- This mythology that we are a rich continent because of our abundance of natural resources is a total misunderstanding of the dynamic and seismic revolution taking place in the global economy from a resource extraction, fossil-fuel dependent, industrial model to a knowledge-driven digital model.
Only those economies that invest in their creative human capital will win the race while those who rely on the extraction of raw natural resources like we do face the natural resource curse and a future filled with pain and grounding poverty. One of the reasons, Tinubu is facing a lot of resistance and backlash is that he is dealing with a country that is still suffering the delusion of riches when it is infact a pathetically poor country, with 17th century infrastructure, primitive and near comatose manufacturing sector, with an economy built around the extraction and export of crude oil.
Until we rid ourselves of the delusion that we are a rich country, we will not make a headway in accepting the pain it will take to reform, reposition and leapfront our economy into the 21st century, knowledge-driven digital economy. We already missed out of the industrial revolution. Most of our citizens still engage in open defacation, wiping their asses with corn husks, like we did as kids decades ago with no access to pipe-borne water, nor electricity, problems that were solved over a century ago. Yet we call ourselves a rich country.
Former President Obasanjo is not helping our cause when he engages in the same ostrich with its head in the sand, blame game of externalizing our deeply rooted economy malaise on the west and its multilateral financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.
In a recent speech in Kenya, the former President played the same playbook of blaming external forces for Africa’s economic disaster. He criticized the World Bank, accusing it of misleading African nations through its initiatives.
The stark reality is that no one has forced us to go cap in the hand beggging for bail-out loan from this last resort, out-of-option lending institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. The fault lies with us and our vision-less leaders who wasted our oil windfall of the 70s on frivolities rather than invest it on economic transformational ventures. It is hard to convince the child of a once lucky lottery winner who blew his windfall that the party was over and that his parents are now dirt poor. That is the situation we now find ourselves, especially those of us who grew into adulthood in the heady decade of the 70s, when Gowon told us our problem was not money but how to spend and we went crazy with insane profligacy and wasteful spending.
Now we must face the lean season and we are having a difficult time facing that reality. We have an easy fall guy to blame for all our woes. His name is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Dr. Adewale Alonge is the President and Founder, Africa-Diaspora Partnership for Empowerment & Development (ADPED) Inc. Miami, Florida. www.adped.org
