Are African countries an attachment or appendices of the United States of America, European Countries and China economic projects? A seasoned and respected senior journalist, Jenerali Ulimwengu posed this question on his article on a weekly tabloid newspaper called Raia Mwema. I found his article eye-catching and at the same time mind boggling because most of what he described was true of our leaders. He observed that what our rulers were doing or implementing were basically impositions of the rich west, especially the US. That terms such as ‘democratic elections’, ‘good governance’, ‘MDG’s’, ‘NEPAD’, ‘PRSP’, ‘Privatisation’, ‘International Best Practices’, ‘ISO’, ‘Benchmarking’, ‘Innovations’, ‘vision’, ‘Mission’, just to pick a few in an endless list, are nothing but Western techniques of preoccupying African nations!
Through imposition of programmes and western approaches, they have pre-occupied African leaders, technocrats and elites. Poignantly, they have made them to ‘believe’ that Western prescriptions are a solutions to Africa’s woes; poverty, diseases, civil wars, manultrition and kwarshakor, dilapidated infrastructures, hunger and adversity! Thinking aloud you hear, “You must use these approaches......, embark on these programmes to solve your long standing problems.......,This is the only way friends in development...., now go and come up with proposals for funding.... However, we shall provide technical expertise to the project...”
As it turns out, cascading of the prescriptions takes its effect. Series of endless workshops and seminars are rolled out. Taxpayers money is spent to finance the few ‘elites’ who lock themselves in posh hotels in big cities to come up with fine sketches to solve the poor man’s problems in the rural areas of Africa. In this scenario, a big chunk of monies that would have solved the ‘identified’ problems is ‘burnt.’ There is a new terminology of spending money nowdays; they talk of burning money. “Which country is leading in burning money in this project?” instead of, “which country has properly utilised the monies to solve the identified problems?”
This way they cripples our rulers and people of the land mentally and physically. Then they come to our countries heavily guarded, take control of the state house, the media and the people of the land in style. Yes, why not. They come to extend a hand, to help because we are helpless! We cannot stand the storms of the madness, diseases and adversity brough about by the rich countries desire to control the world. “Mr. President, I am proud to be here, I like the people, they seem to be good people. Looking at them, Mr President you see nothing but gloomy pictures- of people who have lost hope, people who on their own will have deliberately and decisively agreed to sucuumb to poverty amidst richies! This is very sad Mr. President. I know malaria is killing millions of children, millions of mothers die on their delivery crunch hour, millions have caught up with the deadly virus! My people are so concerned Mr President. Through the President’s Fund to fight HIV/AIDS ,I would like to extend a hand to your ‘efforts’ Mr President. Applaud from the crowd, including Mr. President himself. Mr President, the money that I am giving is money from the taxpayers in my country. It should be burnt wisely. I don’t want to give money to thieves Mr President!,” Applaud from the crowd and the President is wearing a very big smile!
When that is done there is no way you can avoid being a point of reference in every speech or comment that he would have to make. You cannot avoid being an attachment or appendix. The late Dr. Walter Rodney had warned about this. In his popular book titled, ‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa’ he cautioned that, ‘....there is a direct correlation between the development of Europe and the underdevelopment of Africa.” Allthough his argument was purely afrocentric, I still see that correlation today. We have sold out our riches to Western countries and China . They are taming it at a speed of light! After ‘fighting’ for political independence, we went back and submitted to their terms of reference (ToR) in the name of economic investment, privatisation, and globalisation. They are really ‘investing’ in Africa; depends on how you define and see investment.
When I was teaching at a J-School, I taught about theories of mass communication. One of the theories was dependency theory. According to Mass Communication scholars, the information dependency syndrome by the underdeveloped countries brough about the imbalances in the World Information Order between the rich north and the poor south. Todate, we are still complaining about the image of Africa on the Western media. I think we should stop complaining and start cleaning up our messes, using our own initiatives and resources.
The embattled Zimbabwean President, Comrade Robert Mugabe, stand on the West could have an influence in the way Zimbabwean think or view him. Despite the attrocities that he has caused to his countrymen and women, he probably remains the only African leader who has refused to let his country be an attachment of Western countries!
It defeats my sense of understanding to see how we have failed to translate the vast resources at our disposal: gold, diamond, cobalt, copper, uranium, oil, gas, forests, land, water bodies, animals, insects, vegetations and people to make us the richest countries on earth! Are we so Kenges (chrocodiles) that we cannot turn things around in our favour? How long shall we continue to be attachments or appendices of the West?