A former minister of education, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, said Africa will not achieve economic development as long as it continues the political culture that subordinates the common good and extols narrow interests.
Ezekwesili, who is the founder of School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) said data has proven that the anticipated development is not feasible with the current state of affairs in African countries.
She stated these at the Africa Conference heralding the SPPG Class 2023 graduation ceremony held yesterday in Abuja.
Ezekwesili called for urgent structural transformation of African politics by leaders of thought across the government, private sector and civil societies who are determined to start that journey of change.
“Africa has chosen the path of democracy and if you look at historical numbers, more countries that have enjoyed prosperity have come through the democratic path.
“So, democracy is a very important thing because democracy comes with political freedom. With political freedom, there is a rule of law and that rule of law is the cornerstone of economic freedom.
“It is economic freedom that leads to the proliferation of ideas, innovations, creativity and therefore, the two most important economic agenda for countries is to get solved faster and better.
“So if Africans needs to transform our politics and we just sit back as citizens, hoping that those who have entrenched poor governance as a matter of political culture will someday fall in the kind of Apostle Paul and have a Damascus experience we will wait forever and that is not something that this generation should do,” she stated.
Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, said Africa’s biggest problem is leadership which has to be fixed. He noted that too much concentration on religion has contributed to the continent’s under development.
Mwangi said young people should take over power from the older class who are mere neocolonial stooges. He lamented the stashing of Africa’s stolen wealth in advanced countries.
“Our leaders have copied the ways of the white man. When the white man colonised our continent, he took our lands, he took our minerals, he took everything and we kicked them out and then we took the bad habits. Our continent, our land was communal but now we have become very western in our ideals. So we have 10 billionaires and a billion poor in Africa and that needs to be fixed.
“And then we need young people to take over power and that can’t happen when we spend more time praying than politicking, make politics our own way of life because the reason why you don’t have a job, the reason why there is no security, medicine in hospitals.
“So, we need to think about how do we have across Africa a Pan African movement to fix our leadership because if we don’t fix our leadership we will be doomed. The people we have in power are neocolonial stooges, they work for the white man. The money that is stolen in our continent goes abroad,” he added.
