Donald Trump’s ‘body language” to African Leaders

The School Master was the old man, with a cane and a stern look, standing close to ensure you did the right thing at school. If you came late to school, you were sure to encounter him. If you didn’t dress well or appeared dirty, you had an appointment with him. He was there to […]

The School Master was the old man, with a cane and a stern look, standing close to ensure you did the right thing at school. If you came late to school, you were sure to encounter him. If you didn’t dress well or appeared dirty, you had an appointment with him. He was there to make you fall in line; to ensure that you did the right thing, at the right time. Sometimes, it was just the mere body language of the School Master that sent the message.

African leaders have something to take away from the moves of newly inaugurated American President, Donald Trump. In whatever direction Trump’s policies tilt, their overall impact on African leadership should be a result of some candid introspection. They must pause and examine the roles they (both those on the saddle now and those who were there yesterday), have played or failed to play in the affairs of this continent.

There should be conscious efforts by the leaders to develop the land that has given them so much in life. What Trump’s “body language” is telling African leaders is that the time has come for them to face the jobs that they applied to do for their nations and the continent at large.

Each leader, who is democratically elected, was once a job applicant; he or she told his countrymen and women that he or she was the best to do the job of leading them. Leading people implies leading them from a lower level to higher levels of human development idiocies; from darkness to improved access to electricity supply; from poverty to a good life; high infant and maternal mortality to safe childhood and childbearing.  Ironically, what we see across the region is a retrogression of these criteria:

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The critical issue facing Africa today is without doubt the obvious lack of good governance. This is not just today’s problem or issue. It transcends generations and administrations. Just look around; check the continent in which we live. All we see around us is the absence of good governance. From insecurity to infrastructural decay or deficiency, hunger and pervading poverty, it is evident that Africa has been short-changed by its leaders.

True, from time to time we see one good leader rises here and there, in country A and country B. He shines for a brief moment, succeeds in rearranging a few things, and then the fire goes down. And the drudgery continues.

Along with other journalists, I once covered a meeting of African ministers responsible for industry in their countries, held in Accra, Ghana. The biennial conference usually involves these African ministers and officials of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) the UN agency with a focus on industrial development. These officials gather to discuss issues related to Africa’s industrial progress, and, I believe, proffer solutions to known challenges.

 

That particular edition, held in 1997, was the 17th version. Reflecting on the fact that such a gathering had gone on for at least 34 years (17 times 2), a fellow journalist covering the event could not help but lament: if this meeting has been held for over 34 years, why is Africa still underdeveloped, industrially? How many decades would it take for this region to make an appreciable progress?

 

Each year, Africa is littered with a cacophony of conferences and meetings, many held at the highest political level across the region. We witness these events, many of which have become glorified jamborees or political talk shows. Since the 1997 Accra edition of the conference, the African Industry ministerial conference has been held at least 13 more times, each in a different country.

UNIDO has undergone some mutation, with attention now focused more on poverty reduction, inclusive globalisation, and environmental sustainability (according to a brief on its website). I wonder what impact the previous editions of the gathering had. What is Africa’s current level of industrial development?

These questions are being raised against the background of the gathering in Tanzania this week by African leaders and their development partners in search of a solution to Africa’s poor electricity supply. Trump’s body language is saying that it is time that African leaders took urgent steps to lighten up the continent. Our leaders went to Tanzania to figure out how 300 million Africans can have access to electricity by 2030, some five years away.

This automatically raises the question: What is Africa’s population, and what percentage of it currently has access to electricity? If you remove Nigeria’s population of over 220 million, you have less than a million left of the 300 million target.

The frenzy over access to electricity in 2025 shows the lopsided approach to Africa’s development over the years. It raises the question of what manner of industrialisation African countries pursued without first seeking to lay a foundation for the electricity on which their industrial machines would run.

It is the same error of hoping to produce industrial goods without bothering about the physical infrastructure – including roads and railways – on which the goods would be transported from production point to consumption or export point.