Africa is a very interesting place . We have a knack for ascribing whatever we don ’ t understand to supernatural forces that have cursed us . When I was younger I liked dogs and after a lengthy time of begging and promises of good behavior to my parents , they eventually allowed me to have a dog .
I was very happy with my puppy until the day my great grandfather came visiting and in one blink of an eye , he had spoilt my day , my fun and indeed at that time I believed my life . The minute he came in and realized that there was a dog , he threw a major tantrum . He started shouting and said that dogs were a taboo and forbidden in the family . He said we had to get rid of the dog immediately and without a question from anyone , that was it . My dog was gone . I cried so hard because it had taken a lot for me to get to the point where I was allowed to have the dog and now it was gone .
Years later you can imagine my anger when I found out that what had happened was that someone had been fatally bitten by a dog in the family years before and this had brought a lot of grief and indeed fear and so the easiest way out was to make a dog the accursed thing in the family .
This is repeated all over Africa . There are so many taboos which when studied deeper were merely ways of controlling behavior . For years certain diseases were looked upon as the anger of the gods – that is , until technology came up with medicines that appeared to be too powerful for the gods . It is in this same vein that African leadership has been viewed .
Leadership or the absence of it in the continent has led to so many deaths – more than diseases and natural disasters . Indeed through lack of leadership , millions have died who should not have died but they died because corruption stole the money that would have been used to buy drugs for hospitals .
Many in Nigeria died under the ruthless arms of terror from Boko Haram because the money that should have been used to buy arms for the Nigerian army was stolen by corruption . The death toll of corruption can never really be accounted for . Again , like other things in Africa that we cannot explain , we find it easier to say that Africa has been cursed than to find a logical way out of the man-made disaster .
Several thinkers like David Landes the author of the book , The Wealth and Poverty of Nations have presented a robust discussion on a synopsis of different nations trying to identify the root cause of failure . Could it be geography ? Could it be that nations are set up to fail by natural arrangements beyond the power of leadership ? Could it be that truly , the African curse is the geographical curse of hot weather ?
No one can deny the fact that the most underdeveloped countries of the world like in the tropical and semitropical zones , are between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn . Could the curse be that the heat created a conducive environment for parasites and other life forms dangerous to the existence of man in the tropics while the winter was the blessing that killed the insects and parasites harmful to man ?
In spite of these seeming natural curses , how come the Egyptian civilization rose above the rest of the world and stood like a colossus – just like its pyramids ? How come in the case of North and South Korea – two nations with the same geography , the South stands tall among the community of Nations while the North is a pariah state ?
In the book - Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson , they take the thought further that - in spite of natural forces some nations rose up because they established the right structures and institutions . They identify that the difference between failed nations and successful nations lies in what they call extractive institutions and inclusive institutions .
Extractive institutions represent a scenario where a powerful leader and cronies are able to extract the resources of a nation without any checks and balances while inclusive institutions obtain in places where strong enough institutions are able to protect the powerful from themselves .
At this juncture as we discuss the African Leadership Curse let us identify what the curse is not .
It is NOT a lack of resources
The problem is not with resources - According to World Bank Statistics , Remittances to Africa by Western Union and Moneygram from 2015- 2016 was 35.2 Billion USD . Foreign Direct Investment for the same period was 54 Billion USD .
The implication of this is that what we sent home for free was 65 % of what came in at huge costs incurred by the leaders and their entourage . If we factor the cost of getting the investments to flow in , we may realize that there is very little difference .
It is NOT in lack or brain power
The Curse is not in the lack of brain power . Just consider some inventions from the continent listed hereunder :
Mathematics : The oldest known possible mathematical object is the Lebombo bone , which was discovered in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland and dated to approximately 35,000 B . C . Many of the math concepts that are learned in schools today were