While a plethora of scholarly studies have been presented on issues related to African development, this book aims to provide alternative frameworks that will not just be participatory in conception and practice, but will present a contextual study of varying aspects of the developmental enterprise in 21st Century African society. Changing connotations of the practice of international development have meant that aside from the traditional multilateral players, other important individual and group participants, such as China and even India, have become involved. In addition, annual remittances to Africa are now becoming central to the development process. In 2014 alone, accrued remittances to Africa from its diaspora communities surpassed $60 billion, which significantly outweighed all funds from the multilateral funding framework within the same period. Many African economies have steadily remained among the fastest growing globally. The case of Ethiopia, which has recorded success in converting raw materials, especially leather and coffee, into finished products for export, has been quite remarkable. Ironically, a paradox still exists. Despite having alternative and less cumbersome sources of funding, with commendable economic growth indices, African countries have been unable to translate the related opportunities into sustainable human development outcomes for the majority of their citizens. Poverty continues to rage, unemployment continues to soar, electoral violence and insurgency are rife, and the state of social services and infrastructures continues to worsen. Democratic structures in most African countries are still in their nascent forms; some countries (for example, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Egypt) struggle with teething problems in organising free, fair and credible elections, which should ordinarily serve as the basis for engendering a sustainable process of democratisation. Similarly, the threat arising from the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, with an attendant rise in the rate of armed robbery, insurgencies and terrorism, all account for the abysmal level of human security on the continent, for instance in Sudan, Somalia, South Africa and Nigeria.
In an age of rapid mobility, Africans are moving. But, in contrast to what some literature would have us believe, larger migrant flows occur within the continent than from African to non-African countries. This, of course, comes with its attendant challengesāirregular migration has become a front-burner issue on the African Unionās agenda. Displacement due to natural causes, conflicts and man-made disasters have resulted in an increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons.
It is obvious that Africa has played a springboard role in the emergence of contemporary civilisation. Developments such as the evolution of modern hydraulics from rudimentary water technology along the Nile, the advanced level of brass carving technology among the Nupes in Central Nigeria, the sophistication of democratic governance in the old Oyo Empire (Western Nigeria) before contact with the West, and the social organisation among the Pygmies of Central Africa all add credence to the idea that Africa provided the initial lead to the modern period.
In spite of this conceptual advantage, African leaders, especially in the immediate post-colonial era, have pursued strongly misguided policies in attempting to promote development in human and resource management, science and technology , and the economy and society. Fanon (1961: 2) observed that nationalism within the African context has often failed to achieve āliberation across class boundaries because its aspirations are primarily those of the colonised bourgeoiseāa privileged middle class who perhaps seeks to defeat the prevailing colonial rule only to usurp its place of dominance and surveillance over the working class lumpenproletariatā. As noted by Ake (1996: 10), āthe problem with Africa has not in any way been a failure of development per se for it has never even been on the agenda of the political leadership who were mainly engrossed with the utilisation of the statist apparatus to augment their individual resource base which had been vastly devastated by the stifling colonial ruleā. Since the post-colonial era, African political elites have unarguably remained the problem of Africa. In actual fact, development as a concept has been leftāunpatrioticallyāin the hands of the international community. The result has been that issues relating to dependency, and hitherto assumed to have been resolved in the political arena, have resurfaced on the socio-economic, educational and technological planes, largely to the detriment of Africaās citizens.
However, matters of leadership do generate debates and altercations globally and will continue to do so because of the significance of leadership to national development. The relationship between leadership and development is so intertwined that the nature of one affects the other. The level to which the available resources are programmatically and judiciously applied for the enhancement of the socio-economic and technological well-being of the citizenry is usually a function of leadership , just as the extent of development often influences leadership functionality.
As surmised by Adeniran (2006: 45), āunlike their counterparts in Malaysia and other South African nations in the 1960s and 1970s, African leaders have often found it difficult to ensure the sustainability of a reform agenda once adoptedā. Of course, this has been an offshoot of political bickering, epitomised by poor leadership that has been glaringly defective in vision. This book, therefore, interrogates the menace of inept leadership , which is conspicuous in all spheres of African society in relation to the high levels of contemporary societal dislocation. Can Africa possibly develop with its prevailing leadership structures? Can the continentās acclaimed initial advantage actually be resuscitated? These and related issues are addressed in this book, from an African perspective in particular.
Contextualising Development Crises in Africa
Various factors have been offered in the literature to explain the apparent failure of the development enterprise in parts of Africa: the colonial legacy; social pluralism and its centrifugal tendencies; the corruption of the continentās leaders; poor labour discipline; the lack of entrepreneurial skills; weak planning and incompetent management; inappropriate policies; the stifling of market mechanisms; low levels of technical assistance; the limited in-flows of foreign capital; falling commodity prices; unfavourable terms of trade; and the low levels of saving and investment. While these factors are not irrelevant to the inherent developmental crises, they are formidable impedimentsāalone or in combinationāto the process of development. However, the assumption so readily made that there has been a failure of development is misleading. The problem is not so much that it has failed as that it never really existed. By all indications, retrogressive political dynamics in Africa have comprised the greatest impediment to the development process. By the time independence was being attained, the centrifugal tendencies had become increasingly complex as a result of a needless retention by the emergent independence leaders of the typologies that structured colonial politics.
In Africa, a conspicuous foundational flaw in tackling developmental challenges could be attributed to the historical absence of an endogenous emancipating policy framework that would have recognised the historical specificities of the people in conception and in implementation. Working within the framework...