Abstract
Dependency and underdevelopment in Africa is our main thrust which we try to relate the above to the Nigerian context. Dependency as we all know is a product of underdevelopment which is prevalent in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. It is certain that Nigeria is an independent nation, but it does not reflect in all the facts in the society since the super structures that form the society and state are dependent on foreign policy and factors.
As we can see in this research work, we observe how the African state started its journey to underdevelopment which came in disguised of development and missionary activities which currently left it in shambles and dependent on foreign influence, since we were colonized and gives independence, literally we are independent but practically we are dependent on foreign influence since they form most of our policy and
decisions as seen in some of our super structures like political which we adopted their style of government, economic which capitalism has contributed in crippling our economic culture which has been influenced by foreigners and degraded our cultural value, social which brought about the current inferiority complex suffered by Africans whenever they come in contact with the white.
Also more emphasis is also laid on the post colonial and pre colonial African economy as we see how the post-colonial African economy led to the current debt crisis incurred by Africa in general and Nigeria in particular and we also see how Nigeria has been subjected to unealthying conditionalities in its quest for foreign aid which does not translate the reason for its request after it is been given rather public officers now use these foreign loan for their private use thereby putting Nigeria in a higher debt profile, and in order to mediate the debt problem an organization was set up called the
international monetary fund (IMF) which is an agency of the United Nation which claims that its reason for existence is to aid the third world countries in advancing the structural adjustment programs (SAP) aimed at developing the African country to international standard, but in the real sense, it worsened the African economic problem by cursing Africa rather curning Africa from its economic slanbles.
This research work is divided into five (5) chapters for proper understanding and clarification on the nature of Dependency and underdevelopment in Africa with particular reference to Nigeria.
In chapter one (1) we look at the technicalities involved in writing a research work, and we look at the introduction of our main thrust of study or to pie which has to do with dependency and underdevelopment in Africa. Chapter two (2) we see how dependency and underdevelopment came about in Africa starting from the
advent of the colonial masters, prior motive and missions and their later motive which reflects the current economic conditions in Africa and Nigeria. This chapter also talks about the processes and stages African passed through ranging from slavery, colonialism and the existence of economic saboteurs who amplified the African resources for their own selfish reasons. Chapter three (3) talks about foreign aid as a tool used by the foreign policy or international organs to underdeveloped Africa as they make use of attractive donations to procure political and economic favours in the recipients country. This chapter also portrays the nature of the African economy as a dependent economy suffering from colonial impact, the conditions attached with foreign aid and how it fosters slavery or imperialism and the level of mismanagement and misapplication of funds by public office holders in Africa. In chapter four (4) we devise a strategy or couple of strategies for curbing dependency
and underdevelopment as we look at some of the strategies below; like the strategy of indigenization which states that indigenous enterprise should be promoted to foster independent economic development, the strategy of war against corruption, which is a tool for removing the stigma with highest infections in the Africa economy which is corruption and the strategy of neoliberalism and lastly but not the least in chapter (5) which some the whole research work up we see how we put all the stories in few sentences which is summary and we conclude based on the facts gotten and then we make recommendations on appropriate policies to be made.
Table of Contents
Title Page—————————————————-i
Approval Page———————————————–ii
Dedication————————————————iii-iv
Acknowledgement—————————————-v-ix
Abstract————————————————–x-xiv
Table of Contents————————————-xv-xvii
Chapter One: General Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study—————————1 -3
1.2 Statement of the Problem—————————3-6
1.3 Objective of the Study———————————-6
1.4 Literature Review ————————————7-23
1.5 Significance of the Study—————————23-24
1.6 Theoretical Framework—————————–24-34
1.7 Hypotheses———————————————–34
1.8 Methods of Data collection and Analysis————35
1.9 Scope and Limitations of the Study——————-35
1.10 Operationalization of Concepts——————36-37
Chapter Two: Background of Dependency and Underdevelopment in Africa
2.1 The slavery Era in Africa————————-38-51
2.2 The Colonial Process——————————52-60
2.3 The predominant existence of Compradors—–61-68
Chapter Three: Foreign Aid and Underdevelopment
3.1 The Nature of Africa Economy——————-69-80
3.2. Foreign Aid Conditionalites ———————81-88
3.3 Prevalence of mismanagement and miss application
of funds in Africa———————————–88-90
Chapter Four: Strategy for Curbing Dependency and Underdevelopment
4.1 The Strategy for Indigenization——————-92-98
4.2 The Strategy for War against Corruption——–98-103
4.3 The strategy for Neoliberal Reform————–103-107
Chapter Five: Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations
5.1 Summary———————————-108-110
5.2 Conclusion——————————–110-111
5.3. Recommendations———————–112-113
Bibliography—————————–114-116
Chapter One: General Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
The concept of dependency and underdevelopment draws our attention to the stagnation, deplorable and peripheral condition of Africa, Asia, Latin America, in the international system. Africa, among other continents in the world, is seen as the poorest continent of the world. In the international system, the G8 (Group of eight) and other international organizations regard Africa states as “POOR” thereby seeing Africa as an incapable or handicapped continent.
The reason becomes why they give out loans to most African states in order to attain the international standard of development, thereby making Africa indebted to the European countries. It is also for the same reason most international organization are established, towards the development of Africa states. Development of most
African states here implies meeting up with the European standard. Taking a look at Africa, it is seen that the problem of underdevelopment in Africa, centers on their inability to transform their raw materials to finished products, as well as their inability to properly manage and harness their products management and good leadership. The African continent is presently facing a unique and unprecedented crisis or problems in its history as a human society. These problems also transcends previous calculations of socio-economic background, balance of payment deficit, poor health statistics, material poverty indebtedness, poor education, disorganizing ethnic welfare, rapid capital flight, alleged law capacity utilization of materials and other human resources and so on. The above listed problems are what makes Africa dependent and underdeveloped, as a result of its incapability to overcome these problems or tackle them successfully. This study attempts to explore the
dimensions of dependency and underdevelopment and access the impact of Africa using Nigeria as a reference point.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In this analysis, we shall explore into the most of the problems Africa, and Nigeria, in particular is faced with and as the analysis goes further, we shall understand the reason for this underdevelopment, and try to sort out possible solutions to go into that, it is paramount to point out factors necessitating the phenomenon of underdevelopment and dependency in Africa, such as;
i. The reckless and excess lust for foreign loan and aid: This has to do with a financial assistance granted to third world country in order to boost their economy and project them capable for international trade.
ii. The domination of import over export trade: This is one of the major problems in Africa, or third world countries economy, since they tend to patronize more of the foreign goods over indigenous goods thereby bringing the implication of exploitation from the foreigners at the detriment of indigenous traders.
iii. Political Crisis and Corruption: Africa is conversant with the above, since it is married with different kind of political crisis ranging from military coups to party crisis and worst of all which is corruption since it is the end products of any political unstable nation.
iv. The failure of policies made by the government: Since policies made cannot be strictly adhered to them the problems in which that policy was made for has not yet been satisfied or settled, and in most cases these
policies made are irrelevant to the countries or nations development agenda.
v. Lastly but not the least poor education: Here the level of education which is the key to every kind of success is too low and a times poor, in third world countries the education, sector is dominated with all manner of malpractices which includes bribery, strikes, indefinite closure of school, due to illegality in its operations, unaccredited academic structures and all other shortcomings etc.
Against this backdrop, this study attempts to provide answers to the following questions,
i. Is there a link between dependency and underdevelopment in Africa?
ii. Is foreign aid responsible for Africa’s underdevelopment?
iii. Is accountability and transparent leadership capable of endangering sustainable development in Nigeria?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The broad objective of this study is to interrogate the link between dependency and underdevelopment in Nigeria, especially the study is aimed at;
i. Establishing the link between dependency and underdevelopment in Africa
ii. Ascertaining that foreign aid is responsible for underdevelopment in Africa
iii. Determining if accountability and transparent leadership are capable of engendering development in Nigeria.
1.6 Theoretical Framework
This study considers dependency theory most appropriate as the frame work of analysis. Dependency theory is a body of social science theories, both from developed and developing nations that creates a world
view which suggests that poor underdeveloped states of the periphery are exploited by wealthy developed nations of the center in order to sustain economic growth and remain wealthy.
For example, these European stats of the world, issued out loans to most African states for development exercise, and these African states, have been made to service these debts from time to time irrespective of the fact that most African stated are unable to pay up these debts.
Now it is seen that even the amount paid on debt servicing for a number of years, has even exceeded the debt owned by these African states. This is an example of what these European, or rather what the theory of dependency explains by suggesting that the poor underdeveloped nations of the periphery are exploited by the wealthy developed nations of the center in order to sustain economic growth and remain wealthy.
Dependency theory developed in the late 1950’s under the guidance of the Director of the United Nations Economic commission for Latin America Raul Presbisch. Presbisch and his colleagues were troubled by the fact that the economic growth in advanced industrialized countries did not necessarily lead to the growth of the poorer countries. Indeed, their studies suggested that economic activity in the rural countries often led to serous economic problem in the poorer countries. Such as possibility was not predicted by neo classified theory, which lead assumed that economic growth was beneficial to all even if the benefits were not equally shared.
Presebisch’s initial explanation for the phenomenon was very straight forward, poor countries exported primary commodities to the right countries that then manufactured products out of those commodities and sold them back to the poor countries. The value added by manufacturing a usable product always cost more than
their primary products used to create those products. For instance, in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria, it is observed that we export our oil to these westerns, for refinery and after it is being refined, we also take out variable time and money to import back this oil, and at the end of the day, the cost of exportation and importation of these products, becomes so high but no profit is realized after the transaction. This now boils down to the increment of fuel price in Nigeria, workers go on strike etc. Therefore poorer countries would never be earning enough from their export earnings to pay for their exports.
Presbisch’s solution was similarly straight forward poorer countries should embark on program of import substitution so that they need not purchase the manufactured product from the richer countries. The poorer countries would still sell their primary product on the world market but their foreign exchange reserves
world not be used to purchase their manufacturers from abroad.
Three issues made this policy difficult to flow. The first is that the internal markets of the poorer countries were not large enough to support the economies of scale used by the richer countries to keep their prices low.
The second issue concerned the political will of the poorer countries as to whether a transformation from being primary product producers was possible or desirable.
The final issue revolved around the extent to which the poorer countries actually had control of their primary products, particularly in the area of selling those products aboard.
These obstacles to the import substitute policy led others to think a little more creatively and his toxically at the relationship between rich and poor countries.
At this point, dependency theory was viewed as a possible way of explaining the persistent poverty of the poorer countries. The traditional neo-classical approach said vertically nothing on this question except to assert that the poorer countries were late in coming to solid economic practices and then as soon as they learned the techniques of modern economies, then the poverty will begin to subside. However Marxist theorists of viewed the persistent poverty as a consequence of capitalists exploitation. And e new body of thought, called the “word system approach” argued that the poverty was a direct consequence of the evolution of the international political economy into a fairly rigid division of labour, which favoured the rich and penalized the poor.
Understanding Dependency Theory
The debates among the liberal reforms (prebisch). The Marxist (Andre Gunder Frank) and the world system theorists (Waller Stein) was rigorous and intellectually
quite challenging. There are still points of serious disagreement among the various strains of dependency theories and it is a mistake to think that there is only one unified theory of dependency.
Nonetheless, there are some core propositions which seems to underline the analysis of most dependency theorists.
Dependency can be defined as an explanation of the economic development of a state in terms of the external influences, political economic and cultural on national development policies.
Dependency also is a historical condition which shapes a certain structure of the world economy such that it favours some countries to the detriment of others and limit the development possibility of the sub-ordinate economies, a situation include the economy of a certain group of countries is conditional by the development and expansion of another economy to which their own is
subjected an example of this could be traced from the colonial history. These European came to Africa, introduced us to cash crops, which led us to the moneterization policy, and at this level things started being difficult, and people work so hard to get money this time. This monetarization policy now led to debt crisis as a result of the inability to meet up to this standards, and the debt crisis issue, now resulted to brain drain and poverty in Africa and also the level of our underdevelopment. Now with this example, it is noted that dependency is a historical condition that shapes a certain structure of the world economy that if favours some countries to the detriment of others and limits the development possibilities of the sub-ordinate economies.
There are three common features of these definition, which most dependency theorists share, first, dependency characterizes the international system as comprised of two sets of states, variously described as
dominant, dependent, center/periphery or metropolitan/satellite.
The dominant states are the advanced industrialized nations in the organization of economic co-operation and development (OECD). The dependent states are those states of Latin America, Africa, Asia which have low per capital GNP’s and which rely heavily on the export of a simple commodity for foreign exchange earnings.
Second, both definitions have in common the assumption that the external forces are of singular importance to the economic activities within the dependent states. These external factors includes multinational corporations, international commodity markets, foreign assistance, communications and any other means by which the advanced industrialized countries can represent their economic interests abroad.
Third, the definition of dependency all indicate that the relations between dominant and dependent states are dynamic because the interaction between the two sets of states tend to not only reinforce but also intensify the unequal patterns. More over dependency is a very deep-seated historical process, rooted in the internationalization of capitalism.
As such, dependency theory here explains the present underdeveloped states of many nations in the world by examining the patterns of interactions among nations and by arguing that inequality among nation is an intrinsic part of those interactions.
1.6.1 Method of Data Collection
The method of data collection in this research work is the secondary mode of data collection, first as stated in the research proposal. The secondary mode of Data
collection here implies visiting of libraries, extraction of information from journals, newspapers and books.
1.6.2 Method of Data Analysis
Since the method of data collection was the secondary mode of data collection, or rather the non-reactive method of data collection, the method of data analysis here, is the qualitative method of data analysis. It is more explanatory in nature.
1.7 Hypotheses
1. There is a strong link between dependency and underdevelopment in Africa.
2. Foreign aid appears to be responsible for the underdevelopment of Africa.
3. Accountability and transparent leadership are capable of a gendering development in Nigeria.
1.8 Scope and Limitations of the Study
The scope of this study centers around the dependency status of Africa, particularly, how the dependency status endangers the economic development of most African states. The scope of this study also emphasis on how a sustainable development can be attained inspite of the dependent nature of Africans and particularly Nigeria.
Limitations
Too many factors stood as limitations to this research study, insufficient finance, was one major problem faced during this research work. This study also suffered the problem of data collection and management.
1.9 Operationalization of Concepts
In this study, some political concepts will be adopted or rather applied in relation to the study and they includes as follows
Oligarchy: Government by the few, the logically exclusive categories of government by one, the few or the many that have been widely deployed, but the terminology has varied for example, aristocracy, is a form of government by the few, Aristotle distinguished between rules who govern in their own interests (Oligarchy). Sociologists have made claims about a necessary connection between organization and oligarchy.
Hegemony: When social class, exits power over others beyond that accounted for by coercion or law, it may be described as meaning hegemonic, drawing on the Greek word “hegemony” meaning chieftaincies. Thus she bourgeois was regarded as hegemonic within capitalists society by gramsic, who believed their power depended on
the permeation by bourgeois values of all organ of the society.
Elite: Privileged minority, a small group of people within a larger group who have more power, social standard, wealth or talent then the rest of the group restricting powers and privileges in a society to a member of one small favoured group, and the belief that this arrangement is justified by their support.
DISCLAIMER: All project works, files and documents posted on this website, UniProjectTopics.com are the property/copyright of their respective owners. They are for research reference/guidance purposes only and some of the works may be crowd-sourced. Please don’t submit someone’s work as your own to avoid plagiarism and its consequences. Use it as a reference/citation/guidance purpose only and not copy the work word for word (verbatim). The paper should be used as a guide or framework for your own paper. The contents of this paper should be able to help you in generating new ideas and thoughts for your own study. UniProjectTopics.com is a repository of research works where works are uploaded for research guidance. Our aim of providing this work is to help you eradicate the stress of going from one school library to another in search of research materials. This is a legal service because all tertiary institutions permit their students to read previous works, projects, books, articles, journals or papers while developing their own works. This is where the need for literature review comes in. “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.” - Austin Kleon. The paid subscription on UniProjectTopics.com is a means by which the website is maintained to support Open Education. If you see your work posted here by any means, and you want it to be removed/credited, please contact us with the web address link to the work. We will reply to and honour every request. Please notice it may take up to 24 – 48 hours to process your request.
