopian
Prime Minister) Ghana’s Dr. K.Y Amoako (Executive Secretary of
the Economic Commission of Africa), Uganda’s Dr. William S.
Kalema, South Africa’s Trevor Manuel, and Mrs. Linah Mohohlo
(Governor of the Bank of Botswana) to name a few of them.
The members of the Commission reportedly consulted widely
through out Africa and with the African Diaspora before making
its recommendations.
The proposals, as enounced in the report are worthy,
for example the call for western leaders to increase aid, cancel
debts completely and repatriate funds stolen by corrupt leaders
which are currently stashed away in numbered Western bank
accounts. The report also calls on African leaders to improve
governance and fight corruption, provide free primary education,
improve health care, commit aid money to infrastructural
development and so on.
However, in order not to let these proposals become
another one of those endless communiqués normally issued at the
end of every conference or seminar on Africa’s problems, it is
vital that both the Prime Minister and the Commission for Africa
go a step further.
Especially now that the Prime Minister has been
re-elected in the May 5th 2005 elections for a record
third time, he should let his actions speak louder than the
words contained in the 461-page report. The common man on the
streets of Africa desirous of real change would like to see Mr
Blair convince his fellow Western leaders of the seriousness of
the African situation, he can only do this if he sets the ball
rolling by acting decisively the same way he did when he led the
way in the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster, through his
governments’ record £75M contribution. This time, Africans
expect a British government announcement of debt cancellations
for poor African nations; such announcements may be the tonic
the other creditor nations need to begin to take action
themselves towards that direction.
It has been widely reported and acknowledged that for
Africa to make the fresh start desired by all, the continent
needs to offload its huge and mounting debt burden, which it can
no longer sustain, some of these debts were incurred by corrupt
regimes who ended up recycling the funds back into their private
bank accounts scattered all over the western countries, while
some of these corrupt officials have since left government, the
citizens of these African countries continue to suffer from the
repayments, without any real and tangible differences in the
social systems and infrastructures, the reasons advanced by the
corrupt government officials in order to secure the loans in the
first place.
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Water is still a
scarce resource in major parts of Africa as this picture
shows a child washing himself with animal urine |
Nigeria for instance, despite the reported oil windfall
from the Iraq war, has not been able to effect any real changes
in the lives of its citizens, this is largely due to its huge
debt burden which currently stands at $33bn, in the last two
years alone Nigeria has paid over £3.5B in debt servicing,
while its debt stock over the same period has risen by £3.9B
without any new borrowing, largely due to mounting interest
rates on the debts.
Interestingly, Britain is Nigeria’s largest creditor
with 21% of Nigeria’s debts. So, Mr Blair should realise that
the buck actually stops with him and his government, if they act
by canceling the debts, the other creditors may follow suit. Any
thing short of this may be likened to paying lip service to
Africa’s problems or just plain and cheap political talk,
which in this instance should not be the case as the Prime
Minister’s Labour Party has been recently returned to power,
and so there is not any immediate political risks to the Prime
Minister and his party for pursuing such a radical but
progressive and humanitarian course of action.
Savings made through non-payments of the debts, as a
result of cancellations can now be invested massively in the
development of infrastructures, which are needed in order to
build and increase capacity, broaden opportunities for Africans
locally, and stimulate real socio-economic growth in Africa.
Corruption and
misappropriation of public funds have been advanced in some
quarters as being the reasons while Western creditors may be
opposed to a full cancellation of Africa’s debts. Such cynics
readily cite examples of the numerous massive and colossal
mismanagement of public funds constantly reported in the media.
While this is sadly the case, it should also be pointed out that
some of these African governments are finally beginning to show
a strong will to tackle corruption. Worthy of note is the
current efforts by the Obasanjo government in Nigeria, which has
in recent months already
started taking some actions aimed at seriously tackling
corruption in Nigeria.
The
Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police (Tafa Balogun) has been
removed from office and is currently facing trial on a 50 count
charge of corruptly enriching himself to the tune of over 10
Billion Naira ($100M). Also the Minister of Education, Prof.
Fabian Osuji and four others, Senators Ibrahim Abdulazeez, John
Azuta Mbata, Emmanuel Okpede, Badamasi Maccido and a member of
the House of Representatives, Dr. Garba Shehu Matazu, and the
Senate President (Senator Adolphus Wabara) have all been
implicated in a 50 Million Naira ($500,000) bribery scandal.
The
senate president has had to resign as a result and is currently
being prosecuted at an Abuja High court by the Independent
Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC),
alongside the other accused senators and Minister. Also the
Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo
has been sacked over the manner in which her ministry handled
the sales of federal government houses in Lagos. The Nigerian
government has also set up the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), headed by Nuhu Ribadu, to investigate and
prosecute corrupt public officers, as well as other such related
crimes and offences.
Apparently, these reforms
are not impressing Nigeria’s creditors so much. At the recent
public presentation of the Commission for Africa report, in
Lagos Nigeria, Mr. Richard Gozney, The United Kingdom High
Commissioner to Nigeria asserted that “economic reforms have
made big difference at the centre. There has been transparency
and accountability much more than we have a few years ago. But
there is still a little way to go in the regions. So much needs
to be done about profligacy”.
The High commissioner’s
comment is a kind of indictment of the Nigerian government, and
also a challenge for them not to relent in their current efforts
to rid Nigeria of political and institutional corruption, as the
government has already demonstrated by their recent actions.
As a suggestion, I will
argue that if the western creditors are serious about keeping
faith with Africa but are still dissuaded by the corruption
argument. They should firstly accept the idea of complete debt
cancellation in principles, after which the Commission for
Africa can then supervise the setting up of dedicated bank
accounts in the West where African countries will continue to
pay in the agreed repayment sums. The funds thus accumulated
will then be used to fund specific projects in each individual
country under the supervision of the Commission for Africa and
other key stakeholders.
The projects that will
receive priority attention should be the ones that will build
capacity and yield maximum benefits to the common man in the
streets of Africa.
This is not to absolve African leaders from the major
tasks and responsibilities of regenerating Africa. African
leaders should readily call to mind the African proverb which
says that one should not depend so heavily on the kindness of
his neighbour to tend his barns for him. This is because there
may come a time when the neighbour may be indisposed or may choose
to attend to his own affairs.
So while the debt cancellation campaign continues,
hopefully to an eventual positive conclusion, African leaders
should renounce mediocrity and corruption as recommended in the
report. They should know that this is the era of accountability
and transparency in the running of governmental affairs. The
current generation of Africans are enlightened and empowered,
and are capable of asking them questions about their actions.
At the public
presentation of the Commission for Africa Report in Lagos
Nigeria, Richard Gozney, the United Kingdom High Commissioner to
Nigeria also said that Nigeria, in asking for debt cancellation
should first of all ‘answer the common question from the
outside world of why oil is more than $50 per barrel and Nigeria
still needs debt relief ’. He went on further to say that
‘We can see that, but it is not so evident to the outside
world, particularly the creditor countries. You need to help us
explain that’.
On strategies for a way
forward, the High Commissioner said that Nigeria has to
“explain why your excellent reform programmes were put
together by the finance minister, home grown Nigerian reform not
made in Washington. With intensified surveillance you can
convince the IMF why it is an adequate substitute to IMF
reforms’. Mr. Gozney’s advice may also be applicable to the
other heavily indebted African countries.
Africa’s dark era of military dictatorships are
finally coming to an end, and with it the brutal repression and
media censorships that characterised the era, and so Africans
should rise up to the challenge of holding their governments
accountable.
| Kevin
Carter’s 1994 Pulitzer prize winning photo of a
vulture waiting for a child to die, so that it will eat
it epitomizes not
only the hunger crises in Sudan but also in the whole of
Africa. (Photo source: Pulitzer) |
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Surprisingly, the Commission for Africa report has not
yet been widely circulated and launched around Africa. Only
Ethiopia and recently Nigeria are reported to have formally
launched the reports, most regrettably in the city centers, and
far away from the rural areas, where 80% of the population live
in abject poverty, and where urgent help are most needed. The
Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi was the first to launch
the report in his country, probably because of his dual role as
a member of the Commission and also as the Prime Minister of his
country. There is therefore much to be done in this regard by
the Commission, to reach out and sensitize the people and ensure
that the main recommendations of the Commission are circulated
not only to African governments, but also to Africans in the
villages, communities and schools.
There should also be plans by the Prime Minister and
the Commission to influence the process of giving legal muscles
to some of the measures and proposals outlined in the report,
both in Africa and the Western countries, necessary laws may
need to be passed in order to give these proposals the
legitimacy they urgently require, while also circumventing the
mischievous acts of cynics and civil service technocracy and
bureaucracy, the main likely impediments to the successful
realisation of the proposals contained in the report.
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Poor
transport infrastructures have made Africans to travel
under unsafe and inhuman conditions |
The report may need to be translated into local
languages to make it more meaningful to the people, that way the
government and people of Africa, having found a willing ally and
‘angel of light’ in Prime Minister Tony Blair would now see
the simple piece of paper which contains the abridged report of
the Commission for Africa as a beacon of hope, and regard it as
a contract of sorts, and a sure sign of a better and prosperous
future for them and the future generation of Africans.
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Uche Nworah uchenworah@yahoo.com
is a doctoral candidate at the University of
Greenwich, London with research interests in country branding and
diasporas. He also teaches business and marketing at Newvic, London. * *
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updated 29 September 2007 |
