THE RISE OF GEN Zs: Is Africa Leaping from Demoncrazy to Democracy or Vice Versa

By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Africa, once fully colonized and controlled by the west, has had leaders who have been unable to break from the colonial legacy of oppression and exploitation.

From the time of early freedom fighters and independence for countries like Ghana to latecomers like South Africa the story has been the same.

While most African countries claim to be independent, the genesis of the word independence, which is not African, probably doesn’t speak to its meaning in Africa.

In fact, in Kenya, the word independence has been used to make the citizens believe on the rot in many public institutions. Because we don’t know what the word means in the real sense of the term, we have seen and coexisted with un-independent institutions being labelled as independent.

COMMISSIONS

We have for example independent commissions, like the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, National Land Commission, Parliamentary Service Commission,

Judicial Service Commission, Commission on Revenue Allocation, Public Service Commission, Salaries and Remuneration Commission among others.

The independence of these alleged independent commissions only exists in the independent thinking of the creators or the believers of the creators but not to the reality of real independent thinkers.

While democracy, government of the people, for the people and by the people, was supposed to be guided by Principles of Good Corporate Governance, Africa decided to convert Democracy to _Demoncrazy_, a government of minority elites, for the elites and by the elites guided by Principles of Bad Corporate Governance. 

From corruption to plunder of public resources. From mismanagement of state affairs to misappropriation of resources. From clannism to nepotism. From elitism to idiotism in government appointments. From idealess to idiotic public display of ill-gotten wealth and opulence, From national interest to individualism. From lies to blatant arrogance. From promises to the use of force to govern, marking a return of dictatorship present at independence or immediately after it.

However, what the African leaders forgot is that the population of the region was growing. They forgot that Africa’s population is young and growing rapidly. With just over 1 billion people living in Africa, half of whom are under the age of 20 years.

Whilst population growth in other regions has slowed, Africa’s has increased by 2.42 per cent year for the past 30 years [ADB-G, 2024].

You can imagine the population of young people currently in Africa. For your information, only 48 million people out of the over 1 billion in Africa are aged 65 years and above. 

This is obvious that we have a youth bulge in Africa if numbers or data means anything to African leaders.

POPULATION

Going by the population projections, Africa’s’ population is forecast to rise to at least 2.4 billion and will continue to grow to 4.2 billion, four times its current size in the next 100 years.

However, where leaders have no understanding of what data or population trends mean, the genesis of the crisis, such as the youth bulge or GenZees is born. True to the saying, Africa is in a crisis of the youth. 

Governments after governments since independence have just ignored the science of data. Data speaks and African population data has been screaming but alas to leaders with no capacity to transform data into meaningful interventions. 

They say people reap where they have sown, but I think African leaders are now reaping where they have not sown. I say this because population data which they get through census and demographic surveys has not helped them plan for the growing population.

They didn’t know population growth means more food, that why we have food insecurity in Africa. They didn’t know population growth means more hospitals, that’s why access to medical services is poor in Africa. 

They didn’t know population growth means more schools, that’s why we have congestion in our schools, wastage and poor academic performance in Africa. They didn’t know population growth means more housing and roads, that’s why we have slums and heavy traffic jams, in addition to potholes.

Most significantly in this article, they didn’t know population growth means more youth graduating from colleges and universities and hence more opportunities or jobs for them, now they are caught up by the GenZees crisis. A crisis of fearless elitist youth with understanding of state going owns and technology savvy.

DATA

In fact, in Kenya they have a slogan: “We lose our fear they lose their power “. Indeed, youth unemployment rate in Africa is extremely high, averaging over 20% across the continent.

In some countries, it is as high as 70-80 per cent [MATSH 5 Oct 2023]. By 2030, there will be 375 million young people in the job market in Africa.

Within a few decades, this demographic boom will push Africa’s workforce to more than a billion people, the largest in the world.

Does this data mean anything to our leaders? Because it doesn’t, they are reaping what they didn’t imagine happening, shutdown by the youth demanding transparency and accountability, which are basic principles of good corporate governance. 

While this is a fact, African leaders are focusing on the symptoms such as the Kenyan Finance Bill 2024 and high cost of living instead of the cause, in our diagnosis the socioeconomic dynamics.

LESSONS

Finally, allow me to say that past mistakes are current lessons not to make us make similar mistakes in the future. 

However, some mistakes are very expensive, and leaders must accept to take the consequences however painful they may be by doing the honourable things to save their countries from bleeding and destruction. 

The consequences of ignoring or not understanding population growth data are here and some leaders will be the lessons for the future of Africa.

It’s quite unfortunate for them but probably very fortunate for Africa going forward. 

Accordingly, it is important for leadership to remember data speaks and is the best ally to making not only good but for precision decision making.

~Prof Shauri is a consultant sociologist & dean at Pwani University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences