How would you develop A Conversation on Africa’s Development?

Development

communication

was quite popular in the 1980s among mass

communication

scholars in emerging economies who felt that the developing nations could not afford the adversarial

communication

style popular in the West because of the enormous

development

challenges p

aralyzing

make powerless and unable to function

paralysing

societies in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. But

d

evelopment

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development, communication

communication

quickly came under excoriating criticism because of the belief that it would lead journalists and other communicators regarded as c

onscience

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the conscience

of society to be in cahoots with despots and incompetent rulers who dominated the

Third

World political environment. The transformational experiences of Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia, among other Southeast Asian nations, in the

last

few decades arising principally out of their state developmental ideology, which places emphasis on their countries and territories leapfrogging from their

Third

World status to

First

within a mere generation, demonstrate that societies can develop rapidly without necessarily taking the western trajectory. The challenges facing Africa and the rest of the developing world are awful. In the words of Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the

Last

Man, these societies still “live in the primitive age of mankind”. They are battling with wars, easily preventable diseases, illiteracy, superstition, hunger, squalor and other old sorrows of history. In

this

kind of situation, should journalists and other mass communicators continue with the tradition of protest or lamentation? Maureen Chigbo and her team at Realnews,

instead

of bemoaning endlessly about darkness in the room, have chosen to show how light can be provided in the room. They could have chosen at each of the anniversaries of Realnews magazine from 2014 to 2018 to bring a radical activist to deliver a frenetic lecture which would grab headlines immediately, but they on each occasion chose to invite an expert who would c

arefully

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care

and c

oolly examine

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coolly examines

a

development

problem facing Nigeria or Africa and

then

help proffer a solution. It is chilling enough, as former education minister Oby Ezekwesili, who has been the World Bank vice president for Africa, observed in the 2015 Realnews anniversary l

ecture which

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lecture, which

she delivered, the gross domestic product for all 54 African countries with a combined population of about

one

billion people was $1.7 trillion in 2016, the same as Brazil (though Brazil’s GDP moved to over $2 trillion the following year) which is just a country of some 210 million people. It is noteworthy that the ongoing initial public offer of Saudi Aramco,

one

company in Saudi Arabia, is $1.7 trillion. Transformational leaders like Park Chung-hee of South Korea, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohammed of Malaysia became globally respected s

tatesmen not

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statesmen, not

through radical rhetoric or p

osturing but

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posturing, but

through their imaginative visions and the profundity of their ideas and far-reaching actions which made their countries become what we now call Asian Tigers or modern

development

miracles. Nigeria and, indeed, Africa can begin to make impressive progress only when the

development

quotient or content in our politics and policy becomes appreciable. Ethiopia is the

first

and only African country to adopt d

evelopmentalism

as its ideology. Is it fortuitous that it is now the fastest-growing economy in the African region? Nigerians’ current obsession with primordial issues and other divisive matters is sickening. We must try to find sound solutions to the massive unemployment, terrible education standards, deep healthcare crisis and pervasive insecurity in the land. That’s why Chigbo’s Pathways to Political and Economic

Development

of Africa could not have come at a better time. The theme of

this

year’s lecture, “Beyond Politics: An Economic Narrative for Africa” is equally apt. And so is the sub-theme, “The End of Oil: Whither the Nigerian Economy?” Inspired and challenged by

such

examples as Malaysia’s Vision 2020 which seeks to make Malaysia a fully developed nation by 2020,

Anambra

State will in two days’ time set up a committee of thought leaders from various fields to draw up its

development

plan for the

next

50 years. Far from a wish-list, the document will be a realistic and detailed s

trategy providing

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strategy, providing

the cost and how

Anambra

State will be as developed and stable as, say, Taiwan in 50 years. Other states as well as the Federal Government of Nigeria can borrow a leaf from

Anambra

and develop a strategic plan. Africa must get its leadership right if, to borrow the memorable language of Chinua Achebe, it has to join the rest of the world to step into the modern world with confidence and dignity. There is tremendous merit in the observation by former World Bank vice president Ezekwesili in her paper entitled “African Leadership in an Era of Turbulence”, namely: “… all African countries urgently need agencies or departments of government to be run by the right people. We need people who have the training and the attitude necessary to deliver good governance outcomes that will make their society prosper and become stable. It will take the right individuals to lay down the foundation for lasting systems, processes, procedures, structures and

also

good individuals within (leaders and subordinates) and without (citizens and other bodies exercising their checks and balances roles) to sustain it. … I usually say that any

one

person who can lead must have character, competence and capacity all rolled together i

n

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with

them. We do not need people who have

one

or two of them but not another”.

This

is the way to go. Other speakers at the annual Realnews anniversary celebrations like United Nations special representative for Africa and the Sahel Mohammed Ibn Chambas, erstwhile Central Bank Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation chief

executive

Maikanta Baru, ex Nigeria Exim Bank chief

executive

Robert Orya, former West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management director-general Akpan Hogan Ekpo, former Bank of Industry

executive

director Waheed Olagunji, former Coca-Cola chief

executive

in West Africa Alex Cumming who ran for the president in Liberia, and the current Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission chairman Mahmood Yakubu spoke directly or indirectly about the imperative of effective and efficient leadership in both the private and public sectors in Africa. Their presentations, which are included in

this

203-page book divided into five chapters, are generally persuasive. Still, there are controversial statements.

For instance

, modern leadership and management scholars would contest the assertion by Robert Orya that a leader need not be liked so long as he or she is effective. A leader needs to be liked except in emergencies. Followers admire leaders who treat them with respect like discussing with them before they are given a target.

This

is because what Fukuyama calls the search for recognition is a key driver of human history and progress. When leaders recognize their subordinates by treating them with dignity, it engenders loyalty in the f

ollowers but

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followers, but

also

makes them

work

with passion. Strategic human resource researchers acknowledge that a fundamental difference between, on the

one

hand, organizations and governments which deliver superior service and, on the other, struggling ones is passion.

That is

, members of competitive organizations and governments

work

with passion or commitment while those of ordinary organizations and governments

work

lackadaisically; the latter d

o not go

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does not go

beyond the call of duty. Their

work

is purely t

ransactional.

Pathways to Political and Economic

Development

of Africa is a treasure, and it helps in the search for a new Africa. It lifts journalism from a mere protest activity to the status of a

development

partner. As Governor Willie Obiano of

Anambra

State states in the foreword, the book is informed by j

ournalism

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the journalism

a journalism

of conscience and national commitment. May Maureen Chigbo’s tribe of practitioners of journalism of conscience and national commitment multiply.