Governance, History, And The Quest For Reform In The Horn Of Africa – OpEd
George Bernard Shaw once said, “ We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.” And this is a sobering reality of the Horn of Africa States. It remains a region where poor leadership, weak institutions and one-man rule prevail, with ordinary citizens unable to access services from government institutions or whatever is left of them.
It is a region where grievances of the population, ignored for long periods, often erupt into intractable crisis and conflicts and where leadership is often lured into corruption by foreign parties with deeper pockets to betray their people and countries and, indeed, assist them to extract resources – gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper, zinc, lithium and rare earths, which do not benefit the owner population.
It is a region where the ruling parties dominate and disallow opposition to thrive as the rule of law does not exist, allowing mediocre loyal personages to dominate governance and institutions or whatever is left of them. The Horn of Africa has learned nothing from its history of the same repeated cycle – rule of one strongman in each country over decades.
Thomas Jefferson, that great American President noted, “I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past,” which is perhaps better for the horn to adopt as their recent past does not provide anything likeable to remember and admire. The past decades have been a chain of wars, civil conflicts, hunger and pain, and indeed, massacres either man-made or natural catastrophes.
The Horn of Africa, encompassing countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, and sometimes including Sudan and South Sudan, has indeed been trapped in a cyclical pattern of poor governance, external interference, and internal conflict. The quote from George Bernard Shaw captures the essence of this tragic repetition: history keeps offering lessons, yet leadership in the region often refuses to learn from them.
We invoke this insightful reflection, which unfortunately is an accurate one. We note that governance in the Horn of Africa has often revolved around strongmen in the place of strong institutions, who then consolidate power and weaken the checks and balances in the systems of governance – the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, and indeed suppress dissent and opposition.
We also know and most people know that the region is blessed with natural resources, that not only involve material resources like gold, oil and gas, but also a distinct geostrategic location, which overlooks one of the major waterways of the world, where some 20% of global trade passes through annually. But the contrary, a curse, is evident as others take advantage of the region and corrupt the strongmen leaders and elites who profit from these extractive relations and geostrategic location.
It is a region where ruling parties dominate and where opposition parties are stifled, which then stunts innovation, creativity and, indeed, accountability. This results in economic stagnation despite the fake claims of growth as evidenced by the growing hunger in the region, mediocrity in governance and the silencing of the majority of the populations of the region either through fear or simple resignation by the ordinary citizens as they cannot do much to change things.
This turns to ethnic complaints and conflicts and eventually to regional grievances, which are generally addressed wrongly and hence give rise to divisions among the citizenry. It is a constant pain for the people of the region which suffer from hunger, from famines, from wars and displacements. It is the sad story of the region.
We have invoked Thomas Jefferson’s words as they offer a note of cautious optimism. While the past may be grim and gloomy, it does not have to dictate the future. This requires, however, that the citizenry of the region, that is, its people, break free from these “strongmen” mindset and invest in institutions, the rule of law and regional cooperation. This is civic empowerment!
The Horn of Africa has, indeed, failed to translate its potential, which is enormous in every aspect – large youthful population, rich mineral resources, a geostrategic location, a vast marine and airspace and much more, into stability and progress. Leadership is about service instead of personal survival as most leaders seem to assume. The region must not be trapped in the same historical cycle which George Bernard Shaw lamented – learning nothing from the past!
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