I remember Samuel Huntington who wrote the "Clash of Civilizations" - had never visited Africa south of the Sahara, for a day, in his entire life.

Yet proclaimed that all the people who lived in that area were "part of the same civilization".
He was never challenged at the upper echelons of power in the US about his thesis on Africa, because let's be frank, who among them knows the first thing about Africa?

Today, a "superstar US geopolitical analyst" claims "terrain", not funding is why "Africa lacks infrastructure"
If his "terrain thesis" were to hold water, why does South Africa, with some of the most mountainous terrain has probably the best road and railway network in Africa?

Could it have something to do with South Africa's high tax to GDP ratio (almost 30%).
In contrast, Nigeria's tax to GDP ratio is a miserly 6.1%, so the Nigerian Government has a less money at its disposal to build and maintain infrastructure, in less challenging terrain than South Africa.

There are other issues like Nigeria spending scarce funds on fuel subsidies
Anyone, with even a passing knowledge of Africa should know this - but in the US, you can parade yourself as a "global expert" without knowing jack about Africa.

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More from @cchukudebelu

21 Mar
The point of the 1884-85 Berlin Conference convened by Bismarck was to prevent Europeans from fighting each other over Africa.

(Africans lives didn't matter to Europeans, but they didn't want to fight a war over Africa).
The British wanted colonies that extended from Cairo to Cape Town, but they didn't get this, as German claims in East Africa stood in the way. They sought an alternative in Eastern Congo - but brushed aside Portuguese claims to Zambia & Zimbabwe.
The French on the other hand, wanted colonies that extended from the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean - but the British plans for Cairo to Cape colonies stood in the way. So the French held on to Djibouti, but there was a gap in Sudan.
Read 7 tweets
19 Mar
In the mid-1980s, real incomes fell by 65 - 70%, and that was the end of the Nigerian "middle class". In the early 1980s, virtually every university graduate was in the middle class, and the middle class was geographically dispersed (found in every state capital and major city).
Then the expectation was that every graduate should be able to afford a motor vehicle (a brand new motor vehicle, not a second-hand vehicle). There was no massive market for imported second hand vehicles then.

All that had ended by 1984, and we haven't recovered since then.
The major blow was to higher education. The best lecturers and professors left. Staff morale plummeted, laboratories were not updated with new equipment and reagents, and libraries were no longer stocked with up to date books and journals.

We haven't recovered since then.
Read 9 tweets
18 Mar
Modern Europe was not built on "diversity". Many ideologies rose to prominence in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the most enduring till date, is ethno-nationalism.

And that is what Modern Europe is built on.
The challenge of Islam brought Europe back to its roots - and we are seeing a rise in ethno-nationalism, even among "European progressives" in response to the growth of Islam in Europe.
There is another point.

European colonialists never saw "diversity as a strength" in Africa - since it didn't work at home, they concluded that it could not work in Africa.

So whenever they saw "diversity", they promoted "divide and rule".
Read 4 tweets
14 Mar
It is good to listen to political scientists from the "realist school". I listened to an interview with John Mearsheimer from 2002 (then it wasn't clear how fast China would grow).

He said that US cannot be a "global hegemon", but it is a "regional hegemon" (in its hemisphere).
He said that America's grand strategy was to prevent the rise of "regional hegemons" anywhere in the world, especially Eurasia - and if China "became a bigger Hong Kong", US would have no option than to either slow its rise or contain it.

That is exactly what is happening today.
That is the point of Trump's tariffs, bans on Huawei/ZTE, "The Quad";

To either slow China's rise and/or contain it.

The US doesn't care if China's economy collapses & Africa is hit by a depression as a result. Africa's economic collapse will just be "collateral damage".
Read 4 tweets
14 Mar
US politics is predictable.

There's a constituency in the Republican Party committed to ensuring that the US Government does not fund abortion or promote gay rights in Africa.

This influences the Africa policy of Republican presidents.
Conversely there's a constituency in the Democratic Party committed to ensuring that the US Government promotes gay rights in Africa.

This influences the Africa policy of Democratic Presidents.
But no US president is under any pressure to promote democracy or human rights in Africa; the same way US presidents are under pressure to react to Hong Kong.

He will not be punished at the polls if he does not.

All politics is local
Read 4 tweets
14 Mar
I think we are back to HIV/AID anti-retrovirals distribution - the dynamics are similar to Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

Let is remember that Africa began to receive anti-retrovirals SEVEN years after distribution began in the West, and this was only due to PEPFAR.
I.e. Nigeria, like most African nations 20 years ago, was waiting for a "benefactor" to buy anti HIV/AID drugs.

The situation with Covid-19 is basically a repeat of that.

But other African nations like Algeria, South Africa & Egypt are acting a lot more proactively.
We are also back to a debate over intellectual property. Thailand, Brazil & India had running battles with Western pharmaceutical giants over licensing and IP of anti-retrovirals.

I recall Thailand decided to damn the consequences & do what it had to do. It was "controversial".
Read 4 tweets

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