Walter Rodney and 2020 Africa via thisdaylive
“We are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body.” Chinua Achebe.
By his praxis, Rodney became such an ideological and political force that the establishment could not tolerate him until he was killed. For Rodney, the central questions of the “many-sided process” of development should be approached in a systemic way. He pointedly drew attention to the roots of the underdevelopment of Africa.
Those issues of development explored by Rodney remain relevant in today’s Africa. The crucial questions posed by Rodney remain unanswered. The problems have only assumed new dimensions. Rodney exposed the crippling role of external factors in Africa’s development. The 21st Century Africa still has an exogenous view of development. For instance, the Nigerian government does not harvest ideas for economic management and planning from the economics departments in Nigerian universities. Policies are not influenced by indigenous think tanks including the officially established bodies for economic research.
In a supreme irony, hapless young Africans are desperate to go to the West in the 21st to sell their labour. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang about the second slavery decades ago. Just like the slaves of the old died in the Atlantic, young Africans now die in the Mediterranean sea in a desperate bid to escape to the West in search of a good life.
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah was poised to set Ghana on the path of endogenous development with a rich social content. Nkrumah saw an Africa that could make giant strides in the global arena. But that African dream was aborted by an imperialist- inspired coup in 1966. Since then, Ghana has been experimenting with various imported socio-economic prescriptions.
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