Loomnie

There is hardly any way one can escape hearing about China these days. I have not written anything about Sino-African relations simply because I was not willing to take a side in the debate on whether the effects of Chinese interests in Africa are positive or not.

Arguments and all
A main argument of those who are against the way China does business in Africa – and a plausible one at that – is that Chinese money has made those who were pushing some African countries to do better on human rights and governance issues to re-consider doing so. The simple reason being that China’s ‘no strings attached’ policy means that Chinese business interests are not coloured with any desire to change the way African governments run their countries. The effect of this is that many countries that see that sanctions which are imposed against African countries do not really deprive the countries of funds are re-thinking the wisdom of depriving themselves of raw materials. What is the point when money comes from China anyway?

Another important point is that when Chinese companies do business in Africa they ship in about everybody they need to work on the projects from China. A case in point is that of railway constructions in Angola, a country that suffers from serious unemployment. The BBC reports popular discussions by Angolans that the Chinese workers are nothing other than prisoners, especially because they never leave their camps. When asked why his company does not employ Angolans, a Chinese factory owner in Luanda says, ‘African people, they dont like work too much, they like relax’. He goes on to say that his workers work for ten hours a day, while Angolans work for only eight. I find the racist-tinged comments of the factory owner distateful, but I find it even more distateful that the government did not make any quota agreements about employing Angolans when signing agreements with the Chinese companies. The money paid out to governments by Chinese companies is not for development – anybody who has followed the discourse on aid knows that much; the stuff of development is employment. It is when people have the dignity of earning their own wages, of being able to provide for their families, that one thinks about development. It is extremely dissatifying to note that Chinese companies are allowed to bring in their labour from China, even the unskilled ones.

On Western tables
The reaction of Western countries to these new Sino-African relations are, at best, an expression of frustration at the lack of concern of China in the politics of the countries with whom they deal, and at worst, apprehensions that China is getting much stronger than they ever thought. One would not be surprised at the latter when one realised that China is expanding its army, especially the navy, has launched a lunar-probe mission, and that it might soon want to reclaim Taiwan. All these on the same plate make for an unsavoury meal on a Western dinner table.

Aint no stopping China now
One cannot really expect much of a change in Chinese activities in Africa, afterall China’s growth, which feeds much of the worlds appetite for cheap good quality goods, has to continue to be fuelled by raw materials. What one would hope for is that African governments are smart enough to get better deals for their ciizens. But then, this assumes that the people who run the governments consider the interest of the citizens. This is one issue in which one has to hope for the best; and patiently wait and react to each situation as it arises. General statements that are couched in moralistic terms confuse much more than the sentiments that back them might intend.

For more resources on China see here, here, here and here. My interests in BBC documentaries must be pretty much obvious by now.

I normally download a podcst of the round-up of major stories on/from Africa by the BBC each evening. Yesterday’s edition was concluded with a report by Sola Odunfa. The story goes something like this: Joshua Dariye, the former Plateau state (Nigeria) governor who is currently on trial on corruption charges, accuses the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the London Metropolitan Police of colluding to short-change Nigeria. Why? Because, the report goes, Dariye says that the acting British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr James Tansley, handed two cheques worth a total amount of about 29.3 million naira. According to Dariye, the amount siezed from his cohorts and him was more than 770 million Naira. He said all this in a petition to the Nigerian president. The petition was written on October 1.

Dariye and his nine lives
Mr Joshua Dariye first became a big embarrassment for Nigeria when he was arrested on money laundering charges in the UK in 2004. He subsequently jumped bail and escaped to Nigeria. The money that was siezed from him at that time is the topic of the current controversies. The governor was sacked twice by former President Obasanjo, but after each occassion, he found his way back to his office. This, as BBC reports, has earned him the nickname “the cat with nine lives”. The most recent life seems to be under threat. He is currently standing trial for embezzlement after he lost his immunity as he concluded his term as governor.

EFCC’s and British Authorities’ Response
On the following day, EFCC published a letter written by Osita Nwajah, its head of Media and Publicity, saying that the commission was not involved in handling the money, that it never had any deal with the London Metropolitan Police concerning the returned money, and that its involvement with the London Met Police concerned the provision of assistance on the Dariye investigation. The letter is here, and an update is here.

On their part, the British authorities have said that the money that was handed over to the Nigerian government was only a part, the part that was released to it by the British judiciary system. ThisDay reports today, October 4, quoting a conversation with Mr. Tunde Asaju, the Head of Press and Public Affairs of the British High Commission. He is reported to have said that the remaining money would be released as soon as the British courts released it to British authorities.

A Good Side to Dariye’s Play
In a weird way, I find Dariye’s play very fruitful, especially as it has made us realise that there is much more where the 29.3 million naira came from. I am really surprised at the window dressing of the presentation of the 29.3 million naira, especially when it is an extremely small percentage of the 770 million naira that Dariye alleged was siezed from him. Thanks to Dariye, it is going to be difficult for the British government to forget to talk about the remaining money. I wonder why we do not have an official figure of the amount that was siezed by the London Metropolitan Police. I would like to believe that that is due to the fact that the British judiciary system prevents the disclosure of such information.

What started out as an attempt by Dariye to save his neck from the EFCC by accusing it of colluding with the London Metropolitan Police to cheat the Nigerian government – an action that is itself very stupid, considering that it is tantamount to pleading guilty to charges of money-laundring – has ended up throwing more light on issues that would have remained hidden. This is one issue that I plan to keenly follow.

Last week, Yoko Ono and Amnesty International celebrated the sale of 15,000 copies of a special album of John Lenon’s post-Beatles songs. Ono gave the rights to use all of the songs to Amnesty International. The album was made to raise money for the victims of the conflict in Dafur. The album, which was released on June 25 2007, has Green Day, U2, Snow Patrol, Christina Aguilera, and a host of other musicians on it. The issue, however, is not about the quality of the album – although there have been discussions on that – the issue here is about the low sales figure of the album. Amnesty international had distributed half a million copies of the CDs, but the ceremony was to celebrate the sale of only 15,000 copies.

A little about charity records
The first charity album was by Band Aid, a British and Irish group put together by Bob Geldof to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia in 1984. The record went straight to top the UK charts, and outsold all of the other records on the chart put together. The single, Do They Know It’s Christmas, sold a million in the first week of release, and became the fastest-selling single ever in the UK, later to be replaced by Elton John’s Candle in the Wind, another single whose proceeds went to charity. Band Aid’s album stayed at number 1 for five weeks, and sold over 3 million copies in the UK.

Sir Elton John’s recording of Candle in the Wind became the second best selling single of all times, after selling over 33 million copies worldwide. According to Wikipedia, it was estimated that ‘at the peak of sales, almost six copies of the single were sold across the world per second’. The profit from the sales was donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Reasons for the low sales
CNN’s story on the issue has a commentator talking about the fact that the Dafur issue was not a one-time event, like Princess Diana’s death, but that it has been a slowly unfolding disaster. In the opinion of the commentator, that was a reason why the albums has not sold so much. My response to that is simply to point to it that the Band Aid album was not about a one-time event, but about a famine. Therefore, the argument that the record did badly because it addresses a slow drama does not hold. And then, Candle in the Wind went and sold that much not because the proceeds was donated to charity, but because people felt strongly about Princess Diana, and the song evoked such strong emotions from the Princess’ fans that they all wanted to have it.

Another commentator says that the public might be suffering from a charity song fatigue. I buy into this argument, but I think it can only go as far as a certain level. One can talk about charity song fatigue, but I think one also has to talk about a more informed audience. The 1984 public that bought Do They Know It’s Christmas definitely is not the same public to whom the Lennon cover album is marketed. People have become inundated with so much image of the starving Africa child suckling on the breast of its dying mother that their sensibility has grown resistant to such imageries. Also, there are so many charity organisations that compete for the money of the well-meaning citizens of the developed world such that an album by one of the organisations has a lot more competition than Band Aid’s 1984 album.

A constellation of reasons
One cannot easily attribute a cause to the low sales of the Lennon cover album but to a constellation of issues, chief of which is the big boom in the donor/development industry. Others include donor fatigue, charity song fatigue and a host of other fatigues. If this constellation of reasons means that people are less willing to buy charity albums now than they used to, one should not be surprised when more ingenous ways of raising money appear. I am waiting to see the new methods….

Eldis is an arm of the Institute for Development Studies, Sussex. The managers of the website collect development related articles, publications and general information. According to the website, the managers of Eldis ‘focus on materials which are of strategic, policy or practical interest for development practitioners based in both the North and South.’

I have added an RSS feed of the Africa section of the site to my blog. Links to the latest Eldis entries on Africa appear at the upper right hand side of the blog. The links will take you to the articles as they appear on the Eldis website.

I downloaded Andrew Mwenda’s TEDTalks presentation and watched it last night. One of his main arguments was that aid makes the government fat, and that because of aid, governments are more attentive to the World Bank and the IMF than to their own citizens. Let’s elaborate on the argument a bit: governments know from whom they get money, and so strive more to satisfy their benefactors than their citizens. Mwenda makes the point that governments do not call the entrepreneurs among their citizens to discuss the development of the economies of the countries; instead, they listen to the people from whom a large chunk of the budget comes. I thought about this in relation to my country, Nigeria. I tried to imagine what percentage of the budget aid is. Just as I started thinking about this I remembered that Nigeria has oil, and that oil keeps the government rich.

Oil and Democracy
A political scientist, Michael Ross, wrote an article about resource curse. In the article, he builds a case for his argument that resources – chief of which, by the way, is oil – retard the development of democracy, partly because it frees the government of any dependence on the citizens. To bring this point home, let’s think about the percentage of Nigerians who are not employed in the organised private sector or in government, and then let’s think about how many of them pay any tax. Now, a government that does not have any resources has to depend on taxation from its citizens, and so has to look inwards. This is where aid comes in. If a country does not have resources but has a large chunk of its expenses taken care of by aid then that inward look does not seem to be needed

Another thing Mwenda pointed out was that government is the most attractive business in Africa. Again, let’s look at this in relation to Nigeria. There are people who get a job with a government ministry, go to work at about 11 in the morning and leave at about 1 in the afternoon. (I should throw in a quick word about many of the workers here. Most of the people who work in the ministries have to earn some money by the side to be able to take care of their families. Ingenious people that they are, while not working at the ministries most of them are busy at work on their own, most often trading.) The point is linked to a point made by Ross in his article: a government with resources is a rich government, something really attractive to a young person. The same point is also made by Mwenda in his presentation: since government makes money from aid, it is a rich and attractive option for young people who want to money. This point also ties in with the rent-seeking argument. With resource money, people in government can afford to keep a loyal team around themselves. If aid money provides more money for government it stands to reason to think that it might provide more money for politicians to attract more hangers-on.

Fears and Overreactions
If there are this many similarities between resources and aid, are there going to be more fatal similarities? Are we going to have people struggling to control government so that they can have access to aid (like in the case of civil wars that break out because of the desire of factions to control resources in a country)? Are we going to have governments buying arms and ammunitions with donor funding for the suppression of oppositions? Do we already have these situations? Am I simply overreacting. Actually, I hope I am overreacting.

I just joined a Facebook group and I found the question ” Nigeria’s Movie Industry (Nollywood), Quality or Quantity?” on the discussion board of the group. I decided to contribute to the discussion. The contribution ran some lenght so I thought, Why not make a post out of it? So, here is it as a post. Please leave comments.

“I think it is difficult to answer that question. You have to remember that the actors don’t get paid too much per movie – the audience is not as large as Hollywoods, even if the movies are now colonising other African countries’ markets – so they have to make many movies a year to make reasonable money. And as for quality, the audience seem to enjoy what they watch, so I don’t blame the industry if it has refused to improve on the quality of the movies. Also, think about what it costs to finance a good movie, with a good storyline, good props, costumes, lower frequency of output etc, not just in financial terms but also in the amount of risk involved. Many producers find it easier to go for time tested and trusted strategies: make the same movie as the last producer who made a successful movie did and you are sure to succeed. Challenging stories are not so trusted because of the unpredictability of the reception by the market.

And when one thinks of originality and creativity, one would have to ask how much of the movies produced by the two larger industries – Hollywood and Bollywood – are original and creative. Till today, Bollywood still has the oddly-placed music sessions in the movies, and it churns out movies that are as cheesy as the Dharmendra movies I watched growing up in Nigeria in the 80s. Or think about type-casting. Who has ever seen the expression on Hugh Grant’s face change? At least the other bad actors – Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, for instance – have a certain level of diversity in the roles they play, but does Grant? But producers keep featuring him because people like him. I think we should think in the same terms about Nigerian movies. It is easy to see the shortcomings of Nollywood – oh how I gnash my teeth each time I hear that name – but one finds a lot more similarity than one is ready to accept between it and the two larger movie industries if one looks closer. I think that the industry will self-regulate, but of course, with the help of the audience.

I think I should add this, although I laud the industry, I cannot bear the pains of sitting through a Nigerian home video.”

The Nigerian Central Bank Governor, Professor Soludo, really meant it when he said he wanted the Nigerian naira to become the legal tender in West Africa. I recently blogged about Nigeria as a black superpower; I think Soludo too believes that. He has outlined plans to revalue the naira by cutting off two zeros from it, or as he calls, by shifting the decimal two places to the left. This would mean that the note currently called 1,000 naira – the highest naira note – would become 10 naira, while a new 20 naira, which would be the highest naira note, would be introduced. There is nothing bad at all in that, as he rightly pointed out, so many other countries have done the same, although his list did not include Zimbabwe. What one wonders about are the reasons he gives for the restructuring. I am not an economist but I will try a discussion of some of the points he gave.

To prepare the way for making the naira internationally convertible. I have no idea how cutting off two zeros from the currency would make it internationally convertible. What underlines international convertibility is normally the performance of the economy, not the amount – how large or how small it sounds – at which it stands against another currency. For instance, the Yen trades at over a hundred dollars, but it doesn’t change its status as an internationally convertible currency. The same goes for the West African CFA, although for a different reason (the CFA is tied to the Euro, and so directly convertible to it, through the assurance of the French treasury).

To strengthen public confidence in the naira. If what the people need is false confidence then this might be nice. But one should remember that false confidence is soon eroded if inflation is not stemmed. It is not about the absolute value of the money you hold, but how much it can buy in the market.

To make naira the reference point in Africa. Well, I really wonder how restructuring the currency would do this. The economy, the economy… one needs to scream that a number of times.

To promote the usage of coins. This is ok, although I wonder if this is the only way to promote the use of coins.

One thing that nobody has mentioned is that it might make it easier for those lugging Ghana-must-gos around to carry much more money in smaller numbers of bags. I am talking about alleged bribery of National Assembly members.

This is my two-penny; I leave the debate to the economists around here.

I don’t know if you guys know, but my research is on informal economy in West Africa…. This morning, I got a confirmation that I am on the right track. I saw George Ayittey’s Ted Talk presentation and it reinforced what I always thought: the real economy in most African countries is the informal economy. MacGaffey, who did a lot of research on the informal economy in Central Africa has already called it the real economy in one of her books, but I think this needs to be said more often. Think about this: most of Africans are rural dwellers… then wonder about how much government and the formal economy ever penetrated into rural Africa. People have been, and still are, involved in economic activities that are not captured by the official economic figures of the government. Even researchers into the informal economy in African countries, who have devoted much time to studying the informal sector in urban areas, have not paid sufficient attention to the livelihood of rural dwellers. I would not be as dramatic as to say that Africa’s ‘development’ – whatever that much abused word means in this context – is to be found in the informal economy; what I would say is that if we are interested in African economies, and in knowing more about how Africans make a living despite the dismal economic figures we know so well, we better take a look at the informal sector.

I watched Dreamgirls last night, and it was so funny to hear Curtis Taylor, Jr.(Jamie Foxx) tell Deena Jones (Beyoncé) ‘Your voice has no personality, no depth.’ The funny thing is that I never thought much more than that of Beyoncé.

Jeff Koinange, CNN’s Africa correspondent was fired by CNN on May 29. Many people have said that it was because it was found that he fabricated a large part of the story on MEND in Nigeria. I am still wondering what he fabricated. Was the display of the hostages also ‘fabircated’? I think that CNN owes us the duty of explaining if this story was actually fabricated, and if so to what extent. I didn’t particular like the story when I saw it because it was a characteristic Jeff Koinange story – lacking in depth and melodramatic, giving one the impression that the journalist, Jeff, is doing it just for the fame. But then, equally lacking in depth was the Frank Nweke rebuttal. I saw that too, and it got me really disgusted. The truth is that there is no way one can defend the mess in the Niger-Delta region, just like we rarely need a fame-seeking, I-won’t-look-beneath-the-surface journalist to tell us about the mess in the region; every right-thinking Nigerian, at least, knows that. And for the rest of the world, we know the ‘they’ll watch the footage while eating dinner, feel bad that people can be treating each other this bad, and then go on to finish the dinner’ line. If this is really the reason he was fired, CNN, we need more information, not just the dismissal of a journalist.

I first got to know first about his dismissal from the NVS. That story itself is a poster for what can go wrong when we let purported patriotism blind us to reason. Anyway, after I saw the story, I looked closer at the Koinange issue and found that a lot had been going on that I had not known about. For one, Koinange has been caught in a date rape mess, involving a kenyan who wrote a book about a murdered Kenyan politician. The woman sent an email to Jim Watson, President of CNN-Worldwide, making a formal complaint against Jeff. The text of the mail can be read here. The woman also went on to create a blog, posting correspondences between the two of them. Really steamy, those emails. You can check them here. I wonder how much this particular part of the story influenced the decision to have him fired.

Just realised that some people have not seen the Niger-Delta story. You can click here for the story, and this is a link to Nweke’s rebuttal.