By Uche Chris
South Africa’s present leadership crisis is something that should worry sub Saharan Africans, because, just like Nigeria, its failure portends serious implications for the future of the Black man. The emergence of black majority rule in 1994 under the leadership of the Madiba Nelson Mandela, had raised so much hope of a black renaissance, and the opportunity to change the African leadership narrative.
But sadly, the country has fallen into a well laid pattern that casts the blackman as incapable of managing himself and following the civilized path. Black majority rule in South Africa had greatness thrust on it, but the African leadership crisis would not make an exception of it; hence, its increasing degeneration into the old mold. There is nothing in the books that explains the leadership failure in South Africa, which fundamentally questions all the theories and postulations about Africa’s underdevelopment.
Slave trade and colonialism had been the most blamed for the African development quagmire. Development is essentially about leadership, so the challenge of leadership directly affects Africa’s development, with which Nigerians can easily identify. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana had naively declared, “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto you,” a parody of Matthew 6:33. But the failure of independence to produce development and democratic culture forced him to rethink its validity in the book, Neocolonialism, the Highest Stage of Imperialism.
Enter the development theorists, who relied heavily on Lenin’s pontification in the book, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Thus, emerged the Dependency school founded by the Argentine, Raul Presbich, first Executive Secretary of Economic Commission for Latin America, which explained underdevelopment in terms of neocolonial and the center-periphery economic relationships.
Some of its great proponents include Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Fernando Cardoso, the former Brazilian president, in The Development of Underdevelopment, and our own Claude Ake in his seminal book, The Underdevelopment of Africa, where he propounded the theory of “Disarticulation of Africa’s economies by colonialism.”
However, as popular as these theories may be in our universities, none of them provides concrete explanation of the unfolding tragedy of South Africa. Yes, South Africa was colonized by the Dutch as their foothold to the Indian continent, whose Apartheid policy dehumanized Africans; but after 70 years of struggle, they finally accepted black majority rule.
At the time of power transfer to Africans, South Africa was ahead of some European countries in economic development. In 1994, South Africa’s population was 44 million, with a GDP of $130 billion, and Per Capita income of $3100. With a quarter of its population, Portugal’s GDP was $96 billion, and Per Capita income of $9,684.
Also most Eastern European countries in 1994, such as Hungary, had GDP $45bn, PCI $5100, and population of 10 million; Czech republic: GDP $45bn, PCI $4400, and population of 10m, while Bulgaria had $12 bn, $1400, with population of 8.5 million. South Africa’s problem was not creating development, but maintaining the level of development already achieved, and to improve on it.
It appears the answer to this leadership challenge lies in neither economic nor politics, as we supposed previously, but basically in the African persona and psychology.
For instance, the economic miracle of Brazil began with the tenure of Cardoso, first as finance minister, and then, president. If Brazil, which, in the 1980s, was the most indebted country in the world beside the U.S, with over $120 billion, could emerge an economic power in about two decades, why has no Africa country done so? Under the White rule, South Africa was ahead of Brazil by every development index; but now, the reverse is the case.
Many people of my generation and before, who studied West African History in secondary school, know the story of Mansa Musa of Mali empire. It is a story that Africans romanticized out of ignorance, not about his achievement, which was great, but his failure, and how his personality profile may explain the present Africa’s leadership curse.
It shouldn’t be misconstrued that Africans are inferior to the Caucasians, or any other race; however, South Africa, unfortunately, seems to prove that there are some certain traits in us that betray our ability to do basic things right to change our development situation, and we need not go far to prove it with the infamy on display in Nigeria today.
In 1324, Mansa Musa undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca, which then, lasted a year. According to David Landes in, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, he went with 80 camels, each bearing 300 pounds of gold worth $130 million in today money, totalling $10.4 billion. He spent three months in Egypt during which the value of gold fell by 25 percent. But here is the clincher: At the end of his visit he was broke, and had to borrow money for his return.
Follow us on all social media platforms @dailyquery for news and analyses around the globe.
