Why African leaders have sleepless nights

President Museveni in a recent interview with a foreign journalist said Africa “gives him sleepless nights”, while talking about protecting Africa against foreign predators, who have exploited it for centuries. Museveni’s ‘lamentations’ gave one the impression that perhaps he was one of the few who could guarantee some semblance of protection to this ‘fragile’ continent. Out of naivety, I began thinking that Mr Museveni, now 73, and serving his last constitutional term, would hang up his hat in 2021 and retreat to his beloved cattle farm in Rwakitura and enjoy a well deserved rest.

Little did I know that the Anites of this world (remember her of the “sole candidate” fame?), did not want the old man to get some rest and were bent on changing the Constitution by deleting Article 102(b), which sets the upper age limit at 75 for one to be president. President Museveni, who will be 77 by 2021, can run again with an amended Constitution. He will have to forget the advice given to him by his long time Senior Presidential Adviser, Mr John Naggenda, to retire at the end of his current/last term. Like the lifting of the term limit in 2005, President Museveni has kept a deliberate distance and let others do the talking and drive the campaign, even though he is the only credible beneficiary.

It is more than 50 years since most African countries gained independence from the European colonialists, starting with Ghana in 1957. In that period, Africa has had more than ample opportunity to redeem itself just like did Asia; in particular countries like South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and others, which were at par with Africa by 1960 and have found their way comfortably among the middle income countries while some like South Korea and Singapore have cruised all the way to first world status.
Asia as a whole has undergone a complete metamorphosis, with China emerging as the second largest economy in the world, ‘peeping’ through the window at the United States, the world’s economic and military superpower. India is following quickly behind and Vietnam enjoys spectacular growth and has expanded trade with the United States, a country it fought a bitter war with some decades ago. Vietnam has indeed turned swords into ploughing shares and guns into tractors.
The story in Africa has been different.

In spite of being endowed with enormous natural resources, it remains the poorest and least developed continent on earth. Asia overcome poverty in spite of having little or no natural resources. Africa had natural resources in abundance, but it squandered them as a result of unimaginable political and economic incompetence of its leaders.

President Museveni in 1986, at the OAU Summit in Addis Ababa, correctly stated that “the problem of Africa was leaders who overstay in power”. Africa today still has many presidents who have over stayed in power for too long. President Dos Santos of Angola just relinquished power after 38 years in office, but only after ensuring that his daughter, Isabella (the richest woman in Africa), was in charge of the Petroleum Authority and his son is in charge of the Petroleum Fund. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo has been president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979 and is still going strong, so is Robert Mugabe since 1980. The list is unfortunately much longer.
Africa continues to receive aid to the tune of $30b per annum mainly from Europe and some from the United States.

Unknown to most Africans though is that Africa suffers massive capital outflows to those countries amounting to $200b per annum, as a result of unfair terms of trade, profit repatriation by foreign companies, tax evasions by some of these companies and illegal foreign currency transfers by African corrupt political elite. So Europe continues to exploit Africa and the so-called aid is given as a ‘sweetener’ for our leaders so that the neo-colonialists continue with their exploitation of Africa. The mode of exploitation has changed from the colonial era but the effects are probably even worse. Africa is bleeding and our aging leaders have failed to see the problem.
I will end with a footnote on Nigeria , Africa’s biggest economy, having overtaken South Africa.

Nigeria has a population of 200 million people and is the largest oil producing country in Africa. It is estimated that over the last half a century, Nigeria has earned nearly $600b (equivalent to $6 trillion, using today purchasing power of the dollar). Unfortunately, it has relatively little to show for this humongous windfall.

Mr Naggaga is an economist, administrator and retired ambassador.
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