Who Is Responsible For African Underdevelopment?

Walter Rodney in his seminal book- ‘How Europe Under developed Africa’ prescribed a sort of developmental template for Africa. Rodney argued, “African independence was … the threshold of a new era … “(Rodney, 2012:279). Rodney wrote at the time when most African States were emerging from colonialism. However, decades after most African States got independence, the thoughts of Rodney remained unrealistic. The state of economic development in Africa generally provokes feelings of disillusionment. This writing undertakes a rethink on the treatise of Walter Rodney. In particular, the endemic corruption in Africa and the re-looting of recovered loot in Nigeria.
Rodney’s thought-provoking book provides a platform for scholarly activism on the issue
Firstly, the answer is the imperialist system bears major responsibility for African economic retardation by draining African wealth and by making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resource of the continent. The Second one has to deal with who manipulate the system and those who are either agents or unwitting accomplices of the said system. The capitalist of Western Europe were the ones who actively extended their exploitation from inside Europe to cover the whole of Africa. In recent times, they were joined, and to some extent replaced, by capitalists from the United States; and for many years now even the workers of those metropolitan countries have benefitted from the exploitation and underdevelopment of Africa” (Rodney 2012: 12).
Rodney relied on the theoretical framework of “Historical Materialism”, an offshoot of the Marxist ideology which presumes that ‘any social circumstances that represses man’s creative abilities is virtually harmful and should not be’ (Irving Zeitlin, 2001: 140).
Rodney argued further that some African states were more progressive before the emergence of the European colonialists. For instance, Rodney
Africans also topped the list in the leaked “Panama paper”. I argue that Lack of transparency on the use of repatriated funds leave gaps that emboldens treasury looters thus, portraying African governments as being tolerant of corruption.
South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Nigeria are all independent states and so are almost all other African states. All African states are officially recognised as developing. This is ongoing despite decades of independence from the colonial authorities. What has stunted the development of Africa after the colonial departure? Should we still be blaming Europe for under developing Africa?
This writing argues on the contrary. The plunder we see today are no longer the works of colonial authorities. They are results of deliberate actions of some Africans who chose to loot their national asset, this time, personally despatching the resources to Europe. The African oligarchs and elites chose to spread poverty, disease and under development across Africa. Rodney’s thought-provoking book provides a platform for scholarly activism on the issue of continuing slow pace of development, inequality and poverty in Africa. What are your