WHY IS AFRICA STILL UNDERDEVELOPED?

WHY IS AFRICA STILL UNDERDEVELOPED?

By OkechukwuOkugo

NEW YORK – All countries are not equal as regards the natural endowment of resources. And there seems to be a great advantage for countriesthat have abundant resources;they do not need to import as many raw materials as such have opportunity to increase its economic strength through the income gained fromexporting such resources. These natural resources are the primary factors of production and their availability give countries comparative advantage in trade.

Africa has a natural surplus supply of various types of resources including oil, diamonds, silver, gold, brass, cobalt, uranium, tin, bauxite, Petroleum, copper, aluminum, cocoa, rubber, woods, tropical fruits etc.; much of Africa’s natural resources are still undiscovered. Yet Africa is the most underdeveloped and the poorest continent in the world, whereas so many Asian and European countries without a single natural resource e.g. Singapore which imports even water from neighboring Malaysia are among the world’s leading economies.

Why is Africa the poorest and the most underdeveloped of all the continents of the world despite being the most endowed in natural resources besides the comparative advantage given them in trade?

Majority of Africans believethat the effects of colonization cum neocolonialism are the major causes of this underdevelopment.

Colonization of Africa is divided into 3 stages, Classical antiquity, Arab conquest and European colonialism. In almost all African countries today, the language, usually known as the official language is a relic passed down to the people as a byproduct of colonization.Furthermorethe existence of a massive African diaspora is partly a bequest of the practice of shipping millions of African slaves out of the continent by these external colonizers.

Apart from the powerful influences of the culture and civilization of ancient Greeks and the Romans throughout North Africa, peoples from Southern Europe, and Western Asia also colonized North Africa; Southeast Asia colonizing Madagascar. In the Middle-Ages, North and East Africa were further colonized by peoples from Western Asia. Finally in the Modern Era, It appeared that Western Europeans colonized all parts of the continent that later led to the ‘’Scramble for Africa’’ in the late 19^th century.

According to Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, the main reason for colonialism is ‘’economic’’ imperialism. And to achieve that the colonial power mainly employs ‘’political’’ means, concluding that colonialism is an act of ‘’exploitation’’ of the colonized.

Even the decolonization of Africa after the Second World War, Nkrumah believed that colonialism only changed in name, neocolonialism, as pictured in his book entitled, ‘’Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism.’’

Considering when African countries gained independence to the time when European countries started exploring the world as established independent nations many people propose that the lag in time is why Africa is still underdeveloped believing that in the next 100 years to come African countries would make up for the time and catch up with the pace of the advancement. Some citing the example that United States of America gained independence from Great Britain as far back as July 4, 1776; and as such has been existing as an established independent country for at least 238 years. Whereas a country like Togo gained independence just 54 years ago from France.

But why is Africa still underdeveloped and grossly poor even in the midst of abundance? Colonialism, neocolonialism, slave trade or time?

Taking into account the history of Ethiopia, one of the oldest independent countries of the world founded in 980 B.C. Ethiopian Emperor Menelik 11 on March 1, 1896 defeated decisively Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa forcing Italy to recognize the independence and sovereignty of Ethiopia as a power. Thus conferring on Ethiopia the rare status of one ofthe few non-colonized countries of the world. And today Ethiopians have no colonial masters making Amharic, their indigenous language the country’s official language.

But despite not feeling the effects of colonialism, neocolonialism and existing more than 1000 years as an established independent country, regardless of the considerable aid from United States and other countries Ethiopia remained poor and underdeveloped.

The case of Ethiopia might be showing that time, colonialism and neocolonialismeven though they had a very traumatic effects on Africa are not what’s responsible for Africa’s underdevelopment and poverty today. Then what?

TeodoroObiangNguemaMbasogo the president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979 after ousting his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a military coup was declared by state-operated radio as ‘’the country’s god.’’ That he was ‘’in permanent contact with the almighty’’ and ‘’can decide to kill without anyone calling him into account and without going to hell.’’ As such in 2008 American Journalist Peter Maass declared Obiang Africa’s worst dictator preceding Mugabe.

Equatorial Guinea’s oil exports and corruption made the Obiang family one of the wealthiest families on the continent. And Forbes Magazine rated him one of the world’s wealthiest heads of state with his net worth of US $600M. In 2003, Obiang avowed that in order to avoid civil servants being tempted to use state funds, he would be in total control of the national treasury; as a result deposited more than half a billion dollars in an account controlled by his family at Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., leading to a U.S federal court fining the bank $16M.

This scenario is the same with many other African countries like Sudan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Chad, Rwanda, Eritrea, Uganda, Gambia and even Nigeria. Looting, Corruption and dictatorship had been the cancer plaguing the African nations. The dyed-in-the wool greed of a people who would be blamed for it? External forces? All African corrupt despots or dictators have always enjoyed an unmitigated hoi polloi of local supporters.

Former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, had said there is ‘’nowhere in this world now you can move your economy without science and technology. For the next four years we will emphasize so much on science and technology because we have no choice; without that we are just dreaming.’’ This view had long been held by other African statesmen. Kwame Nkrumah once said, ‘’socialism without science is void.’’ Why?

Science and technological based knowledge can be used to create wealth and alleviate poverty. It is with the advancement of 20^th century technology that the world’s food production was increased and infant mortality rate, decreased. This in effect increased the population of Africa that today about 800 million people or more live in Africa.

And in this 21^st Century, in this Information Age we are living in, knowledge has become the only essential commodity. Imagine a country without engineers and scientists. The truth is that poverty cannot be reduced neither can advancement be achieved in Africa without a good number of competent scientists and engineers.

A country is as advanced as their scientists and engineers are. The sad reality being that many of Africa’s best scientists and engineers work outside the continent of Africa today.

The training and retaining of powerful engineers and scientists to develop advanced technology is the major solution to reduction of poverty in this modern times. Technology affects every sector of the economy and makes it more productive or effective. Be it in the agricultural, financial, educational, health and even entertainment sectors etc.

No matter how bountiful a country’s resources are without developing the adequate technology they can neither explore nor refine them as such must depend on external help to do it.

So those who do not develop technology and science should never cry out against exploitation because they are the ones that have made it possible for them to be exploited. Total dependency increases the probability of exploitation.

Colonization is not worse than total dependency. And to my own view colonization has some advantages over total dependency.

Colonization brought a form of development whereas total dependency increases poverty level. This I always try to corroborate with this simple illustration:

The times during which the Europeans lived in Africa, they brought development since the areas they lived were much better developed and organized. They provided clean environment, good healthcare system, roads, pipe borne water and steady electricity which the locals also enjoyed alongside with them.

But in total dependency even though the country may have oil, they must depend completely on external forces to explore and also be able to turn the raw resource to finished usable products. Because the locals lack entirely the advanced technology necessary for these processes to be actualized, expatriates must bring their technology to explore and harness these resources. In the end when the resources had been exported and turned to finished products, it must still be imported for use. More or less the natural resource is more beneficial to others than to themselves. It costs money to pay for such advanced technological services which earns foreign reserves for the expatriates rather than for the locals.

So it is with all other natural resources like gold, tin, zinc etc., in Africa.How many of these resources can be harnessed, refined and turned to finished products by Africans? Why?Would any country be able to stop another country that sincerely want to develop their science and technology?

How many African countries have advanced technology? How many African countries have highly competent engineers and scientists who keep on innovating and inventing modern means of solving problems with technology and science? For the Age we live in, countries must continue to look for those who can solve problems with advanced technology and must pay highly for it.

There is no country with advanced technology that is poor; those who do not have it must continue to sell their resources and use the money to buy science and technology, and because it is not cheap, they will continue to be dependent and remain poor.

Some of the countries who do not have enough or no natural resources but are among the world’s richest economies for having technology are Japan, South Korea, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore etc.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai etc., are rich because they sell their oil and use the money to buy and maintain the world’s most advanced technology which then continues to attract people from all over the world in tourism, trade and even medicine etc.

President Obama during his July 2015 visit to Kenya and Ethiopia according to a VOA report said, “You can choose the path to progress, but it requires making some important choices.” Without mincing words, in another AP report he continued, “The future of Africa is up to Africans,” reiterating, “For too long, I think that many looked to the outside for salvation and focused on somebody else being at fault for the problems of the continent.”

There is no nation in the world’s history God developed rather people in the nation changed their countries. It is only Africans that always look unto God to change their countries while in other continents people change their world yet Africa remains a third world in their hope.