A reflection of Africa Day celebrations
Solly Rakgomo | Monday June 6, 2022 06:00
The organisation was transformed into the African Union on July 9, 2002 in Durban, South Africa, but the holiday continues to be celebrated on May 25. This year’s theme focused on the importance of addressing malnutrition and food insecurity, that it is important. It must be noted that across the continent, Africa faces stark development challenges, including food insecurity and increasing malnutrition. These are amplified by global crises; include COVID-19 and climate change.
Having observed the celebrations of Africa Day for some years, it is very unfortunate that the commemorations are characterised by muted celebrations and many ordinary Africans are not even aware of the symbolic meaning of this commemoration. However, it is very common for the celebrations to be marked by Pan African rhetorical and oratory speeches with speakers often quoting the forefathers of Pan-Africanism such as the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and a host of others. What is very interesting is that most of these oratory Pan-African speeches are always delivered by some crop of African leaders who practically have no interest in the ideals of Pan-Africanism. The speeches are usually nothing but public relations exercises that have nothing to do with the plight of millions of Africans who are suffering from extreme hunger and poverty.
African political leaders must come to realise that the sufferings that ordinary African citizens are going through are far much more worrisome as their survival is hanging by a thread and rhetorical speeches have to be translated into practical solutions to the grave socio- economic hardships that the poor people are facing. Ordinary people are sick and tired of poverty, unemployment, rising food and fuel prices, corruption, poor governance, kleptocracy, inequitable resourcewealth distribution, lack of access to land, poor service delivery, violent conflict and other ills. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research Report titled, ‘Economic Decline in Africa’, more than half of the continent’s population lives below the poverty datum line and there is a serious deficit in access to clean water, good education, housing and good health. Even though it is evidently clear that the continent is faced with a plethora of socio-economic and political challenges, many African leaders are totally detached from this reality as they are pre-occupied with other issues such as self enrichment, consolidation of power around themselves and their cronies, meddling with Constitutions to increase their undeserved shelf life in power. Even though it might be true that some of the underlying causes of underdevelopment in Africa can be attributed to the role of former colonial masters in the continent, African leaders are equally to blame for the plight of this continent due to their inept attitude and political rascality.
The inherent poverty that characterises Africa’s political leadership is the same reason that has led to the gross erosion of public institutions that would have ensured that there is good governance, accountability, transparency and most importantly, adherence to the rule of law. It is important to note that poor governance, corruption, nepotism and other forms of patron-clientalism, have created some serious local grievances in many countries across the continent and this has impacted very negatively on national security within many states. Corruption and kleptocracy as part of poor governance create socio-economic marginalisation of many people as the people are deprived of many basic needs such as health, education, housing, economic opportunities, etc and this then creates a feeling of resentment by the locally aggrieved people towards the government. Legitimacy of a government then becomes questionable. This kind of situation then creates a perfect arena for breeding violent conflict. The Corruption Perception Index of 2020 clearly shows that the six African countries that are performing poorly in governance are among the top 10 countries afflicted by violent conflict in the world. This is a clear indication that there is a correlation between the pathetic way many leaders in Africa are managing their countries’ economies and violent conflict.
There are various examples that demonstrate that bad governance does not only just undermine development but also drives violence. In Nigeria, for example, the government helped to create Boko Haram through its lack of an inclusive growth strategy. North- East Nigeria (Borno State in particular) has been socio-economically marginalised for many years by successive administrations in Nigeria. The resultant poverty due to lack of opportunities especially the youths have made them vulnerable for recruitment and radicalisation by violent extremist groups such as Boko Haram. In addition, the emergence of many militant groups in the lake Chad Basin and the Sahel Region is the result of poor governance by various authoritarian leaders that reigned for decades in the region. The coercive nature of their autocratic rule opened channels for abuse, including the abuse of office, corruption, human right violations, and gross disregard for laws, leaders; hence, the emergence of militant groups as a force intended to check the excesses of their authoritarian and corrupt rulers.
In Southern Africa, Mozambique is politically unstable due to governance deficit by the leadership of the country. The Cabo Delgado region in Mozambique has been in a state of neglect for many years, which has created misery for many youths. Failure to extend services and security to the people of the region has led to the creation of many ungoverned spaces, which unfortunately have been filled with violent extremist groups that has in addition to recruiting many desperate youths in the region, killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands of others. In other countries within the region such as Botswana and South Africa, there are some red flags that call for serious and practical interventions as these countries are sitting on time bombs. These countries have high youth unemployment rates, instutitionalised corruption, poor service delivery, unequal wealth distribution and lack of access to land. These are potential national security threats. For example, in South Africa, the desperation brought by poverty and unemployment has pushed some people to organise themselves into powerful movements such as the Dudula Movements who espouses a very extreme anti-migrant posture and aggression while here in Botswana we have witnessed a series of armed robberies by some young unemployed locals collaborating with their counterparts from Zimbabwe and South Africa. These are real red flags that really call for serious introspection from the political leadership of the day within these two countries.
African political leaders should know that delivery of high quality political goods such as security and safety, rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development should be the paramount objective of a government. If African leaders can provide such political goods, it would go a long way in reducing poverty, general insecurity, political and religious extremism, thereby reducing the tendency for violent militancy that is rampant in many African societies. As a parting shot, Burgon rightly says that good governance is essential for maintaining and sustaining the legitimacy of authority, its absence becomes poor governance, allowing poverty, crimes, and corruption to mushroom, affecting the performance of authority and weakening its legitimacy thus resulting in violent conflict. These are serious issues that need to be reflected upon as we commemorate Africa Freedom Day.