A season on ‘civil shop-services’ in Africa

The Broder-bund’s mission was to redeem mainly rural farmer-Boers out of widespread illiteracy; exclusion from commerce, mining and industrial production and ownership. Their political leaders managed the affairs of government as directed by the Broderbund. Its bureaucratic tool worked under oversight of Calvinism as a religious ideological indoctrination. The party and bureaucrats were intensely committed […]

The Broder-bund’s mission was to redeem mainly rural farmer-Boers out of widespread illiteracy; exclusion from commerce, mining and industrial production and ownership. Their political leaders managed the affairs of government as directed by the Broderbund. Its bureaucratic tool worked under oversight of Calvinism as a religious ideological indoctrination. The party and bureaucrats were intensely committed to their redemption, dignity and development.
Colonial “administra-tions’’,  by  contrast, were instruments for war against African peoples. They employed anthropologists to study local relations of power, warfare, community policing, food production systems, and religious beliefs as guide to achieve and sustain conquest. To weaken revolt in Sokoto Caliphate Provinces, for example, administrators invented tactics which would produce famine. In Birom areas, colonial ordinances banned local mining and industrial processing. In Uganda’s Lango and Bunyoro-Kitara areas which waged guerrilla wars against British invaders, vindictive administrators used biological weapons against livestock and human beings; prohibited Italian missionaries from building schools; and transferred territories to friendly jurisdictions.
A variant of “war administration’’ was in Haile Sellasie’s imperial power structure in Ethiopia. Highly personalised under a man with a brilliant brain and extraordinary capacity for recalling details, it was a system which extracted resources from the people without giving back development. It ruthlessly suppressed officials who gave hints of independence, and rewarded loyalty with personal promotions; trips abroad, material resources, including domains over serfs. The emperor encouraged officials reporting on each other; while the “Minister of the Pen’’(or personal secretary and diarist), was a walking archive for the emperor. Oiled by ideological indoctrination which extolled service and loyalty to an emperor with near-divine attributes, a job emphasized service; earning honour in the regard of Haile Selassie, not stealing.
Haile Selassie could not withstand student dissent and a military coup committed to ending rural exploitation by the aristocracy. It is, however, notable that dedication to work and efficiency evident in hotels; Ethiopian Airlines, and Addis Ababa Airport, are rooted in ancient cultural mindsets. Eradicating the “war-against-the – people’’ ethos was the driving force behind the ten years of Prime Minister Meles Zenawe’s revolution; a revolution which benefited from imperial ideology of dedication to duty.
Uganda suffered from a “civil service’’ fabricated from colonial war “administration’’ not creatively adapting to an ancient ideological ecology. The January 1971military coup was followed by the eruption of an ancient Ganda notion that people’s welfare comes from the positive power of the Kabaka (King). On his death, he should travel into afterlife with evidence of prosperity among the people. It is a concept captured in paintings inside pyramids of Egyptian Pharaohs. The general public rushed out to eat up livestock and harvests of his officials and other elites. Government officials walked away with tables, chairs, type-writers taken from offices of ministries and parastatals. It was not considered as “looting public property’’ buy celebration   of a form of legitimacy.
The combination of the rampant murders collapse of the economy in Field Marshall Idi Amin’s nine-year rule, and another ransacking of public offices following his fall, resulted in depletions of personnel and communal morality. Corruption erupted including contractors “delivering Air’’ (or nothing at all) for monies paid out to them.  A fabrication from a colonial “war administration’’, had failed to defend core values against severe crisis.
In Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta chose to create an African aristocracy in post-colonial Kenya. He directed top government officials to own shares in public corporations and private companies. Feeling that mainly Kenyatta’s ethnic Kikuyu officials and politicians had gained from the scheme, President Daniel arap Moi announced a slogan of “nyayo’’ (or footsteps). He opened a looting of budgets by his ethnic Kalenjin elites. Michela S. Wrong recorded the process in the title of her novel: ‘It’s out turn to eat’’.  Mobutu Sese Seko also directed ruling party officials “not to eat too much’’ of properties he “nationalised’’. The colonial “war administration’’ which trampled on development needs of the masses of the people had survived.
Algeria, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe had advantages of linking their peoples to wars for liberation. They owe Africa novel lessons for reform.  The Japanese model of openly subsidising private businesses keeps that class outside the “people’s service’’. It prevents their chewing its entrails like termites.  The most brilliant of Japan’s cohort of Japan’s past leaders used Buddhist values of: excellence in work, “groupism’’ and humility, to shape the architecture of businesses; politics, and “civil service’’. They supervised businesses by sitting in mana-gement meetings to ensure that subsidies are used with accountability. Uganda paid a high price for ignoring a major traditional ideology.
Ignoring cultural creativity and ownership which Japanese leaders invested into “public service’’- turns millions of Africans to using their civil service posts as business kiosks; their actions at work fuelled by hedonistic slogans like: ‘what is in it for me?’’ or “Man must wack (eat)’’. Even when their damage to public interest fuels terrorism and banditry by alienated unemployed youths, they remain blind to impending collective suicide. Africa must export job-kiosk millionaires to flare entrepreneurship outside public jobs.