Africa: Top Five Reasons For the Mess It's In and Solutions!

One of the Bad Guys of Africa

Like i've said before in a previous post. Africa most resembles medieval Europe during the 'Dark Ages'. Like that period of time in Europe, tribes are still moving about (Well not anymore unless you live in the Sahel region). Instead of Avars, Huns and Magyars (Hungarians) migrating in you got Fulani, Hutu and Tuareg moving about. In the rare places you'll get settled tribes or mini-nations like the Tswana in Botswana (70% of the population) or the Akan peoples in Ghana. Like i've said earlier, Africa isn't settled yet completely and this is where many problems stem but I think I can categorize the problems of the African continent (or at least Black Africa) in 5 categories.

1) Tribal Conflict

2) Poverty Gap

3) Politics

4) Disease

5) Corruption

Tribal Conflicts: My Tribe, Right or Wrong

When Europeans drew up the map of Africa in 1884-1885, they forgot the ethnic groups living in them. Of course, you can't argue that Europe was ethnically homogenous then regarding say Austro-Hungary, Spain, Russia and the United Kingdom but seriously putting all those ethnic groups together was a horrible idea. Especially in countries like Nigeria where an ethnic group had then the population of a European nation. It was a cost-saving measure which would cause millions to die post-colonization.

In Nigeria alone there was 200 tribes. Plus, half the people in Nigeria were Muslim.Politics in African countries are tribal nowadays. Like the Zulu Inkatha party in South Africa, or the political fighting which turned into rampaging mobs in Kenya not too long ago and even when they're no tribal politics, there's always the rampaging mob which can kill innocents. Nigeria, like in Nigeria last year. Nigeria is the prime example of tribalism. In 1967, a Civil War commenced in the country. The Igbo people of South-Eastern Nigeria had just recently been massacred in the Muslim north of the country. A million fled home and declared their own state - Biafra. It held out for 3 years until it was bombed, blockaded and starved. A million Igbos starved to death. It was a war that mostly pitted Christian Igbos against Muslim Hausa-Fulanis. This isn't the only place this has happened however.

From the early 1960s onward the Tutsi and Hutu peoples of Central Africa have been fighting each other, which exploded in 1994 when a tenth of all Tutsi was hacked to death. It's a shame considering that the Hutu and Tutsi both speak the same in Rwanda, and another one in Burundi. Their conflict is now spread across the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. Millions have died in the aftermath of it with Tutsi flying columns launching raids in the Congo and the Hutu are killing any Congolese Tutsi they find. Such is life in Central Africa where Medieval France and China seem to be fair comparisons.

Solutions - Why not create ethnic regions in countries so mitigate their calls for independance. Ethiopia has done it and I haven't heard any attack from the Oromo Liberation Front in a while from Oromia. Only the Somalis are giving trouble because they have their own anarchistic nation-state next door they want to be a part of. If it's a large ethnic group, recognize their special status as an ethnic minority. Allow fair representation in government of all ethnic groups in your country and as a last resort, partition your country along ethnic lines but that's never done any good. Ever.

Poverty Gap: Shacks Next To Mansions

There are 82,000 millionaires in Africa. That seems a lot but considering the continent has more than 900 million people and the US has 1 million millionaires (maybe less due to the Credit Crunch) that's not a lot of purchasing power. Most people in Africa are subsistence farmers who barely scratch a living and cannot afford to go to school. As Africans urbanize, there's still issues with worker rights, pay, drugs and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS etc. The main problem is debt and a lot of it.

After independance from Europe, African nations began getting a lot of loans from European nations and the US. They used these loans for large - and mostly useless construction bids. For instance, to build a giant dam in Ghana which couldn't really create electricity due to a lack of generators nearby. Things like that. After the oil boom of the 1970's and interest rates rose in the 80's, African governments struggled to pay their debts. Sometimes, debt payments exceed the amount of money spent on education and healthcare in some African nations.

When a country cannot pay for its healthcare or education, everything goes to hell. Diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS become more rampant and not a lot of people can read. If not a lot of people can read, how can they possibly continue their education and be trained to be doctors, nurses, engineers, architects and even teachers! They're forced to pickup the hoe and farm because there's no other jobs available except manual labour.

Solutions- Debt relief to African governments which are reliable and responsible so that they can start afresh. Microloans to poor farmers who're struggling. Paying for things like a milking goat can easily raise their standard of living so that they can sell the milk for money. Finally the creation of more schools so that kids can learn to read, become educated and become the specialists African countries need.

Politics: A Joke..

African politics is a joke. Seriously, I wouldn't lie about this. It's seen as a way to get rich for warlords, ambitious businessmen and crooked politicians. They're are the people who steal hundreds billions from Africa. Who neglect the poor people. They're parasites.

Solutions - Besides killing them, enforce the Rule of Law, ethics and governmental responsibility. Also, cap salaries for politicians perhaps the median income to make them work harder for the nation.

Disease: Too Many Ways to Die

Most African countries lack the infrastructure for healthcare. This problem comes from the colonial days when Europeans (and African governments today) only cared about the money they could get from the resources they could export. Things like large hospitals are only seen in Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria and cater to the rich mostly. Even politicians in those countries don't even use the hospitals. They go to Europe for healthcare. Most of the population must rely on small, understaffed and under equipped clinics. This is especially not good when diseases like malaria, yellow fever and HIV/AIDS ravage the continent not to mention the whole batch of other tropical diseases.

HIV/AIDS is a destructive force. It kills not the sexually promiscuous but young children and those who are unknowingly unaware of the things their spouses are doing. It kills the most productive people in societies leaving the Dependency Load (under than 15 older than 65) with nothing to rely on. It can destroy the incomes of African nations if left uncheck and make orphans out of everyone.

Solutions - Create infrastructure to deal with these tropical diseases. Allow generic drugs which are cheaper and will perform the same job flood into your country to help the sick and dying and don't let Pfizer have a monolopy on who gets treated in your nation. Allow childhood vaccinations to be done on all children under 5 to save children from dying needlessly. Teach kids about AIDS, I mean sex-ed isn't fun for anyone but it will save lives. Ask what Ugandans had to do in order to stop their country from being runover by AIDS. Malaria nets save lies and cost like 60 cents ( 1 million Zimbabwean pounds) each and will last for a year. Distribute them to everyone and save lives.

Corruption: A Game Everyone Can Play

Corruption is a leach. It really is. More than a 100 billion US dollars are stolen from Africa each year and deposited in Carribbean and Swiss bank accounts. Its seen as a way to enrich oneself. This is why civil servants are corrupt - You're a civil servant in Kenya. It's hard to be you. I mean it really is, how can you afford to pay for your 5 kids, your wife, plus your 2 mistresses on the side. It's not like you're getting a pay raise anytime soon. Considering you're Luo and the government still is Gikuyu run, though Odinga has some power. However you can get rich. You handle a lot of money being a government accountant. Why not take a few hundred pounds for yourself. I mean, who's it going to hurt, some hospital in Masaai country. You're not Masaai. Government apathy and tribalism create corruption.

Solutions- The Rule of Law must be respected and those found guilty of corruption must be severely punished. Anti corruption monitors must perform regular witchhunts to find out who's corrupt. Finally, governments must curtail unimportant spending like that new 10 million dollar mega Church or that huge mansion for the Minister of Culture.

I'd talk about rapid population growth but that's for a story for later. Have a nice day