Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka and Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) have said Africa can develop through more functional cooperation.
Soyinka said if China could develop the way it has in the last 10 years, then the rest of Africa, including Nigeria, could also grow.
Fashola believes Africa holds the key to its development, and must use it to unlock doors of opportunity.
They spoke at this year’s Kuramo Conference in Lagos, convened by Fashola, which had the theme: The Global Commonwealth.
Highpoint of the conference was the launch of the Lagos Court of Arbitration, an international alternative dispute resolution platform.
Soyinka, who chaired the event, said there can be no development without quality education for the citizenry. He said million have been subjected to a very narrow definition of education.
According to him, application of technology will reduce what he described as “single-source thinking.”
He said the internet, which lies at the heart of the knowledge economy, with its infinite capacity to aggregate data, connect people, mediate access and support transactionary exchanges, is a perfect tool to drive growth.
“A lot of the solutions to the problems Africa faces will lie in the realms of technological innovation,” he said.
Soyinka agreed that corruption works against development, saying it may require “shock treatment” to end it. He said it manifests itself in many aspects, such as in what he called “unconstitutional appendages of elected people.”
He cited Rwanda as an instance, where government officials were barred from using official vehicles and not allowed to go abroad for medical treatment.
Soyinka said corruption is so commonplace that the wife a local government chairman drives around in an official vehicle.
He hailed the conference organisers, saying: “We might come out of this with the first Kuramo Socialist Manifesto.” Fashola urged African leaders to take their destiny in their hands.
He said: “We hold the key, and we must use it to unlock the door that leads us to the vast promise of our endowed continent.
“We must no longer hand over the key to others to unlock the door for us. The reason is simple. They will go through the doorway before we do.
“This time it is incumbent upon us to walk through those doors ahead of our partners or at least side by side.
“We must draw on the lessons of our past and build on the successes of the present.
“We must not continue to wait for the West and the East to come to us; we must export Africa to the world.
“We must ensure that we use this window of opportunity to secure the future of the generation of young Africans who look to us for leadership so that the problems of hunger, famine, poverty and under-development on our continent are overcome now and not in any distant future. This is what Kuramo is all about.”
Keynote speeches were delivered by Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University, Prof Paul Collier and international economist Dr Dambisa Moyo.
The conference drew experts from various public and private sectors including law, business, finance, media and entertainment, energy and the environment with the aim of covering emerging issues tailored to address advocacy and policy required to shape global decision-making.
Other notable issues to be discussed include the role of the creative industries in supporting local economies, the recovery of stolen oil wealth from public coffers, solutions to addressing contentious energy solutions, conflict resolution in Africa, as well as consumer rights in developing economies.
Former Lagos Attorney-General and Chairman, Kuramo Conference Committee, Mr Olasupo Shasore (SAN) said the essence of the conference was to present “a policy crossroads.”
“We believe that policy is an all-important tool for development. Policy must be brought from the richness of dialogue, consultation, interaction and innovation.
“There has been a yawning gap in international for a for private and public sector interaction on policy matters. We have lacked that platform to exchange African ideas and African answers to global challenges.
“Kuramo was conceived to drive an issue-based development agenda. These conferences are designed to set that agenda from the deliberations of delegates and the network of professionals that attend.”
Shasore also spoke on what has been achieved from the last Kuramo conference. “We have directly produced a model draft bill for the recovery of proceeds of crime by forfeiture. We have noticed a percentage increase in educational budgeting (even though the issues exceed more budget allocation).
“We have encouraged non-governmental action in the area of access to knowledge; the future of has also been addressed by the launch of the Lagos Court of Arbitration and finally, a true consolidated title to property bill in the municipal Lagos is now imminent.”
Collier said Nigeria’s government has the challenge of oil management. Three factors are crucial in getting, he said. They include rules, institutions and a credible mass of informed citizens.
He said the country’s education system is failing, describing many of the teachers as “functionally illiterate”, a failure management of schools. Collier suggested experimenting with “something different,” such as such as state-financed, but not state-managed schools.
He cited Ghana as an example of a country providing a legal environment that makes it possible to run universities well, which he said explains why students and teachers from across the world go to Ghana.
“Without reforming your schools, you really have no future. You best brains will get on the plane and leave your country. The aim should be to get them back,” Collier said.
Collier praised Fashola’s development efforts, saying: “Fashola inherited decades of missed opportunities which he is now putting right.”
He identified areas needing more as housing, as “most people in Lagos are badly housed” and “slums are dysfunctional for the economy as well.”
Collier said Nigeria should learn from its history of missed opportunities. “You have been through an oil boom in the 70s and nothing was achieved with it. Now, you’re going through another boom. You need to learn from history, not repeat it.”
Moyo says the problem with Africa lies in poor execution of policies. “We’re doing a very bad job of execution. We have to figure out the best way to execute,” she said, adding that corruption, cronyism, opaque processes and subsidies remains banes of development.
According to her, some public officials feel that public coffers are private coffers; therefore punishment for corruption must be made more stringent.
Moyo said many African leaders lack self-respect, which is why some of them have no shame “in going around begging for money when they preside over enormous resources.”
She added: “If you’re using public funds to send your children abroad to school, then there’s something inherently wrong with that.”
Fashola also spoke on the essence of Kuramo. “It is about knowledge, improvement and influence. Kuramo is also a confluence of ideas to tackle and consider from a unique African perspective, the issues that challenge us globally.
“Kuramo will continue to provide a platform for public and private sector collaboration to drive international development in Africa and secure a better economic future for ourselves.”
But Kuramo is so much more than that.
“Kuramo is about alternative thinking, because we take the view that alternative, innovative ideas are the key to the future. We must turn normalcy around; we must stand things on their heads; we must push back the frontiers; we must literally rattle the cage to stimulate innovation and pursue creative solutions to global problems.
“Recently all 47 members of the United Nations Human Rights Council declared that access to the internet and online freedom of expression is a basic human right. But internet access in Africa is limited by a far lower penetration rate than the rest of the world.
“How we can help to shape policy that can bridge this and other gaps are one of the issues that concerns Kuramo.”
