STOP THE BLEEDING IN AFRICA.

It is not any new subject, discussing the numerous developmental impediments in the African Continent. Obviously, civil society groups, think tanks, activists and many Pan African writers have on one way or the other, elaborated the problems affecting economic growth in the continent. In my opinionated view, the problems are inter-relatedly convoluted and certainly require a more integrative approach by all African Countries if we really want a positive reform. There is doubt that Africa is rich as it is endowed with abundant natural resources, that are pivotal to survival across the globe. Fundamentally, however, our inability to harness these resources to the benefit of majority of the people remains a painful challenge. Efforts being made in the area of governance, education, research, peace among others have still not given us satisfactory results.

I decided to title this piece " Stop the bleeding in Africa" as a way of reaffirming my commitment and solidarity to "The Kilimanjaro Declaration": the 2006 Declaration which was reached after an extensive deliberation by representatives from civil society groups, trade unions, young people, politicians among others in Arusha(Tanzania).
In my view, though the Kilimanjaro Declaration did not raise issues in absolute novelty about our developmental challenges, it reassures the African youth, a new path of mobilization that brings every willing soul on board in the quest to creating an environment for improved conditions of life, creating opportunities for the youth and redefining leadership that resonates with the Africa situation. Our problems can better be solved if we so seek answers to them ourselves and no looking elsewhere.

A more integrative approach for any significant metamorphosis from pervasive and profound poverty, largely precipitated by ignorance, illiteracy, greed to a more self-reliant continent, shall  be a mirage if we do not fragment our problems and tackle the more fundamental ones with  alacrity.

Firstly, we must have leadership that is willing to take radical steps I'm harnessing our locally available resources than capping in hand from so called world economic powers. The stories of these countries are more sorrowful than ours yet they made it with well ironed pragmatic strategies. It is sad that the continent depend on millions and millions of dollars from foreign aids just to finance local budgets. It is more worrying because most of these grants and aids come with some invincible conditions that directly and indirectly spell doom of our African economies. If our leaders learn how to manage our resources efficiently and depend on same, then we can have a continent full of pride and wealth in the next decade.

Again, despite our embarrassing over dependency on other continents, we still have high degree cases of corruption across the country by privileged people who have the mandate to protect these resources. On daily basis, unquantifiable significant amount of resources are being dissipated to the detriment of realistic growth and development. Systems in government remains porous and weak as the create opportunities for greedy politicians and cunning civil servants to conspire and siphon our resources into private pockets. According to Mawutodzi Kodze Abissah(2016) " For most of the corrupt African Leaders to achieve their self  aggrandizement objectives, they take over and subvert every key institution of government to serve their needs and not that of the people. By so doing, various institutions such as judicial, military, media and banking and even various commissions with lofty ideals that are supposed to be nonpartisan and neutral are also taken over and debauched."
That is why I say with optimism that the corrupt attitude of African leaders affect every sector of the African economy.

More importantly, the educational system continue to grow at a snail pace with respect to the quality needed to meet contemporary challenges as developing continents. We still have an educational system as throne inherited from colonial masters with any significant modifications. We depend so much on grammar education which churn out good language speakers with little or no knowledge of practicals that can help that address societal challenges. We have an education system that is unsynchronical to existing challenges. No wonder we have increasing levels of youth unemployment across the continent. The bitter truth is that, we do not develop independency in the minds of the youth. The knowledge so acquire is uncompetitive to global market demands, making them take solace on social vices as alternative ways of survival. Is this not pathetic?
According to Center for Universal Education through its Africa Learning Barometer done in 2012, there is a learning crisis in Africa that is yet to be addressed. It added that "Unless African governments and international community work together and act now to raise standards and improve learning outcomes, the potential of tens of millions of African youth will be wasted and Africa's social and economic progress will stagnate." What has been done to curb this problem? Absolutely nothing!!!!
I opine that any defects in education is tantamount to bleeding through the mind.

Another situation that is even more grievous and has the propensity to throwing the continent into a state of orderlessness is the frequent electioneering crises igniting political violence and negatively affecting investor confidence. I don't know whether it is lack of understanding of our democracies, whether it is because of extreme political desperation or self interest against nationalism. For whichever reason, it speaks bad about us as a continent. We can have a more harmonised and streamlined way of addressing our post electioneering discrepancies either than the usual violence perpetuated by aggrieved political elements and their surrogates. Perhaps, weak governance and corruption entice these desperate self seeking people to use any means possible to getting political authority.  This situation is particularly dangerous at the instance of proliferation of small arms on the continent.
In more recent times, we have recorded pockets of violence in Uganda, Kenya, Gambia, Togo, Egypt and many others. These incidences resulted from elections and related matters. In my personal view, violence in any form is a fertile ground for terrorism which remains a global threat. Can't we UNITE in confronting some of these challenges? It is doable.

I think that these and many others continue to write bad story about the African continent, escalating poverty , economic deprivation, conflicts and general lack of self confidence. We suffer from stigmatisation, guilty before the rest of the world and being ridiculed by those we seek help from. Why won't the president of the United States of America describe Africa as "shithole" countries? We must demonstrate the quest for change of attitude in the area of governance, education and aspects of our culture and be ready to creating another path that can liberate us from this self imposed poverty of ideas and suffering.

As a budding Pan African Writer, I urge the youth, intellectuals, activists and colleague writers to be ambassadors of mobilising human resources for us to collectively shape the minds of all in creating an enviable continent, the only way we can truly enjoy our lovely continent.

#stopthebleeding#


Denis Andaban
denisandaban@gmail.com
+223549734023