Stop the myth that the West works to keep Africa down

By TEE NGUGI

An article reporting on the Africities conference in Kisumu County, Kenya, in the Saturday Nation on May 21 caught my eye. It was headlined: “President Chissano to Africa: Stop overreliance on foreign aid”. This, I thought, is going to be an interesting reading.

We usually expect former African politicians to be wiser, having left the trappings power that blinded them to reason, robbed them of compassion and patriotism, and shielded them from reality. For instance, in their retirement, former President Daniel Moi and his one-time right-hand man, Charles Njonjo, came across as kindly grandfather types, an image far from the ruthless enforcers of a rapacious dictatorship they once were. One time, I almost fell off my seat when I heard Njonjo on TV recommending a human rights campaigner for the position of Attorney-General or Chief Justice. In his and Moi’s heyday, human rights and democracy advocates would be arrested, tortured and jailed.

So, in the article, I was expecting a sober and reflective assessment of Africa’s reality. For instance, why, even after receiving millions of dollars in foreign aid, the continent has remained “the sick man of the world,” or how we could more cost-effectively use foreign or domestic borrowing to implement transformative programmes; or how we could more optimally use our tax revenues. Or, the governance, structural and cultural factors that hinder Africa’s progress.

Instead, what I read were the usual lazy platitudes, self-righteous scape-goating, and irresponsible conspiracy theories.

“Our colonisers,” Chissano is quoted as saying, “do not want us to catch up with them in any way.”

Now, let’s examine the causes of failure of one crucial Mozambican institution as an example of how the evil West works to keep Africa down: the army. In the north of the country, a jihadist insurgency was able to displace thousands and kill hundreds of people without much opposition from the army. As a matter of fact, the jihadists were able to overrun, or at least make ungovernable, whole provinces. Why was the army so spectacularly inept? According to one scholar, it is poorly disciplined, resourced and trained. Corruption and cronyism have further depleted morale among the rank and file. In many instances, officers appropriate for themselves allowances and benefits meant for the soldiers.

There have been allegations that some of the officers are otherwise engaged in the illegal lucrative trade in precious minerals. To emphasise just how inept the army is, it took only 2,000 highly disciplined, well-trained and motivated Rwandan soldiers to push back the jihadists in a short time and regain control of the areas previously occupied by the terrorists.

Tragically, the rot in the Mozambican army is a metaphor for the rot in the whole government. Like elsewhere in Africa, officials line their pockets with money meant to uplift the poor. Aid money, just like the taxes, is misused or stolen. Agricultural potential is neglected.

Yea, right, the West is evil!

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator