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BILL MOYERS: And if you don't have transparency, if you don't have a free press, this means the elites, as you call them, can just steal everything--
GEORGE AYITTEY: Of course, they can, you know, stand on the necks of their people and the world wouldn't know about it. Especially -- this is exactly what is going on in Zimbabwe. People have been crushed, they've been starved, they've been suppressed. And yet we hear very little about what's going on in that country.
BILL MOYERS: I was in Europe just a couple of weeks ago. And I was astonished to see huge play given on the front pages of the European newspapers about a recent report from Nigeria that said since Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960, almost $400 billion has been stolen or misused. That's astonishing because it's almost as much as all of the West has given to Nigeria in foreign aid in that time. And it's nearly six times the help that America gave Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. Stolen.
GEORGE AYITTEY: It's so disgusting. If you look at the statistics in Nigeria, Nigeria should not be in the position as it is now. Nigeria ought to have been the giant of Africa. Between 1970 and the year 2004, more than 400 billion in oil revenue flowed into the coffers of the Nigerian government. Nobody knows what happened to that oil revenue.
BILL MOYERS: What do you think happened?
GEORGE AYITTEY: It was all stolen.
BILL MOYERS: By the elite?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes.
BILL MOYERS: By the people in charge?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Especially the string of military rulers. Now, the most galling aspect of this is that Nigeria has been given debt relief. Its debt has been written off. Which means that none of these military looters are being held accountable. Nobody is asking them what did they do with the money that they stole from their people. Now if you look at Nigeria's income per capita, it is about 270, which is about the same level as it was when it came to its independence in 1960. Which means that for that 45 years of independence, nothing has really changed as far as the standards of living of the people are concerned.
BILL MOYERS: If I were a politician, I'd have a hard time looking an American taxpayer in the eye, a working man or woman, and say, "We're going send some of your tax money to Nigeria," or to any one of these countries that is governed by a despot. Is that a fair position?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, when you take an African issue, there's this huge obstacle. The obstacle being that there's a huge emotionalism that you encounter. There are many Americans who sincerely want to help Africa. And somehow they think that the best way of helping Africa is by handing money over to their corrupt governments. Perhaps they are misinformed about events in Africa. The second obstacle is political correctness. For fear that they don't want to appear as stingy. For fear that they don't want to appear as not wanting to help black people. So they might say, "Okay, let's help Nigeria." But that's not an effective way of helping Nigeria. The effective way of helping Nigeria is to deal with the people rather than through their corrupt governments.
BILL MOYERS: And how do we do that? You were recently at the gathering of Western governments, the G-8 Summit in Scotland. And you've written and taught and talked a lot about this. What is your prescription for actually doing something serious about the needs and the poverty?
GEORGE AYITTEY: The agreement which was reached at the G-8 was really a sham or hollow. Because number one, Africa debt relief had already been reached before the G-8 Summit. So, it wasn't part of the communiquŽ. Now, the communiquŽ said it would be possible to increase aid to Africa by $50 billion in the year 2010, okay. Now, here's the chicanery and the trickery involved in that political announcement. And that is that the increased aid wouldn't come on tap until the year 2010. But by then all those who signed that communiquŽ will be out of office. So Tony Blair won't be around for him to be held accountable for a statement which he has signed on to. And second important thing was the trade issue was what a lot of people considered to be very critical to the fate of Africa. Now, at the G-8, the G-8 leaders agreed in principle to a sort of phased trade subsidies, farm subsidies and, you know, trade barriers. But they did not commit themselves to any deadline. So, in effect, if you look at the entire package only $20 billion represents new money. And even this new money comes from reshuffling old programs. So, some are saying that what Africa got is what Asia is losing. It is just a reshuffling of the board, not really any new commitments in terms of money going to Africa.
BILL MOYERS: How do farm subsidies and manufacturing subsidies in the West hurt Africans?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, the farm subsidy issue is really peripheral to the fundamental cause of African poverty. Farm subsidies, you know, take cotton, sugar, tobacco, for example. They affect only a few African exports, cotton exports from Mali, Niger, Senegal and say Nigeria for example. Now, tobacco subsidies don't affect African tobacco. Look at Zimbabwe. The tobacco industry in Zimbabwe has totally collapsed, not because of U.S. subsidies. And there aren't any trade barriers against Nigerian oil. There are no trade barriers against African mineral exports. There are no trade barriers against gold, diamonds, et cetera, et cetera. So, see again, the subsidies have been utilized by Africa leaders in order to divert attention from their own economic mismanagement.
BILL MOYERS: If the G-8 Summit was a political chicanery as you said, what was the G-8 concert?
GEORGE AYITTEY: As an African, I appreciate the fact that Western rock bands are trying to help Africa. But then, as an African I look at it and I ask myself "has it come to this -- that Africa's salvation rests upon the success of rock concerts? Are we totally bereft of finding solutions to our own problems in Africa?" In other words, there was a lot of feel-good. People went to the rock concerts. But they thought that in putting pressure to bear on the G-8 leaders, they may be able to open up the oppressors and do something for Africa. But you see the real question is why are we not holding these rock concerts in Africa? What are African governments, what are African leaders doing to help their own people? That has been totally missing in the equation. We all know that government-to-government aid hasn't helped Africa. More than four Marshall Plans have been pumped into Africa since 1960. And we haven't seen any positive result out of it. The best way of helping Africa -- smart aid -- is that which will help the African people. Smart aid is that which will empower the African people. The way to empower the African people, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. All that we have to do is to look at how the world dealt with Eastern Europe. Now there, the West didn't hand money over to the Communist regimes. It found societies or NGOs like Solidarity and helped them --
BILL MOYERS: Non-government institutions -- like The Workers' Movement in Poland -- Solidarity.
GEORGE AYITTEY: Precisely. Why don't we find the solidarity movements in Africa and help them?
BILL MOYERS: Well, why don't we?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes. And also the West also established Radio Free Europe. So why don't we establish Radio Free Africa, for example? Information is power. Information is very powerful. Look at the role the media played in Eastern Europe and how it contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. As I indicated, the media is controlled in Africa. Let's get the media out of the hands of these corrupt and incompetent governments in Africa.
BILL MOYERS: But they've got the guns.
GEORGE AYITTEY: This is where, in the past, Western approach towards Africa was leader-centered.
BILL MOYERS: Leader-centered?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Leader-centered. In other words, the West was looking --
BILL MOYERS: Go to Mugabe, go to Nyerere, go to -
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes. The West was looking for leaders who were saying the right things, the things the West wanted to hear. Democracy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think a newer approach -- and this is what I indicated when we went to Scotland -- should be one which is institution-based. In other words, the West should be looking at certain critical institutions. For example, like independent and free media. It is crucial.
BILL MOYERS: An independent court. Judiciary.
GEORGE AYITTEY: An independent judiciary.
BILL MOYERS: Name some more.
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes. That is important. An independent electoral commission. You can't have free and fair elections if the electoral commission is not independent.
BILL MOYERS: We could use some of that over here.
GEORGE AYITTEY: In the West, you say that if you don't have an independent electoral commission, we're not going to give you aid to conduct your elections. The fourth institution that we need is an independent central bank. The military rulers of Nigeria, for example; when Sani Abacha was in power, his goons launched pre-dawn raids on the Central Bank of Nigeria with trucks, they loaded the trucks with billions and billions of certified dollars and carried the dollars out of the country. Let's have an independent central bank in let's say not just Nigeria but say Africa. Even if you can't, rotate governors of central banks in a particular region. Let's say West Africa or say East Africa, for example. This way they are sure that, you know, at least --
BILL MOYERS: You know, that makes a lot of sense to me as a layman. But the Western leaders who came away from Scotland at the G-8 Summit, they were advocating doubling the amount of traditional aid to Africa.
GEORGE AYITTEY: OK, the world wants to help. But, it doesn't mean that we should repeat old stupid mistakes by pouring money into an African bowl, which everybody knows, it leaks. Look, corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion a year.Now, cut that half. If African governments would seriously cut that in half, they would find almost more than enough money that Tony Blair would use -- the 50 billion that Tony Blair wants to raise for them.
BILL MOYERS: What leverage does the West have to bring that about?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, the West doesn't have the leverage, but if you want to solve corruption, there are two most effective antidotes against corruption: an independent media and also an independent judiciary in order to have the rule of law.
BILL MOYERS: So, that's what we should be supporting.
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes. Precisely.
BILL MOYERS: We should be supporting a free press in every country?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes, yes, precisely, precisely.
BILL MOYERS: Should we hold up our aid until the government agrees to?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, of course you can say, "Look, if you don't have a free press, this and that and that and that case--". In other words, let's take the Bush millennium challenge account that has something like 15 sort of benchmarks before you get any grant. I have suggested that just a few of these benchmarks -- an independent and free press, media -- ought to be the first one. You see, to fight corruption, number one, you have to expose it. You expose the corrupt. And number two you punish them. And that's where you need an independent judiciary -- punish them for all for everybody to see. That's all. That's not rocket science. But then for Africans to be able to do it, you have to give them the institutional tools. You just can't preach "fight corruption", and then allow Mugabe to control the media.
BILL MOYERS: You've said that Africa needs tough love. What do you mean by that?
GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, tough love simply means that for far too long we have not been willing to criticize black African leaders. And that should change. And if we see that African leaders are doing something wrong and they're not governing justly, we ought to be able to say so. And especially what I have found in Washington is that the white policy makers don't want to be seen as criticizing black African leaders for fear --
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George Ayittey, Professor of Economics at American University, Washington, DC
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