In
the late 1950s and 1960s, most African scholars center their thoughts on the
role played by Europeans countries in the political and economic
underdevelopment of Africa. This was done majorly through the prisms of slavery
and colonialism, as well as neo-colonialism. One of the major theories that
African scholars subscribed to most was the Dependency theory. The theory was developed in response to the
Modernization theory which posits that, for African states and other developing
countries to grow, they need to adopt the neo classical economic model which
identified the adoption Liberal ideologies and values as the necessary step to
development. The approach according to Matunhu (2011) essentially identified
five stages which include:
Ø Primitive
society: The stage is characterized by subsistence farming and barter trade.
Ø Preparation
for take-off: The characteristics of the stage are; specialization, production
of surplus goods and trade. Transport infrastructure is developed to support trade.
The stage encourages savings and investment
Ø Take-off:
At this stage industrialization increases and the economy switches from
agriculture to manufacturing.
Ø Drive
to maturity: At this stage the economy diversifies into new areas and there is
less reliance on imports.
Ø Period
of mass consumption: At this stage, the economy gears on mass production and
service sector becomes increasingly dominating.
For
the modernist, a nation that will achieve economic growth and political
development must follow all these five stages which are described as
prerequisite to development. The dependency theory led by Raul Prebisch, Ander Gunder Frank among
others
debunked this claim of over-simplified and deterministic form of development.
They argued in contrary to the position of the Modernist theorist that
developing’ countries’ underdevelopment was as a result of lack of modernization
in its socio/political and economic system. For most of these Dependency
theorists of African origin, African societies were progressing in accordance with
their values before the unnecessary incursion of Europeans in Africa in the
fifteenth century. However, the unequal
and exploitative relationship between Africa and the developed countries which
has been sustained for several centuries is what is responsible for Africa’s
state of political and economic underdevelopment. This relationship started
from the slavery period, sustained in the era of colonialism and continually
sustained in the post colonial era through neo colonialism. They further argued that, the global economic
system has been skewed in such a way that it only favours the bourgeois
nations. The resulting effect of this massive exploitation of both human and
material resources of Africa is vast unemployment and abject poverty.
While
the substance of this theory is appealing during the era of colonialism and
immediate years after independence of many African states, there is a growing
sceptism about the continued relevance of this theory in explaining Africa’s
continued state of under-development. The emerging reality in Africa today is
that of leadership crisis which is evident in pervasive mal-administration and
corruption across the continent. From the Southern Africa to the West, East and
central Africa; poverty, conflict, unemployment and bad governance still remain
a continental reality. As a result of the persistence of this problem, Africa
continue to be the dumping ground for worthless goods from the developed world,
and also the largest recipient of financial aids, which inturn legitimize the
exploitation of their resources by the developed countries.
In
Nigeria, which is the main focus of this write up, all our efforts at stepping
out of the crisis of underdevelopment have yielded little or no result. At
independence, Nigeria looks promising, both to her-self and other African
states as a natural leader on the continent. Its massive population and
abundant human and material resources as accorded it a respect befitting of a
developed nation. However, several years after independence, the country still
remains a toddler that is learning to walk at 56 years of her existence. From civilian rule at independence to
military rule for over 25 years before the inception of the fourth republic in
1999, bad governance and corruption has been the defining features of the
Nigerian political system. There has been increasing infrastructural deficit,
while the youths have become completely hopeless in any serious effort to earn
a decent living after a university education. Year in year out, the government
continue to have very robust budget with increased debt profile, yet our
problems have not been abated. However, applying the dependency theory to the
understanding of the present state of political and economic uncertainty in
Nigeria today is defective for the following reasons:
Firstly,
the fact that there are other developing countries that have attained development
today shows that, with responsible leadership and visionary governance, a
country can attain development and bring its people out of colossal poverty.
The Asian Tigers which include Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hongkong among
others are classical examples. In the Arab world also, countries like Qatar,
United Arab Emirate and Iran have reveal that development is possible through
alternative means.
Secondly,
a strict perusal of the cause of our development today reveals that, bad
governance, corruption and visionless leadership are responsible for our
continued state of economic and political underdevelopment. For instance, at
the inception of fourth republic in 1999, one of the significant provisions of
the constitution was the constituency development projects. The project was to
be executed by a member in both the senate and House of Representatives. It is
covers all the Senatorial districts and constituencies in the country. Inspite
of this, politicians from then till now have been diverting this fund that run
into trillions of naira for their private use. The directive to do this is
certainly not from the developed countries, but the irresponsible nature of our
political leaders. Apart from the case of the constituency projects, government
officials and political office holders have also been culpable in massive stealing
of funds that are meant for developmental projects.
In
view of the above, it is on this basis that we say farewell to dependency
theory in explaining the cause of Nigeria’s present state of political and
economic underdevelopment. Hence, it is time for us both political
practitioners and scholars to look inwards for the theoretical explanation of
our problems to be able to get appropriate solution in no distant time.
Adiat Abiodun
Obafemi Awolowo University.
adiatbdn7@gmail.com
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