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Misgovernance and the African Predicament:

Can the Code be Broken?

Prof. Richard Joseph

(Faculty Distinguished Lecture Series No. 1)

Professor Richard Joseph of Northwestern University Illinois, USA is known to different people in the University and Faculty of the Social Sciences, in particular, for different things. To some, he is a colleague that taught in Political Science Department in the 1970’s. To some others, he is the big man of the Research Alliance to Combat HIV/AIDS (REACH) which is a collaborative effort between the Program on African Studies of his University and Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan. Yet to some, he is a friend and brother. It was not therefore a mistake that he was nominated to give the first in the series of the Faculty Distinguished Lecture. The soft spoken scholar bared his mind on the predicament of governance in Africa in the illuminating Lecture which was in honor of late Professor Abumere. Listen to him.    

The term “misgovernance” succinctly captures what is usually referred to as bad or weak governance and which, in its most extreme form, I have labeled “catastrophic governance”.  Since 1979, I have regarded the principal challenges in Africa as internal rather than external to the continent.  Such an understanding, of course, does not minimize the many ways in which external actors and forces contribute to Africa’s distress.  I have devoted considerable time and effort during the past three decades to studying and writing about the post-colonial state in Africa.  Although almost all of my published academic writings have been about actual political events, I am at heart a theorist.  I seek to understand what is, but also what ought to be, and why.  I have struggled to understand the reason for the economic backwardness that continues to stunt the lives and hopes of the people of Africa, and to bring colleagues together repeatedly to consult about these issues and make our observations as widely available as possible.

With few exceptions, notably Botswana and the off-shore island of Mauritius, and more recently, Namibia, South Africa (in some regards) and Cape-Verde – post-colonial Africa is noted for its weak, failing, and failed states.  Well-endowed nations such as Congo, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria stumbled coming out of the colonial gates and have been hobbled ever since.  Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980 and could therefore benefit from two decades of post-colonial experiments in the rest of the continent.  Nevertheless, following the experience of Congo under Mobutu, it has now succumbed to the tyrannical and catastrophic governance of the Robert Mugabe regime.

In the vast expanse of Africa, with “so many different ethnicities, cultures, histories, and polities” in Eberstardt’s word, the common contributing factor to Africa’s distress is the absence of a capable state.  As frustrating as this subject may have been to analysts of African politico-economic systems, it cannot be abandoned, because the costs of state incapacity and failure to the African people has been, and continues to be, so tragically high.

At a meeting in January 2005 to discuss the work of the Commission for Africa launched by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown of Britain, I was surprised to hear Nancy Birdsall, Head of the Centre for Global Development in Washington, DC, state that the economic output of Greater Chicago was larger than that of all of Africa.  The 67 million people of the American Midwest, with Chicago at its leading hub, represent half the 135 million people of Nigeria alone and one-tenth of the population of sub-Saharan Africa.  Significant contributions to economic growth, state building, and improved governance in Africa can be made by this dynamic region.  I have long argued that the resources for African development that reside in American corporations, educational and other institutions, are greater than what can be provided by the US government in development assistance.  And they could be more productive.  Having communities work with communities, universities with universities, schools with schools, hospitals with hospitals, entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs – as challenging as such collaborative partnerships are to administer – would be more effective than pouring in financial aid at the top and hoping some of it would trickle down to the bottom.  In most of sub-Saharan Africa, improving governance, building institutions in public and private sectors, and creating democratic development states, are the most important contributions anyone can make to reduce the African Predicament.

The code of misgovernance in Africa I have described today is responsible for more premature deaths and impoverished lives than any other affliction on the planet.  In the initiatives mentioned above, I hope to work with others in new ways to address these issues, and to devote more time to writing about my direct experiences and to making past essays and articles more accessible.  Ultimately, the answers will come from Africans, at home as well as in the expanding and dynamic new African Diasporas.  As a son of Africa, I am proud of what we have done and, even more, of what I know we can do…