UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: Vision and Persistence Now on the Shoulders of Our Youth 

By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Africa, a lovely and I must confess the most blessed continent of the world in size, land, fertility, minerals, human resources, youthful population, hospitality, talent, diversity among many other aspects lacking in the other continents.

However, despite all these blessings, the continent is dotted with stories of underdevelopment. 

Misery from the south to the north, from the east to the central to the west. From impassable roads to poor rail, from hunger to malnutrition, from poor agricultural production to post harvest losses, from poor nutrition to diseases, from poor access to clean water to limited access to energy, from poor leadership to poor governance and from poor utilisation of local resources to dependence. The list can go on and on. 

Amidst this development quagmire is a narrative of blame game. Many development analysts, the likes of the World System theorists who talk of exploitation by the core countries to dependence theorists who talk about dependence to modernization theorists to the new concept of global village.

All portends exploitation and unequal division of labour at the international level. 

While this information and analysis is useful and has been with us for decades now, the question is still not what but how does Africa gets out of underdevelopment? Should Africa continue with the colonial exploitative narrative and lamentations in seeking for its liberation?

Colonial history yes, can be attributed to this quagmire, but on reflection, for how many years have we been independent?

If my mathematics serves me right, we have independent African countries over 70 years old. The likes of Ghana and others over 60 years old, and so the likes of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

I reiterate, when will Africa and its intellectuals stop blaming and expecting our colonisers to get us out of this quagmire?

“It would be super insane to expect those who engineered the misery for their own interests to come up with ways/solutions to get us out of it!”

I think it is about time for Africa to step back, reflect and act; indeed.

We now know we have the abundance of material resources/raw materials, We now know we have the human resources,

We now know we have been oppressed by our colonisers, 

We now know our colonisers still oppress us with their new projects and tactics, 

We now know we need to liberated ourselves, 

We now know how to liberate ourselves

From the look of things, our forefathers sacrificed and gave us our political independence. Those who took over failed them and us by not leading the second phase of liberation, good governance.

Those who are there are failing to corect the poor governance of their predecessors and leading us to the third phase of economic liberation.

The future vision for Africa then, is in the present youthful generation who need to be persistent to place Africa where it belongs.

— Writer is Dean and Consultant Sociologist Pwani University