The reward for conflicts and instability 

By Levi Obijiofor 

Friday, 21 December 2007 

In terms of socioeconomic development, Africa is an impoverished continent. This is a fact. But there are reasons for that, including poor leadership, endemic corruption, endless conflicts and instability, adverse terms of trade with overseas trading partners, master-servant colonial relationships, among other factors. The good news is that Africa does not suffer from paucity of ideas on how to recover its ruined resources from the ashes of despair. Africa is also blessed with a pool of highly skilled professionals who are employed in the continent and in other parts of the world. That’s just about the much we can boast about Africa. 

For all the rhetoric about their determination to transform the continent on all fronts, African leaders seem even more determined, by their actions, to ensure that Africa continues to hold the international prize for socioeconomic backwardness. Indeed, on a global scale, there are no competitors for this notorious trophy. Even if there are competitors, African leaders in particular would easily drag the continent to the number one position in the queue for the most disreputable and underperforming continent. There is no limit to our capacity to absorb shame. How do we help ourselves? How does the world help Africa to help itself? In fact, does Africa need help? Should it be helped?  

Each time images of war-ravaged African children, adults and elders are flashed on television screens across the world, I feel a deep sense of betrayal of Africa by African leaders and all those who are entrusted with responsibilities to make a difference in the lives of Africans. The task of transforming Africa won’t be easy. Africa is a continent at war with itself and its people. The hopelessness of the African situation defies reason. Everywhere you look, you will find pockets of insurgency financed and sustained by shadowy warlords who earn a living by instigating child soldiers to kill their brothers, sisters, parents, in-laws, cousins, nephews and nieces. It is a deplorable situation. African leaders and warlords are investing borrowed money and human resources in useless ventures that have nothing to do with the socioeconomic progress and development of the people.  

Two months ago, worldwide aid agencies -- Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms and Saferworld – produced a report which showed that, on average, Africa lost close to $300 billion to wars and conflicts over a period of 15 years, that is, from 1990 to 2005. In fact, the figure represents a significant proportion of all the overseas aid that went to sub-Saharan Africa over the same period. This implies, in a prodigal sense, that what Africa receives from international aid agencies it ploughs back into the execution of endless wars. The report estimates grimly that Africa squanders about $18 billion on wars and conflicts every year. That’s a lot of money. 

African policy adviser for Oxfam, Irungu Houghton, was quoted as saying: “The costs are shocking. This money could solve the Human Immuno Deficiency Virus and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic, prevent tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, or provide clean water, sanitation and education.”  

It is not only a shocking revelation but also a scandal of unbelievable proportions that a continent in dire need of financial and human resources should waste its finances and resources on arms acquisition solely for purposes of prosecuting useless wars and conflicts. Such culture of misuse of money, such reckless disregard for the value of human lives defies logic. But, in Africa, nothing shocks us anymore. The more gruesome the picture emanating from the continent, the more Africa fits well and neatly into the western perception of Africa as a lost continent. In spite of the frittering away of resources, African leaders continue to shuttle between European and North American capital cities shamelessly in search of aid money which is depicted as a one-size-fits-all solution to Africa’s melange of problems. Does it make sense that the world should continue to write off huge debts accumulated by spendthrift leaders in Africa, a continent in which financial accountability and responsibility appear to be on recess?  

To underscore the deleterious impact of endless wars on Africa, the Oxfam’s report entitled “Africa’s Missing Billions, International Arms Flows and the Cost of Conflict” noted that, of the 23 conflicts that raged in Africa between 1990 and 2005, the immediate consequence has been a 15 per cent decline of the African economy. The report also identified international arms trade as the chief fuel for eternal conflicts in Africa which, unfortunately, have claimed millions of lives and hindered Africa’s economic development.   

The Oxfam report draws on country-specific examples to illustrate the stupidity of wars in Africa. In Burundi, the annual projected growth rate of 5.5 per cent turned out to be a mirage, no thanks to the internecine ethnic conflicts which ensured that the economy never performed better than 1.1 per cent annually over a period of 12 years, from 1993 to 2005. In Rwanda, the situation was no different. The Oxfam report stated that, over a period of 11 years (that is, between 1990 and 2001), the Rwandan economy did not grow above 2.8 per cent on an annual basis. The report observed that even this figure was one-third below the projected growth rate.  

In Liberia, the civil war of the 1990s, which provoked the rapacious plundering of the country’s rich resources by various warlords from Samuel Doe to Charles Taylor, including the senseless killings that occurred, have had adverse consequences on the country’s economy. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf acknowledged this point in a foreword she wrote in the Oxfam report: “In my own country, conflict has led to the squandering of rich mineral, agricultural, and human resources that should have benefited Liberia and its people. Although economic recovery has begun, it will take many years to recover from the destruction of infrastructure, the damage to businesses, and the loss of life and livelihood.” 

Even as we condemn conflicts and wars in various parts of Africa, we must not ignore the impact on Nigeria’s economy of pockets of guerrilla struggles that dot parts of the country. In the Niger-Delta region, for example, aggrieved youths and elders who have suffered years of neglect, environmental degradation and poverty have learnt painfully that the best way to improve their social and economic conditions is to start a mini war and take it right to the doorsteps of the federal government. Desperate situations generate desperate measures. The federal government has tried virtually everything – diplomacy, military force, open and secret raids, daytime and night time curfews and none has worked according to plan. Each of these slapdash efforts bounces off the back of the guerrilla fighters like water does on the back of ducks. Suddenly a regional market for kidnapping has sprung up in the Niger-Delta. This is what happens when government abandons a section of the country for too long.  

So far, Nigeria has been lucky in the sense that the kidnappers who have commandeered daily activities in the Niger-Delta have not followed their threats with bloody executions. Our daily news diet now includes stories of dare-devil but successful kidnap operations staged by guerrilla groups. Is Nigeria at war? It looks like a kind of war by proxy. Life has lost its meaning in the little theatres of war in our own backyard. In the Niger-Delta region, oil industry workers are kidnapped haphazardly. School children are whisked from their parents’ arms, homes or from their school bus. High profile politicians (including their kith and kin) have become the choice targets of kidnappers. The kidnappers operate on the philosophy that, the higher your social status, the higher the likelihood that you would become a rich source of ransom. 

Foreign investors who constitute the engine that should propel our economy are running away from our shores. There is so much instability and insecurity. No business thrives under these conditions. Can Nigeria or indeed Africa, ravaged by conflicts, afford to develop on its own, without the active involvement of foreign investors? The answer depends on whom you ask and on the school of economic development to which you subscribe.