WHY HAS DEMOCRACY HAS ELUDED AFRICA
SUNDAY MONITOR 25/3/2007
A sizeable number of middle class has always been said to be the premise for development of modern democracy. In Africa the number of middle and highly educated individuals have sprung up from many universities however unfortunately democracy has not taken root. What is disappointing is the fact that most of the African leaders at the moment are highly educated and should be governing their countries better.
Why African leaders are able to plunder the resources of the continent and rule in a dictatorial manner, yet the middle class who are educated have a lot of property to lose do not stand up and oppose this. Instead of staying behind to protest the middle class often migrate to rich nations with their skills robbing Africa of its best brains and leaving the opposition weak. In October 25th, 2005 a world bank published study titled International, Migration, Remittances and Brain Drain . The study revealed that from a quarter to almost 50 percent of college educated graduates from countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya and El Salvador leave their countries to work in western counties. For countries like Haiti and Jamaica the percentage raises to 80 percent. The exit in mass of the middle class so critical to the democratic process could explain the failure of democracy to take root on the continent. On March 21st 2007 CNN reported about 3 million Zimbabweans middle class has migrated to South Africa. About 100,000 Ugandans officially are leaving in the untied states alone, another 70,000 in the Untied Kingdom. If figures for the rest of the world are added this number could be staggering. The same trend is seen all over Africa, with all these massive migrations potential opponents of African dictators leave various dictators space and the freedom to rule as they so wish. The exit of the people so important to creation of wealth leads to sub optimum performance of the economy and scramble for the little resources that the state is able to create.
Despite such massive migrations most African leaders still manage to have a firm grip and control of their countries. This is made possible by the middle class working abroad, they send money for their relatives to pay school fees, and build houses buy clothes other financial support. With the exception Botswana, Mauritius and oil exporting countries, remittances from abroad form a large part of the foreign exchange earnings of most African states. Due to paternal links most middle class have with their countries they are therefore cushioning most dictatorships from state corruption and incompetence by providing the much needed foreign exchange. Aid industry is first becoming a life line for many incompetent African regimes, aid comes to government that have chased away their citizens and mismanaged their economies. With all this money African leaders can consolidate their grip on power by buying off opponents and the few middle class who remain. Even those middle class outside government also form NGO’S to get a piece of the aid pie. These jobs these middle class get in NGO’S reduce the anger for political reform yet NGO work doesn’t create sustainable wealth for the country. Since most NGO’S are accountable to their donors not the beneficiaries they work with. Instead of fighting for democratic change or get involved sectors which create sustainable wealth most middle class find themselves employed in NGO’S. With aid and remittances most African dictators can still afford to have foreign exchange to run their countries despite state corruption and incompetence. The leaders don’t feel they need to be accountable their people hence no pressure to democratize or reduce corruption. They don’t even feel they should respond to the needs of the private sector since they have all the money need in their state coffers. So the middle class in Africa has been demobilised and failed to participate in democratic processes.