{UAH} Standard Digital News - Why African leaders must put the interests of their citizens first...2

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Why African leaders must put the interests of their citizens first

By Anyang' Nyong'o

Updated Saturday, October 11th 2014 at 22:22 GMT +3

Instead the state has been used as a vehicle of supporting national entrepreneurs by availing human resources development, technological advancement, access to markets and maintenance of the rule of law. But as long as our rulers persist in exploiting state power for accumulation of wealth the following will happen.

Parasitic capitalism will flourish with superficial organic connection with the domestic economy. And that is why the vast oil wealth of Equatorial Guinea does not translate into the national liberation of the Guinean people from poverty, ignorance, disease and an uncaring and repressive government.

Of course the power wielders will always point out to the grand stadia, boulevards, sky scrapers and national airlines that they have nurtured as fruits of development. Granted: these could hardly have fallen like manner from heaven. But how useful are they to the nation? How many are the passengers in the planes?

And we do not ask this question glibly; we ask it because for us the nation includes all those who should have a nutritious meal on a daily basis; those who need a roof over their heads like all of us; those who need to go to high school like I did and my parents hardly paid for it. When all these are attended to then we will have entered the highway towards national liberation as indeed China has.

Every nation in the world we live in today has either gone through national liberation many centuries or decades ago or are feverishly working towards it. Nations which do this successfully are those who pay greatest attention that their people be fed and be fed well; that they do get education which then they use productively; that they are guaranteed access to health care and that they are involved in working for their livelihood in a political atmosphere where they have a voice and are not mere passengers in a government driven national project.

I dare say that as long as many African countries do not resolve this basically governance project we are going nowhere. Our presidents will become richer. Their henchmen and hench-women will follow suit. The cheering crowd called the middle class of businessmen, professionals, public officials and rich farmers will constantly provide the rationale that the system works.

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And hence from time to time tribes will be mobilised to decide who becomes the President, not realising that this ritual is not even a panacea: it is a curse.

 

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