By Kolawole Ojebisi
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has identified a host of reasons why African nations depend on handouts from foreign nations, particularly those in the West, for survival.
He spoke on Thursday during a panel session at the Afreximbank Annual Meeting themed “African Renaissance in an Era of Turbulence: Are the Lions Still on the Move?”
“How many of our leaders even understand basic economics to be able to run the affairs of their country?
“Look at how we go about borrowing money and wasting money. Waste and corruption—they are strange bedfellows of development. And that is what most of our leaders engage in,” Obasanjo said.
The former president said the dearth of purposeful leadership needed to harness both human and material resources has stood in the way of the continent’s development, adding that African countries are not moving in the right direction.
“The lions are there. They are not moving as they should be moving. And they have to move as they should move before you get Africa really as a continent moving as we expect it to move.
“You cannot talk of economics without touching on politics because politics is the master of economics,” he said.
He also blamed Africa’s elite for aping Western political systems wholesale without tinkering with them to reflect the continent’s peculiarities, stressing that African’s brand of democracy is monocracy in disguise.
“Western liberal democracy, which we inherited from our colonial masters, needs to be internalised and interrogated. In most African languages, opposition is the enemy. Where do you talk of a loyal enemy?”
“Our democracy is a monocracy. Not democracy. Monitocracy. Which means you buy… You will buy for everybody. And you will be the treasurer. And then you will… and the money that comes in will, of course, go into your pocket.”
He continued: “In the African system, we never talk of opposition. We sit down. We look at everything. We argue. And when we argue, we get consensus. Communalism. Not opposition and government.”
Obasanjo added, “Now, I believe the time has come for us to say, hey, it’s not working for us. Even for them, it’s not working.”
On Africa’s dependence on aid, Obasanjo said, “We have lived too long on aid. Is aid the way that Africa should be expecting? I don’t believe so. Now, if that is the case, what should we substitute for aid?”
He added, “We run to Japan. We run to China. And all the African leaders run to China. For how much? China will give up $20bn. $20bn, which a country in Africa can produce more like that.”
Obasanjo, however, praised Afreximbank’s initiative to promote intra-African trade using local currencies, urging central banks to support it.
