Senator Olusola Adeyeye
Majority Chief Whip of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Olusola Adeyeye, has called on Africans to “slay the dragon of corruption” that is adversely affecting the socio-economic and political development of the continent.
Prof. Adeyeye made the call on Wednesday at the British Council in Accra in a presentation at the 30th Anniversary Lecture of William Ofori-Atta under the theme: “Cardinal Imperatives for a New Africa.”
The late William Ofori-Atta was an astute politician, educationist and a founding member of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).
The senator pointed out that the underdevelopment of Africa should not be traced to colonialism but rather corruption and lack of vision by the ruling class on the continent.
According to him, “governance in many African countries has been turned into a “corruptocracy” i.e. a government of the corrupt, by the corrupt, for the corrupt!”
He stated that “one is not saying that corruption is found solely in Africa. Across the world, access to the corridor of political power does pave way for private opportunities and advantages. This is so in the liberal capitalist democracies as well as in the highly regimented socialist countries. What is amiss in so many African countries is that such access to power becomes the dominant means or, in the worst cases, the sole means by which government business is transacted.”
“As cronyism, nepotism and tribalism get elevated, merit is dethroned with an attendant loss of confidence in the government. It is impossible for the leaders of any country to motivate and mobilize the general citizenry whose trust they have lost,” he added.
He said: “Africa is afflicted with the misfortune that political leadership is often denigrated into lowest common 11 denominators such as illiteracy, ill literacy and innumeracy. Illiteracy, the inability to read or write, has been called a disease”.
He painted a picture of Africans as people who have a self-limiting view of themselves, not striving to compete with the Western World but rather amongst themselves.
The learned senator warned: “Africans must not be too impressed with being giants on their own continent,” saying “that is like coming first and being proclaimed a champion in a field with poor or no competition. A cardinal imperative for a new Africa must be to transform African countries into giants of the world. This big dream requires Africans to wake up to two compelling realities.”
Low Investment In Education
The senator bemoaned the low levels of investment in education by leaders on the African continent.
According to him, with emphasis on the cardinal role of education, it is pertinent to note that in 2018, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education allocated less than $ 4 billion. By contrast, the State of Ohio in the USA owns 14 universities.
“The largest of these, the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, has total revenue of $7.1 billion in 2018. Ladies and Gentlemen, please think about the figures that I have just provided you. The total budget of Nigeria for running its Ministry of Education plus all its Federal Universities, all its Federal Polytechnics, all its Colleges of Education, all its Federal Government Colleges and Unity Schools, all its seemingly endless parastatals are (put together) far less than that of the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio,” he disclosed.
He indicated that “the education of African citizenry must include the history of human civilization and technological advancements, civic and social studies so as to inculcate rational criteria in the discharge of civic responsibilities, particularly shunning the election of political leadership based on ethnicity or religion.”
Target Value Addition
He also called for an end to the exportation of African commodities like cocoa in their raw forms from the continent to Europe, the Americas and Asia.
According to him, the combination of Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire produces 66 per cent of global raw cocoa beans. But the combination of Sweden, Germany, USA and Belgium earned about $54 billion from chocolate whilst the combined annual budgets for the four West African nations in 2018 is $54 billion – an amount that is only chocolate sales by the four Western nations.
BY Melvin Tarlue