Can Africa Govern Itself

Africa is a basket case. Every nation from one end to the other is in sanity defying trouble. Every nation faces its own set of challenges but at the core is the same question, can Africa govern itself? The answer is in fact yes. Now it’s not necessarily good governance, services are not necessesarily delivered, people do not know justice and democracy is more an idea than a reality. But Africa can and does govern itself.

There has been a lot of talk about third world debt accrued during the cold war. There has been a lot of talk about aid and charity. Africa doesn’t need any more charity. Africa can govern itself. The debts accrued during the cold war are still being accrued by corrupt governments. The former president of Kenya not so long ago said that he never believed that multi-party democracy could work, but he bowed to public and international pressure. In other words Mr. Moi does not believe that the people he ruled for almost thirty years are no capable of dealing with the democratic process.

Almost fifty years ago Kenya gained independence. With a population of only six million people (now the population of Nairobi alone), Kenya had all the tools needed for a modern democracy. There was a working road network with provision for future expansion (those expansion plans can still be seen at city hall), there was an electrical generation and distribution system in place (with expansion plans), there was a functioning democracy in which the country's politicians had participated, there were schools and hospitals with trained staff, there were even national parks to protect the country’s amazing wildlife.

Yet today Kenya has congested roads, failing power supply, hospitals more likely to kill rather than cure, schools so over crowded it is a miracle that children learn to read at all, teachers so under paid they cannot survive, and wildlife threatened and endangered. And a population of over 36 million people.

Much as colonial rule is never a pleasant thing the British were certainly a better colonial choice, if one had a choice, than say the French or worse still the Belgians. When the British left they left a working nation. So what happened? There is no excuse for what has happened to Kenya, there is no excuse for the corruption and destruction that has been done to the nation.

It is hard to pinpoint a moment in history that could lead to the ruination of such a prosperous nation. It is hard to pin point where a country with a bright future turned to dust. My theory is that the attempted coup deta back in the early 1980s changed the way Kenyans thought about their country. Where the cry harambee (we pull together) had meant something before the attempted coup afterwards it became meaningless. The politicians of the day (who are mostly the politicians of today) decided that the only one they should look out for was themselves. And that attitude has permeated through every level of society. If Kenya spent as much time working as it does trying to do deals and pull scams Kenya would be one of the most prosperous nations in the world not just Africa.

Strangely enough the politicians today refer to themselves as “the political class” in Kenya. As if they are somehow different to or above the people they are supposed to represent. There is no concept of equality here, people from Nairobi look down on those from the countryside, people with educations look down on those without. Kenya is a nation at war with itself. But can Kenyans govern themselves, the answer is still yes. Democracy may come with a panga (machette) and a gun, service may be delivered haphazardly but eventually they are delivered.

The fact is, even now, Kenya has the ability to feed its people, create jobs and wealth and to govern effectively. There is simply no excuse, no explanation, no possible justification for the state of this country. The rest of the world should actually take a step back and stop giving aid to Kenya, Kenya is capable of overcoming what it has done to itself, or maybe that is the starting point, taking responsibility for what every individual has done to the nation. From there they might actually be able to get some work done.

Kenya is poor because it has made itself poor, sick because it has allowed corruption to make the entire nation sick.