Not blame, but responsibility
A good friend of mine once said he always understood "responsibility" to mean the ability to respond. The choice of how to respond, of course, is often a moral one.Aaron Akinyemi, a Nigerian journalist working primarily in the UK, thinks it's time for Africans to stop blaming others and respond to the disasters of African governance.
What would your students say? Would a non-African journalist been able to deliver this message with much impact?
No more excuses for Africa
A despicable cycle of corruption continually repeats itself across Africa and is becoming tiresome – as are some of the usual explanations for underdevelopment in Africa: colonialism, neo-colonialism and the inability to fully recover from its lingering after effects. These old excuses are little more than convenient spiels designed to divert attention away from the most immediate root of underdevelopment in much of Africa today – greed and corruption... It is high time for Africa to stop passing the buck and acknowledge the role its leaders, whose mental faculties are held to ransom by their own avarice, are having on the continent's inadequate rate of development.
Europe too certainly has plenty to answer for vis-a-vis underdevelopment in Africa. A legacy of slavery and colonialism left the continent's human and natural resources exploited and spent. Sophisticated indigenous socio-political systems were dismantled, arbitrary geographical boundaries drawn up and scores of different ethnic groups lumped together with little regard for their different languages and customs.When Europe finally exited, it left behind governmental systems largely based on patronage and thus prone to graft...
But where does victimhood end and personal responsibility begin?...
Political and moral corruption now seems an unspoken prerequisite to attain office in Africa, insidiously weaving its way into Africa's cultural fabric...
Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission, was feted internationally as a beacon of hope in Africa's fight against corruption when he recovered billions of dollars in stolen public funds and successfully prosecuted scores of international advance fee fraudsters and top government officials. When his investigations began to get too close for comfort and he refused to be bought, the government essentially sacked him and forced him into exile in the UK...
Africa must own up to and challenge the role its morally bankrupt elite are playing in the continent's underdevelopment and in the suffering of its disadvantaged citizens. But developed nations must also consider the impact of their own complicity in corruption on the continent. It's a myth that fraud is the sole preserve of the developing world, and sanctimonious calls for political transparency ring very hollow when the likes of Britain and China send subliminal messages that bribery is acceptable.
Pointing fingers at the west won't build good roads or feed the poor. Modern-day external exploitation can only be adequately challenged once Africa gets its own house in order...
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Labels: corruption, economics, history, Nigeria
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:10 AM
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