The African Development Crisis aka Underdevelopment: When will our Lamentations end?

By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri

Email, thecoastnespaper@gmail.com

We have sung the song of colonial oppressive tactics for so long. From early years of independence to date. From blame to blame to blame without reflecting on how to get out of this mess.

We have had numerous  insightful contributions for years on how the colonialists played us, our structures, and systems. From African Ubuntu, African Socialism to Feudalism and super capitalism, it’s mine because it must be mine alone.

This we are all aware now is the precursor for the African development crisis, which can be described in one word, underdevelopment. 

Allow me to agree for the last time, maybe, that colonial history is responsible for our underdevelopment and can be attributed to existing inequalities. 

However,  allow me also to reflect and ask, for how many years have we been independent? If my mathematics serves me  right, we have countries over 70 years of being independent,  the likes of Ghana and others over 60 years, the likes of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, etc.  

If this time period is true, then when will we stop blaming and expecting our colonisers to get us out of this misery?

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

Be it as it may, for how many years does Africa need to hear this colonial narrative of oppression? If it has been about creating awareness, are we not more aware now! If it was about building knowledge and capacity, are we not ready now? 

We have even enough lessons of how others got out of this oppression and fought inequality in their nations that we can copy and paste if we can’t come up with our own road map out of this hole!

The growing inequality in the region should be the trigger to change from the old Lamentational order to Actionable order.

The growing youth restlessness and agitation for change and transformation in Africa is something to watch. 

The French people fixed their inequality mess through the French Revolution of 1789, while the Chinese did it through the Chinese Community Revolution in 1949.

Why not Africa! The attempted youth uprising in North Africa, the Arab Spring, and the Gen Zs in Kenya recently are the smoke. They say in my village,  “Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

I think it’s about time for Africa to step back, reflect, and act. Why? You may be asking.  

Because:

We now know we have the abundance of material resources or raw materials to take off;

We now know we have an abundance of human resources to tap and develop;

We now know we have been oppressed by our colonisers for so long; 

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

We now know more than ever that we need to liberate ourselves out of underdevelopment and inequality;

We now know how to liberate ourselves.

The million dollar question is: What are we still waiting for!  A miracle?

Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri Dean & Consultant Sociologist PWANI UNIVERSITY, KENYA