A British author, an investigative journalist, Ms Michela Wrong, wrote a book with the above title, whose theme is corruption in Africa and the strategies to curb it, with Kenya as a case study. According to her, Africa serves as a contradiction of development and good governance, for the Western nations. In presenting her book to the Nigerian audience at Jazzhole in Lagos, some years ago, Ms Wrong was right to trace the root of Africa’s woes to Western Europe. The quest for foreign lands, slave trade, domination, exploitation, fragmentation of the continent for economic gains, and then colonial rule, contributed to the woes of the African continent. Thus Europe underdeveloped Africa!
A divide-and-rule administrative strategy adopted by colonial invaders sowed the seed of internal wrangles and disunity among the people. Thus to say: It’s our turn to eat”, is an expression of the predatory and opportunistic foundation put in place by colonial powers, which also accounts for fierce struggles for power. To hold power is to control the political economy and provision of opportunity for the section of the country holding such power. This in turn leads to fierce struggles for power, giving rise to widespread corrupt practices.
Root of Africa’s woes, according to the British author, Ms Wrong, cannot be solely attributed to colonial rule and Western economic plots or greed. In her illustration, while Africa was the “Heart of Darkness”, a whiteman, Mr. Kurtz, was a barbarian leading a bunch of natives in the jungle. Then came independence, with a black Kurtze presiding over booties derived from oil and gas resources. The transformation of a white barbarian Kurtz, into a black predatory or loot-sharing Kurtz, is an idiom which demands looking inwards for an answer.
Africa should be mature enough by now, to begin to look inwards for the sources of its woes, even when the West remains complicit and the biggest beneficiary of corruption in the continent. Sleaze funds from corrupt practices are usually stashed away in Europe. The West may be hypocritical, but African political leaders are no less culpable in the woes of the continent. Corruption is not all about money, but it includes the entrenchment of tribal, ethnic or religious cleavages, whereby politics becomes a ready instrument for such manipulations. Ms Wrong used her studies on Kenya to say that anti-corruption crusades have ethnic colouration and often sabotaged by those who set them up. A trap for opponents! A charade!
An African Union (AU) Summit in Adis Ababa in January 2009, brought to light some of the causes of the continent’s woes. President Muammar Ghadaffi of Libya was not only crowned as the new A.U. Chairman, but also as King emeritus in Africa, yet he rose to power by dismantling traditional institutions in his country. He went on to propose the formation of a United States of Africa, which some countries approved to come into being immediately, while the Monrovia group opposed it. Thus African nations became divided into a Casablanca group and a Monrovia group, with a suspicion that Ghadaffi had some hidden agenda of Arabianisation and Islamisation of Africa. Enmity grew for Ghadaffi and soon, the man died, dusty!
That Africa is the milk cow of industrialised nations came to light at the Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen where a bait was thrown to African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The idea was to make the ACP countries to bear the brunts of saving the industrialised nations from the consequences of damage to Ozone layer, brought about by industrial wastes and emissions. To halt the depletion of the Ozone layer, forests and trees of the Third World countries must not be touched.
Surely industrialisation and over urbanisation carry some price, which includes the poisoning of the atmosphere, of which global warming is a result. Those who knew of the politics of the Copenhagen Conference had asked why Africa must always transfer resources to the industrialised nations! From the transfer of human resources in the form of slaves, to the transfer of cheap raw materials and financial resources to pay debts, Africa is always the milk cow to be exploited. Why? The answer lies in making sure that such exploited nations do not produce able and radical leaders and strong institutions that can challenge the powerful nations.
Africa must not only keep and remain in existing vast forests to save industrialised nations from global warming, but corruption and weak institutions must continue if the old exploitation pattern must continue. If there be a truly representative democracy devoid of ethnic and religious cleavages, if ethnic diversity and suspicion would end, then the possibility of continued exploitation would soon end also. Those who knew what Chief M. K. O. Abiola stood for would give him honour as an advocate of a global conference to discuss the many wrongs done to Africa, from slavery to financial resources transfer. Like Ghadaffi, he too died!
Currently in Nigeria, banditry, terrorism, insecurity and instability are among the challenges compounding an existing plight of poverty, hunger, ignorance, etc. It is obvious that external influences play some vital roles in the sad state of the nation, neither is any visible action taken about sources alleged to be sponsors and financiers of instability in the country. Apart from external forces alleged to be exploiting and impoverishing Nigeria, there are, internal forces also playing such roles, using ethnic, religious and ideological cleavages for the purpose. IPOB is the bad guy! Diversion?
Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Thursday, August 2, 2007, Edwin Madunagu asserted that “Imperialism itself is terrorism”. Broad objectives of terrorism as an unconventional warfare, include forcing political change, forcing people or a government to agree to some demands to avoid future harms, destabilising an existing government, etc. More specifically, terrorism is an expression of grievances, drawing attention to unjust situations, a means of taking some revenge, settling old grouse and getting even, etc.
Acts of terrorism which we can remember easily include what happened in Jos in September 2001, with about 700 people killed, thousands injured and houses burnt. September 11, 2001, there were attacks on New York and Washington; December 2001 Indian Parliament attack; March 27, 2002, Passover massacre in Israel; March 11, 2004 attacks in Madrid, Spain; July 7, 2005 bombings in London; July 11, 2006 Mumbai train bombings, etc. Since the “Chibok girls” incident in Nigeria, acts of banditry, kidnapping and terrorism have been regular experiences. What are the motives of such violent acts?
Today the real motives of attacks on Ukraine by Russia are not easy to figure out completely. Ms Michela Wrong’s book: It’s Our Turn To Eat, is a reminder to humanity that those who would not allow the good things of life to go round, invite the wrath of those disenfranchised and excluded. Politics of “stomach infrastructure”, expressed in “its-our-turn-to eat”, is a recipe for social instability, whereby injustice and greed force disenfranchised groups to resort to acts of violence.

By: Bright Amirize

Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.