By Ebere Agozie
Dr Desmond Okocha, an Associate Professor and Dean, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Bingham University, Nigeria says Africa should strive for greater independence in all spheres of life.
He said that over-dependence on all things foreign, including aid from developed countries, is holding back Africa’s rapid development.
Okocha expressed the view while speaking on how Africa can develop more rapidly only when the continent de-emphsises over-reliance on everything foreign, including foreign aid.
He said that the exploitation of African countries by developed countries plays a great role in African countries still being underdeveloped.
“The world’s development dynamics is such that it is almost a case of survival of the fittest where the western countries have had a head-start on Africa, and this has enabled them exploit the continent.
“As a result the pace of development has always been skewed against Africa, even though most African countries have potentials to be really great.
“Unfortunately, the developed countries came with a grand plan; they first balkanised and colonized the continent, and then introduced the winner-takes-all capitalist economies in virtually all African countries”.
Okocha urged African leaders to now adopt policies that would make the continent independent indeed.
“African nations must realise that it is high time they extricated their countries from the apron-strings of the west, as the panacea for rapid and sustainable development.
“The aid Africa receives from developed countries are mere handouts that no country worth its name should be comfortable with – especially since this continent is loaded to the hilt with natural resources
He said that African leaders must begin to believe in themselves and develop the habit of looking into themselves solutions to national problems, to de-emphasise over-reliance on what they see as the indispensability of foreign aid.
“It is time for some serious introspection. We should begin to strategise on how to begin to tap into the vast natural resources we are blessed with, rather than let them come, take these resources, process them, and then sell to us.
“This way we would be doing our economy and especially our balance of trade with foreign countries a world of good. All we need to do is intensify our industrialization efforts, to be able to exploit what we have.”
Okocha said that one thing we should do is ask ourselves, what is our technological base? What is the quality of graduates our institution of higher learning churn out, year on year?
He said that ours must transition from being a buying economy to a producing and selling economy, and that all this rests on rapid industrialization, itself based on intensive research and development.
According to him, African countries can emerge from the ignoble position of nursing babes still suckling at their mothers’ breasts (most of them in their sixties) into adults who can stand on their own.
This, he said, is a resolve that should be made individually by African nations, and collectively through deliberate impetus from the African Union.
