The Paradox of Africa

Despite the well known fact of Africa being rich, it is a shared view that most people in Africa are still living under extreme poverty. The issue is complex, some personalities take a considerable amount of time blaming others for their failure to achive certain desired goals. Black painting should be clearly pointed to be a misnormer detrimental to African communities. People can not think further and act for the improvement of their livelihoods simply because they want to blame others. If one can not provide a solution, then it makes no sense to waste time shouting about it.

The riches of Africa are being exploited for the benefit of only a few priviledged personalities. The populace is gaining nothing from these God-given resources. People work for no salaries and when given it becomes insignificant to human needs. What is thereby the necessity of being identified with a rich nation whilst living under extreme poverty.

The bottom line to these problems is that Africa is facing a leadership crisis. One wehich is bringing all these troubles. The leaders have changed their mandate from leading to ruling. Autocratic leadership characterizes African politics. The leaders breach the terms of the constitutions so as to ensure continued stay in office. Elections are rigged and oppositions are taken as the people ready to cause mayhem in the comunity. They are blamed for being traitors who invite foreigninterference in African politics. The leadership is no longer concerned with their sole mandate to lead poeple in a democratic way to prosperity, they are now concerned with enriching themselves and making investments in foreign states at the expense of the local populace.

Africa is also facing a problem of corruption. This has reached levels beyond people's ability to handle. The situation has severe effects on the judiciary, securiy, economy, politics and social life. People share the view that corruption is a necesary evil given the situation that there is no other way that people can sustain themselves. The greatest issue is rather that of consciousness. People's thoughts have shifted from focusing on developemnt to underdevelopment. This calls for the need to institute educational programmes to inform people of the need for proper observance of ethical values regardless of the situation.

The contribution of the civil society to these problems is just too much. The civil society has been involved in the propagation for bad administrative morals. The civil society has lost its focus from being the mouthpiece of the majority to being partisans to the maladministration and governance. The civil society in Africa can be grouped with regard to the interests represented. The first group includes devoted civil society mebers who truly represent the people at all levels and work for the improvement of people's lives. The second group is comprised of shameful politicians who can not come to the open. They strongly believe that the best way to convince people of their ambitions and aspirations is through the civil society group. The last group is the most dangerous group to the African society because it represents the interests and is the mouthpiece of some political parties and the views of foreign states in African matters.

The complexity of the situation though not fully explained is that numerous people play a role to the current state of affairs, and that the game of blaming others for one's failure should be brought to an end. The alternative to this should rather be proposing and initiating policies aimed at the benefit of the population through the right nad appropriate structures.