Optimization Model Development

The highest issue facing developing countries particularly sub-Saharan African countries is that in too many cases the leadership rests its legitimacy not on the economic benefits that it can bring to its subjects but rather on their own benefits. In other to rectify this situation, and encourage development in Africa that is sorely in need of it, some drastic measures must be taken. State builders need to generate a pressing urgency to pursue inclusive economic institutions that will make the government stable and motivated to actively pursue sustainable development. Importantly, political leadership with a sound economic blueprint offers strong prospects of development. But in case of Africa, the political side of development has not offered strong compliment. As such, it is pertinent to agree with Agundu that:

Politically, the continent is not faring any better. Governance in Africa is beset with corruption, nepotism, abuse of public office, human right violation and arbitrary seizure of power and manipulation of elections which often plagues the continent with incessant intractable intra and interstate conflicts. The continent exhibits sorry tales of poverty, disease, anarchy, wars and other vices that attract pity.¹⁰⁴

So in terms of political leadership that can drive development, Africa has not been that lucky.

To the extent that, some leaders in post colonial Africa have constituted themselves as neo-colonialists and at best, agents of the western world. This fact is evidential in certain partnerships and wholesale adoption of western designed economic policies which have not offered Africa the prospects of sustainable development chiefly because of their lack of local

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content. Corroborating, Agundu observed that "so far, the prevailing development in Africa as designed by others is largely insensitive to the social needs of Africa."¹⁰¹ This fact is also captured by C.Ake who notes:

....policy making was largely divorced from political responsibility and development strategy which was dissociated both from social needs and from the cultural and historical realities of the developing society. This dissolution led to development policies that have been more disruptive than developmental.¹⁰⁵

Since the 1960s, African nations have tried their hands on different developmental policies but none have succeeded even in pointing a direction for Africa's advancement. The first in this regards was the policy of Import Substitutory Industrialization (ISI), which was copied from the Soviet Union Socialism. The policy engineered the massive intervention of state in the driving of the economy. It therefore influenced state ownership of different components of the economy and the nationalization of the privately established institutions. According to Agundu, the policy tried to make the state to own major industries and enterprise that provide essential needs to kick start and control development and minimize dependence of the external global market.¹⁰⁴ The little gain derived from this policy were not welcomed by the western powers because it was a policy that was influenced largely from the socialist ideology. They therefore sought to interfere in African political affairs through their secret agencies and in economic affairs through international institutions.

According to Agundu, the objectives of this strategy was not to help Africa develop but was in the strategic interest of the west.¹⁰⁵ But most of these state owned and run establishments soon became a shadow of themselves because of the mal-administration, and deep sited public corruption coupled with terrible bureaucracy in the operation of government businesses. The aftermath of this development was the collapse of different economies on the continent with adverse effect on development. According to Agundu, this was the period that saw the crave for interventionist model as a strategy of overcoming that economic malaise.¹⁰⁶ The western world quickly ceased the opportunity and disguised themselves as partners in Africa who have seen the need to assist Africa to overcome their development challenges.

The consequence of this assistance is the accumulation of debts and the cultivation of the

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dependency mentality. As a way of overcoming these challenges, Africa was lured again to embrace another western advance economic model known as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). By the 1980's down to the early 1990's, most African states adopted this policy as a panacea for their economic challenges. Describing this scenario, Agundu collaborating Anyachie notes:

Collapse of the ISI saw the escalation of Africa's debt and the intervention of internal financial institutions like IMF and the World Bank and bilateral creditors like the Paris club. The internal financial institutions cajoled the indebted countries to adopt Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in the 1980's to restructure their economy to be piloted by liberal market forces. SAP called for deregulation of the economy, de-subsidization and privatization of public enterprises and downsizing of staff. The programme deepened the economic crises of the continent and could not stir development.¹⁰⁷

The impact of this programme still lingers on the continent to this day. Most indebted nations of Africa accumulated their debts during this period and have since sustained borrowing as the only option for the financing of even deficit in their respective national budgets.

Consequently, the search for a viable economic policy for Africa continued and even became obvious that Africa has been left behind in global economic competitiveness. From that period and until bow, the economies of African countries have been in the hands of the international financial institutions.¹⁰⁸

In the quest to achieve sustained economic growth, certain economic initiatives were developed as sure paths for Africa's development including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP) which jointly metamorphosed into the New Partnership for African's Development (NEPAD). It was conceived with the thinking that NEPAD will address the lingering developmental challenges with the clearly articulated objectives which:

Among other things, to eradicate poverty as a prelude to sustainable growth and development, encourage employment creation; diversity productive activities to enhance Africa's international competition, increase Africa's access to Western markets, and to promote cooperation and integration in Africa. In

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pursuing these objectives, NEPAD identified certain key priority areas, including the maintenance of peace and security through good governance; increased investments in areas like agriculture, tourism, communication, health and education; mobilization of resources to be achieved through resource transfer to Africa via increased ODA, FDI and debt reduction.¹⁰⁹

So far, the implementation is in progress but the signals still points to the fact that, the solution to Africa's economic and developmental challenges has not yet arrived. This is because efforts to solve certain challenges have escalated other problems or recreated them in new forms. The issue of debt reduction is the case in point, where the debt that were cancelled to countries like Nigeria to lessen their debt burdens have rather added other impetus to accumulate more debt.

At the moment, critical review has revealed that solution to Africa's problems cannot come outside of Africa. Historical experiences have supported this much that those who benefits from a status-quo are least expected to champion the process of alteration. Africa's present economic woes and developmental predicaments is a blessing to others especially to the imperial Powers of the west who are sustainably skeptical of their future if Africa is completely emaciated economically and psychologically. In this regard, Agundu observes:

We should not continue to deceive ourselves. Africa should take their destiny into her own hands and develop her own policies based on the need of its people. Africa's future lies in her own ability to take bold developmental initiatives. Africa future does not lie in spurious and neo-colonial partnerships.¹¹⁰

This thinking is generally informed by the saying that "only the person that wears the shoe knows exactly where it pinches". That is to say that experience is critical in arriving at proven and effective economic strategy. Any economic plan is developed based on the felt challenges and identified problems that are historically and culturally created. As such, sensitivity to specificity of socio cultural and economic experiences of African people as a colonized people is fundamental in the formulation of an economic policy for Africa's development and this task cannot be honestly and pragmatically carried out effectively by those who in the first instance, have created the unfortunate situation. This is because as Agundu collaborating Russell observes, the current problem we have cannot be solved by the same thinking that

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created it.¹¹¹ Therefore, the only kind of development suitable to the African personality is that which reflects the African view of life and reality. So, at this historical juncture as observed by Nwakora:

We have reached a stage in our development as a nation where we should be able to work out for ourselves an idea of the type of society we want, not necessarily imported from outside; the type of society which we can be proud of, and which we can, without our perennial guilty jeremiads hand on to future generations.¹¹²

Agundu notes, it is therefore incumbent on Africa to assess more critically her partnership and re-evaluate her challenges in view of commencing a truly African induced strategy of overcoming the malaise of underdevelopment particularly now that neo-liberal movements have taken a fundamentalist posture.¹¹³