HOW AFRICA LET ME DOWN

I usually take a double-decker bus anytime I journey back and forth from my flat to the campus and these trips are the ones I relish a lot. I like to sit in front of the bus and just stare at the splendor of the city and admire the old and modern aesthetic British architectures. But this evening’s ride was not so much enjoyable because I didn’t have the motivation to take the front seat neither was I in a touristic mood to be enthralled by the sites and scenes in the city. My mind was heavy as I kept mulling over what happened in class today. My thoughts ran deep and it was as if my mind had been separated from my body. My pensive state almost made me miss my bus stop but I regained consciousness in time and alighted. The thoughts that flooded my mind were birthed by the class discussion we had about top companies from emerging economies with high prospects of becoming global and reputable brands.

My class consists of a cohort of bright minds from different races and cultural backgrounds who are very enlightened and open-minded. This diversity worked in our favor during the debate, as we were able to cite brands from our continents of origin and also those from other places that we were familiar with. However, it was much later, after we concluded the discussion that I had an epiphany- a lot of these brands were from the Middle East countries (like Qatar and UAE), East Asian countries (like China and Taiwan), South American countries like (Mexico and Brazil) but no brand from Africa was mentioned. Not that we didn’t want to mention them, but the truth is, there are no African brands that are worthy of being mentioned. Those who know me very well can attest to the fact that, I am in love with my country and continent. I am proud of being an African ambassador even if it means wearing a green and white ‘buba’ and ‘sokoto’ (traditional attire) in a British school, just to celebrate my country’s independence. But after this sudden realization, I must admit, I became shamefaced and was not proud of Africa at that particular minute. I felt let down by my own motherland and my bleeding heart was loaded with pity because of her current state.

A lot of the companies that are plying their trade in Africa today are multinationals that expanded their business horizons from their European, American or Asian bases to the African continent. There are no made-in-Africa brands or companies with global reach. What a shame! This triggered several questions that transformed my bubbly spirit into a thoughtful and melancholic kind this evening. What is wrong with Africa? How did other continents surpass us in terms of economic development and technological advancement? How come countries like India and Taiwan can boast of car brands or technology companies that are making waves at the world stage but Africa cannot boast of any?

I desperately searched for answers to these mind-boggling questions and I tried to analyze the situation but all I could do was to fall back on the myriad reasons and factors that have been countlessly pointed out already by those who were equally disturbed about the same subject matter. While they also sought for the causes and attempted to understand what has gone wrong in Africa, they found solace in literature and chose to express their frustration in words just like I’m doing right now. Bad leadership, corruption, poverty, decayed moral system, lack of education, to mention a few, are the factors we keep hinging the economic stagnation of Africa upon. But what have we done to tackle these problems? Have we done enough to secure a good future for this continent? Are things getting better or they are getting worse? Well, it seems like the questions keep trickling like blood from a cut.

In order to escape from this conundrum I found myself, I decided to draw comparisons between countries in Africa and those in other continents; especially those countries that were once regarded as underdeveloped but are now the emerging economies of the world. By the way, no African country is among the top ten emerging economies of the world while Asian and South American countries dominated the list. Leadership in Africa has always been the bane of the continent. My motherland has been so unlucky with the kind of leaders that have been at the helm of her affairs. Visionless leaders in both military and civilian forms whose main goal is to accumulate wealth and gain power by any means possible while they impoverish the people they are meant to serve. Words like ‘serve’, ‘integrity’ and ‘accountability’ are missing in the dictionaries of these despots. Corruption has been institutionalized in Nigeria and the act of embezzling money, as a public officer, is an acceptable norm in the society. This trend is the same in most African countries.

Many a times we try to blame the colonial powers for our lack of development. Some theorists posited that colonialism never left but transformed into a more modern form called neo-colonialism, therefore, the economic exploitation of Africa is still very much alive. Where I fault this theory is that, Africa was not the only place that experienced imperialism. Asia and South America were also puppets of the colonial masters, but after these countries gained independence, they started working endlessly towards development. They adopted a self-reliant approach and limited the degree of economic and political influence from external powers to the minimum. Unlike Africa, their own leaders had vision and purpose, the interests of the populace superseded theirs, and they laid a solid foundation, built economic and political structures that propelled them to where they are today. In Nigeria, ever since the British left, our major source of income as a nation has been crude oil and the government neglected other sectors like agriculture and textile, thinking oil will exist forever. They have failed to encourage production in other sectors so the economy is the type where EVERYTHING is imported for consumption- even toothpaste is imported.

How can we build cars or make computers when the students that are meant to do so can’t go to school because their lecturers are on an endless strike action. It is only in my country that lecturers won’t be paid for months yet the President and his entourage will spend billions to go on a trip abroad. The influx of African students in the United Kingdom alone speaks volume about the standard of education in that part of the world, which is also a reflection of poor economy. Many parents now do whatever they can to ensure their wards get the best education and avert the horrendous situation of spending seven years in the university for a four-year course. Therefore, sending them abroad is just the reasonable option and parents who do that these days should be idolized (e.g. my parents). However, the sad part is the brain drain that ensues; instead of going back to their country, a large percentage of these African students always tend to stay permanently abroad after their education, in which case, the host country benefits from the acquired skill of these individuals. But who can blame them; the government in their home country has nothing to offer the youth population in terms of jobs, security or a good economic atmosphere for entrepreneurship.

In contrast, the Asian or American students who come to the United Kingdom for instance do not necessarily nurse the desire to stay back after their education. The economy of China is the second largest in the world, and will overtake the US economy (the first largest economy) by 2023. So why would a Chinese graduate stay back in a foreign land when the economy of his home country has such potentials. The same thing goes for the Americans, Taiwanese, and Indians; their countries have governments that have designed an economic system that is people-oriented. Their primary aim is not to drain the nation’s treasury but to ascertain a good standard of living for those who they govern. So when such students go abroad, it’s not an escape strategy but a move to get exposure or tap more knowledge from foreign educational institutions so they could go back to their economy and build companies or brands that we here about today.

The African tradition emphasizes morality, hard work and integrity as the principal values every man must have but it seems these values are gradually being phased out in our society as people hardly uphold them anymore. This continuing extinction of core values and norms has culminated into the disfiguration of our moral outlook. When people begin to see nothing wrong in killing over 80 teenagers, then such country needs God to come down in person and rule it himself. When youths are ambitious about becoming drug peddlers, prostitutes and Internet fraudsters in future then such society is on the threshold of ruins. When government officials spend four years in office, doing absolutely nothing except to campaign for another four years with public funds, then we can’t have our own world-class brands. My optimism about the future of my beloved continent just suffered a heart failure and its resuscitation seems highly impossible for even the best cardiologist on earth.

ADEDAPO ADEBAJO