COD 3 Africa's Political Justice Problem and the Politics of Justice

COD # 3 Africa’s Political Justice Problem and the Politics of Justice in the Development Architecture Philip Ogo Ujomu About the South-South Tri-Continental Collaborative Programme The South-South Tri-continental Programme is a scholarly collaboration for Research, Training, Publishing, and Dissemi- nation, between the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa ( CODESRIA ); the Asian Political and International Studies Association ( APISA ); and the Latin American Council of Social Science ( CLACSO ). The Pro- gramme was established as a reaction to the need, identified by scholars in the South, to reorient theoretical and methodological frameworks of the dominant development discourses; and to improve the organization of Southern research infrastructures. The Programme aims at reviving cooperation and collaboration among scholars of the global South working in the broad field of the social sciences. The collaboration was entered into with the specific aim of sustaining knowledge exchange between scholars on the three continents as a long-term initiative. At the core of this collaboration are the objectives of deepening intra-South networking contributing a South perspective towards the transformation of the Social Sciences on a global scale producing alternative theoretical and methodological approaches of knowledge building Networking and dialoguing take place in the different International Comparative Seminars that the partners set up annu- ally on a rotational basis. For each International Seminar, CODESRIA, CLACSO and APISA select representatives from their respective continents. Each themed Seminar brings together a total of no more than twelve senior scholars who have been working on the thematic area identified for the Seminar, and are recognized as leaders in such area of scholarship. The small number of participants is meant to enable close, thorough discussion of issues, with a view to producing scholarly publications that not only make audible the voices of the South in the global arena, but effectively ad- vance scientific scholarship. The CODESRIA-APISA-CLACSO Occasional Paper Series disseminates work discussed at the South-South International Comparative Seminars. The Occasional Papers are written by participants from the three continents, and are designed to provide an opportunity for a sustained South-South dialogue, and to enhance the understanding of the current research issues that scholars of the South are actively engaged in. The papers offer reflections emerging from issues that are pertinent to the South; and are informed by experiences from the South, as well as from South-South and South- North contact as viewed from the perspective of the South. Philip Ujomu Ogochukwu, Department Of Philosophy, University Of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Send comments to: pujomu @yahoo.com /[email protected] This paper was presented to the CODESRIA/APISA/CLACSO South-South International Seminar on Rethinking the International Development Architecture: Perspectives form the South, in Pretoria, South Africa . Papers published in the CODESRIA-APISA-CLACSO Occasional Paper Series are posted on the websites of CODESRIA www.codesria.org ; APISA www.apisa.ml and CLACSO www.clacso.ar as preliminary working papers to stimulate discussion and critical comment. The Occasional Paper Series is part of the CODESRIA-CLACSO-APISA South-South tricontinental collaboration supported by SIDA/SAREC. Copyright 2008 Africa-Asia-Latin America Scholarly Collaboration Program. The responsibility for the opinions and facts presented in this document lies exclusively with the author(s). The interpretation of these opinions and facts do not in any way reflect the views of the editors nor the policies of APISA, CODESRIA and CLACSO. Series Editors: Adebayo Olukoshi, Ebrima Sall, Pinkie Mekgwe. INTRODUCING AFRICA’S PROBLEM OF POLITICAL JUSTICE AND THE POLITICS OF JUSTICE IN THE DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE Whereas the fundamental problem of development in Africa had been construed in terms of strategies and principles locally designed or internationally imposed, yet the seeming failures of these concepts cannot be separated from their abilities to answer the critical question of justice in their formulation and practice. Hence the problem of the endemic susceptibility of African social and political life to injustices and perversions has affected the development architecture of Nigeria in particular, and many Africa nations generally. Evidently, certain technological, economic and political strategies of development that have worked elsewhere simply fail to positively impact on the lives of peoples, institutions and structures for social change in most of Africa in the light of ethnicity, corruption, bad leadership and insecurity. This paper examines the critical impacts of the justice shortfall on the developmental processes in Africa, insisting that the challenge necessitates a re-interrogation of the role of the human person in the singular task of development. Many institutions and societies have collapsed owing to the inability to negotiate the problem of justice. The substance of the problem of justice remains not just the search for community; how wo/men and institutions can achieve co-operation for the common good in the society, but even more significantly, an examination of how the question of how rights, duties and responsibilities can be properly and effectively maintained among the members (wo/men and institutions) of society so that development can be assured via the establishment of a just system of enduring social relationships that can ensure human survival and well being. Hence, the papers will highlight possible ways of enhancing the capacity of the dominant social institutions and society as development instruments for ameliorating the seemingly endless material poverty and moral regression in the society that has led to the exhibition of an unprecedented level of corruption, disparities in wealth, instability and antagonisms. The paper offers important insights into national development and political morality, by appropriating the creative inputs of a conception of justice that can provide a new theoretical basis for the understanding of the problematic of development. PROBLEMATISING AFRICA’S PROBLEM OF POLITICAL JUSTICE AND THE POLITICS OF JUSTICE IN THE DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE The problem of justice in development requires further examination because ‘decades of preoccupation with development in Africa have yielded meager returns’ (Ake 2001:1). The issue as we understand it is that the endemic susceptibility of African social and political life to injustices and perversions has affected the capacity of many African nations generally to benefit more significantly from the international development architecture. This crisis seems to be the outcome of putatively defective values and value systems, which elicit the cultural and cosmological factors in the debate on the rough justice triggered by traditionalism, modernisation and dependency. Given the cultural implications of the establishment of just relations within and outside Africa, we surmise that values ‘lie at the core of our problems’ (Menkiti 2001:136). If ‘the essence of development is social change’ (Jacoby 1974:63) then development, properly understood as ‘the upward movement of the entire social system’ (ASUU 2002:34) seems difficult in Africa, due to the problem of a proper idea of justice that can underwrite the ideological fashioning of viable nation-states (political justice) and the implications of inequalities and domination in the international social-political dynamics (politics of justice) that have had consequential impacts on the developmental processes in Africa. This dual challenge has compelled the re-interrogation of the role of the human person in the singular task of development. At the heart of development in Africa ought to be the human person and how justice can be redefined for a better mastering and transformation of the ‘crisis of individual and group identity, deepening social inequality/ fragmentation, weakened administrative and policy apparatuses of the state,’ (Laakso and Olukoshi 1996:7). As Cooper (2002) says, development in Africa must be defined in terms of its simplest meanings; potable water supply, efficient schools and hospitals, enhanced agriculture and industrialization and a better quality of life (Cooper 2002:91). At least the African situation must reckon with the problem of just claims and distributions whether of internally or externally derived resources. Thus the whole question of justice implies a call for a different way of conceptualization of resources, and in turn impinges on human relations. Thus ‘when people change the way they use resources, they change their relations with each other’ (Leftwich 1993:607). The justice problem in the African political systems is connected to the dual issues of an improved power management and wealth distribution within an ethnic context (Ndulu and O’Connell 1999:49). Received conceptions of development see it in terms of the technological, economical or political, yet all of these are determined by the idea of justice that is prevailing in human existence. Justice in development has triggered concerns about the international and local contexts of the desire; capability and power of the state to eradicate poverty, corruption, ineptness, authoritarianism, abuse of human rights, tribalistic exclusiveness (Samatar and Samatar 2002:4) dictatorship,

Load more