Contrasting with the general poverty of the masses with the general poverty of

the masses of citizens , created resentment. While military takeovers have

occurred to rid countries of unpopular and corrupt regimens, most are probably
better explained by other factors such as the personal ambitions of military
officers or attempts by the military to deal with low pay, poor conditions, or
neglect.
In any event, between the 1952 overthrow of King Farouk by Egyptian colonel
Gamal Abdel Nasser and 1984, seventy successful coups took place in thirty
African countries .According to Samuel Decalo, If during 1960s the coup dtat
emerged as the most visible and recurrent characteristic of the African political
experienc e, by the 1980s, quasi-permanent military rule, of whatever
ideological hue, had become the norm for most of the continent. At any one
time, 65% of all Africas inhabitants and well over half of its states are
governed by military administrations.
Since the impendence, Benin, Burkina Faso (formerly upper volta), Ghana, and
Nigeria have had five or more successful coups dtat , and just twelve African
states have never had civilian rule disrupted by military intervention. In fact, as
late as 1996, only cote dIvoire and Malawi had not yet experienced an
attempted or successful coup dtat. Then, just 3 years later, only Malawi
remined following the successful overthrow of Ivorian President Konan Bedie on
December 24 ..
While military regimens have normally claimed to be caretakers who would
clean up the mess and return to the barracks, most instead have moved
to consolidate power. It is important to note that almost invariably military
regimes have tended to operate much like the civilian regimes that preceded
them ; Meroe. Most have adopted the single-party political organization, and
usually from a small ruling group, a single ruler emerges. Furthermore, and
highly important for an understanding of the continent, most military rulers
share with their civilian counterparts both the use of patronage as a
mechanism for gathering political support and the use of coercion to control or
eliminate opposition. They also share an overall preoccupation with increasing
their own economic position Nigerias military ruler from 1993 to 1998, general
sani Abacha, is a case in point. Along with crushing all political opposition,
Abacha and his corrupt military cronies diverted vast oil revenues for
patronage and their own aggrandizement. Abacha is alleged to have stolen a $
6 billion fortune for himself. Finally, while military and civilian rulers alike have
pursued almost identical economic development policies and have reaped
similar results, the afrobarometer project has found that military rule is by far
the least popular form of rule in Africa.
The political economy of decline

For ordinary Africans, development is seen in personal terms. It means

additionally money for childrens schoolbooks, usable roads that allow farmers
to get their produce to market, electric lights in the village, affordable rice and
flour, or a health clinic within walking distance. Development too is measured
by access to land, jobs, and better housing. But most Africans experienced little
real economic progress in the postcolonial period.

Resources needed for effective, broad-scale development were drained away,

among other reasons, to support regime efforts to consolidate power.
As we have seen, attempts by African regimens to enhance control over the
political arena and to strengthen and extend bases of support led to
remarkably similar actions. State patronage and clientelism emerged as the
main methods of political control and governance. State resources that could
have been committed to development were used to pull into the system the
elite form variety of politicized factions (ethnic, regional, workers, groups,
student associations, womens groups). In reality, private appropriation of state
resources and the use of government money to build and expand personal rule
lay at the very heart of the process by which most .
In large part because of patronage-based rule, the 1960s and 1970s (and
beyond) were marked by the rapid growth of the political branch, the
bureaucracies, and the parastatals. In fact, during the 1960s , the civil service
in Africa grew as a rate of 7 % per year, a rate that doubled the number of
employees in ten years. The result of was that by 1970 over 60% of all Africans
government expenditures were allocated simply to pay the salaries of
government employees. Furthermore , the expansions of government
corporation the first 2 decades borders on phenomenal. Parastatals were
developed to deal with abroad range of government activities. For example,
states owned companies were created to handle the control and marketing of
agricultural products, and manage retail stores. As extreme example of their
number and range in particular country, Nigeria.
The patronage-based elaboration of the state, the expansion of the armed
forces, and economic development of a country depended on the availability of
substantial amounts of money. Especially needed was foreign exchange to
purchase petroleum, trucks, buses, industrial parts, and a vast menu of items
Africa could not produce. While some money began to flow from donor nations,
most government activities would depend on money aggregated locally. Given
the scarcity of indigenous private savings from which to borrow, the lack of
established middle- and upper income groups on which income taxes could be
leveid, the absence of an industrial base, and a heavy dependency on
technologically advanced countries, most African regimens turned to the profits

to be made from the export of mainly agricultural commodities. Catherine

Boones description of how African regimens moved to control highly
productive areas of postcolonial commerce is highly relevant. Building on the
regulatory apparatus of the colonial state , post-colonial governments licensed
wholesalers and importers, controlled imports through tax and tariff regimes
and fixed the process of agricultural commodities ,agricultural imports, and
staple consumer goods. While the process of sustaining reenues from taxes on
rural commercial farmers developed by the colonial power or intensifying
(raising) them was complicated and varied considerably depending on the
political and economic resources of local farmers, the result was that
throughout most of the continent, substantial profits were earned by African
regimes by paying rural agricultural commodity producers low prices and
marketing the commodities at considerably higher prices. The consequence for
farmers and rural areas of Africa was that the promise of development turned
into harsh reality of subsistence living. For increasing number s the hope for a
better life centered on the already well-travelled part of migration to the
cities.
In fact, government economic policies that handicapped farmers were heavily
reinforced by the reactions of rulers to major population growth in urban areas.
By the early 1960s. primate cities(capital and ports) often wre growing at
rates as high as 10 % per year. For example between 1958 and 1970, the
population of Kinshasa in what is now the democratic republic of Congo
increased from 389 000 to 1323 00, and Douala, Cameroon, grew form 54000
in 1957 to over 313 000 in 1976 (government of Cameron 1977n).Early within
the first decade of independence in most African capitals, massive
conglomerations of under- and unemployed Africans existed in sprawling
squatter settlements with no city services. In some instances the y already
formed the bulk of cities populations.
From the earliest days of independence, African leaders were aware of the
potential danger of large urban concentrations of the poor and unemployed.
Many regimes had experienced urban-based strikes, demonstrations, and even
violence during moves to centralize the state or as disappointment grew over
slow progress toward meeting the needs and expectations of various interest
groups .As a result, most leaders acted to cut the potential of instability of
large concentrations of urban poor by holding down food prices in the cities. IN
effect, urban areas were subsidized by requiring food crop farmers 8mostly
women) to accept low prices from government monopoly whosalers or by
setting price caps on food sold in urban areas.
In order to extract profits from rurally produced agricultural commodities and to
keep food costs low for urban residents, government policies caused the
deterioration of rural economies , pushed the rate of rural to urban migration
dramatically upward , and added to the growing inequality between rural and

urban areas. Furthermore, framers, in large numbers where access was

available , began to sell their crops in the black market economy outside
government control.
For much of Africa, then, development of the rural areas was sacrificed to
finance patrimonial states. These patronage-based systems created
opportunities for all those connected to government through patron-client
networks. For the elite, appointed by rulers to the highest part, administrative,
and parastatal positions , state office and political influence created amazing
legal and illegal advantages for personal gain. And in virtually all states, those
in positions of power( and their patrons) moved to use their influence for
economic profit.
It is the way in which the state-based elite their profits that is.
The most part, money legally or illegally secured from government position was
either used to buy luxury import items or placed into speculative real estate
development, taxis and trucks, or retail and whosale commercial ventures. For
a variety for reasons, very little investment took place in ventures that created
substantial employment, boosted industrial capacity, or generally helped
develop the country.
Given the circumstances of government economic policies that virtually
devastated rural areas and pushed urbanization, The expansion of the state
and the huge costs of personnel and patronage, and the essentially
nonproductive and wasteful use by the elite of public resources, almost all
African states were in economic decline by the early 1970s .During the mid- to
late 1970s, as a combination of external and internal political, economic and
social factors moved the continent from decline
State and society in crisis
The political agendas that created costly government superstructures and
siphoned money into the hands of a relatively nonproductive elite class
inhibited the development of most African countries. In many regimes,
inefficiency, mismanagement, and corruption wasted public resources.
Moreover, most of the wealth that flowed to the do spent on capital
investments, investments that help a country to produce more and that
ultimately promote development .
As a result these other factors, the economic growth rate of the continent
declined. Data taken from Nafziger help chart the path of African economic
stagnation and descent in the 1970s and 1980s. From a growth rate of
approximately 1.3% per year in the decade prior to independence, economic
growth dropped to 0.2 percent yearly for the period from 1965 through 1984.
Between 1980 and 1985, Africas real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita

fell an average of 2.3 percent yearly.y the mid-1980s, the great descent had
became an internationally recognized tragedy of crisis proportions. While the
economy impact of political decisions by African rulers was major factor in
creating crisis conditions, others factors generally outside the control of rulers
contributed substantially.
The relatively high prices that commodities brought in the wining colonial years
began to drop in the early independence period. During the 1970s, and
continuously since, prices for virtually all of the continents main agricultural
and mineral commodities have declined. At the same time, costs of goods
imported form the more technologically sophisticated. Industrial tools and
luxury items become increasingly more expensive.
Even more disadvantages changes in the terms of trade for African states
wre caused by the oil shocks from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. With the
exception of oil producers such as Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, sub-Saharan
African states were staggered by the high costs of petroleum products.
While changes in the international economy placed most African countries in
increasing jeopardy , population changes within Africa created conditions that
would hinder any hope of economic progress . From the relatively slow
population increases of the colonial period, population growth rates in
independent Africa simply exploded .By the mid-1980s, the continental
population growth average rose to yearly rate of over 3.0 % .At this rate of
growth, populations double in size in little more than twenty years.
The scope of the crisis can be understood by the number of Africans relegated
to absolute poverty(living on one dollar per day or less). By 1985, the number
of absolute poor had growth and slow economic growth combined to increase
the number of poor by additional 11 million. This mean that at the dawn of the
twenty-first century Africans constituted to only 16 % in 1985.
In any event, the fact is that by the early 1980s most African states simply did
not have capacity to meet rapidly growing budgetary requirements. Most often,
among other results, there was an overall weakening of the governments
ability to carry our essential public services . Over time, roads an rail systems
deteriorate. Services to agriculture were abandoned. School systems (already
shocked by huge increase in the under-fifteen population) found little money
availed for school construction or teacher salaries. Furthermore ,as at the state
softened , even the most essential government tasks, such as tax collection,
became problematic. As Goren hyden makes clear, in the absence of a
welfare state that would provide Africans with a measure of social security,
citizens have always relied on informal social and economic support systems
such as extended families , neighbors, or the community at large . During the
period of economic and political decline and now ,Africans increasingly of

income for most people across the continent and which almost entirely
escapes the taxing arm of.
As the administrative capacity of governments decreased, decay within
regimes increased . In many states, corrupt practices among statically placed
politicians and bureaucrats became so habitual as to be instutionalized. Under
these circumstances, citizens expected to pay bribes, and they viewed
politicians raiding of government treasuries as simply the way things are
done .The term Keleptocratic has been applied to states such as the former
Zaire, where corruption was systematically practiced at all levels. Yet, even in
countries with a traditionally professional civil service, the economic crisis
created conditions or structured incentives for corruption. In Ghana, for
example, where hyper-inflation rapidly outran increases in salaries,
demanding a bribe (or a higher one than previously ) was an understandable
reaction of Junior or middle-ranking government officials to the problems of
feeding their families.
For individual Africans, strategies for survival are registered in such rational
acts as the following: a decision to sell cocoa not to the official government
agency but on the black market for twice the government price; a move to
avoid the possibility of losing money on an export peanut crop by retreating
into subsistence agriculture (for ones own use ); or the decision (made by
many) to invest time and work in one or a variety of mutual aid organizations
that operate to help finance a farmers seeds, repair a road, build a school, or
even protect a village from thieves.
Since the early 1980s, the actions of individual Africans combined to have a
substantial impact on African regimes. Basically, two major patterns emerged
.First, although varying by country and regime, large numbers of Africans
disengaged from the state or were at least partially successful in avoiding state
laws and officials. Second, a resurgence and expansion of voluntary
organizations and associations occurred, even within coercive states .While
both developments had significant ramifications for African regimes,
withdrawal from the state and its power to tax was most difficult for rulers to
control and added most immediately to the state in crisis,
Disengagement from the state denies regimes their expected revenues in two
significant ways. First, the economic foundation of most African states rests on
revenues produced from selling agricultural exports. When farmers simply stop
growing export crops, the fiscal base of regims (already weakened by a
continuing slide in commodity prices ) is further eroded. Certainly, less foreign
exchange is accrued and the economic crisis deepens. Disengagement from
the state also takes when people turn to clandestine economic transactions for
survival or profit. These black market activities are markedly alike throughout
the continent and primarily involve: