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Kulipa Ushuru Si Kujitegemea: Tax Avoidance and Evasion in Africa

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Tax avoidance, understood as the use of the so-called ‘loopholes’ in the tax legislation to reduce one’s tax payments increasingly tops news charts. The recent Pandora Papers, EU’s blacklist of 17 tax havens, Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers are among the starkest examples.

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Kulipa Ushuru Si Kujitegema: Tax Avoidance and Evasion in Africa
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Tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax heavens, illicit financial flows and global tax governance are real buzzwords that have come to dominate current international political and financial domains. Tax avoidance, understood as the use of the so-called ‘loopholes’ in the tax legislation to reduce one’s tax payments increasingly tops news charts. The recent Pandora Papers, EU’s blacklist of 17 tax havensParadise Papers and the Panama Papers are among the starkest examples. Recent waves of tax dodging scandals including those of tax evasion – the use of unlawful means to escape paying tax – pushed many governments globally towards implementing various structural changes to taxation systems. Moreover, there is a growing call towards making the ‘fight’ against the exploitation of tax regulations ‘a global effort’ and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD), Tax Inspectors Without Borders and the Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information are amongst the most prominent measures of this kind.

In a recent study that explored anti-fraud initiatives in nine countries on the African continent, measures to address the drainage of revenue featured strongly. What is particularly interesting is the fact that many actors, private, governmental and supranational, including those in the West, seem to be especially active in encouraging change and acting as ‘advisories’ to governments and business on the African continent. This article will use the findings of the study to outline some of the interventions, paying particular attention to the actors involved. The article will then look closer at the OECD’s initiative, and close with some questions and thoughts regarding the findings and the North-South dynamic that prevails.

According to one estimate, US$240bn is lost in tax revenue every year due to various forms of tax avoidance and evasion, with the majority of losses in low- and lower middle-income countries. As shortages in funding of developmental projects persist and countries struggle to meet the financial requirements needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (currently the investment gap in developing countries is around US$2.5 trillion), experts worldwide highlight that the tax loses are unjustifiable and if addressed, can be used to facilitate the delivery of the SDGs. In recent years, many initiatives emerged across the Global South to raise awareness of the problem, involving governments, supranational organisations such as EU, UNDP and OECD to name a few, businesses, and rights advocacy groups such as Tax Justice Network and others. Several countries in the Global South have been applauded for their efforts to keep up with the tax reform that prevails in parts of the Northern hemisphere.

Having looked at anti-fraud initiatives in South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia several trends emerge, some of which were outlined in previous blogs on roape.net. One trend that has not been discussed is the nature of the initiatives aimed at tackling various forms of tax evasion and avoidance and importantly the actors that are driving these measures. The types of initiatives aimed at addressing tax loss, range, amongst others, from education-led awareness raising campaigns on the importance of tax contributions and the harm that tax evasion and avoidance has on the health of the economy, the use of automation and digital technologies to increase tax collections and to facilitate the transfer of information on local, national and global levels, amendments in the legislation, and intercountry cooperation. The actors involved include domestic and foreign governments, businesses (consultancies and banks in particular), supranational organisations, development agencies, and advocacy and civil society groups. To explore these measures further, a number of examples will be given below, paying special attention to the actors driving and implementing such initiatives.

Who is pushing for crackdowns on tax fraud?

Private businesses, especially consultancies and banks, are active advocates for lawful taxation contributions across the studied countries. For instance, Deloitte Consulting launched the Tip-Offs Anonymous Hotline both in Botswana and Malawi aimed at deterring financial fraud, including tax evasion and tax avoidance. According to the Managing Director of the Botswana Development Corporation, ‘Tip-Offs Anonymous line is put in place as a deterrent to fraud and promotes a culture of zero tolerance towards these crimes.’  In another initiative, Tallinn-based multinational company Nortal is assisting Botswana in creating a ‘new tax management solution’ which will replace the existing system entirely. Costing around €8 million, it will provide new risk management solutions and ‘should boost overall economic growth in Botswana, reduce the tax gap and increase transparency while reducing costs.’ PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana while commenting on the Ghana’s new 2018 budget has advised the government to implement changes to strengthen revenue collection, including, among others, the use of mobile payment technology, targeting debt management, minimising the fiscal gap, and ‘increased investment in agriculture value chains and in growth enhancing infrastructure including radical structural transformation to ensure export diversification.’

Moreover, businesses are particularly active in initiating measures to address counterfeiting and substandard produce. It is important to note that counterfeiting, tax evasion and avoidance are closely interlinked. It is more difficult to obtain the legislated amount of tax from counterfeited and unlicensed products, and in addition it has a negative impact on those brands whose products are being replicated. International firms such as Southern Graphics Systems (SGS) operating in Kenya, Sproxil in Tanzania and Bureau Veritas in all of the studied countries, offer services to business and individuals, and cooperate with governmental agencies on strengthening quality checks and identify counterfeited produce. Technology is often adopted in these measures. An interesting example is that of collaboration between the Human Development Innovation Fund, UK’s Department for International Development and the firm Sproxil. The initiative involves the introduction of Mobile Product Authentication technology to help verify counterfeit produce in pharmaceuticals and educate individuals on health risks associated with such products.

National governments have featured strongly as those pushing for strengthening of the tax regulation, so all the nine studied countries contained a government-led initiative related to taxation. To highlight the variety and scale of these initiatives a few examples provides powerful illustration: declarations of crackdowns on tax misconduct by the country’s presidents in the case of Tanzania; registering taxpayers at the district level in an effort to address the problem at grass-roots level, and the adoption of Electronic Billing Machines in Rwanda; amendments to national legislation to specifically tackle tax-avoidance as in South Africa. More aggressive measures in Nigeria whose Federal Inland Revenue Service have threated to deny access to banking facilities for those companies that don’t join taxation register.

In Ghana, measures to combat tax evasion and avoidance are initiated by a number of actors, including the Ghana Investment Promotion Council with an initiative to develop a ‘beneficiary ownership regime’ aimed at identifying owners of companies, particularly in the extractives industries. In a more recent initiative, the Ghana Revenue Authority planned to use the Point of Sale (PoS) devices to strengthen tax collection and improve monitoring of revenue. There seems to be widespread support for this measure, including from Price Waterhouse Coopers Ghana. Kenya’s efforts focused on Small and Medium Enterprises, where the Kenya Revenue Authority seeks to address the issue at grassroots level and work closely with county authorities to integrate the SMEs into the taxation system. Malawi Revenue Authority keeps up with the trend of using technology, in particular electronic payment systems to encourage tax payers and prevent evasion and avoidance.

Finally, Botswana focused on tackling tax avoidance by identifying ‘multinational tax dodgers’ and has joined OECD’s framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. According to a state official, ‘Botswana is […] obliged to conform to these standards and that may mean amendment of tax legislation where necessary.’ In the words of the same official, ‘Botswana’s tax system will be put under scrutiny whether it conforms to international best practice which should in turn boost investor confidence and hence it has the potential to attract investment by credible investors.’

The involvement of foreign actors, including governmental bodies is extensive across the studied countries. UK’s DFID has been particularly active in offering assistance, having spent over £32 million on tax system improvements overseas in 2015, and £26 million in 2016. Out of the 9 studied countries, seven (Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia) received assistance from the British government. For example, in 2015, Ghana and the HMRC partnered with the Ghana Revenue Authority to develop their expertise on tax legislation, compliance and data privacy. This agreement is part of a wider, OECD backed ‘global standard’ for an automatic exchange of information of tax payer’s data scheduled for 2018. According to International Development Secretary Justine Greening, ‘the UK is committed to helping developing countries get their tax systems in order so that as their economies grow they are able to increasingly fund their own health and education programmes and reduce aid dependence.’

Advocacy and civil society groups are actively gaining ground in running of campaigns to raise awareness on illicit financial flows. One of the widely known organisations is Tax Justice Network (TJN) which offers research, analysis and advocacy on tax evasion and avoidance, as well as The Global Tax Alliance for Tax Justice (a spin off from TJN), which brings together civil society organisations and activists working with this issue. Numerous regional organisations such as Tax Justice Network Africa, run national and grass roots level events. Among its initiatives is the Stop Bleeding Africa Campaign which joined various stakeholders in an attempt to drive one Africa-wide response. Numerous national organisations and civil-rights activists are promoting awareness as part of this initiative, for example the recent campaign in Ghana in collaboration with Ghanaian based Integrated Social Development Centre and Tax Justice Network. Numerous international charities also do extensive work organising initiatives and raising awareness on this issue, and include amongst others Transparency InternationalAction Aid, and Oxfam.

As was mentioned above, OECD has been an active player in introducing measures to address leakages of tax, and some argue, has been pivotal in the setting of certain international taxation standards. Tax Inspectors Without Borders, a joint initiative with UNPD launched in 2013 is aimed at providing technical assistance to developing countries to enhance their capacity to obtain tax contribution from multinational companies. Currently, technical assistance is being offered to 18 African states, in some cases partnered with actors such as UK’s HMRC, African Tax Administration Forum, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, Netherlands’ Tax and Customs Administration, the World Bank Group, the French Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP), USAID and others.

What has come to be known as the ‘Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes’ was rolled out in the 2000s and includes 148 members, both OECD and non-OECD members. The Exchange of Information on Request, and most recently the Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) have been the two core initiatives. These frameworks are now regarded as the new standard and currently over 100 countries have signed up to the declaration. The core idea is to allow for easier and timely transmission of financial information (gathered by financial institutions such as banks) about a country’s residents living overseas with the aim of greater transparency and prevention of tax evasion and avoidance, while suggesting that the existence of tax heavens may come to an end. The countries can sign multilateral (there are currently 98 signatories) or bilateral agreements, as we have seen between Ghana and the Netherlands. Countries are free to chose with which countries to exchange information.

Are we on the right track?

The examples outlined above would suggest that various actors recognise the need to address illicit financial flows and implement different measures to raise awareness (even if driven by profit motives), and put in place mechanisms to prevent tax dodging and allow for greater transparency. However, what is critical to note is that a number of the actors involved in pushing for anti-tax evasion and avoidance, may themselves be culpable for similar abuses of the tax legislation. For example, Deloitte, and other accountancy firms such as PwC were acting as advisories and helped companies such as Blackstone avoid paying tax as we have seen in the Paradise Papers. Moreover, a group of consultancy firms that have become known as ‘the big four’, PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG, are known to use their positions to lobby for certain regulations and in some cases employees of these firms are known to take up roles at the OECD and in national governments to push for their client’s interests. Furthermore, numerous international banks were discovered to make use of tax heavens to hide their profits, such as Barclays which declared profits of €557m in Luxembourg but only paid €1m in tax.

These are just some of the examples, where the ‘advisories’, are in fact the ones making use of the loopholes in legislation, while at the same time offering advice to countries in the Global South on how to better manage their taxes (see on this phenomenon John Christensen’s analysis in David Whyte and Jörg Wiegratz’s book here). What is important to note there is that such ‘advice’ often informs policy and legislation within those countries and here, one cannot fail to notice the characteristically unequal North-South dynamic.

While OECD’s initiatives are, one might argue, an important step towards greater transparency, and have even been deemed as ‘revolutionary’, commentators are calling for scrutiny of some of the organisation’s measures. In the case of Tax Inspectors Without Borders – a joint OECD/UNDP initiative – following a review of its operation it was discovered that leadership for the three of its pilot projects in Rwanda, Ghana and Senegal originated from donor countries, which was against the original formulation of the initiative.

In terms of the AEOI (Automatic Exchange of Information) one of the main concerns is the need for reciprocity meaning that it is required for a country to be able to collect and send information if it is to receive information in return. The issue here is the lack of capacity, infrastructure and resources in some Southern countries to do this, thus this would automatically exclude them from participating in the framework at least in the immediate future. Moreover, even if a country matches reciprocity requirements, another concern within the framework is the fact that countries are able to choose with whom to exchange information and this has been compared to a dating game. For example, even if country X wants to receive information from country Y, they will only be able to do this if country Y approves. An example is the US, which is a major player on the taxation arena and a country where many tax heavens are safely hidden. The States has for a long time imposed automated exchange of information on countries where their citizens reside, without participating in turn and is refusing to take part in the AEOI.

A final aspect to mention here is the fact that the framework is reliant on financial institutions to record and verify residency information of their customers in order to transfer the requested information to the correct country. The concern is that there are ways – for example, making an investment – to gain residency in certain countries, use that information to register in a bank but not reside and conduct financial transactions in the country in question. So, fraudsters may continue to evade and hide tax in other locations without risk of being unmasked.

In this blogpost I have summarised some of the initiatives to address tax evasion and avoidance by numerous actors on the African continent and draw attention to frameworks that are presented as ‘international standards.’ The initiatives vary in type, scale, and the actors involved. It also suggests that the initiatives are underpinned by various drivers, whether commercial, political or other. There is a degree of hypocrisy on the side of some ‘advising’ actors where they are directly involved in or are facilitating financial crime. OECD’s initiative, while potentially beneficial, has loopholes and seems to disadvantage Southern countries.

While a growing body of literature is currently emerging surrounding illicit financial flows, as well as around the nature of global tax governance as a whole, there is not enough evidence to suggest that the ‘global fight’ is indeed not a ‘global flight’ driven by certain powerful entities and interest groups to avoid paying tax. Given that the issue has universal significance and undermines the development of many countries in the Global South, more research (and campaigning) is needed in order to understand the nature of these initiatives, the forces behind them, and the unequal North-South dynamic that prevails.

This article was published in the Review of African political Economy (ROAPE).

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By

Nataliya Mykhalchenko graduated from the University of Leeds in 2016 with a BA in International Development. She now works in London for a company that helps education, research, healthcare, non-profits and civil society institutions. Nataliya started researching anti-fraud initiatives on the African continent in 2015 as part of a funded five week Leeds University Summer Research Internship Scheme. In 2016, supported by ROAPE, she continued her research. To date she has looked at anti-fraud measures in South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia. Nataliya’s research was linked to the ongoing work of ROAPE’s Jörg Wiegratz at the University of Leeds on the political economy of anti-fraud measures in the Global South.

Politics

Kenya’s Police Are Violent and Unaccountable – Should They Be Abolished?

After Kenya’s independence in 1963, the police were “Africanised” but retained much of their colonial character. Under Daniel arap Moi’s authoritarian regime (1978-2002), the police continued to play a key role in repressing dissent.

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Kenya’s Police Are Violent and Unaccountable – Should They Be Abolished?
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A world without the police is inconceivable to many people. The police are viewed as part of modern society’s foundation, ensuring democracy and keeping people safe.

In practice, however, police around the world sometimes repress social movements, stifle democracy, and exacerbate social and racial injustice. Across the African continent, they often use force to prop up repressive regimes. And in Kenya in particular, extortion and extrajudicial killings by the police are rampant.

Kenya is unusual for its extensive attempts to reform the police. Reform efforts began in earnest in 2008, when the police were found to be complicit in post-election violence. And yet, after 15 years and billions of shillings spent, the police reform project has largely failed.

The Kenyan police remain repressive, unaccountable and effectively unreformable. Many citizens complain about how the police treat them like ATMs – a source of cash. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the police killed tens of Kenyans while enforcing curfew measures.

We’ve conducted hundreds of interviews, discussion groups and over a decade of ethnographic research into how counter-terrorist policing and securitisation have shaped Nairobi. And in turn, how local residents respond to police violence and build their own practices of care, mutual aid and security.

We have come to the conclusion that the police make most people feel less safe. Many residents told us they don’t depend on the police for their safety: they keep each other safe. Given the impasse of police reform – and citizen responses to this – there is a strong argument to be made for the abolition of the Kenyan police altogether.

Policing at an impasse

Modern police institutions made their first appearances on the African continent as part of colonisation and the expansion of European capitalist interests.

In Kenya, the roots of policing lie in early colonial “conquest”. The Imperial British East African Company developed security forces to protect its expanding economic interests in the 1890s, and the Kenya-Uganda Railroad developed its own police force in 1902.

After Kenya’s independence in 1963, the police were “Africanised” but retained much of their colonial character. Under Daniel arap Moi’s authoritarian regime (1978-2002), the police continued to play a key role in repressing dissent.

There have been calls to reform the Kenyan police for decades. But the 2007-08 post-election violence, in which police were complicit in widespread ethnic violence, accelerated attempts at reform.

Over the past 15 years, police reform has been enshrined in the 2010 constitution and actualised in numerous acts of parliament. It’s been supported internationally with funding and technical expertise from the UN, the US and the EU, among others. It prompted the reorganisation of the police service and the establishment of civil oversight mechanisms.

Yet, despite all of these efforts, the Kenyan police remain corrupt, violent and unaccountable.

Civilian oversight over the police has proved ineffectual. The Independent Policing Oversight Agency has managed to bring only 12 cases of police violence to conviction out of more than 20,000 complaints received between 2012 and 2021. That is only one out of every 1,667 complaints. The under-resourced agency simply can’t grapple with the immense volume of reported police abuses.

The case for abolition

Police reform has failed. Is it time to consider abolition?

Abolition is not about simply tearing things down, but rather asking what should exist in place of outdated and violent systems that no longer serve people. Abolition is a creative and constructive project with deep philosophical roots.

So why abolish the Kenya police?

  1. The police are functionally obsolete for most Kenyans. In many low-income neighbourhoods, our research shows that people avoid calling the police to respond to crises or crimes. For many, experience shows that the police can make matters worse.
  2. The police often exacerbate insecurity, violence and corruption. To provide for their own safety, residents increasingly organise themselves into networks of friends, family and neighbours for basic safety. For instance, women in Mathare, Nairobi, organise their own security practices, which include conflict resolution, de-escalation of violence and support for survivors.
  3. In more affluent neighbourhoods, residents increasingly rely on private companies to provide security in their compounds. Police are seen as one among many security services available for hire. In our research, the few positive experiences with the Kenyan police were reported (predominantly) by such affluent residents.
  4. The remaining function of the police is “enforcing order” and protecting the state against society. Officers uphold and protect a rarefied governing class and political elite against the population.

Police abolition, therefore, would mean dismantling ineffective and repressive institutions and replacing them with systems of actual safety, systems that enable society to thrive.

What should replace the police?

When confronted with the idea of “abolition” for the first time, many people often respond: “but who will keep us safe?”

In Nairobi, the answer is to be found in existing social practices. The problem is that there’s a lack of resources to support alternatives to punitive security. We call for defunding the police and investing these resources in such alternatives.

  1. Invest in communities.When we ask about local security problems, residents often answer that the lack of schools, food, land, quality housing, water, electricity, toilets, healthcare and safe places for kids to play are what cause “insecurity”. Reinvestment in community means funding such social infrastructure to allow people to thrive. This reduces crime and violence.
  2. Invest in alternative safety mechanisms.This means strengthening dispute-resolution mechanisms that help resolve conflicts without violence. The government needs to support existing social justice centresnetworks and movements fighting for change.

When these forms of social reinvestment are pursued, the need for the police is greatly diminished.

The Conversation

Wangui Kimari, Anthropologist, University of Cape Town and Zoltán Glück, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, American University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Politics

Nigeria: A Messiah Will Not Fix Country’s Problems

In Nigeria’s recent election cycle, many citizens looked to Peter Obi for change. But the country needs people-led social transformation, not saviors.

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Nigeria: A Messiah Will Not Fix Country’s Problems
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On February 25, Nigerians once again took to the polls with a determination that their votes could change the fate of a country in deep despair. For the seventh time since a civilian dispensation began in 1999, Nigerians hoped that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would conduct a free, fair, and credible election. This hope was reinvigorated by the emergence of technology that would ensure, purportedly, a transparent process. Yet, once again, voters had their dreams crushed with an election marred by violence, ballot box snatching, forged results and, of course, voter intimidation and buying. In the days that followed, despite mounting evidence of irregularities and international outcry, INEC declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the winner of the presidential poll. The continuation of a gerontocratic oligarchy was solidified.

Although media attention focused on a young class of voters and the uniqueness of this historical moment, a deeper analysis is necessary. If nothing else, this election provided an opportunity to examine the shifting landscape of Nigeria’s elite electoral politics, and the increasingly complex voting patterns of citizens, while understanding these voters are increasingly a minority—less than 30 percent of the registered voters (about one-tenth of the population) cast their vote.

The dizzying rise of Peter Obi as a “third force” candidate over the last nine months was largely due to a movement of emergent and middle-class youth, the so-called “Obidients,” who used technology to galvanize a youthful base to push forward their candidate. That the Obidient movement was formed, ironically, off the back of the EndSARS movement, is in many ways a direct contradiction. The generation that was “leaderless” now suddenly had a leader. The rate at which young people chose this candidate still gives me whiplash. But there was no shaking their convictions. Obi was their candidate, and no one could shake their belief that a new Nigeria would be formed under his presidency, despite the evidence that he was directly endorsed by the same ruling class that has led to the country’s demise.

Obi is not a revolutionary, a social welfarist, nor even pro labor, but he became the savior many youth were looking for to “rescue” Nigeria. Ironically, the millions of youth that fought the EndSARS battle, and named themselves the leaderless soro soke (“speak up” in Yoruba) generation, did not seek elective office themselves. Rather, many put their eggs in Obi’s basket in supporting an older, veteran politician whose clean cut and soft demeanor led to his near deification. Other EndSARS activists, including Omoyele Sowore, were mocked for running in the election and were seen as not experienced enough for the job. In the end Sowore  performed abysmally at the polls, despite his demonstrated commitment to Nigerian youth and human rights record and involvement in the EndSARS protests (Sowore’s African Action Congress polled only 14,608 votes, faring worse than in the 2019 election).

This absolute faith in Obi was demonstrated when his followers patiently waited for five days after the election to hear from him. Instead of sending them into the streets, he advised them to wait for him to challenge the electoral irregularities in the courts. Why did a leaderless generation need a hero?

The contradictions in the EndSARS ideology and the Obidient campaign will be tested in the years ahead. After the Lekki massacre on October 20, 2020 brought the massive street protests of the EndSARS movement to an abrupt halt, many of the sites of protests shut down completely and groups that were loosely organized dismantled into relative silence for almost two years. In fact, there was little indication that EndSARS would evolve into a mass political movement until Peter Obi emerged on the scene in May 2022. The first- and second anniversaries of the Lekki massacre were marked by smaller protests in Lagos and a few other cities, which paled in comparison to the numbers at the 2020  protests. Still, efforts to free many of the prisoners arrested during EndSARS are proving difficult, with some protesters and victims still in jail today. There was no direction, no cohesiveness, and no willingness to move forward at that point. But in May 2022, seemingly out of nowhere, things began to shift. A candidate emerged that many EndSARS protesters seemed to think would be the savior.

Understanding the youth divide

While often lumped into a sum, the category of “youth” is not a single class of people. When Obi was said to carry the youth vote he actually only carried the vote of a particular category of young people, an emergent middle and professional class, who were also some of the most vocal in the EndSARS movement. However, if we are to use the discredited election geography as a proxy for representation, it is clear that this demographic is both well defined and narrow. Major urban areas like Lagos and Abuja pulled towards Obi, as did a few Eastern states. The North Central states including Plateau and Benue asserted their own identity by aligning with Obi, perhaps in a rejection of the Northern Muslim tickets of the Peoples Democratic Party (with whom Atiku Abubaker ran) and the APC.

The 2023 election also forces us to re-examine the dynamics of class, ethnic and religious divides and the deepening malaise of the poor and their disengagement with politics. What is clear from this election, like many before, is that Nigeria has yet to come of age as a democracy; indeed, the conditions for democracy simply do not exist. It is also quite evident that the Nigerian elite are adept at changing the political game to suit the mood of the Nigerian people. Electoral malpractices have shifted over time in response to the increasing pressure of civil society for accountable elections. Strong civil society advocacy from organizations focused on accountability and transparency in government have pushed against electoral practices. While these practices continue, there are significant shifts from previous elections where vote buying was brazen. However, it begs the historical questions: has Nigeria ever had a truly free and fair election, and is the process with which democracy is regenerated through the ballot the path for emancipatory politics? These questions become more relevant as the numbers of voters continue to dwindle, with the 2023 election having the lowest turnout in Nigeria’s electoral history, despite the social media propaganda around the youth vote and the turning tide of discontent that was predicted to shape the election.

Lessons from history

The fact that young people were surprised by the events on February 25 may be indicative of youthful exuberance or a startling lack of knowledge of history. The idea that a ruling class, who had brought the EndSARS struggle to a bloody end, would somehow deliver a free and fair election, needs more critical scrutiny. For those that remember the history of the June 12, 1993 elections—annulled after the popular rise of MKO Abiola—the election is no surprise. But for young people deprived of history education, which has been removed from Nigeria’s curriculum for the past 30 years, the knowledge may be limited. When a young person says they have never seen an election like this, they also cannot be faulted, as many young voters were voting for the first time. Given that many youth seem to underestimate the long history of elections and electoral fraud, the question of intergenerational knowledge and of a public history that seems to be absent from electoral discourse cannot be ignored. It is also hard to fault young voters, in a  land where there is no hope, and whatever hope is sought after can be found in the marketplace.

Many of the young organizers were adept at reading their constituencies and mobilizing their bases, but some of the elephants in the room were ignored. One of these elephants, of course, was the deep geographic and ethno-religious and class divisions between the North and the South. This is evident in the voting patterns in the North West and North East where Obi’s campaign did not make a dent. Though Obi ran with a vice president from the North, the majority of votes in Northern zones were divided between PDP, APC and New Nigeria People’s Party while two of the North Central states, Plateau and Nasarawa, went to Obi’s Labor party. Kano, the largest voting population in the country went to Rabiu Kwankwaso’s NNPP, an outlier who was ignored to the peril of opposition parties (Kwankwaso was the former governor of Kano).

Obi’s campaign also focused on the emergent middle class youth, as well as appealing to religious sentiments through churches on a Christian ticket and ethnic sentiments appealing to his Ibo base in the South East, where he swept states with more than 90 percent of the vote. The North is largely made up of the rural poor with poverty rates as high as 87 percent and literacy rates among young women in Zamfara state as low as 16 percent. Tracking Obi’s victories, most of the states where he won had lower poverty rates and higher literacy rates; states like Delta and Lagos have the lowest poverty counts in the country. While Obi used poverty statistics to bolster his campaign, his proposed austerity measures and cuts in government spending do not align with the massive government investments that would be needed to lift Nigerians out of poverty. While the jury is still out on the reasons for low voter turnout, deepening poverty and the limited access to cash invariably impacted poor voters.

Historically, Nigeria’s presidency has swung between the North and the South, between Muslims and Christians, and this delicate balance was disrupted on all sides. In 2013, an alliance between the Southern Action Congress (AC), the Northern All Nigeria’s People’s Party (ANPP), and Congressive People’s Alliance (CPC) to produce the Action People’s Congress (APC) was able to remove the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who had dominated the political scene. Another important historical note is that of the legacy of Biafra that lives on, as an Igbo man has never taken the helm of the Presidency since the Civil War. While Obi ran on the promise of a united youth vote, the lingering ethnic and religious sentiments demonstrate the need for his campaign to have created a stronger alliance with the North and the rural and urban poor.

The failure of the youth vote is also a failure of the left

The other factor that we must examine is the failure of the left to articulate and bring into public critique the neoliberal model that all the candidates fully endorsed. Many young Nigerians believe if Nigeria works, it will work for everyone, and that “good governance” is the answer to the myriad problems the country faces. The politics of disorder and the intentionality of chaos are often overlooked in favor of the “corrupt leader” indictment. The left was divided between the Labor Party, whose presidential flag bearer ran on a neoliberal rather than pro worker or socialist platform, and the African Action Congress, who ran on a socialist manifesto, but failed to capture the imaginations of young people or win them over to socialist politics and ideology. In seeking to disrupt the two party power block, young Nigerians took less notice of the lack of difference between the three front running parties, and chose to select the lesser of three evils, based on credentials and the idea that Obi was “the best man for the job.” In fact, the Nigerian youth on the campaign trail emphasized experience in government as a criteria for a good candidate, over and above fresh ideas.

The left also failed to garner the EndSARS movement and channel it into a political force. The emergent youth middle class, not the workers and the working poor, continued to carry the message of liberal rather than revolutionary politics. Unfortunately, just as the gunning down of Nigerian protesters caught young people off guard in October 2020, so too the massive rigging of this election. However, there is no cohesive movement to fight the fraud of this election. The partisan protests and separate court cases by the Labor Party and PDP, demonstrate that the disgruntled candidates are fighting for themselves, rather than as a single voice to call out electoral fraud and the rerun of the election. The fact that there is acceptance of the National Assembly election outcomes and not the presidential election, points to the seeking of selective justice, which may eventually result in the complete disenfranchisement of the Nigerian people.

At this time we must seek answers to our current dilemma within history, the history that we so often want to jettison for the euphoria or overwhelming devastation of the moment. The question for the youth will now be, which way forward? Will we continue to rely on the old guard, the gerontocratic oligarchy that has terrorized Nigerians under the guise of different political parties for the past 24 years? Or will we drop all expectations and pursue the revolution that is sorely needed? Will young people once again rise to be a revolutionary vanguard that works with millions of working poor to form a truly pro-people, pro-poor party that has ordinary Nigerians as actual participants in a virbrant democracy from the local to the federal levels, not just during election time but every day?  Will the middle class Nigerian youth be willing to commit class suicide to fight alongside the poor to smash the existing oligarchy and gerontocracy and snatch our collective destiny back?

It is a time for truth telling, for examining our own shortcomings. As young people, as the left, and as civil society, we have relied too long on the oppressors for our own liberation.

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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Africa in the New World Disorder

The war in Ukraine indicates a new world disorder, where great powers fight for primacy and Africa continues to be exploited.

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Africa in the New World Disorder
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There are some of us in Africa who believe that we should not invest any serious thinking in the war in Ukraine as it is one of the “European tribal wars.” The logic of that belief is that in Africa we have too many of our own problems to invest energy and effort in European problems. The trouble of being African in the present world order, however, is that all problems and wars end up African in effect if not in form. In the sense in which one who knows it feels it, every war in the world is an African war because Africans have, for the longest time, felt and known wars that are not of their creation. The African condition itself can be understood as a daily experience of war.

Over centuries Africa has been structured and positioned to be on the receiving end of all world problems. As such, Africa is not only the storied cradle of mankind, but also the cemetery of the human condition where every human and world problem comes to kill and to die as well. The worst of the human condition and human experiences tend to find final expression in Africa. It is for that reason that Julius Nyerere once opined that the Devil’s Headquarters must be in Africa because everything that might go wrong actually goes wrong in the continent.As the world tiptoes precariously from the COVID-19 pandemic, at the same time it seems to be tottering irreversibly towards a nuclear World War III. The countries of the world that have the power and the privilege to stop the war pretend to be unable to do so. Even some powerful and privileged Western thinkers are beating the drums of war. For instance, Slavoj Zizek, considered “the most dangerous philosopher in the West,” wrote for The Guardian in June 2022 to say: “pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine,” and “the least we owe Ukraine is full support, and to do that we need a stronger NATO.” Western philosophers, not just soldiers and their generals, are demanding stronger armies and bigger weapons to wage bigger wars. In Ukraine, the conflict is proving too important to be left to the soldiers, the generals and the politicians. In that assertion Zizek speaks from the Euro-American political and military ego, whose fantasy is a humiliating total defeat of Russia in Ukraine. Zizek, the “dangerous philosopher” takes his place as a spokesperson for war and large-scale violence, agitating from a comfortable university office far away from the horrors of Bakhmut.

United States President, Joe Biden, spoke from the same egopolitics of war before the Business Roundtable CEO Quarterly Meeting on March 21 last year: “And now is a time when things are shifting… there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.  And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.” Clearly, an “end of history” fantasy of another unipolar world led by the US and its NATO allies has possessed Western powers that are prepared to pump money, weapons and de-uniformed soldiers into Ukraine to support the besieged country to the “last Ukrainian.” During a surprise visit to Kyiv on the eve of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden hawkishly said the US will support Ukraine in fighting “as long as it takes,” dismissing diplomatic alternatives. Suggestions for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine that have come from influential figures, such as Henry Kissinger on the right and Noam Chomsky on the left, have been dismissed with the sleight of the left hand, and this is as Ukraine is literally being bombed to dustAfrican countries that have for years been theaters of colonial invasions, proxy wars, sponsored military coups, and regime changes can only see themselves in Ukraine. What Ukraine is going through is a typical African experience taking place in Europe and the first victims are Europeans this time.

Being Africans in Africa, at the least, should equip us with the eyes to see the war in Ukraine for what it is, a war driven by a Euro-American will to power, a spirited desire for world dominion against the Russian fear of NATO encirclement and containment, and nostalgia about a great Soviet empireIt is a war of desires and fears from which the belligerents will not back off. The envisaged “new world order” can only be another “world disorder” for an Africa that has for so long been in the periphery of economic, political, and military world affairs.

Destined for war: The Thucydides trap

Well before the war, the Singaporean diplomat and scholar Kishore Mahbubani described how the “world has turned a corner” and why “the West has lost it” in trying to maintain its economic and political dominion by any means necessary and some means unnecessary. Power is shifting under the feet of a young and fragile Euro-American empire that will not lose power peacefully, hence the spirited desire to force another unipolar world without China and Russia as powersTaiwan and Ukraine are the chosen sites where the Euro-American establishment is prepared to militarily confront its threatening rivals. That “from AD 1 to 1820, the two largest economies were always those of China and India” and that “only in that period did Europe take off followed by America” is little understood. That the Euro-American empire has not been the first and it will not be the last empire is little understood by the champions of the “new world order” that Francis Fukuyama, in 1989, mistakenly declared as “the end of history and the last man;” a world ruled by the West, led by the US  and its European allies had arrived and was here to stay in Fukuyama’s enchanting prophecy. Ensuing history, 9/11 amongst other catastrophic events, and the present war in Ukraine, were to prove Fukuyama’s dream a horrific nightmare. Mahbubani predicts that the short-lived rise and power of the Euro-American Empire has “come to a natural end, and that is happening now.” It seems to be happening expensively if the costs in human life, to the climate and in big dollars are to be counted.

In the struggle of major world powers for dominion of the globe Ukraine is reduced to a burnt offering. While, on the one hand, we have a terrified Euro-American empire fearing a humiliating return to oblivion and powerlessness, on the other hand we have the reality of an angry China and Russia, carrying the burden of many decades of geopolitical humiliation. Such corners of the world as Africa become the proverbial grass that suffers when elephants fight. The scramble to reduce Africa to a sphere of influence for this and that power is a spectacle to behold and the very definition of the new world disorder; a damaged and asymmetrical shape of the world where the weaker other is dispensable and disposable.

In its form and content, this new world disorder is ghastly to ponder, not only for Africa, but also for the rest of the world. Graham Allison pondered it in 2015 and came up with the alarming observation that “war between the US and China is more likely than recognised at the moment” because the two powerful countries have fallen into the Thucydides Trap. The ancient Greek historian, Thucydides, described the trap when he narrated how avoiding war becomes next to impossible when a ruling power is confronted by a rival rising power that threatens its dominion. Thucydides witnessed how the growing power and prosperity of Athens threatened Sparta in ancient Greece,  driving the two powers to warThe political and historical climate between China and the US captures the charged political temperatures that punctuated the relations between an entitled and proud Sparta confronted with the growth and anger of a frightening Athens. The proverbial chips were down.

For the US and China to escape the Thucydides Trap that is luring both superpowers to war, “tremendous effort” is required of both parties and their allies. The effort is mainly in mustering the emotional stamina to see and to know that the world is going to be a shared place where there must never be one center of power; that political, economic and military diversity is natural, and the world must be a decolonial pentecostal place where those of different identities, and competing interests can share power and space, is the beginning of the political wisdom that can guarantee peace. President Xi Jinping of China seems to have read Allison’s warning about the Thucydides Trap that envelops China and the US because on a visit to Seattle he was recorded saying: “There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might make such traps for themselves.” The world is sinking deeper into new disorder and violence because rival powers cannot resist the Thucydides Trap and keep repeating “strategic miscalculations” based on their will to power and desire for global dominion.

The problem with China (the Athens of our present case) that troubles the US as the Sparta of the moment is that, as Allison observes, “China wants to be China and accepted as such—not as an honorary member of the West.” The problem with world powers, past and present, seems to be that they cannot live with difference. In fact, political, economic and cultural differences are quickly turned from competition to conflict, from opposition to total enmity. How to translate antagonism to agonism, and to move from being enemies to being respectful adversaries that can exist among each other in a conflictual but shared world is a small lesson that seems to elude big powers, whose egopolitics drives their geopolitics into a kind of militarized lunacy. One would be forgiven, for instance, to think that playground toys are being spoken of when presidents of powerful countries talk about monstrous weapons to be deployed in Ukraine. Observing from Africa one can hazard the view that big powers might be small and slow learners, after all. The death-drive of the superpowers is perpetuated by the desire to force other countries, including other powers, to be “more like us” when they are formidably determined to be themselves. To break out of the Thucydides Trap and avoid war, for instance, the US has to generate and sustain enough emotional stamina to live with the strong truth that China is a 5,000-year-old civilization with close to 1.5 billion people and in its recent rise is only returning to glory and not coming from the blue sky. And that the world has to be shared with China and other powers, and countries. China, and allies, would also not have learnt well from  many years of decline if they dreamt and worked for a world under their sole dominion.

Any fantasy of one world ruled from one mighty center of power is exactly that, a fantasy that might be pursued at the dear cost of a World War. Away from that fantasy, the future world will be politically pentecostal, not a paradise but a perpetually in the making and incomplete world where human, national, cultural, political and religious differences will be normal. From Africa that future world is thinkable and world powers should be investing thought and action in that and not in new monstrous weapons and military might.

Africa in the new world disorder

The symptoms are spectacular and everywhere to be seen. It can be the Namibian President, Hage Geingob, on live television having to shout at a German politician, Norbet Lammert, for complaining about the growing Chinese population in Namibia. Geingob asks why Germans land in Namibia on a “red carpet” and do “what they want” but it becomes a huge  problem for the West when the Chinese are seen in Namibia. That Namibia should not be reduced into a theater of contestation between the West and China because it is a sovereign country was Geingob’s plea to the German politician. It can be President Emmanuel Macron of France, in May 2021, asking President Paul Kagame of Rwanda for forgiveness for France’s role in the genocide of 1994—the bottom line being that African conflicts and genocides bear European footprints and fingerprints. Africa is reduced to the West’s crime scene, from slavery to colonialism and from colonialism to present coloniality. 

Coloniality is brought to life with, for instance, the US Republican lawmakers launching a bill “opposing the Republic of South Africa’s hosting of military exercises with the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and calling on the Biden administration to conduct a thorough review of the US-South Africa relationship.” Africa as an object that does not have the agency to act for itself but is acted upon in the new world disorder, is real. It is Africa as a child in the world system that must be protected from other relationships and that must be told who to relate with and who not to relate with. It is also Africa as an owned thing that must be protected from rival owners. Behind the myth of African independence and liberation is the reality of Africa as a “sphere of influence,” about which world powers are still scrambling for control and ownership, including Russia and China. When in January 2018, Donald Trump referred to African countries as “all these shithole countries,” he meant that Africa still metaphorized the toilet of the world order, where disposable waste and dispensable people were to be found. Looking at the world disorder from Africa is a troubling view from the toilet of world affairs.

Looking at the world disorder from Africa with African eyes and sensibility makes it obvious that it is Africa that should be against war and for a decolonial, multipolar world order where differences are legitimated, not criminalized; where economic competition, political opposition, and rivalry are democratized from antagonism to agonism; and where political opponents are adversaries that are not necessarily blood enemies that must work on eliminating each other to the “last man.” Such a world order may be liberating in that both fears and desires of nations may play out in a political climate where might is not necessarily right. From long experiences of being the dominated and exploited other of the world, Africa should expectedly be the first to demand such a world. 

World powers need to be persuaded or to pressure themselves to understand what Mahbubani prescribes as a future world order that is against war, and liberating in that it is minimalist, multilateral, and Machiavellian. Minimalist, in that major countries should minimize thinking and act like other countries are minors that should be changed into their own image. Multilateral in the sense that world institutions, such as the United Nations, must be pentecostal sites where differences, fears and desires of all countries are moderated and democratized. Machiavellian in that world powers, no matter how mighty they believe they are, must adapt to the change to the order of things and live with the truth that they will not enjoy world dominion alone, in perpetuity. The world must be a shared place that naturalizes and normalizes political, economic, cultural, and human diversity.

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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