Page 41 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 8

FEATURES

n early 2002, I spent a few government. The military takeover their private interests – a situation
months on a research trip to unfolded amid deteriorating security that has had adverse effects on the
Sousse, a southern Tunisian conditions and a pervasive malaise quality and provision of public ser-
Itown about a hundred miles about the government’s corruption vices. In a report commissioned by
off the capital Tunis. It was immedi- and indifference. President Ibrahim the country’s human rights commis-
ately after the twin tower bombings Boubacar Keita, who came to pow- sion, political scholar Patrick Asingo
of the World Trade Centre in New er in the country’s 2013 elections, rightly linked the exacerbation of
York, and understandably the mood is said to have dragged his feet in Kenya’s problems to the concept of
was as elsewhere in the Arab world implementing a 2015 peace accord the deep state, a situation in which
pretty tense. At the time the US and and was perceived by many Malians every action within the political
the UK were also preparing to initi- as promoting his family members to schema further stimulates the ma-
ate the war against Iraq. It was a time state positions and benefiting per- chine of corruption. Needless to
of debate about the morality of such sonally from international financial say, state capture has had profound
an involvement. It was also a time flows into the country. implications for the consolidation of
of opinions, heart-felt and strong Here at home, many Kenyans ow- democracy, systematically eroding
enough. The Economist, an influen- ing to a catalogue of bad experience, democratic processes by undermin-
tial British weekly journal presented generally acknowledge that those ing the election of public represen-
Africa in its cover as “The Hopeless holding state powers have done so tatives, the institutionalization and
Continent.” Upon my return back to much wrong in the name of doing normalization of democracy and the
London, like most of my undergrad- right. Whereas in 2020 the GDP socioeconomic transformation pro-
uate brigade, I joined the dramatic growth stands at a paltry 1.5 percent cesses in Kenya.
street demonstrations against what owing to the ongoing Covid-19 cri-
we saw as a wanton Bush and Blair sis, the country has attracted praises Financial Sharks
war. from the World Bank in the recent The Kenyan situation aside, it is fair
past for its strong economic growth to point out that the calamities that
Two decades later, none of us en- that led to a “reduction in poverty”. bedevil the continent at the pres-
visaged the significance of the ‘little’ World Bank figures show that the ent moment are a continuation of
debates we had in hotel bars and poverty headcount rate declined the policies of the past which Afri-
cafes in downtown streets of Tu- from 43.7 percent in 2006 to 36.8 can leaders, under neo-colonialism,
nisia, Algeria, and Morocco about percent in 2015 (latest data) while have continued to pursue. Looking
how volatile and politically stagnant GDP growth averaged 5.7 percent back, even the little ‘nationalism that
the region was, would come to be between 2013 and 2018, at 1.9 per- most African leaders reflected in the
disproved and at a pace none of centage points higher than the aver- ‘Lagos Plan of Action’ and the ‘Abu-
us imagined. It took the life of Mo- age for Sub-Saharan African coun- ja Treaty’, were abandoned in favor
hamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian tries (of 3.8 percent). Yet in spite of now discredited Structural Ad-
street vendor who set himself on of all these economic “gains”, the justment Program (SAPs) that were
fire outside the governor’s office in average Kenyan still feels hivi-hivi initiated by the World Bank in the
the town of Sidi Bouzid while pro- (disheveled) about the progress. 1980s. African leaders collectively
testing at police harassment, bribery Our transitional predicament oblig- abandoned what had been emerging
and corruption to unwittingly ignite es us to try and understand these as a continental agenda that would
the multinational protest movement local hivi-hivi preoccupations in have brought meaningful develop-
also known as the ‘Arab Spring’ that their larger historical setting. To be- ment across Africa. Instead it was
has since rehabilitated the political gin with, while the whole structure the World Bank sponsored ‘adjust-
landscape of north Africa. of the country’s 2010 Constitution ments’ that led to the denationaliza-
To date, the callous treatment of emphasises the importance of pub- tions, privatizations and liberaliza-
Bouazizi continues to strike a chord lic life being governed by an organic tions of the African economies that
with millions of Africans, tired of body of humane norms and values, exposed communities across Africa
living under corrupt autocratic re- the state has enabled powerful in- to new financial sharks in an ogre of
gimes. For instance, as recent as Au- dividuals in politics, security, civil ‘financialization,’ in which the Afri-
gust 2020 the Malian military led by service and business, institutions, can leadership begun to participate
a 25-year-old colonel ejected their companies and groups to influence by heightened corruption, which
civilian government following two the country’s policies, legal envi- drained the continent not only of
months of street protests against the ronment and economy to benefit the financial resource but also of the

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