Sub-Saharan African elites

(Link on Daily Trust site)

Following the current affairs on the global stage and happenings in countries across the world, and amidst all the distressing news of armed conflicts, natural disasters, political turmoil, social instability, economic challenges etc., there are also success stories in politics, international relations, economics, science, technology and other fields of human endeavour. 

Since the end of World War ll less than eighty years ago, there have been instances of dramatic transformations of desperate but ambitious nations into hugely successful countries. There have been remarkable instances of the renaissance of war-devastated countries in Asia, e.g. Japan, and Europe, e.g. Germany, which are today the world’s third and fourth-largest economies respectively. 

Also, over the period there have been equally instances of phenomenal transformations of some of the most desperate nations into some of the most stable and affluent countries on earth today. Perhaps, the most remarkable phenomena in this regard have been the transformations of some small-scale fishing and nomadic Arab communities in the inhospitable environment of the Arabian Peninsula into some of the richest countries in the world today, in less than fifty years. Countries like Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar as examples readily come to mind in this context.  

It also took China less than thirty years to become the world’s second-largest economy today, with India equally attaining its current status as an important world economic powerhouse within the same period. Other amazing instances also include the transformations of South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand in Asia with other functioning and ambitious countries in wider Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and North Africa. 

Of course, along with the traditional global powers in the Euro-American axis, those are the countries that shape the global trend according to their respective influence on the global political stage, as they are also the focus of the global media accordingly. 

Now, it’s obvious from the foregoing highlights that with a passion, creativity and collective sense of responsibility, a twenty-year timeframe is enough to build a modern, functioning and ambitious country, while a thirty-year timeframe is enough to get it developed enough to compete with the traditional developed countries in many aspects of development and to, in fact, outdo them in many aspects for that matter. 

Besides, perhaps until 1990, the term “developed countries” used to refer only to a sort of an exclusive club of countries in Euro-American axis, Japan in Asia, Australia and New Zealand in Australasia. Ever since then, however, the “club” ceased to be exclusive as an increasing number of countries have been developing to that standard in terms of industrialization, economic strength, infrastructure, public services, quality of life and other standards of human development. 

In fact, some new entrants into the “club” and many other aspiring countries have actually outdone the traditional “club” members in many aspects of development. This is even though for some tactical reasons, the new entrants don’t want to be officially classified “developed” so that they could continue to enjoy the privileges given to developing countries in international trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

Interestingly, China is particularly resisting moves to classify it “developed” for this reason while President Donald Trump pushes for it to be classified arguing that it's no longer a developing country and also accusing it of manipulating its “developing country” status at the expense of the United States in international trade. 

Anyway, though the conspicuous absence of a single Sub-Saharan African country even among the potential entrants into the “club” is quite disappointing, the fact that there is, in fact, no truly successful Sub-Saharan African country in the first place isn’t only particularly disappointing but shameful as well. Except for a few passionate and intellectually creative Sub-Saharan African politicians who have tried to put their respective countries on the path of sustainable development but got betrayed down the line at the hands of their respective supposed comrades, successive generations of Sub-Saharan African politico-technocratic elites should hang their heads in shame. 

Unlike their counterparts in a typical functioning country elsewhere who, in their policymaking processes, are strictly guided by the peculiar realities of their respective countries, Sub-Saharan African intellectuals and policymakers are largely literalist in their approach to leadership, managerial and development theories originally developed in and for completely different environments and cultures. 

Even after more than sixty years of independence, the average Sub-Saharan African intellectual and politician alludes to the purported persistent residue of the impacts of colonial exploitation in an attempt to deflect attention from his characteristic lack of creativity and justify his ineptitude.  

Besides, it’s by this attitude that he effectively albeit inadvertently lends some credence to the racist assumption that the Black race is inherently intellectually inferior; an assumption that a typical anti-Black racist particular holds on to. 

By the way, it's admittedly never easy to outargue a typical anti-Black racist against the backdrop of the largely miserable conditions of the Sub-Saharan African countries, and, in fact, the absence of a real commitment to changing the situations in the foreseeable future.  

After all, though I admittedly always wonder why there was never a single Black civilization anywhere in ancient times, I never see this as an excuse to justify the absence of a single truly successful country in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. For the sake of clarity, by maintaining that there was never a Black civilization in history, I am referring to the ‘real Black” to the exclusion of Ethiopians, ancient Egyptians and other relatively light-skinned Black nations, which had their respective ancient civilizations at various points of history. 

Anyway, though all is not lost, yet Sub-Saharan African elites and indeed the aspiring elites have a lot do particularly in terms of attitudinal change for them to be able to successfully present at least one model country to keep the little hope alive.