‘Truth’ carries with it ‘confrontation’ and, Africa needs both to change

In this must read article, NRTC‘s contributor – Mr Adekunle Akintayo touches on a range of topics close to his heart, on fixing Nigeria and tackling the issues facing Africa.

As we safely sail into the year 2022, it is important to remember that; we must change every day to remain relevant. Yet, although we change, our core values and principles must remain sacrosanct. Managing the balance between these two paradigms is the key to success in life.

Fixing Nigeria

I recently concluded work on my second book titled “Fixing Nigeria”. The central theme was to; identify the singular problem at the core of the Nigerian problem and then build a case for fixing this problem.

I concluded in this book that Nigeria is essentially a poor country, who thinks she is rich. And that, fixing poverty is her core issue. However, another problem that seems to linger underneath the surface in Nigeria, and across much of the African continent, is the issue of managing change.

Many of our brothers and sisters across the globe believe that Africa has not been fixed because Africans are simply too lazy to fix it. Of course, they may not come out and say this to our faces in such a blunt manner but that thinking dominate their minds and who can blame them.

Africans are not lazy

To be clear, Africans are not lazy, they are probably some of the hardest working people in the world. But even the holy books state it that “…if the tool is dull, more hard labour is required” – Ecclesiastes 10 v 10. In other word, if there is less planning and strategizing, more physical, hard work is required. It is in the lack of strategizing that we, Africans, get criticized for laziness.

Covid-19 Vaccinations

Recently, there has been a major uproar about the so-called “Vaccine Apartheid”. There were indeed a high level of righteous indignation amongst the African Liberal elite on why the “West” in particular were not sharing their COVID vaccines with African States.

Why should companies who have spent billions of their own resources. Researching a vaccine, release their formula for other nations to copy, is there a precedent for this?

My question on the other hand is why don’t Africans form a committee of some of their best brains. Put them in a lab in Addis-Ababa, in Cairo, in Lagos or Jo’ Burg and create their own vaccine.

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The Chinese created a vaccine, the Russians did, the Americans did. So why can’t 600 million people in Africa do the same?

It is not the lack of ability, rather, it is simply our acceptance that we are incapable or helpless. And must always be dependent on others. That has put us in the position today where maybe less than 20% of the entire continent is vaccinated. Whereas many countries are almost fully vaccinated.

Part of the problem in 2020 was that, even if the vaccines were donated to us. Many African countries do not have the storage facilities, to store at the required 80 degrees required for the Pfizer vaccines. This is where the laziness hint comes into it. The ‘laziness’ of our inability to strategise, and act to make our own vaccine. Or to be able to store the vaccines, even when given to us for free.

Chinese Interests in Africa

Another big furore of recent weeks is the issue of China taking over the ownership of Uganda’s airport. Due to the latter’s inability to fulfil her loan obligations.

The narrative is why are African states constantly borrowing from China? Debtor countries like individual debtors have a simple problem, they are living above their means. Making poor investor decisions, or have simply fallen on bad times. For many African countries, it is the combination of all three and, we need our best people to get us out of this logjam.

The way forward for Africa

So how can we get out of this morass, discipline ourselves, and learn to take tough decisions. Mostly, in the areas of revenue and expenses?:

1. Revenue

Apart from the mid-eastern countries where the populace generally does not pay taxes, Africans pay the lowest taxes per capita. The argument is that we are a poor people. So why should we pay government for services we may never receive? But this is a cyclic argument. The UK recently made the decision to make their economy a high value-added economy. With the associated risk and rewards, the cost of goods will definitely go up in the UK. But so will wages and profitability of companies.

Countries like Norway, Singapore and the likes have always paid high taxes, and have high salary deductions. But their quality of life are also amongst the highest in the world. We can learn from them. We need to change this mindset of getting everything free. Low cost economy is synonymous with low level living. Let’s be clear until we learn to start paying taxes, our commodities will not save our economies.

2. Expenses

For expenses, unnecessary subsidies are the killers of our economies. Compare the pump price of petrol in Nigeria with much richer nations and other oil producers. In the US average pump price is about $1.05/litre, UK is about $2/litre. In Qatar it is, $0.6/litre, and in Norway $2/litre. Whereas in Nigeria, it is $0.54/litre. This is despite the fact that all of Nigeria petroleum refined product is currently imported.

The result is that a government which is already broke is subsidising petroleum products. More than the two richest countries in the world who have their own refining capacity. In similar vein, our tertiary education is subsidised beyond what the nation can afford. Every year, we train good doctors, engineers, scientists and other professionals at subsidised rates at our universities, only to lose them to the U.S, Canada and U.K.

U.K research shows that it takes about £220,000 to train a doctor. Which makes it much cheaper to attract a good english-speaking one from an African country that refuses to get it’s act together. Our electricity is similarly heavily subsidised. All of these subsidies are a carry over from the 1960s and 1970s. When we were richer and there were much fewer city dwellers to subsidised. Yet people complain that our governments are failing. They will continue to fail if we make little or no revenues, but very high expenses, it is a recipe for eternal poverty.

3. Unionism

Then there is the failed policy of continued and unnecessary unionism. As at today, there is a lockout in the U.S ExxonMobil refineries in the State of Texas. Employees and Employers can negotiate, but the right of employees to down tools does not prevent the business owner from running their business. Not in Africa, at least in Nigeria. It is not uncommon to see people earning $100,000 per annum still belonging to unions in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, workers can be on strike for nine months, and return to receive every penny for the nine unworked months. As such, there is no incentive to work efficiently. You can hardly fire an errant employee for sloppiness, laziness, ineptitude or incompetence. People stay at their jobs for decades without seeking to better themselves, no wonder we are struggling to compete globally. The result is seen today as global fortune 500 companies are all exiting one after another; Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron , Pfizer, GSK etc are all exiting or downsizing because we refused to get-with-the -times.

4. Copy-cat syndrome

Then the copy-cat syndrome is running amok too. So the COP26 was recently concluded, and ‘brilliant’ leaders from Europe and the American who have electricity and decent transport networks are now insisting on cutting global emissions. Which they largely created during their development phase. News flash, there are still 1 billion people without electricity globally and about 50% of that number is in Africa.

Rather, than make this point, certain African leaders are making meaningless commitments that they are unable to keep. African leaders need to accept that our priorities are not the same as the EU or G-7. So rather than making appearance on global stage as a sign of tokenism, we should be focused on solving the problem of poverty and maximising human capacity on the continent.

5. Democracy

Finally, I will touch on the issue of democracy. Democracy is fast returning to its state in the 1970s i.e. it is becoming a fallacy. In Egypt, Sudan, Mali, Niger, Burkina-Faso & Guinea, we have seen democracy failing and a return to military governments. There is a tendency to blame the military for returning. But can someone really fault the removal of Alpha Conde or Blaise Campore. Is democracy working in Cameroun with Paul Biya? African states need to have a honest discussion on what kind of government best suit them.

This may sound unpopular, but I doubt that UAE or Qatar would be making the progress they are making now if these countries were a democracy. Like they say, there is a reason we remember the Roman Emperors rather than the Roman Senate. We need to recognise that democracy is a means to good governance. The real end is good governance and other means may be possible to achieving that good end. So, what can we learn from UAE, Qatar, Singapore, Norway or Botswana? is there a need to demand more accountability from our press and our judiciary.

Do we need to regulate social media? Can we re-build our military without militarising? Can we empower our presidents more without turning them into dictators?

Every truth is confrontational, but nations or people who make progress are those willing to have difficult discussions. Make the necessary, but difficult changes. Discipline themselves and challenge the status quo. Yes, we can change Africa, we can improve it, provided that we are ready to make these difficult calls.

These difficult conversations needs to start in earnest for mama Africa to begin the journey to transformational change.

Kindly share or comment on this article, as part of your own little contribution for the change we all desire.