POVERTY AS STATECRAFT: PRELIMINARY REFLECTION ON AFRICAN LEADERSHIP

Relics of Colonialism: An Introduction to African Politics, 2024

This chapter "Approaches to the Study of African Politics" outlines three key frameworks for analyzing African politics: modernization, institutional, and dependency approaches. The modernization approach, popular in the 1960s, reflects post-independence aspirations for African states to emulate Western-style development. It attributes underdevelopment to the persistence of traditional institutions, conservative cultures, and lack of motivation for change. Modernization theorists believe African societies must abandon traditional values and adopt Western economic and social models to progress, positioning Western capitalism as the ideal pathway for development. The institutional approach emphasizes the role of the state and leadership in shaping political development. It argues that effective modernization requires competent leadership capable of adapting traditional cultures to exploit modern knowledge. This approach critiques the inefficiency and mismanagement of African institutions, which hinder societal transformation, sharing a disdain for traditional cultures akin to the modernization school. The dependency approach, emerging in the 1970s, critiques Africa's economic subjugation to the West. It highlights the exploitative and asymmetrical relationships between developing and industrialized nations as key causes of Africa's underdevelopment. Dependency theorists argue that capitalism, rather than fostering growth in Africa, entrenched stagnation, archaic technology, and social backwardness. The chapter concludes that understanding Africa’s political challenges necessitates adopting the dependency perspective to analyze the continent's historical and structural subjugation to external forces.

Zamfara Journal of Politics and Development, 2022

Africa faces chronic poverty and leadership failure. Other continents of the world such as Europe, the Americas, Asia and others have successfully minimized or reduced the impact of poverty in their continents through the instrumentality of regional integration and cooperation. The African continent’s leaders transformed the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to African Union (AU) to enable the region eradicate poverty and place the African countries both individually and collectively on the path of sustainable growth and development. However, African integration is yet to bear satisfactory fruits as Africa lags behind in poverty eradication despite the existence of a new economic plan called NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development). The study sets to examine why poverty is difficult to reduce and good governance achieved in Africa. Basically, the study is qualitative in outlook, utilizing mostly secondary data in its analysis. The findings reveal that Africa has the capacity to reduce or end poverty based on the availability of natural resources. What is lacking, however, is the absence of focused, innovative and mobilized leadership which makes good governance difficult. Thus, the study concludes by recommending among other things the creation of civil society organizations that are well focused and proactive to hold African leadership accountable. Key words: Poverty, leadership, leadership failure, Africa, NEPAD

Choice Reviews Online, 2014

While the rest of humanity marches on towards a sustained and comprehensive process of economic and social progress, as well as human development, Africa persists to slide backwards in the foregoing critical areas. Why is this untenable situation in Africa ramifying itself unabated? The answer that this essay proffers is: politics matters and with politics comes leadership. Arguably, Africa remains a backwater in the twenty-first century because the politics at play is retrogressive and cannot liberate the mass of the people from chronic hunger, squalor, destitution and penury. This is because Africa suffers from predatory and ethnic-based politics, among others, which has derailed the continent's development prospects for decades. This appraisal is not oblivious to inter alia, the debilitating antecedents of slavery, colonial subjugation, imperialism, neo-colonialism and unequal terms of trade. In positing African solutions for African problems, this paper argues for the right politics to unfold in Africa. However, the former can only be realised once there is a nucleus of visionary and high quality leaders who will actually rise to the occasion and lead their people to better states of existence. This is what some of Africa's nationalists did when they fought against colonial rule and demanded immediate independence from imperial Europe. The paper elucidates what visionary and quality leadership means and argues that only this type of leadership can champion African solutions for African problems. For development to accrue to Africans, the paper concludes, African politics will require an extensive overhaul, with political leaders being re-awakened to their roles and responsibilities in meeting the needs of the people. The discussion also calls for people power in Africa and dwells on the modalities for realising and reclaiming the foregoing, and how this can be used to spur inclusive development on the African continent.

2007

State. Governance and Development in Africa

Introduction to the Course African Socio-Political Systems ♦ Generalization about African politics and political systems is made difficult by the extent to which African states both differ from one another and have changed since independence. ♦ This course discusses whether it is nevertheless possible to understand African states as examples of the same political system, as some recent studies have asserted (or assumed). ♦ It argues that by comparing the historical patterns of political development in African states, one can identify a limited number of distinct historical paths, starting with the process of decolonization (where there are two variants). ♦ This course attempts to provide an analytical view to the contemporary African politics taking in to account the pre-colonial African political setup. ♦ The core questions that motivate this course are: (a) To what extent are political outcomes in contemporary Africa a con

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, 1984

We were ready for big and beautyfuI things, but what we had was our own b l x k men hugging new paunches scrambling to ask the white men to lead us out of our despair. AYI KWEI ARMAH** African cotrritries seem to be constantly groping for the distinctive political paradigni as evinced by the fact that forms of political order hase followed each other in rapid succession-the multi-party state, the one party syndrmne, the charismatic presidency, the inilitary coup d'etat and in some cases, like that of Nigeria and for a short while in Ghana, a refurn to civilian rule. Theftitwe of the Afiicmi contiiierit is thus viewed with deep rooted pessiillisill by political analysts, economists and literary writers. They prophesy in symphony that Afiican countries are catapaulting dowri the path of political mirest-econoniic disorder, suspension of humaii rigtip, a breakdown of law and order-towards instability and general anomie. In the words of the noted author Chinuah ,lchebe, in Africa "things fall apart."' Dennis Austen lrsiiig tlre title of this book for his article, writes that since their inceptioll African states hare been in a sfate offlux nroving with regularity in arid out of misfortune : Tlie treachery of political life lias been very real : arined coups, civil wars, public executions, the threat of secession, the recurrence of faniine, the fanaticism of religious beliefs, regional wars, the near genocide of entire coinmiinitits, the transitory nature of military arid party regimes and the itidebtediiess not only of corrupt dictatorsllips (as in Zaire) but also oJgovernmcnts that still struggle to pre-Scrre an efeinent of political decency in their public l i f. (as in Tanzania)? T]le keytote of the criticisms made iii this rein3 is the absence of stability atid the conseqrrent destabilization, disorganization and anarchy. However, all evidence in the Ajlican countries points to the centralization of power and authority, ~chicli can lead to a k i d of stability-i.e. ifstability is the only end of gorcninient and politics. The post-colonial state in Africa has created Dr. (Ms) Chandhoke is Lecturer Political Science' at Lady Shri Ram College,