Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, director, Africa and West Asia Regional Programme and Liaison Office to the African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, who was a discussant at the Realnews sixth anniversary Lecture, says African political transition has been a collection of choiceless democracies.

By Prof Adebayo Olukoshi

I Thank Professor Mahmood Yakubu, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for doing justice to the theme of the lecture: The interface between transitions in Africa and economic development using what you are doing at INEC. I like to first and foremost commend you not only for the innovations which you have introduced into the work of INEC, building on the successes of Prof. Attahiru Jega but also on your achievements which is not well reported in the country.

But from where I sit on the intercontinental development institute, we see very much the outreach which you have made across West Africa and the continent to help to raise the standard of electoral administration in West Africa even before you became the chairman of ECONEC. So thank you very much for your contributions in that regard.

It is important for us to extrapolate from the examples which Prof. Yakubu gave to us this morning. He pose some questions about the inter-relationship between political transitions and economic development because in a certain sense these are the two elements that are very much integral to the wealthy and welfare of citizens across our continent today including Nigeria as Africa’s most populous country. It seems to me that the first thing to do is to remember  that when the current political transitions started one issue which was on the table across the African continent from the early 1990s onward was the expectation that the transitions from the authoritarian and military form of government will translate into democracy dividends and therefore, progress of the citizenry.

There was almost the expectation that an automatic correlation exists or would exist between the transition from authoritarianism to more democratic form of governance and improvement both in economic performance and in the livelihood of the citizenry. I think it is appropriate for us to ask ourselves if as a continent in terms of progress or lack of it, which we have registered to be able to make that connection between democratic governance and improvement in the livelihood of the citizenry.

I’m sure if we take an opinion poll here, there will probably be a mix feeling in the audience. What I would like to suggest and perhaps we might like to pursue further is that although stability and predictability which are integral to the examples Mahmood are the important ingredient for development, they have to be consciously pursued and nurtured in order for the development dividends to flow from them.

There is no automaticity relationship without the requisite leadership that is necessary in order to harness stability and predictability and convert them into economic dividends. In the context of the much of our continent, what we see and which has been a source of concern for a lot of citizens as well as analysts is the intensification of violence. Okeke mentioned it that elections tend to divide nations and where there is violence associated with elections you find actually within the correlation which some have done, a dip in investments during election time and the immediate post election period because investors are holding back in order to be sure that a country will still exist after the election has taken place.

And this cuts across the board in most of African countries and I will say 90 percent of African countries are actually exposed to fluctuations in a downward direction in investment decisions which are made around election times and the immediate post election period. This also raises the question of correlation between electoral circle in many of African countries and the developmental patterns which we have had.

The second element which has been of concern which is not the problem of election management board is the fact that around election time in over 90 percent of African countries all macroeconomic indicators go completely bonkers essentially because money is either being printed where government has the capacity to print money in order to oil the electoral and political process. Basically, printing money being give ways, investing in projects probably were on the books for a long time for which resources were not available and the consequence is that inflation tend to be on the rise, budget deficit tend to be the story of the day and domestic indebtedness by government as borrowing from the banking system tend to be on the rise.

We see this as a major issue. In fact, the African Development Bank has put this on the table as one of the key areas of policy and political concerns for many of the countries of the continent. How do we prevent countries which otherwise would normally manage their resources in a prudent ways from becoming “responsible” with this same resources around election time?

The temptation for government incumbent especially across the continent to go on  spending spree around election time in order to endear themselves to the electorates and therefore their prospect for re-election tend to rise toward the end of one electoral circle and the start of the next circle. And this tends to be the story when a new government comes in and basically complains of meeting an empty coffer and that resources are not available.

And in most cases, you find newly elected government across the continent submitting themselves to the discipline of international financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank in order to begin to restore macroeconomic discipline. I think it is important for us to keep in mind that a lot of cases of elected government on the continent in most of the countries have actually not been able to master and own macroeconomic policy as  a consequence. The reason why in some of the academic literature reference has been made to the fact that most of the African political transition has been a collection of choiceless democracies. Democracies that do not have a choice in the kind of macroeconomic policy which they make and implement because those policies are essentially determined for them by the international financial institutions. And regardless of which party tends to come to power in most African countries, you find that there might be differences in their political programmes but essentially their economic policy choices remain the same.

Choiceless democracies tend to be very orthodox in their economic policies, whereas genuine democracies tend to determine their macroeconomic policies.

*Being an excerpt from the discussion on the topic ‘Political Transition and Africa’s Economic Development’ at the Sixth Anniversary lecture of Realnews held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, Thursday, November 15, 2018

– Nov. 16, 2018 @ 22:25 GMT |