50 years after Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: key facts about elusive Africanized development agenda

Rodney argued that: “…underdevelopment is a paradox. Many parts of the world that are naturally rich are actually poor and parts that are not so well off in wealth of soil and subsoil are enjoying the highest standards of living.”

In defining development, the highly cerebral scholar stated: ‘Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress.’

Walter  Rodney, was an African-Guyanese historian, political activist and academic, he was assassinated in 1980 at 38 years old, Just eight years after the publication of his famous book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972.)

He bagged a PhD in African History at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England, at the age of 24. 

As a revolutionary scholar, Rodney rejected capitalism as the strategy of developing Africa, for him socialism under the leadership of the working class would liberate Africa from shackles of underdevelopment. 

Africa’s Development Trajectory 1960 to 1986

Majority of African States got independence during the peak of the Cold War, when the whole World was ideological bifurcated into two blocs, capitalist and communist/socialist respectively. Starting from Ghana being the first African country to gain independence in 1957, majority of African countries got independence in the 1960s.

Conceptually speaking, the difference between capitalism and socialism is that, while capitalism preaches that the individuals control the means of production, distribution and exchange; socialism holds that the State should strictly control economic activities in order to promote equality among all citizens. 

In essentializing the fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism the eloquent former UK Prime Minister Sir.  Winston Churchill said: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

From the 1960s to the late 1980s African leaders could not agree on an ideological pathway with which to drive development in Africa. The ideological rivalry between and among post-independence African politicians slowed down Africa’s development. Coups d’etats counter-coups, anti-apathied, and anti-colonialism struggles dominated African political economy space during the Cold War. 

Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Patrice Lumumba of Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana are some of the African leaders who were overthrown while in office because of their ideological commitment to socialism. 

In Nigeria, ideological differences between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Ladoke Akintola  were part of the issues that led to intra-party conflict in the defunct Action Group (AG). Awolowo was committed to democratic socialism, state-led redistributive policies, while Akintola subscribed to capitalism, market-led policies.

The bloody intra-party conflict eventually snowballed into ‘Operation Wetie’. One of the immediate causes of the first military coup in Nigeria in 1966, was the intractable cutthroat Operation Wetie, in the then Western Nigeria. Africa failed to record significant development during the Cold War.

By the late 1980’s many African countries were persuaded to adopt the IMF’s Structural Adjustments Program (SAP). In 1986, Nigeria adopted neoliberal capitalism inspired IMF loan, which necessitated devaluation of Naira. A strong Nigeria would have been an advantage for a developing country that depends on importation of capital goods for industrial growth.

SAP and Neoliberal Turn in Africa 

1986 to 2022

With the Africa-wide adoption of SAP in the 1980s coupled with the end of the Cold War in 1991, neoliberal capitalism became the globally accepted model of promoting economic development. This variant of capitalism is based on market fundamentalism. At operational level it is manifested as: deregulation, privatization, right-sizing, outsourcing among  other features.

Neoliberal capitalism was championed by the UK’s Margaret Thatcher and the United  States’ Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. These two world leaders sold neoliberal capitalism to the IMF and World Bank, which was concretized via the Washington Consensus. As of today out of 193 Member States of the UN only four countries namely: North Korea, Laos, Vietnam and Cuba haven’t adopted neoliberal capitalism in full. They prefer to be called socialist market economies. In essence, there is no country that is practising socialism in its purest form.

In today’s world both Russia and China have abandoned socialism, however they have embraced neoliberal capitalism with caution. These two countries adopted capitalism but their respective States still play a dominant role in the process of driving economic development. They are pursuing State-led economic development policies on one hand, while private individuals are allowed to amass wealth and create jobs on the other hand.

Here’s the challenge of development in Africa: we have adopted neoliberal capitalism without domesticating it into our context as Russia and China have done. When China opened its economy to neoliberalism it was called  socialist market economy system. African Governments abandoned their responsibility of job creation and provision of social support to vulnerable groups in the society. This creates human security problems  manifesting as insecurity (terrorism,  banditry, kidnapping and extremism).

African Governments, operating under neoliberal capitalism logic of privatization have sold public companies to privileged private individuals. The private investors are expected to drive Africa development. Where there are no local investors, Chinese investors are invited.

From MDGs to SDGs: 

The Elusive Search for Africanized Development Agenda

At the turn of the Century in 2020, worried by massive poverty and deprivation in the Global South, the UN launched Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2000 – 2015. China is one the success stories of the MDGs, but Africa remained the same. In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced MDGs, which will run for another fifteen years (2015 – 2030). 

With barely eight years to the expiration of the SDGs, African leaders, thinkers, activists and business owners need  to come together, reason together and come up with authentic Africanized solutions to African developmental challenges. 

This is the noble way  to honour the memory of Walter Rodney, Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, Ladoke Akintola and others who lost their lives due to their ideological commitment to ideas on how to develop Africa.