Africa carries a high burden of political governance
To a good extent, most of Africa presents similar country-to-country socio-economic conditions. This is particularly so for Sub-Saharan Africa. The peoples of Africa operate a nearly similar economic survival regime. The cities are not so different, and neither are the villages, from an economic perspective.
Some societies may be somewhat better off than others, but generally, they face close to similar conditions of economic existence. This is expected since the countries were formed out of colonial parceling out of African territory, with not much regard for indigenous interests. The countries are nevertheless politically distinct as they can be.
They run different political calendars, and even models. They are as politically autonomous as any other elsewhere in the rest of the world. The socio-cultural identities of the people may not necessarily follow the uniqueness of political identity of any particular country but rather speak to a uniformity of the entire continent, to a good degree.
Though with different political regimes, the political seasons of any one country can however have deep impact on especially neighbouring countries. For example, the landlocked of the countries can suffer economic disruption if their neighbors that serve as trade routes experience civil unrest.
Countries receive refugees when their neighbors suffer political strife. Even outward routes can get affected since inland countries export food to outer ones, and this supply can get disrupted by political disorder.
As such, when one African country is going through seasons such electoral periods, it is implied that neighbour countries stand a risk of contagion disruption, from an economic perspective especially. The episodes can get as numerous as the many countries on the continent, since the countries’ political calendars are scattered over different times.
For in-country scenarios, the domestic disruption around political seasons such as elections is certainly more intense. This is regardless of whether elections run peacefully or not.
A lot of economic engagement has to slow down to make room for political agenda. And this often has to happen repeatedly over short periods of between four to five years. Apart from demanding significant resource allocation by the countries, this is followed by rub-off effects on many sectors of the economies. Of course, governance must come at a cost.
However, if the frequency of governance changes is high and if changes in different countries can have impact on neighbouring ones, the aggregate cost to the entire continent is not small. Considering the low wealth status of the continent, it may be that the governance cost is possibly too big, compared to the advantages of running copy-paste scripts of governance from wealthy nations of the world.
Aside from direct spending on governance, the general focus on politics is huge for Africa. A social media survey in 2018 in six African countries indicated that apart from entertainment, sports and religion which ranked prominent and are social in nature, African social media users were discussing politics the most.
Politics could therefore be the most prominent intellectual topic discussed in media. Media preoccupation with politics is also understandably a result of knowing what is more sellable between political content and business or economics. In Africa, there is a general aspiration towards attainment of more refined politics on the continent, and thus the elite class rigorously engages in discussing as well as seeking to influence politics. Whereas the above state of affairs may apply to other jurisdictions outside Africa, the disadvantages for Africa in this relate to the fact that the continent is the poorest.
Ideally, it is good to have a thin political class governing a huge economically engaged mass of the populace. Africa’s political class appears to be growing fast, considering the growing tendency of mass political aspirations. Whereas this speaks of important political awareness, it may not necessarily translate into a better society because wealth creation is a fundamental necessity of good society and should arguably precede attainment of political perfection.
Even the finest political systems cannot offer good life, amidst deep poverty. In pursuing political perfection, and modeling governance against the practice of advanced nations, Africa may be carrying an unsustainable approach of running her affairs.
The continent could consider modifying prevailing state governance models to suit her conditions. Schedules of political contests in different countries could be harmonised to minimise economic disruption. The continent could consider revision of frequency of political contests to minimise any adverse impact of administrative time and other resources spent on related activities. We may as well devise measures of maintaining a lean political class, to ease off major growth efforts currently focusing on politics, and shift them to wider economic engagement.
Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
