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Africa has no alliance except with Africa!
CAN AFRICA BE THE RICHEST COUNTRY?
Can you give one good reason why Africa cannot be
the richest country ; apart from the reason that the
ATTITUDE
of
Africans result in corrupt and self seeking politicians getting elected to
rule us?
1. Adequate geographical size,
It is the leadership of the nation that moves the nation forward or backward. Leadership comes from the people especially in a democracy. Democracy or no democracy, every nation gets the leadership it deserves. So ultimately it is not the leadership that is to be blamed for the failure but we the people who chose that leadership or allowed it. Our backwardness stems from our own minds, because, our leaders are conceived in our minds and delivered through the ballot, or bullet. THE WAY OUT: TO MOVE FORWARD Give a promise to the people Spread that message of the promise Convince how the promise will be fulfilled Once the people are convinced that it is possible to become rich, the people will effect a qualitative change in the leadership and such a leadership will achieve this goal. THE PROMISE This is a promise to every African. By year 2020 you will be rich. You will be living in a modern house having toilet, electricity, pipe water, fans, cooking gas, television, telephone, and fridge. You will have your own family car. You will be driving along excellent roads. Buses and trains will be neat and fast, keeping time. Electricity will not fail and telephones will work always. Towns and cities will be clean. There will be no criminals and musclemen to threaten you and steal your belongings. You will get good and affordable education and healthcare. Taxes will be minimum and prices affordable. You will be free to do whatever you want with what you have. You will not have to bribe any one. Government officials will be your servants and not masters. There will be fewer laws. The State will not wither away but will wield less powers and will be just. Agricultural produces will fetch prices similar to industrial products. But you will not have to worry. In that state of affairs you will be spending only a small portion of your monthly income on food. All those who need to work for a salary will find jobs, which in most cases will be close to your homes. Your life will be free from troubles. You will lead a happy and contented life. This is neither an Utopian dream nor an empty vision of a classless society. There are many many countries in this world where it is a reality. There are some countries where people live and some countries where people survive ; like Africa where people survive from day to day. Don't you have a desire to live in an Africa where people live their lives and not merely survive? SPREADING THE MESSAGE OF THE PROMISE This web site is the starting point. You hold the key in those fingers now resting on the mouse. Think for a moment about the miserable life of the teeming millions of your countrymen drowned in poverty and filth. There is no good deed, no charity work, nothing at all in this world greater than supporting this cause. If you do what you can do, one day history will thank you. The world and the destiny of generations of a billion suffering men women and children are at your fingertips . Spread themessage of this web site to all Africans you know worldwide. Urge them to visit this site, study and analyze it. Express your views at this site. Changes in societies happen when a large number of people express their support strongly for any cause. That is the reason why each person must express their views in support of this cause at this web site and out side the internet. Remaining silent will not help. The impossible will happen when hundreds and thousands of Africans express their support at this web site, from where it will spread out side the internet. Only massive participation will attract the attention of other news media and through it the people and their leaders. Together we will consolidate the informed opinion of knowledgeable people like you who are fortunate enough to have access to this media of internet. With your active contribution this message will spread perhaps like a tornado that appears suddenly from the emptiness of darkness. Perhaps it will start as a mild breeze and gather speed and transform into a storm that will destroy all those obstacles in our path to our goal. One thing is certain. It is going to cause more than a flutter. When that happens over the internet, the other media in Africa will take note. Television channels and news papers will further spread the message all over Africa. Then it will pass by word of mouth to every nook and corner of Africa. Africans of substance will take note. Clever politicians will jump into the bandwagon. A new movement will gather momentum. Able and sincere people who kept themselves aloof from public activities will come forward. New leaders will be thrown up. The youth the biggest beneficiaries, will see a glimmer of hope and will become the torchbearers of the new movement. The ball will be set rolling. National priorities will change. The nation will march forward with clear plans and policies. The dawn of 2020 will arrive as we wanted it to be. FULFILLING THE PROMISE It may appear to be a difficult or impossible task at the first glance. Every task is so until it is broken down into components. Once broken down into a number of segments this task also will appear possible. You may even wonder that it is so easy. In fact there are many possible routes one can take to reach the goal of fulfilling the promise by 2020. Here is a glimpse of one of the possible approaches. Do not consider this as a comprehensive treatise on economic development. Approach it with an open mind, with a belief that there could be possibilities outside conventional approaches. AGRICULTURE Farmers and agricultural labor form the biggest chunk of the African poor. Here lies the trigger. Making them rich is the simplest task. Together, they produce something: agricultural produce. If what they produce get 4 to 5 times the price it is fetching now, and the profit is shared between the farmers and the labour, -labour getting manifold increase in wages- ; over 50% of the African population becomes rich as promised within a span of 1 - 2 years. The underlying economics is simple. In an economically developed society, a family spends only 10-20% of their income on food. In such a society no one will be hit hard by an increase in the prices of basic agricultural produces. In the present African condition, the prices of wheat, rice and vegetables can be increased only very carefully in a phased manner so that the poor and the middle class are not hit hard. But remember; wheat rice and vegetables alone are not the only agricultural produces. There are a host of other agricultural produces: cotton, tobacco, jute, sugarcane, oil seeds, tea, coffee, fruits... and so on. These are items which are used only in small quantities by individuals. The impact of a manifold increase in the prices of these agricultural produces on individual consumer families will be negligible. But the millions of farmers and agricultural labour involved in the production of these produces will become rich as promised. This step of hiking the prices of agricultural produces is in fact pulling the trigger of fast track economic growth and the economic take off is launched. The rest of it will follow as a natural corollary. CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Construction is the next phase. Cement and steel production will be multiplied and made available at affordable prices. The African villages flush with money will generate a construction boom. People who were poor will start living in the promised houses. Millions will find jobs in construction industry at wages comparable to that in developed countries and make themselves rich. Another section of poor vanishes. All the dilapidated and shanty buildings in towns and cities will be declared unacceptable. These will have to be demolished. Well planned and aesthetically pleasing buildings of international standards but in harmony with African nature will shoot up in the African skies further adding to the construction boom. TRANSPORTATION SECTOR Side by side with this phase of development, town and city roads will be laid to international standards. The face of Africa changes. The next phase is making petrol at affordable prices and development of motorways and highways of international standards throughout the country. That will lead to an unimaginable boom in the automobile and transportation industrial sectors as sales of automobiles soar. Millions will find jobs at salaries comparable to that in developed countries. For strategic reasons, how petrol (not herbal petrol) will be made available in this fashion cannot be divulged publicly at this stage. Already Libya has built the prototype car of the future. What is all African States combined in effort? ELECTRICITY AND TELECOMMUNICATION The power sector will be completely revamped and power generation multiplied. State of the art technology will be introduced to ensure uninterrupted high quality power supply even to the remotest villages at affordable prices. The same principle will be applied to telecom sector so that every house will have a telephone that works always. FINANCE AND CAPITAL MOBILISATION In the finance sector bank interest rates will be reduced to zero so that capital will be available for industries without interest which will enable them to produce at internationally competitive prices. Modernization, mechanization, computerization, capacity expansion and higher dividend distribution will be the key words in the industrial sector. The emphasis will be on direct participation in the capital market by individuals rather than channeling individual capital to banks and financial institutions. These steps will mobilize huge capital from the primary share market from millions of local and expatriate Africans; and at the same time make the industries competitive internationally, thus boosting exports manifold. The underlying strategy is to attract the huge investment potential of Africans lying dormant now and chanelise it for rapid industrial growth. Africa need not look towards international donors or the World Bank for capital. The trifles they give are only a drop in the ocean for a vast country like Africa and come with unacceptable strings attached. Africa is due over $700 trillion in reparation for slavery and colonialism, compensation not crumbs with strings attached. Even small flows of capital from the huge population can meet the demands. The gold reserves in the possession of individual African families are enough to bring about an industrialization miracle in Africa. TOURISM As these developments take place Africa would be transformed into a modern nation with all amenities available everywhere. The country's physical appearance would be neat, clean and modern. Such a situation will attract millions of tourists from all over the world. The myriad attractions of Africa will suddenly become the finest tourist destinations of the world. The rich western tourists who used to shun Africa because of the filth and lack of facilities here will make a bee line at our tourist sites. Tourism will become a major industry and money spinner. CORRUPTION CONTROL The fundamental philosophy would be that the government would progressively cease to be an authority and would transform itself to be a catalyst facilitating growth and all round well being of all the people. The size of the bureaucracy would be drastically cut down. The need for each and every existing government institution would be critically reviewed for this purpose. Nearly all the public sector industry would be privatized. Wiping out corruption from top to bottom would greatly facilitate flow of foreign capital and investment in the industrial sector by Africans. Huge sums of money that would have been stalked away as illegal money would also flow to the capital market. Remember, there are politicians who have amassed millions of currency either for themselves or for their party. Africa is not short of capital; the problem is to establish convincing and promising conditions that would attract the money to the capital market rather than lying hidden or dormant somewhere. When State power and pomp diminishes, self seeking politicians would gradually disappear from the scene. In their place a new breed of selfless and able leaders who love the country and it's people would be thrown up. They would implement the decisions of the people gathered in local conferences, rather than rule, and would be selected on basis of capability to carry through the decisions. The basic approach would be to look at the conditions that exist in the most developed states of Africa and the world with proven success and bring about those conditions in Africa as well. There is no need to reinvent the wheel at a huge cost and time. It doesn't mean that everything will be copied. FOREIGN POLICY AND RELIGION Africa's foreign policy will have to be thoroughly reviewed in order to accelerate our economic growth. The emphasis will be to work closely with all African states and develop the OAU into a powerful economic union which will benefit all members equally. At that stage we have the United States of Africa. Economic interests should override religious passions. Religion alone cannot fetch bread and richness. Thousands of years of African religious wisdom and generosity, applied to Christianity and Islam are suddenly being overturned in a few years by trouble makers with a hidden agenda. There are those who do not wish Africa well. Look at the history and the current developments. Japan, the richest nation in the world today, gave less than 30 thousand (thirty thousand!) dollars of aid to Mozambique where a million people are affected. This should be taken as a sign of God that Africa has no alliance except with Africa. There is no freedom for a people who eat from far. Equally important will be the development of relations with United States and China. No one has trouble to respect a rich man. As Africans become richer, US will have no problem to deal with Africa in the same manner as they deal with Japan now. Africa will be trying to command respect based on it's economic power and not military power. Relations with Asia and Europe will be strengthened based on strong and mutually beneficial economic and trade ties. EDUCATION The African education system has been successful in producing the professionals Africa needed. The education system had been successful to a great extent but failed miserably in eradicating illiteracy. The system needs to be totally revamped to correct the shortcomings while maintaining the strong points. One of the areas to be focussed is efficiency obtained from the vast amount of resources spent in the education sector. All children cannot become doctors or engineers. The country also needs electricians, plumbers, technicians, journalists, salesmen, drivers, mechanics, fitters, welders and scores of other skilled, qualified hands. The system whereby everyone is taught for too long a period to become an engineer or scientist or doctor and then uses his or her knowledge outside Africa never to return, or where no one is taught to become anything else, is a huge wastage of resources. By the age of 13 or 14 there must be some form of classification whereby children are directed to separate streams depending on their academic standing till then, their aptitudes and their choice. Except those who pursue very high levels of education others need get only adequate and suitable education and practical training that would make them capable of doing a job in their selected trade by the time they are 18. Some rethinking is required in what can be called education efficiency which can be defined as how much is learned by a child in a year. This efficiency is extremely low up to the age of 8. The young children should be taught pracical things like morals, sewing, cooking, simple agriculture. It is proven that children who only start to learn to read and write after that age, quickly overtake those who started earlier and did not get character and skill building education. A pre school or class 1 student aged 5 years would learn nothing more than the alphabet, a few words and numbers or perhaps a few sentences in one year. But the cost and resources required is the same as that for a class 10 student who gets an ocean of knowledge in one year. That is enough reason to commence a child's education at the age of 8 instead of 5. That would straightaway save 25% of the resources spent nationwide on school education. These resources can be diverted effectively to spread education to remove illiteracy. LITERACY Illiteracy is a major cause for the failure of democracy to achieve the required progress. The definition of literacy should mean something more than reading and writing. Literacy programme should include creation of awareness about hygiene, personal and public cleanliness, behaviour in public places, decent and cultured behaviour, and good manners. The education of the illeterates should also include family planning, awareness about good living, self respect, equality, citizen's rights, the need to respect laws, creation of ambitions, positive attitudes, broad mindedness, elimination of jealousy and interfering in neighbour's affairs, corruption and above all creation of the belief that even the poor and down trodden has the right to a rich life and that the nation has the potential to achieve it through good governance. Such a comprehensive literacy curriculam must be drawn up by experts. The Central government, through state governments and local bodies must implement a 3 year programme to achieve nation-wide full literacy. HEALTH CARE In the field of health care we must be vigilant to avoid the situation in developed countries where health care is extremely expensive. Affordable health care must be available to all citizens including villagers as well. The system of awarding huge compensation to a few patients for the mistake of the doctor leads to huge insurance costs for the doctors and hospitals which in turn makes health care very expensive and unaffordable. Whether such a situation is beneficial or harmful to the society as a whole will have to be studied in depth while formulating health care policies. Especially the reliance on foreign drugs should be curtailed. Africa has most of the natural medicines required to cure its diseases. The medicines have been forgotten in the cities where the mentality is that anything coming from abroad is good, even when it is not. THE FINAL OUTCOME All these changes in the agricultural, industrial, administration, transportation, tourism, energy, education, defense, financial, foreign affairs, population control and communications sectors will make Africa the richest nation on earth. Still not convinced that this miracle is possible? Imagine what the sensible people of the developed countries will be thinking of Africa. "Africa is a country of intelligent fools. If Africa becomes a rich nation, there is nothing unusual about it. It is quite natural for a country having so much capabilities and resources to be the richest nation. On the contrary if continues to remain backward, it will be a miracle." HOW WILL THIS WEB SITE CONTRIBUTE TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL? Every month this site will host a debate on a selected topic of national interest. All are invited to send their opinion on the selected topic. All opinions representing all points of views will be posted at this site for everyone to view. During each month there will be a voting on the topic of debate for that month. Voting results will be available at the site. This voting will indicate the considered opinion of the African intellectuals and professionals in diverse fields of expertise living all over the world; many of whom have first hand experience of conditions in the developed countries. A strong band of informed Africans who strongly believes Africa can, and desires Africa to be the richest country on earth, will come under the umbrella of this website and consolidate their opinions through this medium of voting. Africa will take note of such valuable opinion and start thinking in those lines and move towards making Africa rich by 2020. Of course what you have read would have thrown up a thousand "how"s "but"s and "if"s in your mind. There are answers to every question. Move forward. You will find every question has an answer. On the other hand if we do not move forward or move as we are moving now; the world around us will march forward leaving us further behind.. far far behind. This plan of action can be translated to reality if you have confidence that it is possible. The argument is very simple. What is possible for another country is possible for Africa too. Of course certain things about Africa and Africans must change for this to become a reality. Many things in Africa also must change. When that happens all this can become a reality during your life time. This web site is to make those changes. There is nothing that is impossible if you have the faith and desire. You have the desire. Have that faith. It will work. Do all that is within your means to support the cause of making Africa the richest country by 2020. What you can do for this noble cause is explained in the Strategy page of this web site. Africans Living In All Countries, Support This Cause; You Have Nothing To Lose, But A World To Gain.
Africa This Week Editorial
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