Page 113 - A People Called Afrika

Restoring The Honor Code

60 years later, Afrika is still playing catch up and no one
seems to be able to figure out why. The World Bank and
IMF insisted on certain programmatic and policy frame-
works being set up in Afrika as terms for receiving aid - this
was done, but either failed to have the envisioned impact, or
made things worse. NGOs came into Afrika with pre-con-
ceived ideas about what aid means to the continent – their
initiatives were not successful. Donor countries tried giving
support directly to countries, in exchange for certain leverage.

These initiatives did not bear enduring positive fruit for the de-
veloping countries. It seemed everyone had an opinion about
what was best for Afrika and because they had the money, they
called the shots. They knew that things were not going as expect-
ed, that corrupt people were ‘eating’ the money that was coming
in, but they did not stop giving, because they were getting some
hidden benefits from the countries that they chose to support.
Military bases, strategic access enabling them to infiltrate the
hinterlands, contracts, strategic international support, on-the-
ground intelligence to be able to track and influence Afrika’s
growth, mineral exports etc. With the help of a few greedy in-
dividuals, the failed aid policy remained a strategic advantage
to the ‘aiders’ and the ‘aided’. That’s why it has not stopped.

As Afrikans continued to gain access to Western knowledge
and thinking via the West’s learning institutions and local syl-
labi, they did little or nothing to change things. The reasons
given, oftentimes, were a lack of resources or political ‘good-
will’. In a continent as resource-rich as Afrika, those excuses
did little to bolster Afrika’s confidence in itself as the rhet-
oric of Afrika’s ineptitude continued to be broadcast by the
propagandist global media. The OAU (later the AU) and the

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