Last week, Ghana played host to Dr Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born British business magnate who has become a strong advocate for democracy and good governance on the continent.
To push forward his agenda, he has established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to promote good governance on the continent and honour African leaders who, in its estimation, have served the cause of the foundation and impacted positively on the people.
While in the country, Dr Ibrahim delivered a lecture on, “Clearing the mess in Africa”, during which he hammered on the usual admonition to African leaders to eschew corrupt tendencies and use the scarce resources to develop the continent.
He stressed that without good governance, Africa’s natural resources would continue to be plundered by greedy politicians to deprive the citizenry of physical and financial security, which would be recipe for disaster and scare away foreign investors.
He called for efficient and transparent leadership to transform the economic prospects of Africa and wondered why Africa should continue begging for food aid when about 70 per cent of its people were engaged in agriculture.
He spoke about an educational system that had failed to address the needs of the people and a judiciary that was not bold enough to confront corruption in high places.
Dr Ibrahim may not be saying anything new, but coming from an African who is very much conversant with the problems and the socio-political intrigues on the continent, his observations and advice cannot be taken lightly.
The strongest point he made, in my opinion, in his lecture at the British Council Hall was his appeal to African leaders to stop blaming the colonial masters for their deficiencies.
There is no doubt that colonialism has dealt a severe blow to the conscience and psyche of Africa and its people. It has destabilised and distorted its natural boundaries and fragmented its people for the convenience of the colonial masters.
Colonialism introduced on the continent foreign doctrines and cultures which have gone a long way to distort our history and dislocate our values as a people. Some of the psychological and physical scars left behind by colonialism are so embedded that they will never fade away, let alone restore the continent to its pre-colonial days.
For instance, the artificial boundaries created when European imperialists met in Berlin in 1884 to share Africa like war booty will remain till the end of time and the story of countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa where the white settlers became the dominant occupants of indigenous lands will only remain matters of historical discussion.
It has been easier to live with the physical scars, which include the artificial boundaries left for Africa by colonialism. What have been difficult and not easy for some to admit are the psychological scars, which include inferiority complex.
Physically, we know that as a people we have a common history and, therefore, through regional and sub-regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), its predecessor, the Southern African Development Co-operation (SADC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), we are making determining efforts at regional and sub-regional integration and co-operation.
Occasionally, we are haunted by border disputes, all part of the colonial legacy, but as stated earlier, these are problems easily identified and, therefore, easier to handle.
Unfortunately, the psychological scar, with its baby, inferiority complex, has become very difficult to manage, mainly because we do not even want to believe that it exists. Incidentally, it is this complex which has taken away our sense of initiative, human pride, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-determination, self-preservation and the ability of self-utilisation.
Why should we continue to seek refuge in colonialism for our deficiencies when we proclaimed ourselves independent many years ago? Why should we continue to live in abject poverty when we are surrounded on all sides by limitless resources? Why do we find ourselves incomplete without support from foreign sources?
Why should this continent remain the most primitive, starved, diseased, deprived and the poorest when, in terms of natural resources, it is the most endowed? Why is it that our leaders never finish any speech without appealing for foreign donors for some of the most basic things such as toilet facilities for small communities?
The answer, as Dr Ibrahim stated, does not lie in colonialism, which is now history. We need to come out of mental slavery which, admittedly, is a legacy of colonialism. We need to remind ourselves that Africa is not the only victim of colonialism. If others have overcome their colonial past, why should Africa continue to cling to it and continue to make it an excuse for its failures?
Africa needs a leadership that will take us through that psychological barrier; a leadership that will inspire confidence, influence change, eschew the begging syndrome; a leadership with vision, the will and the determination to achieve.
Dr Ibrahim is right that Africa may have many challenges, such as corrupt political leadership and lack of democratic and good governance on the continent, unfair trade and other restrictive policies, but colonialism, surely, should not be one if we put our act together.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
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