Extractive Versus Weak Institutions in the Development Crisis in Africa: Towards a Humanist Theory of Explanation and Recovery

Abstract

Africa is at a threshold of collapse with its developmental strides having grossly lagged behind other developing countries in the world. For instance, per capita GDP in East Asia has essentially grown by over 800% since 1960 and, in some low income countries, per capita GDP has since doubled. The reverse is the case in Sub-Saharan Africa with virtually abysmal per capita GDP growth, if at all, over the same period. Consequent upon this economic stagnation are poverty, very high rates of unemployment and insecurity which have ravaged the continent. Available data shows that while only about 12.5% of the world population is domiciled in Africa, approximately 43% of the world’s poor (more than 330 million in 2012) are Africans. The socio-economic capital deterioration in Sub-Sahara Africa is, indeed, alarmingly worrisome. This persisting and rather enigmatic phenomenon has inevitably begged the following questions: what really is the issue with Africa? Any prospects for the future? Several scholars have given a compte rendu on the root causes of the African developmental puzzle. Scholars like Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have argued that nations fail basically as a result of ‘extractive institutions’. Using the descriptive and analytic methods and, with Nigeria as a case, the paper examines this claim and posits that, beyond extractive institutions, the real problem lies in weak institutions that give judicial imprimatur to issues like corruption and bad governance, which are the basis of extractive institutions. It concludes that the solutions that will successfully recover African states from the verge of collapse and repositioned for sustainable development must be humanist in nature.

Keywords: Extractive Institution, Weak Institution, Corruption, Underdevelopment, Africa