Leadership Has Been Africa’s Primary Problem-Prof George Ayittey

By Ajong Mbapndah L

Prof George Ayittey a prominent Economist who hails from Ghana is President of the Washington D.C, USA, based Free Africa Foundation. He is a Professor at the American University in Washington, DC, and an Associate Scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He believes that Africa is poor because she is not free. The poverty in Africa he opines is as a result of oppression and mismanagement by the colonial masters and the oppressive nature of autocrats who occupy the seats of power in African countries. Beyond his barbed criticisms of African leaderships, Prof Ayittey proffers solutions that will place the continent on the right path towards progress and development. His recommendations include democratic governments, debt forgiveness, modernized infrastructure, free market economies, free trade and others. A prolific writer, books authored by Prof Ayittey include Africa in Chaos, Africa Betrayed, and Africa Unchained which is his latest publication.Prof Ayittey holds a BSc from the University of Ghana, Legon, MA from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada and a PhD from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. In an interview with Ajong Mbapndah L for Pan African Visions, Prof Ayittey makes an interesting critique of the crisis, challenges and the way forward for Africa.

PAV Ajong Mbapndah L

Pan African Visions (PAV): What assessment do you make of the chaos in Kenya today and when lessons do you think this should serve for other African countries?

Prof Ayittey: This chaos – violence, deaths and destruction – is so unnecessary and completely avoidable if Kenya had learned from its own 1992 electoral crisis, as well as taken lessons from collapsed African states. In fact, I foresaw this. Back in early December, I urged Kenyans not to vote for either Odinga or Kibaki. They should throw out the ossified politicians who break their promises and bring in fresh new faces to clean up the state house.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to recognize that Africans take elections very seriously, despite popular misconceptions that they are poor and illiterate. In fact, the implosion of an African country, regardless of the ideology, ethnicity or religion of its leaders, always begins with electoral malfeasance.

Prof Ayittey: A voice in the wilderness for many years against corruption ,complacency & bad leaderships that stifle development in Africa

Blockage of the democratic process or the refusal to hold elections plunged Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, and Sudan into civil war. Hard-liner manipulation of the electoral process destroyed Rwanda (1993), Sierra Leone (1992) and Zaire (1996). Subversion of the electoral process in Liberia (1985) eventually set off a civil war in 1989. The same type of subversion instigated civil strife in Cameroon (1991), Congo (1992), Kenya (1992), Togo (1992), Lesotho (1998), and Cote d’Ivoire (2000). In Congo (Brazzaville), a dispute over the 1997 electoral framework flared into mayhem and civil war. Finally, the military's annulment of electoral results by the military started Algeria's civil war (1992) and plunged Nigeria into political turmoil (1993). The events in Kenya should serve as a lesson to both the authorities and the opposition in Zimbabwe which holds elections next month (March).

PAV: Some people think that the role of foreign observer missions only helped to fuel the tensions, do you agree with this?

Prof Ayittey: No, I do not agree. It amounts to “scapegoating.” The tensions were already there. The Kibaki administration had been a failure. It broke its promises on Constitutional reform and corruption was out of control. Worse, it tried to shore up its falling popularity by playing the ethnic card. The administration became increasingly dominated by the Kikuyus – hence the reference to the “Mount Kenya mafia.”

PAV: As some one who is based in the US, what interest does its government place on democracy in Africa and what has been done in concrete terms to assist in the evolution of democracy?

Prof Ayittey: After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and other Western donors shifted their Africa aid policies from checking the spread of communism in Africa to promoting democracy. Beginning in the early 1990s, Western aid was conditioned upon the establishment of multi-party democracy. Most African leaders however took the aid money and did the “Babangida boogie” – one step forward, three steps back, a flip and a side kick to land on a fat Swiss bank account. Incumbent presidents empanelled a fawning coterie of sycophants to write new Constitutions, insert phony term-limits, pack the Electoral Commission with their cronies, toss opposition leaders into jail and hold “coconut elections” to return themselves to power. As a result of this vexatious chicanery, willful deception and vaunted acrobatics, the democratization process has stalled in Africa. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic, fewer than 8 are “economic success stories,” only 8 have a free and independent media.

PAV: President Bush will be visiting a few African countries soon, coming at the end of his mandate, what will you say was beneficial for the continent in his two terms?

Prof Ayittey: President Bush’s tour of 5 African countries (Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia) this week is intended to achieve three objectives. First, there are growing fears among administration officials that the next president may not continue with Bush aid policies toward Africa. Bush has spent $1.2 billion the past 5 years to fight malaria and $15 billion to fight HIV/AIDS, which Bush wants to double over the next 5 years. There are also worries that his debt relief efforts and the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) may be ditched. MCA requires recipient countries to invest in people, curb corruption, promote economic freedom, and establish rule of law. A third but undeclared objective is to check China’s forays into Africa, which have been muscling out US companies and influence.

Prof Ayittey shakes hands with U.S Secretary of State Dr. Condi Rice, in the White House

It is most likely the next president, a Democrat, might keep most of Bush’s Africa policies because of a strong African-American political (Congressional) constituency and support for fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS and granting debt relief. But the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) might become a copse. Though it is based on sound logic and premise, MCA with a $5.5 billion budget was slow to start and can point to few success stories in Africa. Its web site lists 19 recipients of MCA grants as “successful performers.” But in several cases, such as that of Kenya, Lesotho and Uganda, such designation is dubious.

PAV: What assessment do you make of the reaction of the African Union in handling crises across the continent especially the most recent one in Kenya?

Prof Ayittey: Please, please, don’t ask about the African Union. It is the most useless organization we have on the continent. It can’t even define “democracy” and it is completely bereft of originality. It is imbued with “copy-cat” mentality. Europe has the European Union (EU), so we must have the African Union (AU). The AU forgot that to become a member of the European Union, a country must meet very strict requirements. But in the case of the African Union, there are no requirements. Any rogue and collapsed state can be a member. And when the African Union unveiled NEPAD (the New Economic Partnership for African Development), it boasted that NEPAD was an “African crafted program.” But as it turned out, NEPAD was modeled after the Marshall Aid Plan. Again, the copy-cat mentality. When the Darfur crisis flared up, the AU was nowhere to be found. It was doing the watutsi in Addis Ababa. After much international condemnation, the AU finally managed to cobble together some troops to send to Darfur. And how did they perform?

On September 29th, around 30 vehicles loaded with several hundred Sudanese rebels ripped through the perimeter of an African Union (AU) peacekeepers' base on the edge of Haskanita, a small town in southern Darfur. The AU unit of about 100 troops fought off the first attack before falling back to trenches in the corner of their compound, firing through the night until their ammunition ran out. Ten were killed; at least 40 fled into the bush. (The Economist, Oct 11, 2007; p.48) . So don’t expect AU troops anywhere near Kenya any time soon.

Prof Ayittey with former President for Mozambique Joachim Chissano

PAV: You head the Free Africa Foundation, what is its mission and considering that you are based in the USA, how have your activities impacted on the continent?

Prof Ayittey: The nature of FAF’s mission dictates it be based outside Africa because of the generally repressive intellectual and political environment in Africa. The mission is FREEDOM – giving the African people the freedom to choose who should rule them and to craft their own solutions to their problems, not to impose these solutions on them.

Despite being based in the U.S., FAF has had a powerful impact on developments on the continent. FAF propagates new ideas and crafts African-based solutions to Africa’s myriad of problems. These ideas are disseminated in books, articles and media appearances. FAF president has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including CNN and BBC. FAF has affiliates in 13 African countries.

In addition, FAF is engaged in humanitarian work. It has established “Malaria-Free Zones” in Ghana, Benin, Nigeria and Kenya. With its local partners, FAF has fumigated villages, distributed free insecticide-treated bed nets and anti-malarial drugs to villagers in Africa. It has also built a clinic in Ghana, completed one in Nigeria and will build one in Benin.

PAV: There is this statement on the FAF website that Africa is poor because she is not free, can you shed more light on that?

Prof Ayittey: The leadership has been Africa’s primary problem. Since 1960, we have had exactly 204 African heads of state. I will challenge any reader to name me just 20 “good leaders.” Nobody has been able to name me 15. Even if you can name me 20 good leaders, it means the vast majority of the rest (over 90 percent) were failures. In fact, the slate of post colonial African leaders has been a disgusting assortment of crocodile liberators, military coconut-heads, Swiss bank socialists, quack revolutionaries and briefcase bandits. These post colonial leaders imposed on their people defective economic and political systems that concentrated both economic and political power in their hands. More power to them meant less power to the people. And they used that power to enrich themselves, squelch dissent or criticism and to perpetuate themselves in office.

As a result of this, what is known as “government” completely ceased to exist in many African countries. What came to exist is a “vampire state” – a government hijacked by a phalanx of crooks, bandits and gangsters. They use the state machinery to enrich self, cronies, tribesmen and exclude everyone else – a quasi-apartheid system. The richest in Africa are heads of state, ministers and government officials.

• In Kenya where the government is described as the “Mount Kenya mafia,” the income per capita is $463 a year while the base compensation of legislators is about $81,000 a year, tax free, plus a variety of allowances and perks, which can effectively double their take-home pay.
• In Tanzania, ahead of President George Bush’s visit, the entire Cabinet has been dissolved over a corruption scandal, involving the award of $172.5 million contract to supply 100 megawatts of emergency power to a Texas based company that does not exist. Even the anti-corruption czar, Dr Edward Hosea, is implicated.
• Between 1970 and 2004, Nigeria raked in over $450 billion in oil revenue. But according to former head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the country’s rulers stole $412 billion of that oil revenue. Billions in oil revenue have also gone missing in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.

Callous contempt for the poor is palpable in government circles: “The poor are hard to lead. They should be arrested. This is the way to develop,” said Uganda’s agriculture minister Kibirige Ssebunya in 2004.

Discontent and resentment bubble but kept in check by heavy-handed security forces and repressive laws. Get power out of the hands of these crooks, kleptocrats and give it back to the people where it belongs. Africa can only make economic progress when it is freed from deadly grip of the ruling vampire elites. Hence, Africa is poor because she is not free.

PAV: What roles do see the following groups playing in order for the continent to move forward, leadership, the opposition, civil society, and the international community?

Prof Ayittey: To move Africa forward, forget about the leaders. They only know how to do three things well: To loot, to kill and to perpetuate themselves in office. Forget about the international community also. It is an amorphous group of countries, each with its own Africa agenda and therefore impossible to get them to take decisive action on any African issue. More importantly, it is Africa which has to move Africa forward.

I have little faith in Africa’s opposition. We need an intelligent opposition to make democracy work and move Africa forward. But in many countries, the opposition is hopeless. They are terribly fragmented and can’t unite against a common enemy. Witness the fracture of the MDC in Zimbabwe. Further, the opposition in Africa is prone to internal bickering or squabbling over who should be its presidential candidate. Worse, the opposition leaders lack imagination in the choice of their tactics and strategies.

They do not do their home work and contest elections totally unprepared. Then when they lose, they cry “foul.” Such was the case in Kenya’s Dec 27 elections. The opposition did not do its home work. When Kibaki was packing the Electoral Commission with his cronies, the opposition was asleep. Nor did they see that the Voters’ Register was fraudulent. Even Raila Odinga’s name was not on it. Why take part in an election when your own name was not in the register?

According to Newton’s law of physics, for every force in nature there is a counter-force. A force dominates if the counter-force is weak or non-existent. Africa’s despots have dominated the political scene because the counter-force (opposition) has been weak or non-existent. Civil society has been weak, chastened by repressive laws. Civil society is that part of society that lies outside government and the market. It comprises the political parties, professional bodies, students, media practitioners, NGOs, and other civic organizations and associations. For civil society to work, it needs four types of freedoms: Freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of movement and freedom of the media. These freedoms are enshrined in Africa’s own Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Banjul Charter) but few African governments uphold it.

PAV: As a seasoned observer of the political situation in Africa, who will you cite as references of leadership that is capable of meeting growing challenges the continent is faced with?

Prof Ayittey: I have moved away from the “leadership model.” For more than 40 years we were led to believe that if only we could find another “Nkrumah” or “Mandela,” our problems would be solved in Africa. But we are not going to find another Mandela. There is one and only one Mandela and there will always be one. You cannot replicate a Mandela because leaders are born out of trying circumstances. You cannot tell a priori if someone is going to be a good leader until he is tested. But then, we become disappointed. We have suffered through too many of these disappointments. So instead of leaders, my focus is on INSTITUTIONS. Leaders come and go but institutions endure. The U.S. for example is still being governed by a Constitution which is more than 200 years old. No leader lives that long.

To effect change from within and assure better governance, Africans need the following institutional tools:

· An independent central bank: to assure monetary and economic stability, as well as stanch capital flight out of Africa. The World Bank, for example, should desist from dealing with African countries without an independent central bank. Failing that, governors of central banks in a region may be rotated to remove them from undue political or executive pressure.

· An independent judiciary is essential for the rule of law. Supreme Court judges in Africa, for example, may be rotated within a region.

· A free and independent media to ensure free flow of information. Smart aid would privatize the state-owned media – especially the radio. It is the medium of the masses and has such power. Recall the critical role the media played in the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

· An independent Electoral Commission that is made up of representatives of all political parties, not just packed with government appointees.

· An efficient and professional civil service, which will deliver essential social services to the people on the basis of need and not on the basis of ethnicity or political affiliation.

· The establishment of a neutral and professional armed and security forces to protect the people and not fire on them.

These institutions are not established by leaders. In fact, there is a conflict of interest involved. African leaders won’t establish the institutions that would check their arbitrary use of power. These institutions are established by CIVIL SOCIETY.

PAV:The influence of China in the continent has been growing by leaps and bounds with a galore of interests free loans, investments and more, as a leading Economist, what would you say are the merits and demerits of such a strong presence?

Prof Ayittey: On the positive side, China’s inroads into Africa may provide some short-term benefits for the continent. Hungry for resources to feed its voracious economic expansion at a dizzying 8-9 percent clip, China is all over Africa, signing deals and gobbling up resources. China’s trade with Africa has increased 60-fold since 1990 and in 2006, China invested $11.7 billion in Africa – up 40 percent the previous year, according to the African Development Bank. Increased prices for Africa’s resources and China’s investment should boost African growth prospects. To the delight of African governments, China’s aid and investments come with no strings attached.

Chinese investments in Africa have no moral scruples. China will deal with any rogue regime that has resources to sell. Witness Sudan. Because of this, China aid, wrapped up in anti-colonialist verbiage, will meet its own peril in Africa.

The influx of cheap Chinese goods has destroyed textile industries from Nigeria to Lesotho. So fever-pitched were anti-Chinese sentiments in Zambia that a 2006 presidential candidate, Michael Sata, vowed to through them out of the country if elected. He wasn’t. And China’s secret plans to re-settle 12.5 million Chinese in Africa have rankled many African commentators. Seduced by the suffocating platitudes about colonialism, our leaders trooped to Beijing in October 2006 and threw themselves at the feet of the Chinese. The mantra was “the enemy of my enemy must be my friend.” Since the West is the enemy of China, China has become Africa’s new friend. But such thinking gives short shrift to our own African history.

Since time immemorial, every foreign entity that comes to Africa comes to pursue its interests. The French go to Africa to pursue French interests. The Americans go to Africa to pursue American interests. The Russians, the Arabs, the Belgians, and others. It would be the height of insanity to believe that the Chinese come to Africa because they love black people so much. What the Chinese are practicing is “chopsticks mercantilism.” With chopsticks dexterity, China can pick platinum from Zimbabwe; oil from Angola, Nigeria and Sudan; cocoa from Ghana; diamonds from Sierra Leone; etc. – all on its own terms because of its strong bargaining position because our leaders lie prostrate before them.

PAV: Where does Prof Ayittey stand in the debate on continental unity and the idea of a United States of Africa?

Prof Ayittey: “United States of Africa” smacks of another copy-cat mentality. Why can’t we be original? Europe has the European Union, so too must we. The U.S. has a space center, so Nigeria spent $89 million to build the Obasanjo Space Center. The U.S. is called the United States of America (USA), so we must have the United States of Africa (USA). We are a confused lot. We have too many countries in Africa (54), so it makes sense to create larger polities but, for Pete’s sake, look at our ancient empires. They were all confederacies: The Mali Empire, Songhai, Great Zimbabwe. So the African Confederation or Confederation of African States (CAS) would make more sense culturally than the United States of Africa or African Union.

To achieve this, we should start with REGIONAL integration: ECOWAS, SADCC, etc. Then move to the continental level. But then, how do you talk about continental unity when you do not have national unity in some countries, let alone regional unity? Look at Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Are they united nationally? So what is the point in talking about continental unity?