THE AFRICAN SAGE

Significance of Quality Education: It has been in the news that there is need for reform in the Kenyan education system especially s tertiary/university education. Kenya has more potential labor resource than capital or land. Therefore, it should invest in offering its people quality education. Quality education, for men and women alike leads to economic development. When people are well educated, their social preferences change, which leads naturally to lowering of things like fertility rates, crimes etc, which are contentious issues in Kenya at the moment. When people are enlightened, corruption stories diminish because reason, if not theirs then that of those around them, challenges them. The people in the rural areas become more alert and public policy discussions become more reason driven thus leading to beneficial social choices. The politicians who use propaganda to advance their selfish interests will not exploit the people. This sounds so cool and simple but gosh! How is...

Considering the political challenges facing Africa, one may be quick to suggest democratization as a solution. Democratization in itself is very appealing; imagine a government of the people, for the people, with the people, around the people and as the people. It means that each citizen is self-governing in the sense that his/her voice is put into consideration in the making of national policies. Like any other ideal, concretising a democracy seems to be more complicated than many can imagine. In a state, each individual or group of people has its own unique and often selfish interests. In African nations there are numerous sub-groups that people are loyal to. There is the clan, the tribe, the region, religion, party and ideology. Unlike in other places where manifestos matter, loyalty to own group or sub-group is what matters. With ethnicity playing a major role in national planning and policy making, people rarely go by facts in their objectivity. Rulers, in their greed, are h...

Underdevelopment: Underdevelopment is about lacking in capacity for self-determination. Development anticipates development,  therefore, one cannot claim to be fully developed. The best we can do is to talk of levels of development. Some individuals have more capacity for auto-determination than others. For some people, the capacity for auto-determination i.e. choosing the way of guiding their lives is too limited that their way of living can with qualification be termed as ‘inhuman’. There are more of such people in some countries and continents than others. Africa falls in the category of continents where many of its people do not have capacity to choose to guide their life in the way that they most desire and need. The Limitations: Human beings, we said all of them, desire to have capacity for auto-determination. Therefore, only limitations make some to remain in a level of incapacity. I want to consider some of these limitations in contemporary Africa and try to trace t...