Governance and Under-Development of Sub-Sahara Africa

Abstract

Sub-Sahara Africa SSA countries have generated vast literatures from many authors and corporate bodies. What accounts for this interest is the persistence of government inflicted tragedies, that have caused avoidable mass poverty, illiteracy, low political culture, escalation of preventive killer diseases, grinding hunger, economic and political crisis, terror, civil wars, insurgency, preponderance of weak institutions, insecurity, low industrial absorption capacity, rising human frustration, abuse of human rights, endemic corruption, and all manners of unimaginable human induced miseries. Endowed with abundant natural resources and bail out aids from the west, one is piqued at the reason and explanation for continuity of under development and deplorable living conditions in SSA countries. This paper attempts at factoring the causes for the persistence of under-development in SSA, and its attendant unstoppable rise in mass poverty, insurgency, civil war and socio- economic unrest. The methodology used is historical empiricism. What emerged from the finding shows that weak institutions, purposeless and inappropriate leadership, politicization of the diverse human population, abuse of electoral process, absence of well articulated development policies, corruption, all of which are indices of poor governance, account for the retarded economic growth and peace necessary for nation building and sustainable development.

Keywords – Sub-Saharan Africa SSA, governance, development, dependency and debt crisis.