Liberia: a virginity that was De-flowered

But then the country would never be the same. Civil wars are love lost; ethnicity is deepened not only among their lords but the intelligentsia who sometimes propound theories for action. Chinua Achebe has written about this in his poetry (among them the collection, Beware Soul Brother) of his experiences of the Biafra War in Nigeria. Wole Soyinka in his, The Man Died- Prison Notes recalls the role of the military in the escalation of war even if the intention of sovereign integrity is the goal; the ultimate price for the ticket was paid by the Ibo poet and giver of the anthology Heavens gate, Christopher Okigbo, who was killed in combat in Nsukka. All in their youthful glory and exuberant for actions and inactions of the motherland. If Civil wars were such fleeting events they would be out of mind. But the memories live . They affect their (nation) cultural attitudes, political thinking and leadership selection (explaining in part why some Nigerian political parties have decided that it would rotate the presidency primaries between the North and the South and within the South among the Yorubas’, Ibos’ and the others instead of looking for good qualities of leadership which geographic fixation alone cannot guarantee) as well as formula for resource allocation . Most important of all, their memories are transmission wires for generations that came after them- whether as writers or readers and policy makers.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born 7 years after the Biafra civil war. She did not physically see combat and the tens of thousands that perished. It makes her cry whenever brutalities of the war were told her as a child and even in adulthood. Her bestselling novel about the war, Half of a Yellow Sun which transformed her literary career to global fame is still about living the past in the present- how Biafra lasts in the psychology of man. In a different essay on the book in Transition , African “Authenticity” and the Biafran Experience, she writes:

“….War is not mere history for me; it is also memory, for I grew up in the shadow of Biafra. I knew vaguely about the war as a child- that my grandfathers had died, that my parents had lost everything they owned. Long before my parents began to talk, under my keen questioning, about their specific experiences, I was aware of how this war hunted my family, how it colored the path our lives had taken….” ¹⁶

Memories are running through the third generation by this time. Property or material wealth were destroyed or lost. Her immediate relatives, distant ones, thousands of Nigerians close to home call, and who underwent similar experiences cannot forget. A desire for ethnic revenge may be passed time but the memories of the past live on.

Biafra gives us an aftermath, a post-script of the dramas of war and the consequences to economic growth and the hard recovery thereafter. In a sequel to his best-selling book, The Bottom Billion-Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (2008), the Oxford researcher economist, Paul Collier argues in Wars, Guns and Votes-Democracy in Dangerous Places (2010),¹⁷ that the mantle of Francophone Africa’s flagship has passed, largely by default, to Senegal. “Could anything have been done to avert the catastrophe?” he asks. This was at a time the Ivory Coast looked peaceful and when the December 2010 elections had not been conducted with the looming uncertainty that followed it to the re-run.

This is a dual statement of truth and ambiguity. First, Senegal has been at the cultural frontier of development in Africa and particularly in West Africa for decades. Its leadership of cultural renaissance has been state driven and historically laddened. The leader of the post-colonial state as well as its cultural movement –Negritude (that spread across West Africa) was the poet laureate and cultural theorist- Sengor. Its other well known intellectual, anthropologist and physicist, Cheikh Anta Diop developed Afrocentric consciousness in much of Africa from the 1960s. Its been (still in 2010) the venue of major arts and cultural festivals reflecting (including the hugely attended 3^rd World Festival of black Arts and cultures in Dakar) on the shared history of the continent from the Goree island of slavery to assertiveness of state-building, literature, music and dance and the builder of Pan African monuments the most famous and controversial been The African Renaissance Monument- the tallest bronze statue in Africa overlooking the Atlantic and constructed at the cost of $26m. Wade had argued, against the concerns of critics of poverty that, “ It brings to life our common destiny. Africa has arrived in the 21^st century tall and more ready than ever to take its destiny into its hands.” This was in addition to the country’s keenness in the promotion of the New Partnership to Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

In terms of been an economic frontier force however, it is ambiguious if with half the population of Ivory Coast(12.5 million), comparatively lower export volumes and undeveloped agricultural base it could carry the burden and serve as a food-stuff trading hub in West Africa as the Ivory Coast became and still is. And with its own political uncertainties- with Wade attempting by 2010 to run election again for the third time- seeking a total of 15 years rule or the strong indications of encouraging his son to run after him ; serious complains of electoral dominance whether it could itself stay peaceful enough.

1. 
   Woronoff, Jon, The West Africa Wager: Houphouet versus Nkrumah (New Jersey, Metuchen , 1972). This book is one of several that were published around the period. Ghana and The Ivory Coast (1971) was another which was edited by Philip Foster and Aristide R. Zolberg. The latter with contributions by some of the best economic historians of the time looked into such issues as : Political and Administration Linkage; The Modernisation of Marriage Laws in Africa with particular reference to Family Law etc. The promise of these two countries was so high among scholars and writers that so much was written of their different post-colonial strategies more than others in the region.
   
2. 
   Naipaul, V.S., The Crocodiles of Yamoussuokro ( 1984). Initially published as a single article in The New Yorker in 1984 it later became part of his collection of books of essays.
   
3. 
   Nkrumah’s independence speech on March 6, 1957 was published in the Daily Graphic of March 6, 1957, p9 see also p10 of Woronff’s book, The West Africa Wager.
   
4. 
   Houphouet-Boigny’s response to Nkrumah was reported in Marchess Tropicaux du Monde, on April 13 1957, p943.
   
5. 
   Agyeman-Duah, Ivor, An Economic History of Ghana: Reflections on a Half a Century of Challenges and Progress (Oxfordshire, Ayebia Clarke Publishers, 2008).This is an anthology on economic issues. See particularly the arguments of Dirk-Jan Omtzigt from pp43-52 and Nii Moi Thompson pp53-72.
   
6. 
   Naipaul, V.S., describes in details, a revisionist account of his visit again to the country in his book, The Masque of Africa-Glimpses of African Belief, London, Picador, 2010. See chapter four, The Forest King.
   
7. 
   Ibid.
   
8. 
   Ibid., p206.
   
9. 
   The Economic Survey of Ghana, was a series that reflected at particular times, the economic well-being or otherwise of governments.
   
10. 
    See The Economic Survey of Ghana 1963.
    
11. 
    See concluding chapter of Woronoff’s 1972 publication, The West Africa Wager.
    
12. 
    Agyeman-Duah, Ivor, Between Faith and History: A Biography of J.A. Kufuor (Oxfordshire: Ayebia Clarke Publishers, 2007).
    
13. 
    Bloombery, a commodities analysis channel.
    
14. 
    Blay Amihere, Kabral, Between The Lion and the Elephant- Memoirs of An African Diplomat ( Accra: Digibooks Limited). Kabral a journalist and former President of the Ghana Journalists Association served as ambassador to the Ivory Coast from 2006-2009 and witnessed many of the events prior to the election of 2010. Part two of this memoirs deals with his time in the country. An Nzema himself from the western part of Ghana, he brings a cultural and intimate analysis to his assessment. Though he seems to like Ghagbo he still writes that he is a very complex political personality to understand in terms of what power means to him and what he can do with it.
    
15. 
    Muhbubani, Kishore, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York: Perseus Book Group). Kishore is also dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. See in particular chapter 5. He had a distinguished diplomatic career and is also author of Can Asians Think?
    
16. 
    Ngozi, Adichie, Chimamanda, “ African “Authenticity” and the Biafran Experience” in Transition 99 edition p49-50.
    
17. 
    Collier, Paul, Wars, Guns and Votes- Democracy in Dangerous Places (London: Vintage Books, 2010). A well researched and written book, it discusses in part the post civil war situation in the Ivory Coast (chapter Seven, Meltdown in Cote D’Ivoire) before the election fiasco months after publication. But it is on the whole a comparative analysis not only of Africa but parts of Asia and Latin America.
    

The optimism of an economy and a country’s growth could sometimes be found in the pleasant and confident expression of its people. If it is one coming from a diplomat, its deeper since they are normally mandated to be optimists under even confusing situations. In London, Daly, a friend who works with the elite foreign affairs First magazine as its Chief Operating Officer, had arranged for us to meet with the Mauritius High Commissioner, Abhimanu Kundasamy for a lunch discussion on his country. Being a member of the iconic RAC Club Mall near the Piccadily Circus in Central London, Daly ensured we indulged in as good a lunch as a useful conversation.

High Commissioner Kundasamy like most Mauritians ( estimated 70%) are of Indian descent and their physical characteristics show without any formal introduction. “We are confident of our future” he told me after we had deposisted our winter coats at the restaurant reception and settled down for lunch. “ We know what we want. The world is our ostrich.” I did not need to ask many questions to keep him talking. He was excited I could see. The middle age diplomat is convinced that Mauritius, a small Southwest Indian Ocean country that centuries ago was a ‘fuel’ station for European navigators and traders on mission to Asia, is even bound by history and circumstance to play a bigger role in global affairs with its population of 1.2 million people according to estimates in 2007. When it gained its independence in 1968 from the British (after over centuries of Dutch and French colonial rule), it, like Singapore had no natural resources or needed global commodities with which to grow but its people.The economist and a protégé of John Maynard Keynes, James Meade like many people at the time was pessimistc of the island’s future: “ It is going to be a great achievement if the country can find productive employment for its population without a serious reduction in the existing standard of living… The outlook for peaceful development is weak….”

What happened in between Meade’s ( who became a Nobel laureate in economics and by the time of his observation a senior research fellow at Christ College, Cambridge University) pessimism and the overcome in High Commissioner Kundasamy’s posture 42 years on?

Of course, economists are not prophets. And nobody knows what tomorrom brings. Idle, intangible and non valued natural elements of yesterday could easily become economic assets for today’s global economy.

Kundasamy’s point only underlines the fact that influence in the globalization process in the twenty-first century has more to do with non traditional European nations and attitudes as with new actors and emerging powers ; and that size does not matter. “ Negative signal of China’s involvement in Africa is interesting but it has to do with colonial interpretation of issues by some Europeans who think, this is our turf. But the Chinese when we sit down treat us as equal. In 10 years, China will provide more Aid to Africa than the G8….” He smiles as he picks the last morsel of roasted beef from his plate.

He can afford to be confident for much has changed in the country since the early 1990s. Of its population about 9% is in the agriculture and fisheries contrary to the development paradigm of higher population ration in much of the developing world; 30% is in the construction and industry ( and here we are talking of a stimulus of luxury buildings and apartments as holiday homes for the country’s growing middle class and foreigners in Europe and elsewhere); transportation and communication constitute 7% with trade, restaurants and hotels 22% of output; other services make 25% and finance 6%. The services sectors by 2007 was contributing over 70% of its GDP compared to most of Sub- Saharan Africa where it was 56%. Again in 2007, the Human Development Report of the UNDP ranked Mauritius as the best among sub-Saharan African countries with a GDP per capita of $5,807. In terms of governance and economic performance, it had receive similar accolades from the Moi Ibrahim Foundation.These achievements have however not been through sole efforts or on the basis of earlier forms of imperial advantage as in Europe of old or through control of trade negotiations. Its been part and parcel of the influx of global re-alignments in trade such as applying the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement or the trade and Investment Agreement between it and the United States in 2006 . It gave it exclusivity and allowed Mauritius to do better in areas they have comparative advantage. This is in addition to its eligibility through the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act which since its establishment in 2000 by the Clinton Administration has allowed some African countries preferential access for imports . Though Mauritius is middle income and thus not poor enough as a beneficiary of AGOA, it has had 40% of textiles and apparel exported to the United States. These are measures that however have greater domestic growth influence underpinned by a high level of literacy and skillful labour, where over 80 % of the people own their homes as well as a health insurance system where life expectancy is over 80 years and is able where the facilities are not available to send patients abroad for treatment. In addition to this, it is becoming one of the best places in the world for medical tourism.

But these do not necessarily make it a paradise- at least not in the economic sense . Another Nobel laureate in economics who recently developed interest in the progress of this country, Joseph Stiglitz see behind this “miracle of social welfare” some difficulties: “ The Mauritius Miracle dates to independence. But the country still struggles with some of its colonial legacies: inequality in land and wealth; as well as vulnerability to high-stakes global politics….” Thus on hindsight and with the advantage of time, what Meade saw as most unlikely in the mid 1960s could be classified as a miracle by Stiglitz.

When the High Commissioner said that , “ the world is our ostrich” it meant for me however, the pivotal role that this island nation whether by design, ambition or history wants to plays as a bridge between itself and Africa, Asia and the rest of the world. In Africa it belongs to COMESA, SADC AU, the Indian Ocean Rim-Assocation for Regional Cooperation, the Indian Ocean Commission and others. It has also signed since 2002 the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and in 2008 signed the Economic Partnership Agreements.

In June 2011, Mauritius strategy of making itself relevant as a gateway to Africa from Asia particularly India was clear and beyond forging bilateral links listed above. Finance Minister Pravind Jugnauth told Asian investors: “ …… You can use Mauritius to provide financial and legal services and structure your international investments, particularly into Africa…. Africa offers huge investment opportunities. This continent is set to become the next pioneer market. In this regard, Mauritius has taken a number of measures to position itself as a good investment platform between Asia and Africa by signing several bilateral agreements with the main African countries…..”

Before this would even sink into the thinking of investors, the country had set up the Global Board of Trade (GBOT) in 2010, a multi-asset exchange that offers future trading in commodities and currency derivatives. It connects African bankers, brokers, traders and companies to a variety of global products. The GBOT is in effect to add value to products from Africa which as often are exported in their raw state and thus attracting less foreign exchange. It also embarks on massive education through capital market research by bringing in Africa’s intellectual capital market from abroad.(What African intellectual market can do is certainly not in doubt as has been witnessed in the setting up for example of Databank Financial Services in Ghana over two decades ago and the clean up of the financial sector in Nigeria in the last decade.)

The GBOT however takes inspiration from India- again Mauritius using both its cultural and ancestry connection for growth. “The income of farmers and various producers and exporters in India increased substantially after the establishment of the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX) of India, the world’s sixth largest commodity of futures exchange in terms of trading volumes, prompted by the Financial Technologies (FT) Group. GBOT and its product offering, if understood well can bring similar advantages…..”

The interesting thing about Mauritius is, they do not talk about intentions and make promises to do good as many African governments do. They wait, set these intentions in motion and talk about them when there are tangible evidence to show for. When GBOT was launched in October 2010 a total of 418 contracts were traded for $10.72m on the first trading day by members in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. By July 2011 trading had reached a peak $65.24m

Mauritius’s intended leadership of the financial and business sectors in Africa is devoid of the vague rhetorics of continental union and Pan Africanist flourishes but delighted by more of what is likely to be achieved and help growth. It maybe hampered by among others its size and small economy but it is one small Africa country on rapid move.

High Commissioner in the course of the lunch tried me on a quizz: What country was Indonesia’s biggest foreign investor in 2008? As I was thinking of the Dutch because of colonial ties, Japan because of proximity or the US as the world biggest economy, he jumped in to say, it was Mauritius. I later found out that it invested $6.47 billion in Indonesia through its International Financial Centre operations.

2

The Bank of Ghana was established in 1957 as one of the sovereign institutions that came with been independent of British colonial administration. Before then Ghana was part of the colonial currency system, the West African Currency Board. It made things especially trading with Europe easier because we used the pound sterling and other convertibles. One of my disaapointments with the Nkrumah regime was the dissociation from the system as a new sovereighty( its likely that symbolism was a great delight to the newly independent) and later on when his Pan Africanism was at its preaching apex, the call for a common African market and currency, transport-through shipping and airlines, trade and military high command among others. What prevented him from consolidating and reforming some of these to match post-colonial rule? I understand though that to others that may smack interestingly of neo-colonial endorsements.

Mauritus like Ghana also had its central bank after independence in 1968 but as economic histories of countries have shown, troupes maybe tokenism sometimes and so Ghana’s first became irrelevant in this development sector. The financial sector in Mauritius’s economy is in a better shape even as the central banks of these countries, like many others elsewhere play a basic role: creating macroeconomic stability and fashioning monetary policy to suit taste and circumstance- these days inflation targeting been a core pursuit.

I met withMahamudu Bawumia, a Ghanaian economist at the Movenpick- Ambassador Hotel in Accra in September 2011 for an afternoon tea and discussion. He had returned, like others of his generation from abroad and joined the Bank of Ghana rising in a short period- by 2000 to become its Deputy Governor in his late 40s. He is partly credited with reforms at the Central Bank having worked under Paul Acquah the governor who for decades was a respected economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC and had upon the request of then former President, Kufuor, come down to assume this position. Bawumia had also earlier in the late 1990s worked under then governor Kwabena Duffuor. Apart from this important public policy position he is also an academic whose research interest in monetary, financial sector development and development finance had allowed him to spend time, after he was forced to resign in 2009 from the Bank, as a Visiting Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of African Economics at Oxford. He had in earlier years studied at the University and obtained a PhD in economics from the Simon Fraser University in Canda. A brilliant economist ( not known as a politican) as his peers are quick to acknowledge, he suddenly became famous in Ghana not in a technocratic sense but as a vice presidential candidate of Nana Akufo Addo in Ghana’s general election of 2008. Surprise by this choice from within his own NPP he lost his position as Deputy Governor of the Bank when the New Patriotic Party lost and the Opposition, NDC came to government in 2009. His going to Oxford as a researcher was primarily to write a book on Monetary Policy and Financial Sector Reform in Africa – Ghana’s Experience. Strangely l like his naivety in politics. Like me he is also interested in Mauritius and told me that the financial sector reforms in Ghana was “to get closer to where Mauritius is today.” They had even received technical assistance from the Mauritius Central Bank. Like it, Ghana did an amendment of its Banking Act again( originally there was the colonial Bank of Ghana Ordinance 1957, No.34 which established the independence of the Bank. Nkrumah however thought that the Central Bank was to help with development finance instead of being independent. In 1963 when Ghana’s economy was under severe pressure and less and less foreign reserves, he enacted the Bank of Ghana Act, 1963 (Act 182) which meant that the Bank had to operate by consulting the Government).There had since been other amendments and reforms.

The ones Bawumia was part had to do with these among others: generate competition which saw the setting up of Nigerian, Libyan, South African and Indian banks operating in Ghana. Interest rates came down, access to credit for small and medium sectors as well as big businesses were on the rise; moderation of the pay system such that a cheque could clear in a day so people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere once in Ghana for business ; there was for instance the introduction of the e-zwich system and the redonominatin of the currency; reliable internet service .

“One of the reasons we for instance allowed in the foreign banks was we wanted to think globally; it was to ensure that traders going to South Africa, India …. will find it easy working with these banks because they have branches here.”

The area where Mauritius’s example was of great appeal to Ghana was however in financial center operations. Off-shore banking had attracted some negative connotation( tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist activities though Ghana had passed an anti-money laundering Act) but it was interested and got Barclays Bank to initiate one in Accra. The country felt, like Mauritius that it was in a position- geographically, legal system, time-zone, political stability, human skills to do this. When the new government got in in 2009, the project was abandoned.

“ I am sure they did not understand it.” Bawumia explained to me. But he admitted that Off-shore as a word had lost attraction and that International Financial Service or an International Financial Centre as in Mauritius, Singapore or London was more respectable. And the new government also had to fulfil a campaign promise of abolishing it because it was suspecting it could be an avenue for campaign financing and political corruption by their opponents. “ We thought in terms of financial government it was good, it is internationally a good thing-licensed banks that had- that is why we were talking to big banks. We thought we had an advantage here- people financing activities within the sub-region could do so from here- that was why the change or preference to International Financial Centre………we thought we needed to put things in place- market was good in Singapore, London and Mauritius so we had to revamp the whole financial sector.”