IN MUCH of Africa, democracy has become a struggle over the continent’s resources. That’s why many politicians behave like hyenas, devouring their prey alive. Politics is the highest-paying job in most African countries, it has the capacity of turning paupers to overnight rich persons. Instead of growing the economy, it pulls the economy down as many politicians use state resources for personal advantage thereby undermining the state’s growth.
As individuals, politicians and their cronies grow rich through the embezzlement of state wealth, their nation’s fortune and resources dwindle. It’s rare to find a selfless politician in Africa – one who is sincere and genuinely wants to serve their country. And so over the years, our politicians who want to succeed, have learnt how to sharpen the blunt edges of lies to make it seem as if it can cut as sharp and as deep as truth. That’s why when people talk about an “experienced politician” in Nigeria, Kenya, Niger, and elsewhere, they’re usually describing someone who’s mastered the art of deceiving the public or how good the politician is at stealing without going to jail.
The story is the same across most of Africa. The working masses are quick to fight, maim, insult, and attack each other on behalf of the elites who are ruining and impoverishing them. Your freedom won’t come from outside Africa. It’s in your hands, and it starts by seeing the state for what it is: a machine of coercive force and administration built to serve the bourgeoisie. The ruling elites don’t serve you. They serve themselves and their foreign capitalist backers.
Since decolonisation, most wars in Africa have been fought over control of resources. In many cases, politics itself functions as a struggle for resource control. Foreign powers compete for Africa’s resources by using proxies in both the private and public sectors. Our politics is a war fought inside and outside the continent. As the world’s population grows and the scramble for resources gets more desperate, African politics will only get bloodier.
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Thinking the capitalist West cares about our development? That’s not optimism. It’s naivety.
Africa holds enormous reserves of crude oil, natural gas, gold, diamonds, iron ore, and other minerals. Because of this, Western powers often work behind the scenes to ensure their allies rise to power, protecting their economic hold on the continent. That’s why it is possible for individuals convicted abroad in Europe, Asia, America, or Australia – who advance Western capitalist interests – to still hold political office in Africa.
It’s unfortunate that our political class prefers to keep the majority of our people in hardship, so they and their Western capitalist collaborators can live in comfort.
We don’t have leaders focused on building public wealth. We were taught in school that public wealth enriches everyone, while the pursuit of private wealth at the public’s expense impoverishes the people.
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Many of our greatest leaders – Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Amílcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara – paid with their lives for trying to raise the political consciousness of our people.
Yet when you look at the attitude of the masses, who often seem eager to defend and praise the very ruling class that oppresses and exploits them, it feels like those leaders died in vain. It has been incredibly difficult to get the working masses to demand accountability from the political elite.
Nigeria, right now, is a clear example. As the next election season approaches, the working masses are divided, often speaking through the lens of ethnicity, religion, idiocy or sheer partisanship. This is the same people whose living standards have been terribly devastated by the ruinous neo-liberal capitalist policies of APC government led by Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The reason living standards and social benefits remain poor isn’t scarcity. It’s a ruinous elite that puts collective resources into the hands of a few. They do this through pro-capitalist ideas, anti-poor policies, and corruption. If things are going to change, the working masses have to set aside bigotry and division and come together to take their countries back.
It is striking to hear people defend the APC government so fiercely, despite its record over the past 10 years: economic policies that have hurt ordinary citizens, deepened ethnic and regional divisions, failed to curb insecurity, and produced little in the way of meaningful reform to strengthen national unity.
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The story is the same across most of Africa. The working masses are quick to fight, maim, insult, and attack each other on behalf of the elites who are ruining and impoverishing them. Your freedom won’t come from outside Africa. It’s in your hands, and it starts by seeing the state for what it is: a machine of coercive force and administration built to serve the bourgeoisie. The ruling elites don’t serve you. They serve themselves and their foreign capitalist backers.
Things have gone from bad to worse. In many African countries – Nigeria especially – democracy has been fully commodified.
To get into power, a politician now has to be rich enough to buy their way in. The system has flipped the script: citizens, who should be the ones granting power, have been reduced to cheerleaders. They clap, smile, and cheer while their future is being dismantled right in front of them.
The reason living standards and social benefits remain poor isn’t scarcity. It’s a ruinous elite that puts collective resources into the hands of a few. They do this through pro-capitalist ideas, anti-poor policies, and corruption. If things are going to change, the working masses have to set aside bigotry and division and come together to take their countries back.
