Contemporary African Political Economy

Series Editor Eunice N. Sahle University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill NC, USA Aim of the Series Contemporary African Political Economy (CAPE) publishes social science research that examines the intersection of political, social, and economic processes in contemporary Africa. The series is distinguished especially by its focus on the spatial, gendered, and cultural dimensions of these processes, as well as its emphasis on promoting empirically situated research. As consultancy-driven work has emerged in the last two decades as the dom- inant model of knowledge production about African politics and economy, CAPE offers an alternate intellectual space for scholarship that challenges theoretical and empirical orthodoxies and locates political and economic processes within their structural, historical, global, and local contexts. As an interdisciplinary series, CAPE broadens the field of traditional political economy by welcoming contributions from the fields of Anthropology, Development Studies, Geography, Health, Law, Political Science, Sociol- ogy and Women’s and Gender Studies. The Series Editor and Advisory Board particularly invite submissions focusing on the following thematic areas: urban processes; democracy and citizenship; agrarian structures, food security, and global commodity chains; health, education, and development; environment and climate change; social movements; immigration and African diaspora formations; natural resources, extractive industries, and global economy; media and socio-political processes; development and globalization; and conflict, displacement, and refugees.

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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14915 Rita Kiki Edozie “Pan” Africa Rising

The Cultural Political Economy of Nigeria’s Afri-Capitalism and South Africa’s Ubuntu Business Rita Kiki Edozie McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

Contemporary African Political Economy ISBN 978-1-137-59537-9 ISBN 978-1-137-59538-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59538-6

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It was G.W.F. Hegel who once claimed that Africa has no history. The rise of the Ibadan School of history helped to successfully contest this claim. The advanced civilization and history of Egypt also proved impossible for denialists of African history to ignore. Forced by the truth, denialists finally conceded only to turn around and claim that, while “White” Africans were capable, Black Africans were incapable of innovation, leadership, self-rule, and advanced civilization. So, in the case of Egypt, it was “White” Egyptians or “White” Africans in Apartheid South Africa who were the capable Africans. Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop counted this revisionist doctrine in his path-breaking book, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974), where he demonstrated that the Pharaohs in Egypt were, in fact, Black. Africans continue to be inferiorized today. In particular, their way of life, ideas, and values, in short, their culture is the primary source of mainstream explanation of their social conditions justified by mainstream economists as reflecting the poor “human capital” of Africans. First used to describe Black slaves as mere animals and things whose sole use was to help White capital- ists, human capital explanations posit African culture as responsible for the problems of continental Africa and the exclusion and exploitation of Blacks around the world. From this perspective, Blacks, the “deserving poor,” need more Eurocentric education and cast away their culture, which holds them back. But it is not just the mainstream of society that is associated with this bastardization of African culture. The left, on its part, advances the most

v vi FOREWORD patronizing form of “African culture”: village life. In this representation of Africa as the lost gemeinschaft in the West, the commons in Africa is naively seen—and often appropriated—as natural reserve, much like how the colonizer saw the relationship between nature and society. Without “decolonizing nature,” so-called Western “progressives” objectify Africa and Africans. Cheikh Anta Diop was appropriately harsh in describing such currents as “the headlong flights of certain infantile leftists” (1974, p. xiv) because it does the continent injustice by misrepresenting it. More fundamentally, this representation by the left diverts attention from major causal mechanisms, in particular imperialism. In his well-known 1986 speech at the International Conference for the Protection of Trees and Forests in Paris, Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, once noted that “This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and savannahs.” Yet, the misrepresentation of Africa continues, more recently as “Africa rising.” Styled as a positive spin on Africa, in contrast to the view of “Africa as a hopeless continent,” this view is defended and extended mainly by banks, neoliberal think tanks, and investors of mostly foreign origin. “Africa on the rise” serves foreign interests by celebrating growth achieved through the exploitation of Black people, adoring growth that destroys African waters, forests, and biodiversity, and endorses growth processes that tear society apart through the eviction of the poor, and the exclusion of the masses from the economic process. Short-term in nature, this type of growth entails no structural change (Obeng-Odoom 2015; Nega and Schneider 2016). If at all, it is a case of “reprimarisation”1 or the rolling back of the little industrial base for greater expansion of the minerals sector. The very calculation of the so-called rise, is highly contentions, often centered on inaccurate data and manipulated history that suggests that Africa has never experienced growth when, in fact, Africa has always risen, perhaps even more in the days of greater care by the African state—as we know from Morten Jerven’s book, Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong (2015). There have been many alternatives to this narrative, but they are problematic too. Consider the post-development view. On the surface it looks radical, but in practice it merely equates African culture to village living. Others such as homo culturalis are similarly problematic. A third is region- alism, but that is similarly Eurocentric. Europeanist views are no longer persuasive, certainly not when eminent Europeans and European scholars FOREWORD vii such as Ivan Berend conclusively show the horrifying structural problems in this region in the book, Europe in Crisis: Bolt from the Blue? (2013). Together with the seemingly better life in Asia generated by the “East Asian model” and unconditional aid, Africans have recurrently been advised to go East. Whether “looking East” amounts to looking forward, however, is contentious. As Robert Collins (2006) reminds us of the painful “African Slave Trade to Asia and the Indian Ocean Islands” and, in recent times, many Asianists and Africanists have shown in publications such as the African Review of Economics and Finance (vol. 5, no. 1; vol. 8, no. 1), Asian “generosity” may not be as benign as it appears. Chinese investment in Africa, for example, is often extolled for being benign and non-interventionist, but we know from the work of Lloyd G. Adu Amoah (2014) in Journal of Asian and African Studies that it is, in fact, a “Chinese imperium,” seeking to project Chinese world power in Africa, striking in the hearts of Africans the neocolonial Cold War idea that Africa is the trophy of the strong. Then, there is, the systemic exploitation of Black labor by Chinese capitalist firms and the exclusion of Blacks from Chinese investment because of—note—the culture of Black people, which does not make them work hard enough (Odoom 2014). As argued elsewhere (Obeng-Odoom 2017), it is a very African idea to enter into alliance with Asia—indeed with the entire global South—and this can be very powerful, especially when patterned after the principles of the Bandung Conference. As with Europe, however, existing Afro-Asian contradictions detract from that spirit and hence have given a new meaning to the African dream of Africanizing their continent and the world. This mission is different from what Leopold Senghor was accused of doing by the Congolese: “We asked for the Africanization of the top jobs and all Senghor does is Africanize the Europeans” (1961, p. 10). A new version of this “Senghorist” leadership style can be found in the extractive industries sector in Africa these days in terms of “local content.” Programs based on supporting Africans’ rise to the top, but only merely to implement Euro- centric capitalist visions. Africanist leadership types, per se remain buried. In Private Enterprise-Led Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Human Side of Growth (2015), John Kuada, identifies an emerging leadership model in Africa, but does not fully elaborate what this leadership model can do (see, for example, chapter 14 of Kuanda’s book). What Kuanda leaves out, Rita Kiki Edozie offers in the book in your hands. The book trumps and transcends the doctrine of growth. It looks instead at structural change and change in social relations. Drawing on viii FOREWORD

Ubuntu–Africanist values of sharing and cooperation—and Pan Africanism (the need for Africans to take charge of their economy), this book does not only call for the Africanization of the economies in Africa but also the use of Afrocentric ideas to run the regional economy. The book is controversial because it turns the mainstream on its head by arguing that, in fact, the highly discredited culture of the Africans is that missing link the continent needs. Anti-individualism, cooperation—not competition—and humanness represent key features of this approach. Edozie shows that adopting this approach will help to break the dependent nature of African economies and create, instead, a self-sustaining economic structure. This is, indeed, a third war to the Western capitalism/Socialism ping- pong. As Edozie argues, “Their key objective for Ubuntu Economics is to use it as a platform to serve people instead of people slavishly serving the economy. Like Afri-Capitalism, according to Mfuniselwa J. Bhengu, the aim for Ubuntu Economics is to “create an African self-understanding in economic terms” (pp. 74–75). Here, the success of the collective is a condition for the success of the individual. And, the “individual” is but a communal being. If this philosophy echoes in the economic system; the social institutions too must echo the philosophy. By regarding “culture” more as “con- structionist” (p. 27), as social provisioning, analytically, the approach helps to resolve the structure–agency tension in political economy. In this sense too, Edozie’s book advances our knowledge by boldly naming which specific cultural practices make a difference, how, and where, while analyzing the transformative role of culture on social structure and agency and vice versa. By actually grounding her analyses in South Africa and Nigeria, her book is more specific than most. This use of case studies is justified, Edozie argues, because they are the biggest economies in Africa and remain the home of the primary ideas behind the book. While obviously important, for me what makes her choice crisp and com- pelling is that they represent the crucible of the tensions and contradictions in Africa today. Vast in geography and economy, Nigeria also engaged in the growth accounting much of which accounted for the “Africa on the rise” moment. And, South Africa remains one of the most unequal nations in the world, in terms of class, gender, and race. Combined, Edozie could not have chosen a better set of case studies for The Cultural Political Economy of Afri-Capitalism and Ubuntu Business. It is not just to Africa, though, that this book is an asset because it advances the global political economy literature of “varieties of capitalism.” Characterized by collective advancement, care, and compassion, FOREWORD ix cooperation, and equality, Africa’s cultural political economy seeks to com- bine ecology and material progress. Whether this broad philosophy should be called “capitalism” is controversial. Why not name it Africanism, for example? The answer appears to be that not all capitalism must look like the one described by Marx—European capitalism—or the account of Wer- ner Sombart in The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911/2001). Indeed, analytically, if such accounts are seen as valuable, then an African account must also be valuable. In The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974), Cheikh Anta Diop makes the point even more forcefully in responding to critics of his time:

Have foreign intellectuals, who challenge our intentions and accuse us of all kinds of hidden motives or ridiculous ideas, proceeded any differently? When they explain their own historical past or study their languages, that seems normal. Yet, when an African does likewise to help reconstruct the national personality of his people, distorted by colonialism, that is considered backward or alarming. We contend that such a study is the point of departure for the cultural revolution properly understood. (1974, pp. xiii–xiv)

Edozie calls ours “Pan Africa Rising!” This rising, though, is not the Zionist and imperial Enlightenment of Europe whose advancement meant the destruction of all others. Rather, “Pan Africa rising” seeks collaboration and equality of race, gender, and class, as the forebears of the continent taught, lived, and practiced, for example in seeking alliance on equal terms with Asia and in shunning false antimonies of “East” and “West.” Pan Africa rising is not simply culture in the abstract; but culture in action: values and practices that shape or must shape all social relations. Culture here stands as part of; not apart from social relations such as property and “culture” in African cultural political economy is a critique of mainstream social science. This third way is useful, but as Edozie shows, it can also be contradictory. It is in part neoliberal not in terms of ideology but certainly in terms of practice. Therein lies the tension. Is African cultural political economy more caring of the needs of workers? Does it commodify land? In principle, Africans’ thought covers all these facets but it is also intermixed with foreign encounters, some colonial; others neocolonial, and the rest neoliberal. Any cultural approach must, therefore, be contradictory. But, political economists, unlike mainstream economists, are not afraid of tensions and contradictions. Edozie certainly shows courage in questioning, wit in juggling diverse perspectives, and candor in presenting the truth, a rare combination x FOREWORD found only in Black Skin, White Masks ([1952], 2008), in which Frantz Fanon declares, “O my body, always make me a man who questions!” (emphasis in original, p. 206). This institution is, itself, an African practice. As Fanon notes in The Wretched of the Earth (1961), “Self-criticism has been much talked about recently, but few realize that it was first of all an African institution” (p. 12). Here, in the book in your hands, Edozie follows the same intellectual tradition to question both the establishment and its radical challenge of African cultural political economy. How the practices of cultural political economy actually pan out in diverse settings in Africa require further assessment. Likewise, but perhaps for different reasons, Edozie does not go into the intricate and expansive literature on culture, economics, and development. Does this silence hurt the book in your hands? I think not. Recent scholarship in Journal of Economic Issues (Ojong and Obeng-Odoom 2017), Review of Social Econ- omy (Obeng-Odoom 2016), and Forum for Social Economics (Hossein 2016) respectively shows that the role of money in Cameroonian local practices have characteristics that are more conducive to local conditions, even if they complement rather than replace the formal, Western banking system. Similarly, local practices of water governance better serve the livelihoods of communities in Ghana than imported monopolistic water models. And, African money pools in the Americas have shown more resilience and dynamism than the vast American financial market can ever provide. Indeed, we are well served by the scholarship of African scholar Eiman O. Zein-Elabdin in Economics, Culture and Development (2015), a book that is mightily insightful. Excellent work in culture and development can also be found in the journal, Economic Development and Cultural Change. Ambe Njoh’s Tradition, Culture and Development in Africa: Historical Lessons for Modern Development Planning along with John Abbott’s Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Development in Africa (2012) cannot be missed in in planning and architecture. In history, Toyin Falola’s The Power of African Cultures (2003) will quench the thirst of a reader inter- ested in the past and its relationship to the present. Political economy has only just started developing stratification economics mostly clearly echoed in the work of William Darity Jr. and his contribution, among others, to Review of Black Political Economy. These contributions prepare the way for The Cultural Political Economy of Afri-Capitalism and Ubuntu Business. Interestingly, Edozie’s primary concern is neither to go into the minutiae of African cultural political economy nor to provide a general theory that culture is conducive for Africa’s development. Such arguments are vague FOREWORD xi and have created fodder for an uninspiring literature on “social capital,” prompting Ben Fine, another African scholar, to write Theories of Social Capital: Researchers Behaving Badly (2010). Local case studies are, of course, useful but we need to metastasize their key lessons. What Edozie does is to specifically identify two overlapping cultural practices—Ubuntu and Afri-Capitalism—and demonstrate concretely that they constitute a forceful third way that is viable, not just ideationally but also materially. Cutting through the false antimonies of materialism and religion, culture and system, and culture and institutions, this book is an intriguing and most welcome contribution.

University of Technology Sydney Franklin Obeng-Odoom Sydney, Australia

NOTE 1. A phenomenon which, according to David Barkin (2017), is increas- ingly characterizing economic change in Latin America.

Franklin Obeng-Odoom is based at the School of Built Environment, the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. He is the substantive editor of African Review of Economics and Finance and the author of Oiling the Urban Economy: Land, Labour, Capital and the State in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana (Routledge). He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The inspiration for writing “Pan” Africa Rising came from an observation made by British historian and political economy scholar, Niall Ferguson. In his preface introduction of Dambisa Moyo’s book, Dead Aid Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, Ferguson noted that a significant contribution of Moyo’s book to the discipline of International Political Economy was that it was one of the few accounts of African international political economy written by an African on the one hand and by an African woman on the other. As a long-standing College professor of African international political economy myself, I personally resonated with the controversial historian’s observations. Not only is there not enough voice and perspective by Afri- cans represented in the study of African global political-economics, there is also certainly little research and scholarship in this discipline that under- scores African epistemological grounding and perspectives about Africans’ materials conditions in the twenty-first century. Too much of the scholarship of African engagement in the international political economy is written outside of Africa by non-Africans. That is why as I reflect on my own review essay analysis of Moyo’s groundbreaking book, Dead Aid,inAfrican and Asian Studies (Volume 9, Edozie 2010), I am critically reminded of how despite crediting the Zambian political-economist for representing her African perspective of African aid dependency on a Western-dominated global political economy of which Africa is at the marginal bottom of the hierarchy, I was also critical of Moyo’s book for not putting the robust continental African political

xiii xiv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS economic agenda forward as an alternative to the Western strangulation of African economics that is representative of what she now famously referred to as “Dead Aid.” It is in this regard that eight years of receiving and reflecting on what Africans say about the global economy and what Africans want from the global economy has culminated into the research objective of the current book, Pan Africa Rising: The Cultural Political Economy of Nigeria’s Africapitalism and South Africa’s Ubuntu Business. Moyo’s Dead Aid may have initiated an opening to a critique of the liberal assumptions of growth and development in Africa that has occurred as a result of Western aid and donor paternalism. Nonetheless, the current book leverages Moyo’s book while also picking up from a long-standing “international community” competing and oppositional discourse and policy prescription about African economic agendas documented since the Lagos Plan of Action, the Abuja Treaty of the African Economic Community, and to even as recently as 2015, an economic prescription for the continent that Africa’s African Union (AU) has referred to as Pan African economics. No doubt, however, the current book significantly deviates from a mere normative discussion and analysis of Pan Africanism in relation to African political economy; alternatively, the book rediscovers and rethinks Pan Africanism as an economic imaginary for African economic livelihoods infusing the relevance of African culture, history, and agencies at community and national economic arenas of the continent. Uniquely, I hope, in an era of Moyo-like Africa Rising narratives that dominates the debate and discussion of the African global political economy outside of Africa; this book posits its reimagining of Pan Africanism as, “Pan Africa Rising.” A sixth or seventh book in the writing for me, with Pan Africa Rising,I wish to thank so many who have collaborated with me in developing and publishing the current book. Franklin Obeng-Odoom, a reputable political economist has written the foreword for the book introducing and analyzing it so eloquently to unravel for you the book’s relevance. Eunice Sahles, editor for Palgrave’s “Con- temporary African Political Economy” series—thank you for your vision for advancing the critically important and dynamic knowledge about the cultural political economy of Africa and for supporting my work in this regard. I must also thank Dr. Ola Nwabara (newly minted PhD as I write— congrats, shout out, Dr. Ola!) for her extremely efficient and dynamic research assistance on the book at Michigan State University. As well, a special Kudos goes to Ms. Annie Beaubien, my dual degree international PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv relations–French studies undergraduate research assistant at Michigan State University—merci. For my loved ones—family and friends who move out of the way to let me think and write—thank you children, Kelechi, Goz, and Uba. And, for listening, supporting, and challenging passionately about Africa through the book’s development; a very special thank you goes to Major Anthony Jones.

Professor and Associate Dean Rita Kiki Edozie, PhD McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies University of Massachusetts Boston, USA CONTENTS

1 Introduction: New Pan African Economics 1

2 Charting New Frames for African Global Engagement: Resuscitated Histories, Reimagined Concepts, and Reapplied Contexts 23

3 South Africa’s Ubuntu BRICS and Nigeria’s Afri-Capitalist MINTS: The Comparative Political Economy of (Pan) African Risings 53

4 The Philosophy of African Economic Humanism: Ubuntu and Afri-Capitalism as Case Studies 79

5 Afro-modern Entrepreneurs and (Pan) African Business Leaders: Tony Elumelu and Reuel Khoza as Exemplars 105

6 Pan “Africa” Rising: The Paradox of Culture, Third Ways, and Coproducing Global Development 135

Index 167

xvii LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Nigeria and South Africa political economy comparison 2013 58 Table 5.1 Trajectory—Afri-modern business enterprises and networks: Elumelu and Khoza 118

xix