Simon Kolawole, Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

You love statistics? Enjoy these for a start: Africa’s current economic output is more than most regions, thereby making it one of the fastest growing in the world; seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa; the annual GDP growth rate of 10 African countries, including Nigeria, between 2000-2011 was an impressive 7%; Africa received capital inflows of $48.2 billion in 2011 - an increase of $8 billion; and these statistics, mind you, were highlighted and celebrated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Put together, things are looking up for the “dark continent”. There is need for Afro-optimism and clinking of glasses, isn’t it?
Not so fast. In his book, Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy ‘s ‘Last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter - which I have just read - Dr Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu rains on the parade of the Afro-optimists. The CBN deputy governor summons the forgotten statistics: Africa’s share of world trade is still an insignificant 3%; its share of Foreign Direct Investment is a mere 5%; the combined GDP of 54 African countries is about that of India alone; the GDP of the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa inclusive, is similar to that of Belgium; all the electricity produced by Sub-Saharan Africa is equal to that of Spain, a country with just 5% of Africa’s population; and just 100,000 individuals account for 80% of Africa’s GDP.

To be sure, Moghalu is not an Afro-pessimist. And that is the point. Afro-optimism, in its present shape, is not about Africa being a driver of globalisation but a mere passenger, a growing passenger - if you will. It is not about Africa being a producer but a voracious, obese consumer. Instructively, much of the celebrated GDP growth is fuelled by high prices of commodities, like oil, which only come in cycles. The prevailing Afro-optimism, for all intents and purposes, is about Africa being a market. For instance, Africans have more mobile phone lines than Americans. But the devices are produced in Asia and North America. There are over 120 million active phone lines in Nigeria - but not one is assembled, much less manufactured, in the country! “Emerging market” indeed!
Moghalu cautions that Africans must temper this “emerging market” euphoria with a few soul-searching questions. Who is assessing our progress? Against what benchmarks are they saying we are progressing? Are we assessing our own progress based on the benchmarks we set for ourselves or the ones set by global institutions and the ambassadors of global capital seeking new frontiers of profit? For the established world order, we are OK the way we are. We should just continue to export raw materials and import value-added finished goods. We are just a market. But for us Africans, these questions could help us rediscover ourselves and retrace our steps. They could help us understand that behind development, there is a logic.

Logic. That is the word. Moghalu describes it as a worldview that would push us to ask: how do we play this game to our own advantage? Call it value system, call it organising principle, call it strategy. Clearly, there are philosophical foundations of prosperity and Africans must truly understand this fundamental fact in their engagement with the global political economy. Moghalu points out worldview as “the most fundamental of aspect of the African development dilemma”. It all starts in the mind. We imagine it and then plan it and pursue it. Too many Africans, the author argues, “wake up every morning and do their daily rounds with no idea of their individual and collective relationship with the world around them and how they can change that world...”
Let me cite instances to back Moghalu’s claim. We take many decisions without the bigger picture in mind. We sign trade agreements without analysing how they hurt or help us. We award oil blocks without a strategic intent for our own good. We do not see ourselves as operating strategically in a competitive world. We just sleep, wake up, take decisions and go back to sleep without a global goal in mind. We think the world is the way it is simply by mistake or coincidence. The Chinese, the Koreans, the Malaysians and the Singaporeans - who have made giant leaps - understand the logic of worldview very well and this has reflected in their interactions with the global political economy. They pursued policies and programmes that played to their own advantage and today, they are competing with the West.

Moghalu’s Emerging Africa is an incisive and authentic contribution to the global debate on Africa’s underdevelopment. There have been a series of original thoughts on the development debate, especially as it affects Africa. Guyanese historian, Water Rodney, in the highly celebrated 1972 book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, blamed the colonial masters for Africa’s underdevelopment. American economist, Jeffrey Sachs, in The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, blamed geography. Zambian economist, Dambisa Moyo, blamed aid in Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa. American economists, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, argue that man-made political and economic institutions determine the success of nations. It is all about choices, nothing more. Moghalu pursues a more encompassing argument that touches on all these previous works.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda famously bought and distributed copies of Moyo’s Dead Aid to his cabinet members. Emerging Africa offers even bigger food for thought. It should be a recommended text for every African undergraduate - at least, to fire their imaginations.

I know that over 80 percent of nairalanders these days don't read anything that's more than three sentences' long and I expect most of the comments to this topic to be pointless phrases.


For those who care to read this insightful article. . . Thank You.

Nice write up its so obvious ur sayn d truth bt if dis is d truth we Nigerians shld nt blame gej 4 makn importation of cars and oda tins difficult thought 4 a short while we will surfer a little bt in a long run industrialisation will set in and we will gradually become more of a producing country and a consuming 1 dat will of cos lead to more jobs, more innovations, increase in brain power of our youths to invent things 4 nigeria, empowering our indigenous products and of cos a beta standard of living.

Well dats wat I gained 4rm d lil I read @op

Without adequate supply of electricity nigeria economy will still be underground and be dragging. Couple with non interest of the "leaders" in agric sector.