African Solutions – Not Popular, but Essential
Posted by ZDN on November 30, 2009
IN 1992, Ghanaian writer and political analyst Dr. George Ayittey coined the phrase “African solutions for African problems”. Seventeen years later in 2009, US President Barack Obama used those words as a key theme in his first speech to Africa in Accra, Ghana. It sounded great, but it’s more than just a sound-byte.
When Ayittey was asked in 2007 what initiative his organisation, the ‘Free Africa Foundation’ was working on, he said:
“To save Zimbabwe from implosion. We hope to achieve peaceful change in Zimbabwe through the convocation of a “Sovereign National Conference.” It is the same mechanism (the Convention for a Democratic South Africa — CODESA) which was used to dismantle apartheid in South Africa. If it worked in South Africa, then it will work in Zimbabwe.”
Ayittey isn’t too popular with most African leaders, because he sees them for what they are.
He rightly states that there is nothing wrong with Africa except its leaders, and he treads crushingly on the oh-so-dignified toes of the useless and toothless African Union.
“The slate of post colonial African leaders has been a disgusting assortment of military coconut-heads, quack revolutionaries, crocodile liberators, “Swiss bank” socialists, brief-case bandits, semi-illiterate brutes and vampire elites. Faithful only to their private bank accounts, kamikaze kleptocrats raid and plunder the treasury with little thought of the ramifications on national development.”
It is a great shame that the AU is too preoccupied with self-perpetuation to think about solving Africa’s problems. Imagine the bargaining power of a genuine coalition representing the gigantic wealth of Africa’s resources, instead of a club of lazy, self-serving dictators! Imagine a continent able to leapfrog the mistakes of the industrialised nations and create a world once more worth living in! But we get ahead of ourselves. Let’s look at putting out the fires first:
The Free Africa Foundation has set up the Zimbabwe Coalition for Change (ZICOCHA). This initiative, which has not yet attracted much funding, has as its main objective, to convene a great national all-stakeholder Indaba (or Dare depending on which language you speak) in Zimbabwe to settle the conflicts there and bring freedom and prosperity to the country. Zimbabwe has been free, it has been prosperous, but it has never been both at the same time.
Ayittey says that squabbling political parties and heavily corrupt military officers in Zimbabwe are never going to produce a satisfactory or lasting solution to the crisis – in fact he is predicting a civil war – and so he recommends that the way out of the trap could be found in an ancient African tradition: a DIRECT consultation with all the people. A nation’s people is the only truly valid source of power and legitimacy, and Ayittey points to modern versions of the village meeting; to recent examples in Africa which have worked. He cites the transition of South Africa as well as Benin, to peaceful democracy.
Ayittey’s opinions are therefore not too popular with politicans and army generals.
As an economist, he ain’t too popular with big business and voracious capitalist interests, either. He visualises African people actually having a share in, and directly benefitting from, national resources such as petroleum and diamonds. What heresy! The fact is that the past, present and would-be plunderers of Africa are the ones who keep the continent’s people poor while destroying the precious natural environment – a stark truth that is given only lip-service by the peddlers of global influence – big business and the world’s political cartels, including the ones led by Obama.
Dr. Ayittey however is no starry eyed idealist and he recognises that any successful, free nation needs to possess the following basic list of essential institutions:
An independent and free media (Only 9 African countries have this),
An independent central bank,
An independent electoral commission,
An independent judiciary,
An efficient civil service, and
Neutral and professional security (military and police) forces.
Ayittey puts his ideas into the context of African history, and he is well versed in the economics of poverty alleviation. He espouses practical programmes such as micro-lending institutions; appropriate technology (e.g. better fishing boats for traditional fishermen, instead of big automated trawlers); exploitation of Africa’s abundant solar energy, rather than nuclear or coal-fired power stations. He sees the doom and devastation wreaked on the planet and it’s people by the ‘developed world’ and is showing us a leadership solution, made in Africa.
‘African solutions to Africa’s problems’ is far more than a nationalist mantra, bandied about by dictators who use it to justify their own survival. It is a big idea whose time is coming. It is not popular, it’s not fashionable, and it’s unthinkable to big business and big politics. But it is probably nothing less than essential. In the words of Victor Hugo, “Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come”.
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Your Opinions please:
We cannot think of anyone more qualified to chair a future People’s Indaba, or ‘Sovereign National Conference’ in Zimbabwe, than Dr George Ayittey. If anyone has a better candidate, please let us know. The debate is now open on this website.
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