On 28 January 2009, before a packed courtroom in The Hague, the Prosecution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) called its first ever witness, a young man from Ituri district in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). For the ICC and its supporters this represented the moment the seven-year-old Court truly arrived – when the dream of building a permanent global institution to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity became a reality.

The young man, testifying under the pseudonym ‘Mr Witness’, stated that he had been recruited as a child soldier when the forces of rebel leader Thomas Lubanga abducted him on his way home from school. Shortly afterwards he attended a military training camp run by Lubanga, who now sat in a crisp three-piece suit, listening intently on the other side of the courtroom. Leading up to the trial, critics questioned why the Prosecution had only charged Lubanga with the crimes of enlisting and conscripting child soldiers, and using them to participate actively in hostilities, when communities in Ituri accused him of orchestrating much graver atrocities, including mass murder and rape. The Prosecution responded that the charges reflected the strongest evidence it had gathered against Lubanga and a vital opportunity to spotlight the global scourge of using child soldiers.

When Mr Witness returned after the lunch break, he stunned the courtroom by announcing that he wished to retract his entire testimony. A Congolese non-governmental organisation the Prosecution had tasked with finding witnesses for the Lubanga case had, he stated, told him what to say on the stand. Everything he had claimed in the morning was false.

Outraged, Lubanga’s defence team asked the judges for a permanent stay of proceedings – in effect, a collapse of the trial – on the grounds that if the Prosecution’s star witness had been coached, all of its evidence was likely to be tainted. Perhaps realising the institutional perils of ending the ICC’s first ever trial when it had barely begun, and mindful it had already been stayed the previous year, the judges ordered the case should continue, but not before issuing a stark warning to the Prosecution about the quality of its investigations.

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Ten years later and with ICC cases currently open in eight African states, most of the problems apparent in the Lubanga case – including the Prosecution’s outsourcing of investigations to local intermediaries and the weakness of much of its evidence – continue to bedevil the Court. Only five of the ICC’s 28 cases have been completed; five have collapsed either before or during trial for lack of evidence. The remaining 18 cases have not progressed because of insufficient evidence, the failure of states and international peacekeeping missions to capture and transfer suspects to The Hague, or the death of suspects on the battlefield.

No serving head of state or government official has ever been prosecuted by the ICC. By 2016, the Prosecution had dropped charges against all suspects in cases relating to the 2007-8 post-election violence in Kenya, including those against President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto; and all cases concerning Sudan, including that of President Omar al-Bashir, have been ‘hibernated’. After 17 years of the ICC’s work, one of the most telling realisations is that – without a police or military force of its own and reliant on states for the security of its personnel and enforcement of arrest warrants – the Court is structurally incapable of prosecuting sitting members of government. It is, in effect, only able to tackle crimes by non-state actors such as rebel leaders or recently deposed government elites.

Even strong supporters of the ICC such as the United Kingdom have started to question whether the US$1.7 billion the Court has received from member states since its inauguration has been money well spent.¹ Its track record and the causes of its failure call into question whether the ICC, headquartered in The Netherlands, is fit for purpose in investigating and prosecuting complex atrocity cases in far-flung parts of the world.

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In my book Distant Justice: The Impact of the International Criminal Court on African Politics,² I argue that the principal reason the ICC has struggled to conduct effective investigations is that its modus operandi – attempting to dispense justice from The Hague, with mainly non-African staff who have limited experience in Africa and spend minimal time on the ground – is consistently found wanting when applied to African conflict zones. The ICC pursues distant justice because it believes this maintains the security and neutrality of its personnel, allowing the Court to hover above the political fray, investigating and prosecuting individuals regardless of the domestic consequences or local context. This smacks of political naiveté or hubris or both.

To date, neither the ICC Prosecution – nor the Defence – have hired a single investigator from any of the eight African states where investigations have taken place. Foreign nationals are perceived as more impartial. This practice has denied the ICC the domestic expertise essential to investigating atrocities in difficult environments where conflict is often ongoing. Without deep knowledge of local causes and agents of violence, political networks, languages and cultures, ICC investigators have struggled to gather evidence that can withstand scrutiny in the courtroom.

Compounding the lack of contextual familiarity at the ICC, the Prosecution has typically limited its investigators to only ten days in the field at a time and often divided their time between multiple cases across a number of states. Several investigators – seasoned professionals in their native Western countries – have complained that these conditions made the systematic conduct of their work almost impossible. ‘We probably didn’t know enough about these countries when we went in – how politics worked, how to get governments to work with us, what their concerns were, what they were trying to achieve,’ recalled one. ‘How many of us had ever been to Ituri or northern Uganda before our investigations started?…There’s no question it would have helped to know more before we went in.’³

These shortcomings in the ICC’s approach contributed directly to the acquittal of the ICC’s two highest-profile suspects to reach the dock, former Congolese rebel leader and vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba and former president of Côte d’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo. The judges who in June 2018 acquitted Bemba on appeal ruled that the Prosecution had provided only abstract evidence – much of it gathered from secondary sources rather than first-hand investigations on the ground – to show that Bemba, according to the theory of command responsibility, had failed to prevent his troops from carrying out rape, murder and pillage in the Central African Republic (CAR).

In January 2019, seven years after issuing a warrant for Gbagbo’s arrest for crimes against humanity during the 2010-11 post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire, which claimed 3,000 lives,⁴ the ICC judges ruled that he and his youth minister Charles Blé Goudé had no case to answer. As the only former head of state to have been prosecuted by the ICC, Gbagbo’s acquittal is the biggest blow to the Court since its inauguration.

The damage to the ICC’s standing isn’t in the acquittal of Gbagbo per se: the role of a court is to convict or acquit based on the evidence presented. What condemns the Prosecution and the ICC as a whole are the flawed investigative practices and poor-quality evidence that led to the decision there was no case to answer. As the judges highlighted,⁵ the Prosecution failed to prove several key allegations against Gbagbo, including that he had an explicit policy of targeting civilians and that his public speeches contained direct orders to carry out atrocities. This failure conformed to a long-standing tendency of the Prosecution – dropping investigators into conflict environments for short periods – to present broad-brush evidence about atrocities, without the meticulous proof necessary to link those crimes incontrovertibly to the accused.

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The impact of the ICC’s distant approach goes far beyond its difficulty in building sound criminal cases. Altogether more concerning are the negative consequences of its methods for the African societies in which the Court carries out investigations. The ICC has unwittingly established relations with African governments, local populations and national judiciaries that are damaging. It has also undermined domestic responses to mass atrocity that include amnesties for high-level perpetrators. Collectively, these relations highlight that distant justice makes the ICC unaccountable to conflict-affected communities and blind to the consequences on the ground.

First, lacking the necessary expertise in domestic political dynamics, the ICC has left itself open to interference and manipulation by African governments whose motivations and tactics the Court often doesn’t fully grasp. Seeking to distance itself from the political arena and thus remain impartial, the ICC has instead become more politicised. Relations with some African states have been antagonistic. The Sudanese and Kenyan governments, for example, systematically blocked the ICC’s investigations by denying ICC investigators access to crime sites, allegedly killing and threatening witnesses and refusing to hand over evidence. All the while, they rallied domestic and continental support by defeating what President Bashir – after the ICC called a halt to investigations into crimes in Darfur – branded the ICC’s ‘colonial’ justice designed to ‘humiliate’ African leaders.⁶

More often, the ICC has naively cultivated overly cosy working relations, especially with states that have referred situations to the Court; for example, Uganda, the DRC, CAR and Mali. Heavily dependent on state cooperation, the ICC has conducted investigations in lock-step with domestic governments, including travelling to crime scenes with members of the national army and police.

In Uganda and the DRC, close relations stemmed from the fact that the ICC chased cases in those countries, approaching the respective presidents to encourage them to refer their situations to the Court. During pre-referral negotiations, the ICC Prosecution assured the Ugandan and Congolese governments that it would focus only on rebel leaders and not state actors. This not only ensured impunity for widespread government atrocities during the same period, but emboldened these states. During all national elections in Uganda and the DRC since the launch of ICC investigations in central Africa in 2004, both states have brazenly and routinely committed crimes against civilians.

The ICC’s failure to address state criminality is a key reason the Court has scant legitimacy among conflict-affected communities across Africa. During more than a decade of field research I have conducted in northern Uganda and eastern DRC,⁷ interviewees emphasised the gravity of atrocities committed by their governments and their anger at the ICC’s neglect of these crimes. In northern Uganda, state violations have included forced displacement, murder, rape, torture and failure to protect the population from attacks by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Many respondents argued that such actions violate the social contract between the state and its citizens. ‘We expect the government to protect us,’ said Michael, a 42-year-old man in the Pabbo camp for internally displaced persons in Acholiland, northern Uganda, who had lost his wife and two children to LRA violence.

Not only have they failed to protect us, they have murdered us…People start screaming when they know the LRA is coming but the UPDF [Ugandan People’s Defence Force, the Ugandan army] does nothing. It does nothing to stop the rebels and it violates us. Soldiers always come into the camp at night. They rape our women and girls and abduct the men they say collaborate with the rebels.⁸

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Local respondents criticised the ICC’s model of delivering justice from afar, lacking local presence and accountability to affected communities. The intimacy of conflict – in which many victims know their assailants personally and are likely to live side by side with them once violence subsides and they return to their communities – underscores a widespread need for victims and perpetrators to confront one another directly. This would enable them to deliver and receive apologies, and to engage in a dialogue about the crimes committed. ‘We need to bring the fighters together with the victims,’ said Patience, a 48-year-old victim of LRA attacks in the northern Ugandan district of Amuru. ‘They should apologise to the victims and ask their forgiveness. Only when that happens will we know that they won’t go back to the bush and continue the killing.’

In many interviews, the desire for direct engagement between victims and perpetrators – as opposed to their separation when the ICC holds trials in The Hague – extends equally to senior government and rebel leaders. ‘[Joseph] Kony and [Ugandan president Yoweri] Museveni should come here to Gulu,’ said Henry, an Acholi shop owner. ‘They should stand in front of all of us, apologise and ask for forgiveness.’

Meanwhile, the ICC has undermined national judiciaries in Africa by claiming jurisdiction over cases that could have been – and sometimes were already being – investigated by domestic courts. This conduct undermines the ICC’s own principle of complementarity enshrined in the Rome Statute, which stresses the primary responsibility of states to prosecute crimes committed by their nationals or on their territory. Instead, the Court has often intervened even when local courts have displayed a genuine willingness and ability to handle atrocity cases on the basis that its distance confers impartiality likely to be lacking in domestic institutions.

Judicial personnel in Ituri, in north-eastern DRC, were furious that rebel leaders Lubanga, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo, were whisked off to the ICC between 2006 and 2008 when their cases were still being investigated domestically. Under a US$40 million European Commission-funded judicial reform process begun in 2003, national military courts in Ituri successfully prosecuted a string of high-ranking members of the Congolese army and several rebel groups. Discussing the near-collapse of the Lubanga trial mentioned at the start of this Counterpoint, one Congolese investigator in Ituri said, ‘The ICC stole these cases from us and has done a worse job. What was the point of sending these suspects to The Hague, to face a lower standard of justice?’9 The ICC’s intervention in the DRC demoralised a domestic judiciary that has benefited from substantial internationally backed reform and will continue prosecuting atrocity cases long after the ICC has departed.

More broadly, the ICC’s distant justice has diminished the capacity of African policymakers and local communities to determine, on their own terms, how best to address mass conflict. Options available include domestic prosecutions, local reconciliation rituals or amnesty-based approaches such as peace negotiations, truth commissions, security sector reform or disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of combatants.

During the 2006-8 peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA in Juba, in southern Sudan, the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for the top five LRA commanders was the principal stumbling block to reaching a resolution. The Juba process was consumed by debates over how to drop the warrants or pause the ICC investigations for one year renewable – permissible under the ICC’s Statute – and thereby enable the peace talks to proceed. The ICC and its international backers rejected these options, insisting that the pursuit of justice was essential to achieving sustainable peace.

One of the consequences of the ICC’s intransigence was that none of the LRA commanders would come to the negotiating table in Juba, fearing arrest and transfer to The Hague. The ICC also inhibited the substantive flexibility that is vital to any successful peace process, by thwarting the possible offer of an amnesty for the LRA leadership, to which they were entitled at the time under Ugandan law. This denied the negotiators one of the major incentives for the LRA to lay down its arms.

As one senior negotiator in Juba observed, ‘Imagine if South Africa wanted to use the Truth and Reconciliation Commission today and offered an amnesty [for high-ranking suspects from the apartheid era] the way it did after 1994. The ICC wouldn’t allow it. And without amnesty, the transition would’ve collapsed and then where would we be?’.¹⁰ Various issues contributed to the ultimate collapse of the Juba talks in 2008 before a comprehensive peace agreement between the Ugandan government and the LRA could be signed, but the shadow of the ICC was a telling factor.

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Major reform of the ICC is urgently needed if it is to become fit for purpose. A vital first move is to transform the profile of the Court’s personnel. The intricacies of the settings where the ICC intervenes require deep contextual expertise. Ivorian investigators should be hired to investigate crimes in Côte d’Ivoire, and Ivorian country experts – rather than legal generalists – to advise on how to navigate difficult political and social terrain. This approach would improve the quality of investigations, while assisting the ICC to develop more even-handed and productive state co-operation than the overly cosy relations developed with the governments of Uganda and the DRC.

The ICC must also increase its presence in the communities where it operates. This requires allowing investigators to spend more time on the ground and holding trials closer to atrocity sites, rather than in The Hague. This would make the Court’s work more visible and approachable for local communities, help build trust and encourage more local witnesses to assist the Court’s investigations – issues that have hamstrung the ICC since its inception.

More fundamentally, though, the ICC and international policymakers must afford domestic actors more latitude to address atrocities by whichever means they deem appropriate.

International prosecutions of a small number of elite suspects constitute only one response to mass violence – and, as highlighted in this Counterpoint, an often flawed and damaging one at that. There should therefore be no inherent impediment to Uganda, for example, deciding to use a conditional amnesty or community-based rituals to address the crimes of Kony and other LRA commanders – as some northern Ugandan civil society groups advocated during the Juba peace talks – if affected communities deem these the most appropriate way of ensuring accountability and pursuing reconciliation. As I argued in a 2012 Counterpoint,¹¹ while Rwanda’s decision to use the community-based gacaca system to prosecute 400,000 genocide suspects was roundly criticised by international legal and human rights commentators, the system delivered widespread and durable benefits for Rwandan society.

The ICC and its backers have paid insufficient attention to the diverse ways that mass crimes are being addressed across Africa. In various African states, a brighter future for justice is emerging at community, national and regional levels. Depending on the context, these practices need either international support or freedom from external intrusion to maximise their potential. A key reason the ICC was established was the expectation that domestic institutions would often be unwilling or unable to prosecute serious crimes, especially those involving their own state officials. African courts, however, are increasingly tackling atrocity cases – including against government suspects – and have much to teach the ICC about how to investigate atrocities on the continent.

The example of the Ituri courts shows that strategic investment in domestic judicial reform can enable national courts to prosecute complex cases in courtrooms accessible to victims and other groups directly affected by violence. Elsewhere in the DRC, in South Kivu and Maniema provinces, a system of mobile gender units between 2009 and 2012 prosecuted 382 cases of sexual violence, many involving high-ranking suspects in the Congolese army. These units were a creative collaboration between international specialists from the American Bar Association and US-based Open Society Justice Initiative, and Congolese judges, lawyers and investigators. Like gacaca, they held open-air trials in full view of local communities. The process involved ‘light touch’ international assistance that bolstered the independence of domestic actors.

Similar reforms have enabled the Rwandan national courts to handle numerous cases since 2008 concerning high-profile genocide suspects extradited from abroad. In 2014, the Constitutional Court in South Africa ruled that the South African police force was legally obliged to investigate Zimbabwean officials accused of torturing opponents of Robert Mugabe’s regime. The Southern African Litigation Centre and the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum successfully argued that South Africa has an obligation to prosecute these international crimes, having implemented the ICC Statute within domestic law.

Meanwhile, in 2016 the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal convicted former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré of crimes committed in Chad between 1982 and 1990.¹² All four investigating judges in the Chambers were African: the president of the court was from Burkina Faso and the three remaining judges were Senegalese. Chad and the African Union provided more than half of the tribunal’s budget, with the balance provided by international donors. The South Africa and Senegal cases highlight that, if some African states are unwilling to address serious crimes committed on their soil, other African states may intervene to do so. Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the Habré trial was the first in the world in which one country prosecuted the former head of state of another. After the collapse of the Gbagbo case, the ICC was undoubtedly envious of the Chambers’ success.

The DRC, Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal examples show that external support for African courts can yield a more robust and accessible form of accountability than the distant justice delivered by the ICC. None of these legal processes – local or international – is perfect. However, domestic institutions have inherent advantages over international approaches, such as that taken by the distant ICC – namely, their visibility among affected communities and their longevity. The Court therefore needs to rethink its own practices, while ensuring it does no harm to competent domestic institutions. Equally, international donors and policymakers must recognise that more lasting and cost-effective results can be achieved by backing African remedies to violent conflict. While international justice has dominated external debates about addressing mass crimes in Africa over the past 20 years, the future is local.

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17 July 1998 – Rome Statute of the ICC created and signed
11 April 2002 – Deposit of 60th ratification of the Rome Statute necessary for the ICC to be established
1 July 2002 – Rome Statute comes into force
11 March 2003 – First ICC judges sworn in
16 June 2003 – Luis Moreno Ocampo sworn in as inaugural Chief Prosecutor of the ICC
29 January 2004 – ICC receives first referral of a situation from the Republic of Uganda
23 June 2004 – Opening of first ever ICC investigations in Uganda
29 June 2004 – Opening of ICC investigations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
December 2004 – Government of Central African Republic (CAR) refers situation to the ICC
17 March 2006 – Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga becomes first suspect arrested and transferred to the ICC
May 2007 – Investigations commence in CAR situation
3 July 2008 – Transfer of Jean-Pierre Bemba, former Vice-President of the DRC, to the ICC
14 July 2008 – ICC prosecutor issues arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan
26 January 2009 – Opening of first trial in the case of Thomas Lubanga
8 March 2011 – ICC issues summonses for Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto
14 March 2012 – Thomas Lubanga becomes first individual convicted by the ICC
15 June 2012 – Fatou Bensouda sworn in as the second Chief Prosecutor of the ICC
27 January 2016 – ICC opens first non-African situation in the conflict between Georgia and Russia
8 June 2018 – ICC appeals chamber acquits Jean-Pierre Bemba on all charges
15 January 2019 – ICC trial chamber acquits former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo

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Nigeria is a highly litigious society. In Lagos State alone, over 30,000 new civil cases are filed each year.¹ Many claimants have to wait a decade for a verdict, which may then be subject to an appeal. It was not always thus. The modern court system is based on an imported model, introduced by the British. Before the colonial period, the various peoples that inhabit present-day Nigeria practised customary dispute resolution, elements of which are immediately recognisable to the lawyers of today. What is now termed alternative dispute resolution (ADR) embraces three distinct strands: negotiation, mediation and arbitration.²

Negotiation is a natural recourse for two individuals seeking to settle differences through discussion. Should this fail, disputants might approach an independent third party. Historically, in what is now Nigeria, this might have been a local elder or traditional authority, such as a king, emir, oba, obi or eze. Alternatively, it may have been a group of elders with a specific and recognised function in the community, or a council of chiefs.

Mediation sees the third party encouraging disputants to compromise in pursuit of a mutually agreed outcome. The participatory nature of the mediation process enables disputants to exercise a degree of control over the settlement, rather than having a decision imposed on them. In many cases, this makes for a “win-win” arrangement, and thus a durable resolution of the conflict.

Arbitration involves the third party conducting a simplified trial, hearing evidence presented by the disputants (or a family member representing them). Traditionally, this procedure was inquisitorial, with questions posed by the “judge”, rather than accusatorial, whereby arguments are advanced by advocates of the court (as under English law).³ Considering local customs and relevant precedents, the third party would withdraw to deliberate and eventually issue a verdict.

Under both arbitration and mediation, the focus of the neutral party was to resolve the dispute over and above punishing malfeasance. T.O. Elias, who would later serve as Nigeria’s first attorney-general and as chief justice of the Supreme Court, characterised the “African judge as a peace-maker anxious to effect a reconciliation.”⁴ If compensation was awarded or agreed to, a ceremonial reconciliation of the parties would often follow its payment. Igbos, Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic group, traditionally brought palm wine and oil beans to share with the aggrieved party.⁵ According to law professor Nonso Okereafoezeke, reconciliation is the “central pivot of Nigeria’s native justice systems”.⁶

 

Africa’s “rapid urbanisation” is controversial. In a provocatively titled 2010 Counterpoint, “Whatever happened to Africa’s rapid urbanisation?”, and elsewhere, Deborah Potts has provided irrefutable evidence that it is a flawed generalisation.² In a significant number of countries the urbanisation level – the percentage of the population living in urban areas – has declined since the 1990s due to economic crises, de-industrialisation, epidemics or other causes. Furthermore, notable within- and between-country variations prevail.

Potts has shown convincingly that, despite abundant examples of countries experiencing rapid urban population growth but only gradual increases – or declines – in their overall urbanisation level, promotion of the “rapid urbanisation” narrative continues unabated. Flagship reports from leading international agencies including the World Bank and UN-Habitat have been slow to fully take this research data on board or have done so grudgingly. Most recently, the 2016 edition of the authoritative African Economic Outlook asserted that “Africa is urbanising at a historically rapid rate, bringing considerable opportunities and challenges”.³

Clearly, Africa’s urban population is increasing in absolute terms – in many countries, rapidly. Contention arises, in part, due to confusion of terms. “Urban growth” is equated to “urbanisation”, but there is an important distinction to bear in mind. Urban growth is the increase in urban population that occurs as a result of any or a combination of rural–urban migration, natural increase, boundary changes or reclassification of rural villages or territories into urban areas. Urbanisation occurs when population growth in urban areas exceeds that of the total national population. If urban and rural populations are growing at the same rate, urban growth is occurring, but not urbanisation. The distinction is about more than semantics: a decline in the proportion of the total population living in towns and urban settlements, signifying counter- or de-urbanisation, has important policy implications that should not be overlooked.

To its credit, in the State of African Cities 2014 report, and more forcefully in the Habitat III Regional Report for Africa, UN-Habitat accepted that urban population growth rates relative to national population growth rates are stagnant or very slow in many countries and regional variations are the norm. Furthermore, the average rate of urbanisation in 1990–2015 was below 2% for the majority of countries (see Figure 1). Despite saying that Africa is urbanising at a rapid rate, African Economic Outlook 2016 presents data for selected countries where only three – Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Tanzania – are categorised as having rapidly urbanised between 1980 and 2012. Seven are presented as typical of slow urbanisation of below 2% between censuses, while another five are presented as de-urbanising.⁴ Zimbabwe, together with Zambia, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Central African Republic, is one of the countries flagged as experiencing de-urbanisation; and it features prominently in analyses of de-urbanisation in the 1990s.⁵

While accepting Potts’s exhortation to be wary of urban statistics and sceptical of the rapid urbanisation narrative, this Counterpoint urges that the pendulum should not swing completely to the other extreme. Rigorous analysis of evidence cited in support of de-urbanisation is also required. In the case of Zimbabwe, the de-urbanisation apparent in headline census figures since the 1990s seems to be exaggerated. De-urbanisation is not necessarily permanent – it can be reversed. Furthermore, although demographic and spatial conceptions of urbanisation are central to this discussion, it must be remembered that urbanisation also has economic, socio-cultural, political, infrastructural and services dimensions.

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Zimbabwe’s most recent census, conducted in 2012, found that the share of the urban population had declined from 35% of the total population in 2002 to 33%, indicating that the country had de-urbanised during the decade. Unlike other African countries where censuses have been erratic, or their results highly contested, Zimbabwe has conducted regular, credible censuses involving and endorsed by leading UN and other donor agencies. It is a data-rich country, although access to the disaggregated local area data has been difficult in recent years and extrapolation is sometimes required.

The headline figures have certainly attracted attention. During field research in the second half of 2016, I found that ordinary citizens and my key informants expressed bewilderment at suggestions that Zimbabwe is de-urbanising. In seeking an explanation for why the country should have seemingly experienced de-urbanisation, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation stated that it had been “driven by urban–rural migration” and that “a growing share of the population living in communal land and resettlement areas [suggested] de-urbanisation is being driven by the land resettlement programme”.⁶

The causal link between the Government of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) – or jambanja – and de-urbanisation needs careful interrogation. De-urbanisation was also observed in the previous intercensal period in the 1990s, long before jambanja. The reasons cited then included urban economic decline, household responses to HIV/AIDS, and the collapse of urban services, with retrenched workers and the terminally ill retreating to rural areas.⁷ Jambanja and its socio-economic consequences remain highly contested, and their impact on urbanisation poorly understood. Whether Zimbabwe is really de-urbanising and, if so, to what extent jambanja has contributed to the process will require deeper investigation.

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Zimbabwe’s national settlement framework has a seven-tier hierarchy of human settlements comprising metropolitan areas (Harare and Bulawayo), cities or municipalities, towns, and as many as 472 small urban centres in the form of “growth points”, district service centres and rural service centres. The official definition of an urban area in Zimbabwe is based on a combination of two criteria: namely a settlement designated as urban; and a compact settlement of 2,500 people or more, the majority of whom are employed in non-farm employment.⁸ Given the rural location of district and rural service centres, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) categorises them as rural even if their population is above the 2,500 threshold – unless they have been reclassified as urban/towns, as was recently the case with Gokwe and Gutu Mupandawana. Similarly, among my key informants flummoxed by the suggestion that Zimbabwe is de-urbanising, the perception of “urban” excluded these small urban settlements.

In 2002, Zimbabwe had an urban population of 4,029,707 which grew by 6.31% to 4,284,145 in 2012, an increase of 0.63% per year. Unlike the 2002 census report, the 2012 report has no chapter devoted to urban population and migration data. As with all censuses, some discrepancies and anomalies are apparent. For example, it states that the urban population of Zimbabwe was 4,284,145;⁹ but if one adds the totals in each province for the “Urban Council Area population” plus “Growth Points and other Areas”, the total comes to 4,261,243.¹⁰ More significant is the information, based on the above-mentioned additions, that the urban population for Mashonaland Central Province is 71,332. This is a substantial decrease from the figure of 102,873 in the 2002 census report.¹¹ Enquiries with ZIMSTAT indicate that these are discrepancies for which they have not found an explanation. Why should Mashonaland Central Province’s urban population decline to this extent considering that this is the same region in which towns like Mvurwi are reportedly booming?¹²

Such anomalies aside, it is clear that the census totals signify quite slow growth in the number of urban dwellers. Between 2002 and 2012, the rural population increased by 15.46% compared to 6.31% for urban areas. A comparison of distribution of urban populations by province also shows minor changes between 2002 and 2012. There was a slight decline in Bulawayo’s share; and Harare accounted for 47% of the national urban population in 2012 (35% if Epworth and Chitungwiza are separated out), versus 46% in 2002 (36% if Epworth and Chitungwiza are separated out). In other words, according to these data the primacy of the capital, including its peri-urban satellite urban areas, increased slightly during the decade. The intercensal population change for the major urban areas is displayed in Figure 2, and for the provinces in Figure 3.

The difference between the growth rates of rural and urban populations can in part be attributed to higher total fertility rates in rural areas compared to urban areas. Total fertility rates of 2.8 for Bulawayo and 3.1 for Harare are much lower than the range of 3.6–4.3 for the other provinces.¹³ However, as the base population is large in the main cities, lower natural increase rates still result in significant aggregate population growth before we take migration into account.

Two further factors also need to be considered when analysing the urban population data: national and international migration patterns, and the impact of boundary changes or rigidity, addressed in more detail later. Although the census report states that internal migration patterns between the 2002 and 2012 censuses should be treated with caution as some provinces changed boundaries, some headline migration figures need mentioning. Zimbabwe has ten provinces including the urban provinces of Harare and Bulawayo. Lifetime interprovincial migration data show that Harare and Bulawayo “exhibited the highest in-migration rates” of 49% each, that is to say the percentage of people born outside these two urban provinces but resident there on census day. The report states that Harare was “the largest net gainer of population” from net migration, which accounted for 21% of its population on census day.¹⁴ Furthermore, Harare and Bulawayo exhibited the highest intercensal in-migration rate of slightly over 30%¹⁵ and net migration rates of 5.12% and 4.18% respectively, compared to negative net migration rates for five of the ten provinces.¹⁶ These statistics on internal intercensal migration do not attest to large-scale urban–rural migration.

Finally, therefore, it is important to recognise that although Zimbabwe’s demographic urbanisation rate may not be increasing, there is absolute urban population growth. As I will illustrate later in this Counterpoint, there is also significant urban spatial growth.

 

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Although the census data on urbanisation and migration data are patchy, comparison of 2002 and 2012 urban statistics provides important insights on local-level changes. Figure 2 shows that except for Harare and a few other centres whose growth rates are low or even negative – as is the case for Bulawayo – there has been rapid population growth in small urban centres and peri-urban zones. On the face of it, while these figures fit global trends that show declining rates of urban growth as economies mature, on closer inspection the Zimbabwe story is more complex. This is where jambanja needs to be considered.

The initial impact of Zimbabwe’s violent land reform was internal displacement of thousands of former commercial farm workers, the majority of whom became homeless and sought shelter and livelihoods in urban and peri-urban areas.¹⁷ This process unfolded both before and after the 2002 census. But then came the “tsunami”, the military-style Operation Murambatsvina (“he/she who despises filth”) in 2005, during which the state destroyed houses and small enterprises deemed illegal. Hundreds of thousands of urban and rural households were affected. The epicentre of these clearances was in low-income urban and peri-urban areas where most of those internally displaced by jambanja were sheltering. Thus jambanja and rural resettlement in some respects led initially to rural depopulation and urban growth, which Operation Murambatsvina partially reversed.

The deepening socio-economic crisis also led to increased mobility, as households sought to spread risks and maximise their chances of survival by operating in multiple geographical and economic zones. By 2004, most urban households – irrespective of political persuasion – had secured plots within 100km of their urban homes where they would travel periodically or have some family members resident to grow crops and increase their food security. Those in rural communal areas also made similar decisions for multi-sited livelihoods without necessarily abandoning their old homes.¹⁸ This mobility and circularity – individuals and families moving in and out of rural and urban areas and circulating between different locations mainly to pursue informal economic activity – must not be underestimated. A census only records where individuals are on the night of the census.

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The acute shortage of urban housing in Zimbabwe is well documented and widely acknowledged.¹⁹ High levels of overcrowding in existing stock, coupled with the government’s brutal restriction of squatter settlements, maintained the quintessentially European physical appearance of Zimbabwe’s urban areas for a long time after independence in 1980. All this collapsed with jambanja, as ZANU-PF elites used peri-urban land allocations to reward their supporters. The mechanisms of this patronage system took a variety of forms including politically aligned co-operatives. With jambanja, the bulk of peri-urban land that used to be privately owned farms became state land and legal obstacles to converting this land from rural to urban use were removed.

Initially, the majority of urban residents were hesitant about lining up for this land, but by 2010 a “stampede” was underway. A plethora of land dealers emerged who grabbed and allocated sites and/or plots for housing development.²⁰ These included political elites, corrupt government officials and professionals, self-made land barons, churches and traditional leaders in peri-urban areas. Private land owners cashed in by subdividing their plots for sale. Villagers converted agricultural land to residential use to accommodate urban dwellers on a rental basis. In the process they also fenced off adjacent public land; for example, grazing land in Seke, Goromonzi and Domboshawa rural areas in peri-urban Harare, in a process popularly known as Operation Garawadya (“eat first then questions later”).

These developments cumulatively led to the rapid growth of small towns and satellite towns around Harare such as Ruwa and Norton, as well as the peri-urban areas of Seke and Domboshawa. Simultaneously, increasing mobility, informality and the rise of a trader society reinforced the growth of border towns including Kotwa, Beitbridge and Plumtree; and highway settlements, most of them small rural service centres such as Ngundu and Mhandamabgwe (both in Chivi District, on routes to South Africa).

In seeking to understand the dynamics of Zimbabwe’s urban development, the government’s response to the expanding urban sprawl throughout the country must also be considered. It has conspicuously not unleashed an operation similar to Murambatsvina. Instead, demolitions have been small-scale and targeted.²¹ At the same time, there has been an overhaul of the land and development regulations typified by the urban housing policy. Housing space standards have been reduced from a minimum plot size of 300m2 to as low as 100m2.²² With government and local authorities bankrupt, the development process has been opened up to anyone who appears to have the means to participate.

Crucially, houses can now be developed even where there is no approved land-use layout plan, no cadastral surveys and no infrastructure. All these factors have contributed to urban spatial growth in rural areas. They have also contributed to de-urbanisation in the sense of loss of urban character, namely, growth of urban areas lacking the infrastructure, services and institutions Zimbabweans would normally expect.

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The road leading to the prison, one of many detention facilities for men suspected of belonging to Boko Haram, is full of potholes. It is guarded by three military checkpoints barricaded with sandbags, logs and rocks. The security forces manning the barriers, equipped with aged AK-47s, look tired and aggressive.

The response of the Nigerian state to the threat Boko Haram poses has been predominantly military. The use of force is driven by the assumption that the adversary is a gang of ignorant, poverty-stricken fanatics who have twisted Islamic theology for personal gain. Few listen to its leaders and fighters in an effort to ascertain their motivation. My visit to the detention centre was part of a European Union (EU)-funded deradicalisation programme seeking to rectify this oversight.

No one I spoke to should be dismissed as an ignorant fanatic driven only by poverty and deprivation

I was selected by the EU team to act as an “emergency translator” due to my language skills and knowledge of the terrain where Boko Haram recruits. I come from Sugu, Ganye local government, Adamawa state. To date, I have translated into English more than 50 YouTube films of Boko Haram tafsir (sermons) as well as scores of audio messages and flyers. These are an important, yet untapped, resource for anyone seeking to understand the ideology of the group, providing valuable insights into the way it has evolved. Through this research, it became obvious to me that its leaders are compelling and convincing orators who communicate with Muslims in northern Nigeria in a way that resonates with the daily reality of local people’s lives.

One prisoner at the detention centre stood out. Nicknamed “the Engineer” for his expertise in telecommunications, he spoke excellent English and classical Arabic, and was well versed in Islamic history and international politics. In line with Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, who was killed in 2009, and his successor Abubakar Shekau, the Engineer believes that ‘‘Western civilisation is founded on a collaboration between Judaeo-Christian tradition, democracy and Western education that marginalises Islamic values’’.¹ He calls for ‘‘the return of the caliphate to the Muslim ummah’’, or community.² The Engineer’s voice is soft and gentle, his smile disarming. He looks innocent, harmless even, but resolute.

The prisoners had very different narratives and posed varying levels of risk. Yet they had certain things in common. Devotion to their faith was one. They also all belonged to large Muslim families within which they had struggled to forge an identity and sense of belonging. This is something that Boko Haram readily offers.

To classify such prisoners as “uneducated” simply because they do not speak English – the yardstick in Nigeria – is erroneous. No one I spoke to should be dismissed as an ignorant fanatic driven only by poverty and deprivation. Although many had not been to school, they all displayed, in Hausa or Kanuri, a capacity for clarity of expression, logic and thought. They were “savvy” and “streetwise” in ways that are seldom acknowledged. All were familiar with the region’s history, as it is characterised by Boko Haram’s leaders in many YouTube clips.

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Established in Kanem, an area north-east of Lake Chad, in the mid-11th century, the Kanem-Bornu empire was ruled by successive Mai – or kings – of the Muslim Sayfawa dynasty. In the late 14th century the epicentre of the kingdom shifted decisively west of Lake Chad. Its new capital was Birnin Gazargamo, in Yobe state of present-day Nigeria. The Kanem-Bornu empire flourished under the Sayfawa dynasty and was considered the greatest power in the region.

Birnin Gazargamo became a leading centre of Islamic learning, attracting scholars from the Sudan and North Africa. As early as the 12th century a Muslim poet from Bornu was renowned in the court of Sultan Yacub al-Mansur in Seville, Spain, for his songs in praise of the sultan.³ Under Mai Idris Alauma (1564-96), who took the title Amir al-Mu’minin – “Commander of the Faithful”, Islam was made the official religion of the empire. The identity and administration of the empire were distinctively Islamic.⁴ To be Kanuri, the dominant ethnic group, was to be a Muslim and Kanuri was the language of commerce alongside Arabic.

The Kanem-Bornu empire expanded through military conquest and burgeoning diplomatic and trade relations with other Muslim polities. The reign of Mai Idris Alauma is regarded as its apogee, with territory encompassing areas of present-day Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria, including the Kwararafa kingdom in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. By the 17th century the empire controlled trans-Saharan trade routes, built garrisons to protect them and signed treaties with rulers in North Africa. In 1638, an ambassador arrived in Tripoli bearing gifts of ‘‘30 eunuchs, 100 young Negroes, 50 maidens, a golden tortoise among other items”. In return, the Mai received “200 choice horses, 15 European renegades, several muskets and swords”.⁵ In 1852, British monarch Queen Victoria signed a treaty with the “Sovereign Kingdom of Bornoo”, in part to ensure that her subjects could trade within the empire without hindrance.⁶

The authority and influence of the Kanem-Bornu empire under the Sayfawa dynasty was ended by Muhammad al-Kanemi in 1814, who moved the capital from Birnin Gazargamo to Kukawa.⁷ His son became sole ruler in 1846, and the al-Kanemi dynasty survives through the current rulers of Nigeria’s Borno state. However al-Kanemi rule of the empire was eclipsed in May 1893 with the invasion of Rabeh Fadlallah, a Muslim warrior and slave trader from the old Funj Sultanate of Sinnar in today’s Sudan.⁸ The invasion was opposed by France, which wanted its loyal ally Bukar Garbei installed as Shehu of Borno in Dikwa.⁹ The British government, sensing it might lose out to the French, supported Rabeh, to the chagrin of the Kanuri population of Kanem-Bornu. Rabeh was killed by French forces at Gubja in 1901 and with his death the empire was left leaderless.¹⁰ Its territory was divided between France, Britain and Germany.

The depiction of the glorious history of Islamic empires globally between the 8th and 19th centuries, and specifically of the Kanem-Bornu empire, is starkly contrasted with that of the modern Nigerian state

Yusuf fulsomely praised the Sayfawa rulers for promoting Islam but condemned the al-Kanemis for collaborating with Western “infidels”. He described decolonisation, and the parcelling out of the former territories of the Kanem-Bornu empire to Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, as a catastrophe for the Muslims of the region. In his narrative, the collapse of the empire led directly to corruption in the traditional and religious systems: “our land was an Islamic state before Europeans turned it into a land of kafir”, or unbelievers.¹¹ The depiction of the glorious history of Islamic empires globally between the 8th and 19th centuries, and specifically of the Kanem-Bornu empire, is starkly contrasted with that of the modern Nigerian state (portrayed as having rapidly succumbed to all-pervasive corruption) and its neighbours (which succumbed to war and internal strife).

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When I interviewed the prisoners in the detention centre, they were all familiar with the history of the Kanem-Bornu empire – everyone in north-east Nigeria is aware of it to some degree. Boko Haram publications, such as Yusuf’s Tarihin Musulmai, reference the aforementioned historical narrative and it has featured prominently in tafsir and talks by Boko Haram’s most prominent ideologues. The deployment of a Multinational Joint Task Force against the Boko Haram insurgency in 2011 and subsequent assaults may have made movement more difficult for its leading figures, but they have had little impact on the dissemination of messages and information by word of mouth.

Even today it is not uncommon for an Islamic preacher to arrive in a village or town unannounced and on foot. When he does, all the young Muslims will gather to listen. This is a tradition that has been largely unaffected by the conflict. It still happens in my village. For example, a group called al-Jannah Tabbas – “Paradise is certain” – is still free to preach extreme and intolerant views because it does so without resorting to violence. It is common for preachers to come from Chad, Niger and Cameroon to places such as Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and then return home.

The Boko Haram version of history is selective, idealised and questionable. In reality, the Kanem-Bornu empire was considerably more volatile and at times far less glorious than is claimed. Boko Haram indicts colonialists for dismantling the empire and dividing it among themselves, but Muslim infighting was largely responsible for its collapse. However, seeking to ascertain what is true and what is not true is to miss the point of the narrative altogether.

History is a narration of the past in such a way as to make sense of the present. Similarly, memory is conceived as the active and selective process of reconstructing the past for a particular purpose, irrespective of what is being remembered. Historical narrative becomes the framework through which members of socio-political and religious groups recall their past in relation to others. The history of the Kanem-Bornu empire embraced by Boko Haram is essential to the region and fundamental to its objectives, not least because it underpins the collective ethno-religious identity of the descendants of the Kanem-Bornu empire and instils a shared sense of victimhood and mission. Its leaders have been strategic in their selectivity, choosing details that best suit their agenda and embellishing the narrative to appeal to listeners and mobilise them.

If told in isolation, the story of the Kanem-Bornu empire might not have been sufficiently relevant and appealing to listeners. However, Boko Haram’s leaders shrewdly link the empire’s success to the prolific expansion of Islam and Islamic values. They relate how the Islamic state founded by the Prophet Mohammed in Medina was rooted in shari’a and founded on principles of justice and equality; how this Islamic state ultimately grew to become the Ottoman Empire; and how Western pressure led to its dissolution in 1924 by Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.¹² Since then, according to the narrative, Western civilisation – whose agents also destroyed the Kanem-Bornu empire – has been imposed on Muslims, and Islam has found itself subjugated by the Christian West.

The linkage of the regional history with the wider story of Islam is therefore of critical importance

Boko Haram’s leaders identify three pillars of Western civilisation: its Judaeo-Christian tradition, democracy and education.¹³ This claim is also strategic in conception. The Judaeo-Christian tradition is considered the foundation of the liberty and laxity of Western civilisation. Doctrinally, Christians are said to have tried to turn Jesus into God and this is shirk, or idolatry – associating another god with Allah. As for secular education, Yusuf insisted that it was a deliberate conspiracy to control Muslim societies, one that has polluted public morality, deepened poverty and enabled corruption to flourish.¹⁴

In Shekau’s tafsir too, secular education is to blame for destroying the thinking of many Muslims through a system that is forbidden by the Prophet of Allah.¹⁵ Consequently, Boko Haram admonishes its followers to reject secular education and all its scientific theories – ‘‘Western education corrupts pure Islamic morals, mixes males and females, and teaches that a woman can marry another woman’’¹⁶ – and point to the fact that at its zenith the Kanem-Bornu empire was renowned as a centre of Islamic scholarship and learning throughout the Muslim world.

As far as the scourge of democracy is concerned, Boko Haram insists that the exercise of all authority must be guided exclusively by the Qur’an, Sunna (traditional Muslim law based on the Prophet’s words or acts) and hadiths (reported words, actions or habits of the Prophet). Instead of the separation of religion and state in Western civilisation, the state must be created in the service of religion;¹⁷ according to the Qur’an, Allah says ‘‘whosoever judges not according to God’s revelation – they are the infidels”.¹⁸ Again, listeners are reminded that their land was once a mighty Islamic state.

Boko Haram seeks to instil in its members a sense of personal responsibility and religious duty to defend the Islamic legacies of the fallen empire. The linkage of the regional history with the wider story of Islam is therefore of critical importance. Reference to the Kanem-Bornu empire is a direct appeal to a sense of grief and indignation that accompanied the fragmentation of the empire by colonialists. It is equally important – and revealing – that the history is told in Hausa and Kanuri, the language of the Kanem-Bornu empire that is still spoken in the Lake Chad basin. While both fluent in Arabic, Yusuf was, and Shekau is, Kanuri. Most of their tafsir have been transcribed into Kanuri.

The definition of the three pillars of Western civilisation fortifies Boko Haram’s jihadi-salafi ideology and prepares the ground for targeting Christians, “Western” institutions and Muslims regarded as liberal or lax. Above all, Boko Haram’s interpretation of regional and Islamic history has increasingly been used to articulate and justify the need to overthrow the contemporary Nigerian state.

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The Boko Haram narrative contends that the state built on the ruins of the Kanem-Bornu empire brought nothing but corruption, immorality, inequality, injustice and neglect. Corruption, it is said, largely determines how Nigeria works, and for whom or against whom it works. From the 1970s onwards, oil revenues created new tensions between regions, states and ethnic groups, exacerbating inequalities and diminishing the quality of life. The reintroduction of multiparty democracy in 1999 after more than three decades of almost exclusively military rule simply produced new political elites with the same flaws as their predecessors.

Initially, Boko Haram was not averse to taking advantage of state officials when it served its own ends. This was particularly true in its formative years in the early 2000s. In multiparty Nigeria, Boko Haram was considered one of many sources of potential votes. The governor of Borno state, Ali Modu Sheriff, provided funding, motorbikes and religious buildings before and after his election in 2003; and one of Yusuf’s aides was appointed state commissioner for religious affairs. In general, however, Nigeria’s political classes were summarily indicted as the successors to the colonialists.

Mostly the product of Western-style education, Nigerian politicians have always been accused by Boko Haram of sustaining the imposed Western system and neglecting the legacies of the Kanem-Bornu empire and Islam altogether. The profligacy of state governors, Christian and Muslim alike, is frequently castigated. Politicians are censured for actively promoting a secular state with symbols such as the national anthem, pledge of allegiance and flag.¹⁹ Shekau calls on his followers to reject these: words such as “pledge”, “obedience”, “service”, “honour” and “glory’ are worthy of Allah alone.²⁰ “True” Muslims are exhorted not to live and work under a secular government and to forcibly replace it with an Islamic one.

After Boko Haram’s uprising in 2009, its rhetoric – and conduct – turned violent. Religious and traditional rulers were increasingly targeted for conniving with corrupt government officials and infidels to steal from the poor. Shekau declared, ‘‘we will slaughter and kill you, for Allah says, if you meet the infidels in battle, cut off their necks”.²¹ Under his leadership attempts have been made on the lives of, among others, the Shehu of Borno and the Emir of Kano. Islamic scholars are also frequently attacked for opposing Boko Haram or simply for being undesirable “competition”.

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Boko Haram’s exploitation of a historical narrative as a means of encouraging resistance is buttressed by the cultural, physical and economic environment of the former territory of the Kanem-Bornu empire. The Lake Chad basin has a population estimated at more than 35 million. The influence of ethnic Kanuris is extensive and Kanuri identity transcends artificial colonial borders. Most live in the Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe and Bauchi; in the regions of Kanem and Lac in Chad, Far North in Cameroon and Diffa and Zinder in Niger.

Kanuris of the border region tend to be illiterate and their precarious livelihoods depend on agriculture, fishing and pastoralism – all of which have been affected by severe environmental degradation due to poor rainfall and desertification. The Borno irrigation scheme fed by the Yedserem, Ngadda and Gubio rivers is moribund. The Tiga and Challawa dams, located between Nigeria and Niger, only function during the rainy season and not at full capacity even then. Since 2000, many of the workers on these irrigation schemes have lost their jobs. The entire population of the region is a victim of government neglect and climate change.

The conflict in north-east Nigeria is not a Kanuri uprising; nor is it fought in the name of Kanuri ethnic identity

However bleak the backdrop, the conflict in north-east Nigeria is not a Kanuri uprising; nor is it fought in the name of Kanuri ethnic identity. However, most of Boko Haram’s recruits are Kanuri and the Kanuri heartland provides the space and the local networks, fishing unions, market groups and farming communities for recruitment and mobilisation. The Kanuri language facilitates the movement of arms, training of new recruits and establishment of camps. In 2013, letters were sent to known Kanuri soldiers, threatening them with death if they refused to stop fighting for the Nigerian government.²² The same year, a senior Kanuri customs officer was arrested for allegedly assisting Boko Haram insurgents to smuggle several trucks loaded with arms and ammunition into Nigeria.²³

The terrain of the region – with its vast forests, the Mandara mountains and unprotected borders – is in many respects ideal for waging guerrilla warfare. International borders are porous and cross-border collaboration to maintain law and order weak. Boko Haram established camps in Sambisa, Bulabulin, Yujiwa-Alagarno, Balmo, Talafa, Gorun, Buni Yadi unhindered and in many other places that remain unknown to security forces. A number of Boko Haram’s leaders are from neighbouring states – Yusuf’s former aide Mamman Nur is from Cameroon – and some of its operations within Nigeria and in the border region have been carried out by non-Nigerian Kanuris who are able to move around as they please. For example, Ali Jalingo, a Nigerien captured in Makurdi, Benue state, in January 2013, masterminded several bombings in Borno state.²⁴

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Ghana is widely regarded as a successful model of multi-party democracy in Africa. The country has an active legislature with a strong and credible political opposition; an independent judiciary; growing, free and vibrant media that provide extensive coverage of public affairs and fierce debate of political issues; and an assertive civil society. Among its defining features is the conduct of successive, relatively free and fair competitive multi-party elections, with peaceful transfers of power. In 2008, John Atta-Mills won the presidential election in a run-off by just 0.46% of votes cast; in 2012, the margin of victory was less than 3%.

In 1988, Ghana embarked on a comprehensive decentralisation programme to bolster democratisation, devolve resources and encourage a more participatory approach to local development. The country is administratively divided into 10 regions and 216 districts, with three tiers of sub-national government at regional, district and sub-district levels. At the district level Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are responsible for development planning, revenue collection, service delivery and internal security. Decentralised local governance is presented as an effective response to local administrative and development needs.

Democratic governance is not benefiting the public good

Despite the apparent success of democratisation, Ghana’s political framework combines multi-party politics and entrenched clientelism rooted in informal networks. The system generates intense competition between ruling and opposition coalitions, which strains relations between party elites and lower ranks, weakens institutions and leads to poor commitment to effective devolution. It encourages ruling elites to pursue short-term strategies to win elections, at the expense of long-term policy choices that might deliver inclusive economic growth to mitigate inequality, unemployment and poverty reduction.

Economic policy and management have failed to deliver macroeconomic stability or appropriate responses to the continued informalisation of the economy.¹ Election-related fiscal indiscipline is normal. Moreover, rent seeking and corruption, particularly by the country’s ruling and bureaucratic elites, have become more pervasive. Democratic governance is not benefiting the public good.

The transfer of power and responsibilities to sub-national government remains incremental, paradoxical and challenging. Problems of accountability, institutional autonomy, participation and poor service delivery typify local government across the country. While the rhetoric of decentralisation speaks of making democracy a reality, the process has in effect been used as a political tool to maintain central government control, investing significant powers in non-elected authorities and sustaining a patronage system developed over decades that undermines the nation’s already weak institutions. Politicians, mayors, and traditional authorities use MMDAs, which comprise elected and appointed members, as a means to further personal and party interests.

Under the current system of decentralised governance, citizens – particularly the poor – are limited in their ability to influence policy, monitor government and hold it accountable. While citizen participation is at the core of Ghana’s decentralised system in law, the scope for civic engagement is in fact limited, selective and state defined. Citizens and civil society have to wrestle political space for themselves. Influence can be exerted through informal networks that not only pervade formal political institutions but also shape the behaviour of political actors. Democracy in Ghana is best understood as a dominant presidential system reliant on informal networks.

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“Competitive clientelism” and the associated power struggles that take place in the ranks of Ghana’s political parties have negative consequences for urban governance.² Local assembly representatives are formally apolitical, but have close ties to political parties – and party priorities often direct resources into election campaigns, rather than investing in roads, streetlights or other public goods. While governance is formally structured, the distribution of political power takes place outside official channels.

Competition for power in Ghana has become increasingly intense, especially in cities, with more resources at the government’s disposal and greater sophistication in how political parties mobilise support. “Toilet wars” in Accra and Kumasi are a good example of this strong competition between rival party activists and loyalists for the control of a public service – to the detriment of consistent, universal provision of that service.³

Ghana is one of the most urbanised countries in Africa. According to World Bank data, in 2014 53% of the population lived in towns and cities. The country has urbanised rapidly: since 1984, the urban population has increased from four to 14 million, with an estimated 5.5 million (39%) living in slums.⁴ During the colonial period and into the independence era, city planning in Accra did not take indigenous and migrant communities into account. They were largely ignored by the state and left unregulated. Even today, planners refuse to accept the legality of slum settlements.

Rapid urbanisation exerts pressure on governments to provide jobs, housing, transport and other public services. Despite the deepening of democracy and political decentralisation in Ghana, urban neighbourhoods are under-resourced and informal economic and political networks dominate. But the growing urban population and its associated socio-economic and political dynamics have made Ghana’s cities central to the country’s political, governance and development processes.

Citizens interact and engage with elected officials, but not always in conventional ways

In an April 2013 survey of 16 Accra slum communities, 94% of respondents had a voter identification card, 24% had a passport, 48% had a bank account and 42% had a national identification card.⁵ Two-thirds were employed in the informal economy. The results of the survey run contrary to portrayals of slums as havens for vagrants and criminals cut off from the state. The role of the state and the relationship between informal networks and government officials merits close attention. Citizens interact and engage with elected officials, but not always in conventional ways. Slum politics is messy, complex and misunderstood.
The consolidation of multi-party politics is giving way to entrenched urban political machines. Cities offer politicians large voting blocs – and more. Parties rely on activists, “foot soldiers” and “macho-men” to patrol polling stations during voting and registration periods, attend rallies and mobilise voters.⁶ “Political parties find muscle [in slums]”, explained former Accra mayor Nat Nunoo Amarteifio; “we [in the municipality] also had our own connections with them”.⁷

In their influential volume Africa’s Urban Revolution, Susan Parnell and Edgar Pieterse write: “Learning where power lies in the city can be as challenging as persuading those in power of the need for change”.⁸ The majority of studies on African urban politics and planning emphasise the need for institutional change without first uncovering the roots of power. Policymakers devise lofty schemes to transform property rights, elections, administrative duties and economic regulation without understanding the role of existing incentives and where power lies. While this “grand” reform agenda is necessary, the success of any urban policy reform depends on a proper understanding of the political economy that underlies the power and political dynamics of cities.

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Elections serve as an important context for political jockeying and competition – both central aspects of democratic governance. However, the way Ghanaian citizens really hold their representatives to account is often ignored. There is a failure to capture the meanings that leaders and followers attach to the political process, thereby neglecting the expectations that citizens have of their leaders and the incentives that motivate their representatives in the struggle for political power. There is a great deal more to the practice of politics in urban communities than casting votes.

The way Ghanaian citizens really hold their representatives to account is often ignored

Christianity has emerged as a powerful force in Ghanaian politics. In January 2012, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a candidate in the contest to become the member of parliament (MP) for Accra’s Odododiodio constituency, held a late-night prayer service at the Missions to Nations Church. The constituency is one of 27 in the Greater Accra Region and includes the Ga Mashie and Old Fadama slums. The Odododiodio Network of Churches sponsored this public and symbolic event.

Vanderpuye’s objective was to gain “spiritual support” for his bid. As he embarked on his campaign, he asked for God’s help in making the constituency better; his religiosity increased his appeal as a community leader and bolstered his electoral chances. Residents understood that although the candidate’s education and occupation were important, “what he really needs, what really matters, is the spiritual vote”.⁹

Historically, family lineage, in contrast to the performance of government, ideology or even programmatic ideas, has been the most decisive factor in the selection of a leader. In this respect, Vanderpuye already had an implicit advantage over his rivals as a member of the Lante Djan-We clan, the first to celebrate the Homowo Festival, the most important annual ceremony for the Ga people.

Having established and reaffirmed his strong personal links to the community, Vanderpuye set about building a political family. As an aide to former president John Atta Mills, he used his personal networks to create economic and educational opportunities, especially for young voters. He paid school fees for children in the community and contributed financially to funerals and birthday parties of influential, politically connected residents. Vanderpuye also supported the establishment of athletic and social clubs to organise disparate clusters of young people who were frustrated at the performance of the incumbent MP. In the words of one voter: “It is not that he is rich, but he has a link… He’s all around. When you go to Brong Ahafo, he has friends. Go to Western, he has friends. Go to the North, he is known there”.¹⁰

Informal institutions underlie – and are defining characteristics of – the democratic process in urban Ghana

During the election campaign, Vanderpuye handed out rice, clothes and other small gifts at rallies. He paved the alleyway in front of his family home and claimed that he would do the same for the entire community if he was voted in. This complemented the familial language he used in speeches and further personalised local politics.

Vanderpuye’s strategy proved especially effective among younger voters and he defeated his rival by 19,698 votes, securing 63% of the vote. The conduct of his campaign exemplifies how informal institutions underlie – and are defining characteristics of – the democratic process in urban Ghana. Victory rested on the support of personal networks: Vanderpuye did not promise public goods for all, but improvements and opportunities for certain communities in return for their backing.

The margin of victory for Vanderpuye was deceptively large: the campaign was contentious throughout. Elsewhere in Accra, electoral battles were conducted on similar lines and some were even more closely fought. In Ayawaso Central – which includes the slums of Alajo, Kotobabi and parts of New Town – New Patriotic Party candidate Henry Quartey won by just 635 votes out of a tally of 66,859. The NDC’s Nii Armah Ashietey won Korle Klottey, where the Abuja and Avenor slums are located, by 1,275 votes out of a total of 74,407.

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Aspiring political leaders in Ghana spend a long time building a following. Typically, they step into formal positions of power only after proving their credentials by serving their neighbourhoods for many years. Informal authority rests on “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels”.¹¹ These rules constrain and enable the behaviour of residents over time and transcend ethnicity, class and political affiliation. Leaders, including politicians and chiefs, build support by extending their social networks, accumulating wealth, being family heads and religious figures – they are friends, entrepreneurs, parents and preachers.¹² Personal rule persists in Ghanaian society despite the strengthening of formal democratic institutions.

Politicians in urban constituencies make strategic calculations to gain the support of slum dwellers, as Vanderpuye’s campaign exemplified. They visit slums to show solidarity with victims of fires and floods; distribute food and clothing to vulnerable populations, such as kayayei (head porters); attend “outdoorings”, funerals and weddings of local leaders; and pray with pastors and imams at local churches and mosques. Showing influence and possession of the financial resources to improve the lives of residents is increasingly important. Individuals and social groups receive private or “club” goods on the basis of their support for a political party or candidate. This relationship weakens issue-based pressure, allowing political elites to shy away from responding to major structural challenges, and greatly politicises development.

Everyday interaction is a crucial – but poorly understood – component of how accountability is generated between leaders and citizens in the absence of formal mechanisms. It better reflects how Ghanaians understand and experience “accountability as public, relational and practised in the context of daily life”.¹³ Accountability is much more than just voting leaders out of office.

Complex, shifting interactions enable citizens, community leaders, and municipal workers alike to demand their “democratic dividend”

Formal mechanisms of democratic accountability are seldom accessible for the poorest. But urban residents have found other ways to hold leaders to account that fit within informal networks and social norms. Slum neighbourhoods are not homogenous, but collectively they are increasingly important providers of opportunity for many different types of people and organisations. Complex, shifting interactions enable citizens, community leaders, and municipal workers alike to demand their “democratic dividend”.

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“Dignified public expression”¹⁴ based on respect, rather than the implicit threat of removal from office, forms the basis of complex constituent–representative relations and political accountability in Ghana. It is relational and practised in the context of daily life. It fosters individuals’ belief that collective action will make a difference and provides an important means of translating information or needs into action. A dynamic process of talking and listening between constituents and representatives characterises Ghana’s urban politics.

In Akan-Twi, Ghana’s most widely spoken indigenous language, the word for democracy – Ka-bi-ma-menka-bi – translates as “I speak and then you speak”. For many Ghanaians, democracy is the process of free political expression between equals. It ensures that those who are affected by decisions are included in the decision-making process. Bonds of respect must develop between representatives and constituents, reinforced by concepts of reciprocal claim-making, shame and honour. Trust is generated if leaders are able and willing to give an account of their actions.

Political accountability is therefore a complex web of a community’s overall trust in a leader and its perception of the leader’s ability to get things done. In the words of a focus group participant in Agbogbloshie:

“A good assemblyman is one that listens to people when they call on him, one that calls the people to meetings to discuss ways to improve… one who listens to your plight anytime you call on him even at night, one that will come to your community and when you call him, take your concerns and present them at the assembly, so as to make sure all your problems are solved.”¹⁵

It is important to note that patron–client relations and practices developed well before multi-party politics, and were particularly evident during the national struggle for independence. Structures of local authority that have developed through a long, historic settlement process have not been replaced by “modern” elections.

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Land issues have been the cause of much violent conflict throughout Kenya’s colonial and post-colonial history. In 2009, a National Land Policy was approved by parliament. The following year, land policy was embedded in a new constitution widely regarded as being radical – and potentially transformative. The culmination of a decade of often fierce debate and civil society activism, these events were described as “two significant achievements [that] have inserted the interests of ordinary Kenyans into this constitutional moment in a way that elections and constitutional ratification alone would not have”.²

The 2010 Constitution of Kenya addressed longstanding grievances over land, including the centralised, corrupt and inefficient system of administration identified in a series of reports of inquiry during the 2000s. Article 40 (1) sets out the principles governing land policy. These include equitable access; security of land rights; sustainable and productive management of land resources; transparent and cost effective administration; and elimination of gender discrimination in law, customs, and practice related to land and property. The process of translating these principles into law was widely seen as an opportunity to redress Kenya’s grossly skewed structure of land management and end predatory land practices by the state. It was one of the first, and certainly one of the most important, tests of the new constitution.

Despite the backdrop of optimism and anticipation, the drafting of the land law bills was characterised by undue haste, opacity and a lack of genuine consultation and debate. Indeed the final stage of the reform process can easily be interpreted as a last ditch attempt by certain parties to stymie it, subvert the intentions of the National Land Policy and renege on the promises of the constitution. The draft land bills were flawed, weak and seemed to be almost entirely disconnected from their guiding documents.

Parliamentarians failed to grasp the enormity, gravity and urgency of the task of land reform

In the run-up to the first and second reading of the bills in the National Assembly in February 2012, legal scholar Kithure Kindiki and others drew attention to incoherent drafting in the new laws; widespread borrowing of the provisions of other African countries without due attention to their relevance or suitability for Kenya; the failure to identify misconduct that the laws needed to address; inconsistencies between the National Land Policy and the constitution; and the failure to specify in detail the functions of devolved land administration bodies. The land research group in which I participated, Kituo cha Sheria, co-ordinated by the Katiba (Constitution) Institute, criticised the inscrutability of the drafts and the absence of any useful explanation of what policies were being implemented, or how. “This,” Yash Pal Ghai warned in a foreword to Kituo cha Sheria’s submission to the Parliamentary Committee on Land and Natural Resources, “effectively prevents the participation of the people in law making required by the constitution”.³

Parliament neglected to scrutinise or amend the land bills adequately and disregarded its obligation to heed the contents of the land and environment chapter of the constitution. Like many others, parliamentarians failed to grasp the enormity, gravity and urgency of the task of land reform. In April 2012, the assent of the Land Act, the Land Registration Act and the National Land Commission Act marked continuity with the past and the basic tenets of neoliberal land policy, for example by promoting land markets, providing for the individualisation of land tenure, and enshrining in law a presumption against customary tenure. A “technicist” approach and what is perceived as international best practice was prioritised over addressing political realities and local context.

The central concern of the laws is bureaucratic power and its control. While they did offer citizens some means to challenge bad administrative practices and so perhaps retain access to land, they did not embody the prescriptions of the constitution and National Land Policy. They were neither equitable nor transformative of land relations, nor was the “deep” redistribution envisaged by the constitution and National Land Policy upheld. This failure cannot be dismissed lightly. One expert commentator observed that “upon the outcomes of these deliberations may well hinge the future stability as well as the democratic quality of the Kenyan state”.⁴

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Article 40 (1) of the Constitution of Kenya sets out the principles governing land policy and provides that “Land in Kenya shall be held, used and managed in a manner that is equitable, efficient, productive and sustainable”.Article 61 (1) states that “All land in Kenya belongs to the people of Kenya collectively as a nation, as communities and as individuals”.Article 40 protects private property rights; 40 (6) states that “The rights under this article do not extend to any property that is found to have been unlawfully acquired”.Article 68 (a) provides that Parliament shall revise, consolidate, and rationalise existing land laws. Article 68 (c) specifies areas for future legislation, including legislation to prescribe minimum and maximum private land holding; to regulate the manner in which land may be converted from one category to another; to “protect, conserve and provide access to all public land”; to protect the dependents of deceased persons with interest in any land, including spouses in occupation; and to provide “for any other matter necessary” to effect the land and environment requirements of the Constitution.

Abridged from Manji, Ambreena, “The Politics of Land Reform in Kenya 2012”, African Studies Review, Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2014, p.118

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Kenya’s recent experience exemplifies critical shortcomings of land reform processes throughout East Africa. Since the 1990s international financial institutions, donors and governments have embraced law reform as a means to address a range of land issues, with varying degrees of sincerity and commitment. In essence, land reform has been land law reform.

This approach was prompted by a rediscovery of the role that law might play in development. The emphasis on law is not new. In the 1960s, the “law and development” movement held that law reform could promote economic development in newly independent countries. Interest subsequently waned due to scepticism as to the merits of this argument. The recent revival of law in development policymaking, and in particular the focus on the centrality of the rule of law to development, has had a major impact on how land issues have been addressed. Law has played a key role in what has been labelled “new wave land reform in an era of neo-liberalism”:⁵ land reform in East Africa has taken place in an “intellectual climate which rediscovered the importance of law as a major contributory factor in the international community’s support and pressure for land law reform within countries in the region”.⁶

In essence, land reform has been land law reform

The renewed prominence of law as a proposed solution to land problems has supported the representation of land as a tradeable asset that can be used to leverage loans. Secure formal property rights and developed land markets are considered a desirable goal of international and national land policy advocated by the World Bank and other multilateral and bilateral donors. Such legal constructs are portrayed as prerequisites for economic growth, poverty reduction and establishing the rule of law in developing countries. The formalisation and monetisation of land tenure have gone hand-in-hand as part of a “market-friendly” approach to land described by pre-eminent scholar, advocate and practitioner Patrick McAuslan in an important paper published in 2001 as “the globalisation of land markets”.⁷ The formalisation of land title and access to credit are now intricately connected in development policy prescriptions.

David Kennedy, currently faculty director of the Institute for Global Law at Harvard Law School, has argued that there is an unarticulated hope among law and development practitioners and academics that working within a strictly legal framework can substitute for, and thus avoid confrontation with, “perplexing political and economic choices”. This has placed “law, legal institution building, the techniques of legal policy-making and implementation – the ‘rule of law’ broadly conceived – front and centre”. It has excluded, rather than encouraged, contestation over economic and political choices; and the hope that law might substitute for contestation “encourages people to settle on the legal choices embedded in one legal regime as if they were the only alternative”. The rule of law, according to Kennedy, “promises…a domain of expertise, a program for action, which obscures the need for distributional choices or for clarity about how distributing things one way rather than another will, in fact, lead to development”.⁸

This observation helps us to understand why and how, over the past two decades, East African nations have felt compelled to reconsider land tenure regimes, adopt new land policies, enact new land laws and introduce programmes to ensure their implementation.

 

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The consequences of a legalistic approach to land reform are starkly evident in Kenya’s new land laws. First and foremost, it foreclosed debates about redistribution, prioritising land law reform as the most effective way to address land problems and so evading more difficult questions about who controls access to land and how a more just distribution might be achieved.

A further consequence of the weight accorded to law as a means to resolve land issues is that amongst lawyers, civil society groups and scholars, it expedited a retreat into a technicist approach that ignored the wider political context and therefore missed an important opportunity for bringing about positive change. A constant rebuff deployed during public meetings of the Parliamentary Committee on Land and Natural Resources (the “Land Committee”) in Kenya was that the new land laws were highly technical and complex. Land law is complex, but this mantra, and severe time limitations, often seemed to be aimed at suppressing genuine debate and citizen participation.

Rather than challenging the retreat into technical legal responses, civil society groups largely accepted – and to some extent reinforced – this practice by assuming the role of mediator between the law and the people. This was mistaken. As Patrick McAuslan asserted, “to move from policy formulation to drafting laws is not, as some people assume, to move from a debate on policy to one on legal technicalities”. The technical is highly political. When ideas of equity and fairness come to be precisely defined, perceived winners and losers emerge. Objections and obstructions quickly arise. “These are not,” McAuslan continued, “objections on ‘policy grounds’ but on technical legal grounds; a particular clause ‘wouldn’t work’; a certain provision is ‘unnecessary’; another goes too far or is ‘impracticable’”.⁹

Acute distrust of bureaucratic power over land issues is widespread among Kenyans

Acute distrust of bureaucratic power over land issues is widespread among Kenyans. The allocation of public land in pursuit of patronage and profit has long been practised by successive presidents and their land commissioners. Civil society needed to wrest control of the debate from bureaucrats if the “intensely redistributive potential”¹⁰ of the National Land Policy and the constitution were to be realised. Instead, activists were distracted and mollified by the technical obfuscation that tends to be part and parcel of land law reform – and which typically reinforces the status quo.

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The deficiencies of undue confidence in strengthening the rule of law and technical fixes are abundantly clear in Kenya when one examines the history of “bureaucratic sabotage”¹¹ of land management and reform. The publication of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/ Irregular Allocation of Land in Kenya (2004), widely known as the Ndung’u report after its chairperson, confirmed what Kenyans already knew: that land corruption was systematic and widespread. The commission found that at least 200,000 illegal titles to public land had been created between 1962 and 2002, 96% of them in the period 1986-2002, during the presidency of Daniel arap Moi. The categories of public land affected include forests, national parks and game reserves, wetlands, research farms, roads, government offices, settlement schemes, state corporation land and trust land. The Ndung’u report also showed how the constitutional requirement for public land to be administered “in the public interest” was consistently perverted by Presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Moi, public officials, members of the judiciary, well-connected politicians and businesses.To take urban land as an illustration, the commission found evidence of widespread abuse of presidential discretion with regard to unalienated urban land, that is to say public land legally available for allocation to schools, playgrounds and hospitals for the public good. Both presidents allocated land appropriated from landowners despite having no legal power to do so. Furthermore, the Ndung’u report also confirmed that a number of land commissioners had made direct grants of government land without any authority from the president. Often, land had been quickly sold by grantees at very high prices to third parties without any adherence to the conditions laid down by letters of allotment, which only have the status of letters of offer and cannot be sold. Far from being restrained by the principle of public purpose, successive land commissioners and many local authorities completely disregarded it and sold land reserved exclusively for public purposes. Forged letters and documents were commonly used. Records at the Ministry of Lands and Settlements were found to have been deliberately destroyed.The “juicy findings”¹² – the “what” – of the Ndung’u report attracted a great deal of attention. With a few notable exceptions, less was written about its exhaustive detail on the “how”: exactly how the law was routinely subverted and so much public land illegally or irregularly allocated for personal gain or political reward. Far from upholding the rule of law, the legal profession played a central role in land corruption for personal benefit, as did other professions. This is one of the most significant issues raised by the Ndung’u report, if not the most significant.

The legal profession played a central role in land corruption for personal benefit, as did other professions

The conduct of many Kenyan lawyers stands in stark contrast to the role of the legal profession envisaged and supported by donors – that of promoting good governance and the rule of law. Internationally-sponsored rule of law programmes are supposed to promote and embed a strict distinction between the professions and politics. The information about systemic professional misconduct and illegality revealed by the Ndung’u report should have rung far louder alarm bells internationally. It provided valuable lessons about the hazards implicit in translating the aspirations and promises of the National Land Policy and the constitution into law. Instead, the complicity of lawyers in the illegal and irregular allocation of land has been largely overlooked. Professional bodies have chosen to ignore the conduct of members in facilitating land corruption. To date, despite the findings and recommendations of the Ndung’u report, no investigations of professionals’ involvement or disciplinary action have been initiated.

When the legal framework governing the administration of Kenya’s land was reviewed, a key test that should have been applied was whether proposed changes in the law would have prevented the illegal and irregular allocations on the vast scale identified by the Ndung’u Commission. But the drafting, enactment and aftermath of Kenya’s new laws has facilitated “business as usual” for professionals who, screened by international and state endorsement of the technicist approach to land law reform, have sustained corruption for decades.

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L’imposition joue un rôle primordial dans l’édification de l’état. Surtout, l’impôt facilite l’établissement d’un contrat social entre les citoyens et l’état, grâce aux processus de négociation permettant la communication entre les contribuables et le gouvernement qui perçoit les recettes. La réalité de l’imposition entraîne un engagement de la part des citoyens : elle les encourage à collaborer avec le gouvernement pour s’assurer que leur argent est employé de manière judicieuse. C’est l’activisme citoyen qui établit les normes de la responsabilité et de la transparence qui favorisent la création ou le renforcement des assemblées représentatives. De telles institutions, qu’elles soient des corps législatifs officiels ou des tribunes non officielles de la société civile, donnent aux gouvernements la possibilité d’un échange avec les contribuables : ils gagnent l’observation de ces derniers en leur offrant une voix dans la détermination de la politique fiscale. Par ailleurs, elles constituent une tribune pour la discussion des priorités en matière de dépenses publiques, de sorte que les bénéfices des recettes soient partagés par les citoyens et l’état.

L’imposition joue un rôle primordial dans l’édification de l’état

Pour réussir à gérer un régime fiscal, il faut que les gouvernements développent des réseaux administratifs efficaces. Le processus de la réforme institutionnelle peut générer de nombreuses retombées positives. Les réformes administratives nourrissent des attentes en matière de méritocratie et de professionnalisme qui peuvent s’étendre à l’ensemble de la fonction publique : ainsi, il y a une amélioration dans l’efficacité. Les informations exigées dans le cadre de la fiscalité accentuent notamment les pressions sur d’autres agences – par exemple, les responsables du bureau du cadastre – pour qu’elles perfectionnent leurs propres services. La perception des impôts a pour effet de renforcer la présence du gouvernement et d’augmenter sa portée dans l’ensemble de son territoire, ce qui empêche les concurrents éventuels – par exemple, les insurgés – de créer des relations de dépendance mutuelle avec les populations locales. Enfin, la perception des recettes génère, elle aussi, des données, des informations utiles dans la planification économique de la nation.

La relative prévisibilité des revenus tirés de la fiscalité intérieure représente un atout, surtout au regard des revenus variables dérivant des aides et de l’exportation de ressources naturelles. Dans la volonté de maximiser la prévisibilité des revenus, l’état s’en trouve donc incité à investir dans la prospérité de ses citoyens, au lieu de se concentrer sur les marchés internationaux ou sur les revenus non gagnés émanant des donateurs.

Certains gouvernements d’Afrique, ayant compris les avantages potentiels de l’imposition, ont créé des autorités semi-autonomes de perception d’impôts (‘Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority’ – SARA), dans le but de professionnaliser la perception fiscale. La quasi-totalité de ces autorités ont mis en place un régime de taxe sur la valeur ajoutée (TVA), touchant et les biens et les services. Cependant, il n’est pas rare que le secteur formel, cible principale de ces réformes, représente moins de la moitié de l’ensemble de l’économie. Dans une société où la majorité de la population n’est touchée par l’imposition que de manière indirecte, les citoyens ne se sentiront pas impliqués dans la politique.

Par contraste, l’instauration d’un impôt foncier – sur terrains et bâtiments – aurait pour effet de stimuler les processus précités de l’édification de l’état ; elle établirait, d’ailleurs, une relation entre le gouvernement et ceux qui travaillent dans le secteur informel. Les recettes de l’impôt foncier fourniraient des finances aux autorités locales – un niveau gouvernemental négligé et qui manque de ressources dans toute l’Afrique subsaharienne – permettant aux municipalités d’améliorer la prestation des services locaux et d’investir dans les infrastructures : ainsi, les conditions de vie sont améliorées et la croissance économique est stimulée.

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L’impôt foncier, c’est un prélèvement annuel sur les biens immobiliers, tels les terrains et les bâtiments, dont le propriétaire paie ses contributions, en général, à l’état. Cette forme d’imposition s’associe étroitement au financement du gouvernement municipal en raison des liens immédiats entre la valeur de la propriété et les services financés au niveau local. A titre d’exemples, ces services seraient l’approvisionnement en eau, la construction d’égouts, la collecte de déchets, la police, et l’entretien de jardins publics, des écoles, des routes.

Il est généralement admis que l’imposition foncière est hautement progressive et équitable, car c’est la richesse qui détermine la somme due : il ne s’agit pas d’un pourcentage général prélevé sur les transactions. Vu que les terrains et les bâtiments sont – justement – des biens ‘immobiliers’, les propriétaires-contribuables ne peuvent pas éviter le prélèvement en se déplaçant – à moins de vendre leurs biens. Dotées d’un régime d’impôt foncier bien organisé, les autorités locales sont en mesure de compter sur une source de revenus prévisible, autonome, et – potentiellement – lucrative.

L’imposition foncière est hautement progressive et équitable, car c’est la richesse qui détermine la somme due au lieu d’un pourcentage général prélevé sur les transactions

Néanmoins, contrairement aux taxes de consommation comme la TVA, dont les contributions sont payées par un nombre réduit d’entrepreneurs, un impôt foncier annuel est hautement visible aux contribuables ordinaires. Les propriétaires ont une conscience aiguë de l’impôt en question, ce qui donne la possibilité d’améliorer la responsabilisation des gouvernements municipaux. Cela est très positif, d’un point de vue économique (restrictions budgétaires, transparence) et d’un point de vue politique (développement de la démocratie). Cela ne signifie pas pour autant que c’est chose appréciée par les contribuables : sa nature inévitable, intransigeante a eu pour résultat une absence globale d’élaboration. On a estimé que les prélèvements sur les terrains et les bâtiments représentent 0,5% du PIB de l’Afrique subsaharienne.1 Ce manque de volonté de taxer la propriété a privé les gouvernements municipaux des capitaux nécessaires à l’amélioration des services locaux et des infrastructures, sapant ainsi le développement économique et social.

En Afrique, comme ailleurs dans le monde, les gouvernements nationaux citent le manque d’effectifs et les contraintes techniques pour justifier la responsabilité limitée ou inexistante à l’égard de l’impôt foncier. L’argument que prônent toujours bon nombre de gouvernements, c’est que permettre aux autorités infranationales de dépendre des impôts fonciers perçus à l’échelle locale entraînera des iniquités entre les localités riches et les localités pauvres. Des critiques généralisées de la compétence du personnel au niveau des gouvernements municipaux, ainsi que les risques de disparité sont les raisons apparentes que donnent les gouvernements centraux, à travers l’Afrique, pour maintenir la dépendance des autorités locales aux transferts du Trésor public. Cependant, ces réticences pourraient tout autant découler d’une peur de conférer du pouvoir à des politiciens de l’opposition et à leurs fiefs.

Cette hésitation a pour effet de sous-évaluer les bénéfices potentiels de la concurrence entre les municipalités sur le plan d’une amélioration dans la responsabilité et la réactivité des gouvernements ; elle fait fi, d’ailleurs, des cas où les réformes dans l’impôt foncier ont bien réussi. Sans le transfert de la responsabilité de la perception des recettes, et sans la dévolution parallèle d’autres responsabilités et pouvoirs à l’égard des dépenses, les citoyens ne ressentiront pas les bienfaits éventuels de la décentralisation. Le cas de Lagos représente, à cet égard, un exemple typique. Les gens sont attirés à la capitale commerciale du Nigéria en raison de son administration fiscale relativement favorable et son engagement à la prestation des services. La concurrence politique, liée à l’ambition de transformer Lagos en une ‘mégapole’ moderne, ont débouché sur la réussite de réformes dans les impôts fonciers. Ces deux facteurs ont aussi favorisé le développement d’une administration relativement efficace dans l’Etat de Lagos. Vu l’importance de Lagos dans l’économie nationale, cette transformation se révèle bénéfique aussi pour le pays entier.

Les gens sont attirés à la capitale commerciale du Nigéria en raison de son administration fiscale relativement favorable et son engagement à la prestation des services

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Il existe toute une pléthore de modèles d’imposition foncière dans le continent africain : c’est le legs de systèmes fiscaux différents de l’ère coloniale et de réformes sélectives depuis l’accession à l’indépendance. Les gouvernements ont la possibilité de taxer les terrains ou les bâtiments, ou bien un mélange des deux. Par exemple, le Kenya taxe les terrains depuis plus d’un siècle, alors que la Tanzanie – où les terres appartiennent à l’état – ne taxe que les bâtiments. Ailleurs, en Ouganda, les terrains et les bâtiments sont imposés ensemble, alors qu’au Malawi, au Botswana, et en Zambie, on taxe séparément les améliorations structurelles apportées aux terrains.

Les taux d’imposition sont calculés en fonction de la superficie du terrain, sa valeur en capital, ou bien sa valeur locative. Théoriquement parlant, les économistes affirment qu’il est préférable de faire ces calculs à partir des valeurs (en capital, locative) parce qu’elles sont, justement, ad valorem. Cependant, ces valeurs-ci dépendent toutes les deux d’un marché immobilier qui soit développé et performant. Cela nécessite l’existence de relevés d’opérations et de registres fonciers clairs et complets. Qui plus est, ces modèles ad valorem exigent la collaboration d’un grand nombre d’experts agréés capables d’évaluer la valeur des terrains et/ou des bâtiments à intervalles fixes. En l’absence de réévaluations périodiques, le prélèvement perd de sa crédibilité, et les revenus des impôts se voient rapidement érodés par l’inflation et par les hausses des valeurs foncières. Compte tenu des barrières bureaucratiques à l’obtention d’un titre foncier, les marchés immobiliers de nature formelle restent, pour la plupart, à l’état embryonnaire. Donc, l’application pratique du modèle ad valorem s’en trouve limitée.

Comme solution provisoire, beaucoup de pays ont adopté un système d’évaluation sur la base de la superficie. En Ethiopie, au Mozambique, aux Comores, et dans plusieurs états du Nigéria, les gouvernements municipaux imposent une taxe forfaitaire sur les bâtiments en fonction de leur taille, leur localisation : dans une certaine mesure, on a simplifié le système pour qu’il soit transparent et facile à administrer. De la même façon, au Burkina Faso, le gouvernement national applique une taxe d’habitation forfaitaire, dont le taux se détermine à partir des caractéristiques de l’habitat et de l’offre des biens publics locaux. Cette taxe d’habitation a pris pour modèles la taxe urbaine du Maroc et une taxe locative perçue autrefois en Tunisie. Dans un premier temps, au vu de ses capacités administratives limitées au lendemain du génocide de 1994, le Rwanda a adopté un modèle similaire fondé sur la superficie ; de nos jours, on y a instauré un système d’autocotisation. Cette évolution réduit encore plus le fardeau administratif ; mais les risques de paiements en moins s’en trouvent accentués.

A la suite de la guerre civile en Sierra Leone, les conseils municipaux de Freetown, Bo, Makeni, et Kenema se sont écartés du modèle ad valorem consacré par la législation nationale et ont adopté, eux aussi, un modèle simplifié et fondé sur la superficie. Selon ce modèle, on a calculé la valeur des propriétés en fonction des dimensions de la structure, du type de construction, de leur localisation, de leur accessibilité. Cette approche équitable a eu pour effet de garantir la légitimité d’un échelon nouvellement ré-établi du gouvernement, tout en permettant aux quatre autorités locales d’augmenter leurs revenus des impôts fonciers de 300-500% entre 2007 et 2010.

Quel que soit le modèle d’évaluation employé, il faut que les gouvernements entreprennent un recensement cadastral pour identifier tous les terrains et/ou les bâtiments d’un territoire donné, et qu’ils obtiennent un ratio de couverture aussi élevé que possible. Cependant, dans la pratique, ce sont là des projets qui risquent de se révéler coûteux et chronophages. Il faut se servir des informations cadastrales pour créer un rôle d’impôt où sont consignées une description de la propriété, sa localisation, et la somme due. Enfin, il faut que les gouvernements émettent les factures d’impôt, qu’ils perçoivent les taxes, qu’ils s’occupent des arriérés de paiements. A la lumière des points sensibles de l’imposition foncière, il faudrait mettre en place un processus d’appels – que ces appels s’adressent directement aux autorités fiscales ou qu’ils se fassent dans le cadre de l’appareil judiciaire.

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Les pays de l’Afrique anglophone sont héritiers d’un régime d’impôt foncier où les gouvernements municipaux étaient chargés de l’administration d’un impôt sur les terrains et/ou les bâtiments. De nos jours, ces autorités locales continuent à appliquer ce système. En revanche, dans l’Afrique francophone, l’imposition foncière est trop souvent négligée : les gouvernements municipaux sont dépendants de transferts émis par le centre. Depuis l’accession à l’indépendance, les gouvernements nationaux francophones ont conservé la responsabilité de l’évaluation et de la perception des impôts. Cela dit, on voit apparaître des exemples du système de partage de recettes fiscales au Cameroun, en Guinée, et au Tchad. Cela représente un développement positif, car les gouvernements centraux préfèrent normalement concentrer leurs ressources limitées sur les réformes qui visent une contribution accrue au Trésor public, au lieu d’investir dans le but d’améliorer la production même des revenus.

Au Nigéria, les 36 états sont eux-mêmes responsables de la législation fiscale en matière de l’impôt foncier. Selon l’état, on utilise le système basé sur la valeur en capital, celui fondé sur la valeur locative, ou bien celui qui calcule l’impôt en fonction de la superficie du terrain. Au Ghana, en Sierra Leone, au Libéria, et en Gambie, la législation a consacré un régime d’impôt foncier ad valorem qui attribue des valeurs discrètes à chaque propriété imposable. Cependant, dans ces cas-là, la mise en œuvre de ce système a rencontré des difficultés à cause d’un manque de données concernant le marché immobilier, ainsi que d’une pénurie d’experts capables de faire les évaluations. Parmi ces quatre pays, seul le Ghana est doté de centres pour former de tels experts. La Sierra Leone et le Libéria, pris ensemble, comptent moins de 50 experts évaluateurs pour une population totale de 10 millions d’habitants.

En Afrique orientale et en Afrique australe, c’est aussi le modèle ad valorem que l’on préfère. Il a donné de bons résultats en Afrique du Sud et en Namibie, où les marchés immobiliers sont fortement plus développés, où les gouvernements municipaux disposent des ressources et des compétences suffisantes. En Afrique du Sud, les gouvernements provinciaux offrent aux autorités locales un appui administratif complémentaire et une formation pour faciliter l’évaluation des biens, l’émission des factures, et la perception des impôts. Pour les huit conseils métropolitains du pays, l’impôt foncier constitue approximativement un quart du budget annuel. La combinaison de l’impôt foncier et des revenus provenant des frais d’utilisateurs – de services tels l’électricité, l’eau, l’assainissement – a permis aux grandes villes de l’Afrique du Sud une autonomie relative par rapport au gouvernement central. Par contre, dans les zones rurales de l’Afrique du Sud et de la Namibie, tel n’est pas le cas, car on n’y perçoit pas l’impôt foncier.

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Malgré le phénomène de l’urbanisation, l’on estime que 60% de la population africaine habitent toujours les zones rurales. Dans de nombreuses zones habitées, la prestation de services et les infrastructures de base restent largement absentes, alors qu’une combinaison de taxes régressives et de méthodes d’imposition quelque peu coercitives adoptées par les gouvernements coloniaux et les chefs traditionnels a porté atteinte à la confiance dans les autorités locales. Nombreux sont les citoyens qui s’enfuient de leur foyer, de manière instinctive, pour éviter les visites des percepteurs d’impôts : ils préfèrent ainsi esquiver tout contact avec l’état. Dans certaines zones rurales, comme certaines zones urbaines informelles, les organisations internationales non gouvernementales (OING) ont contourné les autorités locales en se présentant comme les seuls prestataires de services : le développement d’une interaction constructive entre les citoyens et l’état s’en trouve ainsi sapé, compromis.

Dans certaines zones rurales, comme certaines zones urbaines informelles, les organisations internationales non gouvernementales (OING) ont contourné les autorités locales en se présentant comme les seuls prestataires de services

Au lieu de relever directement ce défi lancé à l’autorité de l’état, les gouvernements du Botswana, du Malawi, et de la Tanzanie ont sous-traité l’évaluation et la perception des impôts au secteur privé. Cependant, une telle ‘délégation des activités fiscales’ comporte des risques élevés, puisque les sous-traitants n’ont aucun intérêt direct dans l’élaboration de relations amicales avec le public ou dans l’édification de l’état. Ce qui prime avant tout, dans ce contexte, c’est le désir de maximiser les revenus ; les entreprises privées sont donc plus susceptibles de se servir des méthodes coercitives au lieu des méthodes fiscales axées sur le contrat social. Cela risque d’accroître les tensions entre les citoyens et l’état. Par ailleurs, si les données sur les propriétés évaluées et sur les revenus générés ne sont pas mises à disposition à des fins d’examen, et qu’elles n’y soient pas soumises, la corruption risque d’être endémique.

L’externalisation de la perception fiscale n’est pas une alternative durable et progressive au développement des capacités administratives locales. Elle sape le développement d’administrations efficaces, tout en minant le contrat social entre l’état et les citoyens. Face à un manque de capacités de l’état, une solution plus réalisable, consisterait à externaliser certains éléments de l’évaluation fiscale et de la perception de manière sélective en les confiant à des spécialistes dans le secteur privé. Il s’agit des arpenteurs, des professionnels de l’informatique, des experts-comptables, des vérificateurs… Néanmoins, l’investissement dans les capacités administratives reste essentiel pour que les autorités locales puissent maintenir toute amélioration dans le long terme.

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Taxation plays a critical role in state-building. Most importantly, it helps to forge a social contract between citizens and the state through bargainto taxation and the government collecting the revenue. The experience of being taxed engages citizens, incentivising them to collaborate to ensure their money is well spent. Civic activism establishes norms of accountability and scrutiny that encourage the establishment or strengthening of representative assemblies. Such institutions, whether formal legislatures or informal civil society associations, provide governments with an opportunity to secure taxpayer compliance in return for a voice in setting tax policy. They also provide a forum for discussion of public expenditure priorities, ensuring that the benefits of tax revenue are shared by citizens and the state.

Taxation plays a critical role in state-building

To successfully manage a tax regime, governments must develop effective bureaucracies. The process of institutional reform can produce a number of positive outcomes. Administrative reforms foster expectations of meritocracy and professionalism, which can spread across the civil service, enhancing efficiency. The information required for taxation also increases pressure on related agencies – for example, those responsible for land registration – to improve their services. Tax collection extends the presence and reach of the government across its territory, preventing potential competitors, such as insurgents, from establishing relations of mutual dependence with local inhabitants. Finally, revenue collection generates data and information that can facilitate national economic planning.

The relative predictability of domestic taxation is advantageous compared to fluctuating income from aid flows or the export of natural resources. In an effort to maximise predictable flows of income, the state is therefore incentivised to invest in the prosperity of its citizens, rather than focusing on unearned rents from donors and international commodity markets.

Some African governments have recognised the potential benefits of taxation and established semi-autonomous revenue authorities (SARAs) to professionalise tax collection. Almost all have implemented a value-added tax (VAT) regime on goods and services. However, the formal sector, the prime target of these reforms, often accounts for less than half of the total economy. If a majority of the population is only indirectly affected by taxation, citizens will not be politically engaged. In contrast, a tax on land and buildings would stimulate the processes of state-building outlined above, as well as create a relationship between government and those active in the informal economy. Revenues from property taxation would provide finance to local authorities – a neglected and under-resourced tier of government across sub-Saharan Africa – enabling town and city councils to improve local service delivery and invest in infrastructure, improving living conditions and stimulating economic growth.

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Property tax is an annual levy on immovable property, such as land and buildings, usually paid by the owner to the state. This form of taxation is closely associated with financing municipal government because of the immediate connection between property values and services funded at the local level. These services may include the provision of water, sewerage, refuse collection and policing, and the maintenance of public parks, schools and roads.

Property taxation is widely regarded as highly progressive and equitable because the sum due is determined by wealth rather than being a percentage levy on transactions. The fact that land and buildings are immobile means that taxpayers cannot relocate to another jurisdiction to avoid the levy – unless they sell their assets. With welladministered property tax, local authorities can count on a predictable, autonomous, and potentially lucrative source of income.

However, in contrast to consumption taxes such as VAT, where payments are made by a small number of businesspeople, an annual property tax is highly visible to ordinary taxpayers. The fact that property owners are acutely aware of the tax has the potential to enhance the accountability of municipal governments, a positive from both economic (budget restraint and transparency) and political (democratic development) points of view. But that does not make it popular, and the unavoidable and uncompromising nature of property tax has led to it being neglected globally. Levies on land and buildings are estimated to account for 0.5% of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa.¹ The unwillingness to tax property has deprived municipal governments of the capital required to improve local services and infrastructure, undermining social and economic development.

In Africa, as elsewhere in the world, technical and staffing constraints are often cited by national governments as justification for limited or non-existent local responsibility for property tax. Many governments continue to argue that allowing sub-national authorities to become significantly dependent on property taxes that they raise locally will lead to unfairness between richer and poorer localities. Generalised indictments of competence in municipal governments and the risks of disparity are the ostensible reasons why, across Africa, central governments continue to keep local authorities dependent on transfers from the national treasury. Yet reluctance could equally stem from fear of empowering opposition politicians and strongholds.

Property taxation is widely regarded as highly progressive and equitable because the sum due is determined by wealth rather than being a percentage levy on transactions

This hesitancy undervalues the potential benefits of competition between municipalities in terms of enhanced accountability and government responsiveness, and disregards examples of successful property tax reform. Citizens will not feel the potential benefits of decentralisation until responsibility for revenue-raising is devolved in tandem with responsibilities and expenditure powers. Lagos is a case in point. People are drawn to Nigeria’s commercial capital because of its comparably favourable tax administration and commitment to service delivery. A combination of political competition and an ambition to transform Lagos into a modern “megacity” has resulted in successful property tax reforms, in addition to the development of a relatively efficient bureaucracy in Lagos State. Given the importance of Lagos in the national economy, this is ultimately beneficial for Nigeria as well.

People are drawn to Nigeria’s commercial capital because of its comparably favourable tax administration and commitment to service delivery

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A plethora of different property taxation models exist on the African continent, the legacy of colonial era tax regimes and selective reforms since independence. Governments can tax land, buildings or a combination of the two. Kenya has raised levies on land for over a century, whereas Tanzania only taxes buildings because land belongs to the state. In Uganda, land and buildings are taxed together, while in Malawi, Zambia and Botswana structural improvements on the land are taxed separately.

Taxation rates can be calculated based on plot area, capital value or rental value. Economists argue that the latter two, being ad valorem or value-based, are preferable in theory; however, both require a mature and well-functioning property market, which in turn demands clear land ownership and transaction records. Ad valorem models also require a large number of qualified valuers, capable of assessing the worth of land and/or buildings at fixed intervals. In the absence of regular revaluations, the levy loses credibility, while tax gains are quickly eroded by inflation and increases in property values. Given the bureaucratic obstacles to obtaining land title, formal property markets remain for the most part embryonic, limiting the practical application of the ad valorem model.

Many countries have adopted area-based valuation as a temporary solution. In Ethiopia, Mozambique, the Comoros, and several Nigerian states, municipal governments raise a presumptive levy on buildings based on size and location, simplifying the system to a degree where it is both transparent and easy to administer. Similarly, in Burkina Faso the national government administers a presumptive residence tax, the rate of which is determined by housing characteristics and the supply of local public goods. This residence tax was modelled on the urban tax in Morocco and a rent tax formerly levied in Tunisia. Rwanda initially adopted a similar area-based model, recognising its limited administrative capacity in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, but has since moved to selfassessment by the taxpayer. This further reduces the administrative burden, but carries significant risks of underpayment.

Following the civil war in Sierra Leone, Freetown, Bo, Makeni and Kenema city councils deviated from the ad valorem model enshrined in national legislation and also adopted a simplified, area-based model. Properties were valued based on the dimensions of the structure, construction type, location and accessibility. This equitable approach secured legitimacy for a newly re-established tier of government, while enabling the four local authorities to increase their income from property tax by 300-500% between 2007 and 2010.

Regardless of the valuation model, governments must identify all of the land and/or buildings in a given jurisdiction by undertaking a cadastral survey. Authorities need to obtain as high a coverage ratio as possible, but in practice this can prove expensive and time-consuming. Cadastral information is used to prepare a tax roll, containing a description of the property, its location, and the amount due. Finally, governments must issue tax bills, collect taxes, and deal with arrears. In light of the sensitivities of taxing property, a process for appeals should also exist, either directly to the tax authority or via the judicial system.

 

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Anglophone African countries inherited a property tax system where municipal governments were responsible for administering a tax on land and/or buildings. Local authorities have continued to apply this system. However, across Francophone Africa, property taxation has been for the most part neglected, with municipal governments reliant on transfers from the centre. Since independence, national governments have retained responsibility for tax assessment and collection, although instances of revenue sharing are emerging in Cameroon, Guinea and Chad. This is a positive development as central governments usually prefer to concentrate their limited resources on reforms that can make a greater contribution to the national treasury rather than invest in improving that revenue generation.

In Nigeria, the 36 states are responsible for property tax legislation. Capital value, rental value and area-based property taxation are all used in various locations. In Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia, an ad valorem property tax system with discrete values for each rateable property is enshrined in legislation, but a lack of data on the real estate market and a dearth of valuers has rendered this difficult to implement. Of these four countries, only Ghana has training facilities for valuation officers. Sierra Leone and Liberia together have fewer than 50 valuers for a combined population of 10 million inhabitants.

The ad valorem model is also favoured in eastern and southern Africa. It has worked well in South Africa and Namibia, where real estate markets are considerably more mature and municipal governments have adequate skills and resources. In South Africa, provincial governments provide local authorities with additional administrative support and training to assist with valuation, issuing bills and collection. Property tax contributes about one-quarter of the annual budget for the country’s eight metropolitan councils. The combination of property tax and income from user fees on services – electricity, water and sanitation – has enabled South African cities to become relatively autonomous from the central government. However, this is not the case in rural South Africa and Namibia, where property tax is not collected.

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Despite urbanisation, an estimated 60% of Africans still live in rural areas. Basic infrastructure and service delivery remain largely absent in many settlements, while a combination of regressive levies and coercive taxation methods adopted by colonial governments and traditional leaders has undermined trust in local authorities. Many citizens instinctively flee their homes to evade tax collectors, preferring to avoid any encounter with the state. In some rural areas, as well as in informal urban settlements, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have circumvented local authorities by presenting themselves as the only providers of services, thus undermining the development of constructive citizen-state interaction.Rather than address this challenge to state authority head-on, the governments of Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania have contracted out tax assessment and collection to the private sector. “Tax farming” is fraught with risks, however, as contractors have no vested interest in building amicable community relations or in state-building. The desire to maximise income is to the fore, and private firms are therefore more likely to employ coercive rather than contractual taxation methods, which can exacerbate tensions between citizens and the state. If data on properties assessed and revenue generated are not available for – and subjected to – scrutiny, corruption is also likely to be prevalent.

In some rural areas, as well as in informal urban settlements, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have circumvented local authorities by presenting themselves as the only providers of services

Outsourcing tax collection is not a sustainable or progressive alternative to developing local administrative capacity. It undermines the development of effective bureaucracies and the social contract between the state and citizens. A more feasible solution to lack of state capacity would be to outsource elements of tax assessment and collection selectively to private sector specialists such as surveyors, IT professionals, accountants and auditors. However, investment in bureaucratic capacity remains essential if local authorities are to sustain improvements in the long term.

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The 1996 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, supplemented by the 2005 Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), cancelled about US$100bn of debt in 30 African countries in exchange for economic reforms. By 2014, 21 African countries had credit ratings issued by international agencies, more than double the number a decade earlier. Fast-growing African economies have gained access to international bond funds seeking higher-yield investments in emerging economies and portfolio diversification. Demand intensified as interest rates tumbled in developed economies after the 2008 financial crisis.

In 2014, new bond issues from Zambia, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Senegal and Ghana had raised almost US$7bn by the end of the third quarter, bringing the cumulative total since 2006 to US$25.8bn. Yields on some African issues are similar to those of southern European states, seemingly indicating a low risk of default. The coupon on Ethiopia’s US$1bn issue in December 2014 was 6.625%. Although one of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world, Ethiopia also has debt levels forecast to exceed 50% in 2014-15, a depreciating currency and scant foreign exchange reserves.

Borrowers and investors seem equally pleased with the deal. Borrowers can raise funds for infrastructure, general purposes or debt rescheduling at rates far lower than those offered by undeveloped local bond markets – and with longer maturity. Investors appear unperturbed about lending to African countries with credit ratings “deep into the ‘junk’ range”.¹ Most issues have been comfortably over-subscribed.

An implicit assumption prevails that there is little danger of African countries going bust. While there is no immediate likelihood of widespread sovereign default, the nature and consequences of financial mismanagement in Ghana – a flag-bearer for the “Africa rising” narrative – should not be ignored. Debt levels do not have to match those of developed economies to trigger an economic crisis.

 

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Africa needs to spend US$360bn on infrastructure by 2040, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). Ghana, Senegal and Zambia are among the countries that have issued sovereign bonds to pay for infrastructure development. Competition for funds is global, and funding will be needed from diverse sources. Sovereign bonds are one alternative to concessional loans from donors. “African governments have been able to shop around in a way that wasn’t previously possible,” says David Cowan, Africa economist at Citi. Diversification of borrowing sources is evidence of sensible management of public debt. Funds can be invested in assets and institutions that will support economic growth and generate taxes to service the debt.

The use of sovereign bonds in debt restructuring and rescheduling can have a positive effect on a country’s debt profile. An issue puts a country “on the radar” of international debt markets. Since 2006, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Seychelles have used international bond issues in debt rescheduling. All of these countries had – unusually in Africa – borrowed heavily from the private sector; restructuring the debt in a Eurobond made repayment more straightforward and lowered interest rates.

In larger, more developed economies, a sovereign debt issue also provides a benchmark to assist the expansion of local bond markets and borrowing by domestic banks and companies on international markets. “The original purpose of Nigeria’s 2011 issue was to price Nigerian risk internationally because the benchmark for commercial debt is sovereign risk,” says Femi Edun, managing director of Frontier Capital in Lagos. The purpose of Kenya’s 2014 US$2bn Eurobond issue was similar. The government was keen to prove that it could successfully launch a large international bond issue and for the issue to provide a stimulus to the local debt market.

Diversification of borrowing sources is evidence of sensible management of public debt

Debt levels are rising in Africa, in some cases rapidly. Long term domestic and international commercial borrowing was forecast to rise by about 50% in 2014. As early as April 2012 a World Bank economist observed that the eight African countries to have borrowed fastest since receiving debt relief – Ghana, Uganda, Senegal, Niger, Malawi, Benin, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe – “could within a decade be back to pre-debt relief debt stock levels”. Rising debt-to-GDP ratios have been mitigated by upward revisions of GDP in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. But the cost of external financing looks set to increase just as economic growth slows. At the end of 2014, yields on most African Eurobonds were at record highs.²

In May 2014, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde cautioned African governments against “overloading with too much debt”.³ “When some African countries go to the bond market, they’re exposing themselves to market discipline which they don’t understand. You can see the results with Ghana,” a government adviser in Uganda, which has decided against issuing a Eurobond for the time being, told ARI. “Zambia doesn’t have the discipline either. I’d say that African bond issuance has outstripped government capacity to manage the debt.”

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International bond investors impose no conditions on how funds are spent by sovereign borrowers, unlike multilateral and bilateral lenders. A bond prospectus may state that the proceeds will be allocated to infrastructure development or debt rescheduling, but this is not always the case – and any mention of a use of funds is non-binding. “Once they’ve issued a Eurobond, and US$1bn or so rolls in, they can spend it how they like. That is what got Ghana into trouble,” says a Ghanaian debt specialist. The country’s 2007 US$750m issue was earmarked for infrastructure but then mostly used for general budgetary purposes. Fungibility – using funds for a different purpose than originally stated – may not concern investors unduly, but it should concern legislators and citizens.

Currency risk is often underestimated. The cost of servicing a US dollar-denominated Eurobond may look cheaper than that of a debt issue in local markets, but if the national currency declines the cost of foreign borrowing rises. In 2000-13, average annual currency depreciation in sub-Saharan Africa was 3-4%, amounting to 44%cumulatively. According to an IMF study, the cost to the Ghanaian Treasury of servicing an equivalent debt in local markets – had there been sufficient capacity – would have been less than that of both the 2007 and 2013 dollar-denominated bond issues.⁴

Currency risk is often underestimated

Vulnerability to currency risk increases if the borrower is dependent on the exports of one or two commodities for revenue and foreign exchange. Copper accounts for 70% of Zambia’s exports and earns one-third of its foreign exchange. When the price of copper fell sharply between January and April 2014, jeopardising revenue, the Zambian kwacha fell by one-third in a similar timeframe. In June, the country approached the IMF to discuss an economic reform programme – just two months after launching a US$1bn bond issue at 8.5%, compared to 5% for its 2012 issue. The kwacha subsequently recovered and the copper price did not fall further. Annual GDP growth of 6-7% in 2014-16 and a peak government debt level of 33% of GDP are forecast. Despite the stabilised outlook, Zambia’s experience of economic volatility and its vulnerability to shocks during 2014 should not be ignored by other sovereign borrowers.

The requirement to service debt is immediate and delays in expenditure on infrastructure can be costly. Debt service and the economic rate of return on the investment are not always given adequate consideration and they assume greater importance in the case of large loans. Zambia had paid millions of dollars in interest on its 2012 US$750m Eurobond issue before it began to spend the money on power, road, railways, hospitals and funding small and medium-sized enterprises. Given the consensus outlook for rising global interest rates over the next decade, loan repayment and rollover risk are added concerns. “We don’t think the Ministry of Finance has laid out a payback plan, two years after the first Eurobond,” Albert Halwampa of the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR) commented soon after Zambia’s second issue was launched in 2014. “No one is saying how we are going to pay back the money when debts mature in 2022 and 2024.”

The lack of conditionality attached to a sovereign Eurobond issue is alluring for African borrowers, as is the speed with which an issue can be packaged and launched, in comparison to funding from a multilateral or bilateral donor. But “they are more costly if you fail than going to the World Bank or AfDB,” warns a government adviser in Uganda. Furthermore, the World Bank and IMF maintain that “international sovereign bonds may not be the best option for financing infrastructure investment,” ⁵ and recommend concessional finance – or a combination of concessional, public-private partnership and syndicated loans instead.

The lack of conditionality attached to a sovereign Eurobond issue is alluring for African borrowers

The issuance of international sovereign bonds to commercial investors exposes a defaulting borrower to specific legal risks, notably from “vulture funds”. The International Capital Markets Association, IMF and AfDB are studying ways to mitigate the risks of “collective action” during sovereign debt restructuring. This danger was recently underscored by a September 2014 New York court judgement in favour of a debt fund against Argentina, which is seeking to restructure its external debt in the wake of its 2001 financial crisis and US$95bn debt default. Some of the “holdout” creditors – US hedge funds – who own the remainder of the defaulted bonds sued Argentina in 2011 for principal and past-due interest claims of US$1.6bn. “There is a system for private-sector debt default – bankruptcy,” says Amir Shaikh at the AfDB’s African Legal Support Facility. “But there is no system for sovereign default – sovereigns aren’t supposed to default. We’re looking at Argentina as a sort of test case.”

 

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Disciplined debt management is crucial, based on sound institutions able to manage risk. Before negotiating debt relief in 2005, Nigeria established a budget office and debt management office (DMO). The country has a widely respected central bank. “If you’re going to borrow aggressively you need a good DMO,” says Bode Agusto, the founder of Nigeria’s first domestic debt-rating agency who set up the government’s Budget Office in the early 2000s. “Originally, it was to enable us to get debt relief. Now it helps to ensure that the level of debt is sustainable.” While Nigeria’s public debt level is small, at about 12% of GDP, this does not diminish the importance of professional debt management – for local as well as international debt. “The Nigerian government owes a lot to local borrowers,” explains Agusto, “and the ‘Nigeria Club’ doesn’t forgive anybody.”

Elsewhere in Africa, David Cowan at Citi suggests that sovereign borrowers could usefully learn from Botswana that “dull but sound” has merits. “In Botswana they evaluate every proposed loan with a proper cost-benefit analysis of the projects they’ll undertake with the money and work out whether the benefits will service the debt,” says Cowan. “South Africa is also sensible about debt,” he adds. Cowan is critical of the widespread reliance on the World Bank and IMF to carry out debt sustainability reviews since debt relief. “I’d prefer to see borrower countries do that themselves. It’s a basic duty of government to work out what they can borrow sustainably.”

Skilled planning and project management is essential to secure projected returns from investment in infrastructure. “You have to have projects for which you have already done a feasibility study, your engineering design and your costings so that you know you can service the debt and are ready to go as soon as you have the money,” says William Kalema at international advisory and accounting firm BDO in Uganda. “The foreign financiers don’t do this. The borrower must do the preparation. Secondly, you have to implement the projects to tight deadlines and spend tightly so you don’t overshoot the budget.” The design and implementation of “shovel-ready” projects “needs engineers, planners and economists”, Kalema emphasises. Crucially, he adds, “you also need someone who understands that spending isn’t the same thing as development.”

Domestic resource mobilisation – tax collection – needs to be maximised, particularly in countries with high budget deficits. Ghana would not need to borrow so heavily on international debt markets if it were to increase its tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 16% to a figure comparable with neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire (18%) or Togo (23%). Similarly Zambia, where tax revenue accounts for 19% of GDP, lags behind Zimbabwe at 26%, Botswana at 30% and Namibia at 32%. States which have worked to secure higher domestic taxation have established more sustainable revenue streams than those that relied on taxes and levies generated by the commodities boom. While taxes from resource extraction in Africa increased their contribution to GDP more than threefold between 1998 and 2006, from 4% to 14%, the contributions of other forms of tax revenue have stagnated. Direct personal and corporate taxation, and indirect taxes like VAT, both remained at about 6% of GDP. Trade taxes and duties declined from 3% to 2% of GDP. ⁶ Countries that rely on taxing domestic businesses and citizens rather than revenue from oil or mining exports, such as Rwanda and Kenya,
may prove to be the most reliable borrowers.

The potential of local currency debt markets should not be ignored. Although most borrowing in Africa is external, many countries raise the majority of their funding in domestic debt markets. African local debt stock rose from US$150bn to about US$400bn in 2004-14, a sum which dwarfs that raised by Eurobond issues. ⁷ In 2014, Standard & Poor’s forecast that 80% of commercial borrowing by the 17 sub-Saharan African countries it assigns a credit rating would be raised locally. ⁸ At present there are only 15 investable local bond markets on the continent. Many lack the size, length of yield curve, liquidity or currency stability to satisfy offshore investors; access to others remains restricted or closed for foreign investors, especially in the CFA franc zone. According to forecasts by South African bank Investec, African fixed-income markets could raise as much as US$500bn in the next five years. ⁹ But unless domestic savings rates are boosted, Africa will remain substantially dependent on international capital to finance infrastructure and current account deficits.

The potential of local currency debt markets should not be ignored

In Kenya and Nigeria, the growth of banks, insurance companies and pension funds is strengthening local debt markets. In 2012, Nigerian local debt was admitted to J.P. Morgan’s Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM). The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, and the AfDB have begun to issue naira-denominated bonds to improve liquidity in local capital markets. Nigeria launched an over-the-counter trading platform in 2013 to make a secondary market in local debt. However, even in Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy, the local currency bond market remains underdeveloped, representing only 7% of GDP compared to more than 50% of GDP in South Africa.

 

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While current debt levels in Africa are manageable, the consequences of the speed with which debt has been accumulated and the management of government borrowing and expenditure are causing concern. The role of the IMF in the region is increasing again. While its involvement can be interpreted as evidence of prudence and a constructive ongoing relationship in some countries, in others it is depicted as raising the spectre of a new phase of debt relief and even structural adjustment.

Unsustainable increases in government expenditure, often linked to the electoral cycle, are becoming more commonplace. “If you have real GDP growth of 6-7% you can sustain a budget deficit of 3-4% of GDP, especially if the deficit has a bias towards investment-driven spending. But if the deficit rises to around 7% of GDP or higher for a couple of years it is bound to get you into trouble,” says David Cowan at Citi. The end of quantitative easing programmes in advanced economies, the strength of the US dollar, China’s economic slowdown and lower commodity prices will all magnify the consequences of overspending.

The importance of developing and maintaining strong institutions to control spending, manage debt and maximise domestic revenue collection cannot be overstated. This is no easy task in countries with substantial new income from natural resources or volatile trade revenue. While external technical assistance is readily available, donor-funded “capacity building” is not always constructive or productive. In the eyes of recipients, assistance is often an imposition, inflexible, oblivious to the prevailing political economy and over-reliant on the input of western advisers on short-term contracts. There is scope for considerably greater intra-African advisory co-operation and exchange of knowledge. “The [Zambian] government should seek assistance from places such as the Macro Economic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa”, says Albert Halwampa at ZIPAR. “There is a lack of expertise at what is known as ‘the middle office'”.

Unsustainable increases in government expenditure, often linked to the electoral cycle, are becoming more commonplace

The merits of conventional sources of borrowing have been overshadowed by the attractions of sovereign bonds. Syndicated bank loans are a commercial alternative, and concessional finance from official donors remains available, even as many African countries join the middle-income category. Nigeria recently accepted concessional loans worth US$945m from the World Bank, repayable in 20 years with an interest rate including costs of 2%. The AfDB asserts that its most important contribution is to introduce co-financing to its projects – from other official development partners or the private sector – and act as a “shop window” for Africa’s large-scale investment opportunities. New bilateral lenders have emerged since 2000, especially Brazil and China which, for example, accounts for more than one-third of Mozambique’s debt stock. Greater diversity of lenders is welcome, but diversification should not be at the expense of pragmatic and transparent financial management.

Funds raised by governments are public money. In keeping with their constitutional mandate, legislators need to exercise vigorous oversight and demand transparency about debt terms and spending plans. The Public Affairs and Budget Committees in the Tanzanian legislature exemplify the potential influence of parliamentary scrutiny. Albert Halwampa at ZIPAR suggests that in Zambia “parliament should scrutinise the whole [borrowing] process”. He explains: “We follow debt sustainability frameworks set out by the IMF and World Bank. A few months ago the finance minister went to parliament to raise the debt ceiling. The legal framework for state borrowing isn’t quite clear.” In November 2014, Auditor General Edward Ouko, the Parliamentary Budget Office and MPs rejected the Kenyan government’s proposal to raise the country’s debt ceiling by 50% – to 53% of GDP after it was rebased in September – until further details about spending plans and returns on investment were provided. Ouko publicly warned that such a move “will mortgage Kenyans for the next 50 years”.

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NOTES

1 FastFT, Financial Times, Dec. 3rd 2014

2 Thomas, Mark R., “Africa debt since debt relief: how clean is the slate?”, World Bank blog, April 10th 2012

3 “IMF warns ‘rising’ African nations on sovereign debt risks”, Financial Times, May 29th 2014

4 IMF, Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa, October 2014, pp.16-17

5 IMF, African Department (Series) 14/02, Issuing International Sovereign Bonds, p.1 Opportunities and Challenges for Sub-Saharan Africa
6 Data from www.africaneconomicoutlook.org
7 Sulaiman, Tosin, “African local bonds – an untapped opportunity?”, Financial Times beyondbrics blog, October 15th 2014
8 Standard & Poor’s “Ratings Direct, Sub-Saharan African Sovereign Debt Report”, February 27th 2014, p.2
9 Sulaiman, Tosin, “African local bonds – an untapped opportunity?”, Financial Times beyondbrics blog, October 15th 2014

Increasing numbers of non-Somalis are taking notice of Somaliland. In part, this has come about through involvement with, or awareness of, events such as the International Book Fair in Hargeysa, capital of the internationally unrecognised republic. An essential ingredient has been the support of businesses and non-Somali donors for one of the most vibrant cultural events in East Africa. Their contributions make it possible to stage the festival annually – and for free. Huge crowds are drawn, none more so than for the recitals of the renowned Somali poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame “Hadraawi”. The Somali Horn of Africa is one of the few places where a poet is able to attain the cultural status elsewhere reserved for rock stars and footballers.

The festival and a new Somali Cultural Centre in Hargeysa are not simply indications of cultural tolerance and vibrancy. In the eyes of many Somalilanders and visitors their success is representative of the dynamic and stable political environment in Somaliland.

There is a strong temptation to
romanticise Somaliland’s stability

International perceptions of Somaliland are usually influenced by – or contrasted with – the ebbs and flows of political dysfunction in southern Somalia. Since the start of 2014, two major military offensives from AMISOM, the African Union force in Somalia, have pushed militant Islamist group al-Shabaab out of all major towns in the south. A US drone attack on September 1st killed the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi “Godane”. These events have fuelled hope that the government in Muqdisho (Mogadishu) can consolidate its position and start to build the legitimacy its predecessors in the past two decades so sorely lacked. The political challenges remain daunting – and changeable. Military advances do not easily translate into social or political stability.

Amongst those who do retain an interest in the northern Somali Horn, there is a strong temptation to romanticise Somaliland’s stability – built, as it has been for more than two decades, on a deep popular commitment to the avoidance of violence. This narrative glosses over numerous difficulties and shortcomings. Somaliland’s relative success is not unalloyed. Politics is as riven by clan patronage and division as it has ever been. Major challenges lie ahead in registering voters, holding parliamentary and presidential elections, and determining an electoral system for the upper house or Guurti. Women and minority groups are excluded from most formal political participation apart from voting, and some Somalilanders are growing increasingly disillusioned with a secessionist “project” that remains incomplete and fragile.

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No society can sustain the high hopes of those who prefer to see only the positive. One of the key failings of many observers, both Somali and foreign, has been a cavalier willingness to adopt rhetoric that embraces only those aspects of Somali history and culture that either add conveniently to a narrative of unique success and stability, or are seemingly evidence of the binary opposite – chaos and disorder. If we are to offer effective support to Somalis committed to building a reasonably inclusive and prosperous future in the Horn, it is vital that we recognise both the challenges and the foundations on which such success is built.

No society can sustain the high hopes of
those who prefer to see only the positive

Politics is always a messy business, but it remains essential despite its persistent failure to satisfy idealistic – or simply unrealistic – yearnings. Building on success tends to be slow, painstaking, erratic and unpredictable. Of these characteristics, only the last two are applicable to the charged dynamism and breakneck speed of political change in southern Somalia. In Somaliland’s case, there is a tendency to depict the territory’s political trajectory as having started in earnest in 1991. This reading takes the fall of General Mohamed Siyaad Barre’s government in Muqdisho as the starting point, with that regime’s egregious abuse of human rights, and most particularly the wholesale destruction of Somaliland’s two biggest cities, as the prima facie justification for the unilateral restoration of the sovereignty that Somaliland enjoyed for five days in 1960.

While each of these facts about Somaliland is correct, and the brutality of the Siyaad Barre regime genuinely horrific, collectively they tell only half the story. Importantly, selective and simplistic historicising does not fundamentally challenge one of the key tropes used to describe Somali political development: that of a people “addicted to congenital egalitarian anarchy”.¹ In leaving that presumption somehow unchallenged, Somaliland is presented as exceptional rather than as the latest example of Somali political stability grounded in compromise, conflict and accommodation in the context of a complex set of socio-cultural institutions.

For adherents to this incomplete narrative, Somaliland is remarkable as the first Somali territory to establish a state that is widely accepted as providing, in principle and practice, approximately legitimate democratic government evidenced, in particular, by periodic and largely successful elections. Conversely, sceptics castigate the territory for failing to meet the exacting standards of the perfectly representative state. Dissatisfaction amongst some regarding its legitimacy is advanced as proof of the argument.

Somaliland’s progress has been impressive in many ways. Successive governments in Hargeysa have had to build legitimacy through a series of clan-based conferences held since late 1990. Those governments gradually consolidated their hold on power, but remained sufficiently weak that each needed to secure the support of a substantial portion of the population in order to remain in office. Elections for local councils have been held twice (in 2002 and 2012), as has a popular vote for the president (in 2003 and 2010) and for parliamentary seats (in 2005). One of the presidential elections which resulted in defeat for the incumbent by the narrowest of margins was followed by a peaceful handover of power within the constitutionally stipulated timeframe.²

There were snags with some of these elections. The local council election in 2012, for example, was accompanied by widespread multiple and underage voting.³ But each achieved the objective of providing a mechanism for political contestation in an environment that was largely peaceful. That is a major achievement by any standard. The shortcoming of the exceptionalist narrative is not that Somaliland’s progress is disputed. It lies in misapprehensions about the political process itself and the common inclination to equate the term “democratisation” with elections.

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Somali society is conspicuously democratic. Adult Somali males are used to a consensus-based system that allows them full participation in decision-making on all key issues. That system is both highly inclusive – for men – and slow and cumbersome. It is not dissimilar to the type of discursive democracy practised in the city states of ancient Athens. While this form of political participation is rightly criticised for excluding women, and for being crisis driven – it takes a crisis to get everyone together and focused on the problem at hand – it cannot reasonably be described as undemocratic. Unless, of course, our definition of democracy is so idealised as to apply only when all problems of exclusion have first been resolved.

Somaliland’s laudable success is
not one of democratisation at all

In fact, Somaliland’s laudable success is not one of democratisation at all. It is one in which most adult males are being asked to relinquish some of their traditional right to participate in decision-making to allow for a system of representation that permits greater responsiveness and speed, while also holding out the possibility of meaningful inclusion of women and of clan groups who have customarily been excluded. This process is not unnecessary or undesirable. If Somalis are to operate effectively in a globally connected world of nation states, multinational corporations and powerful international lobbies and agencies, they need a system of representative politics that confers the agility and strength to negotiate and participate effectively. If the benefits of engagement with the institutions and representatives of international trade and finance are to be shared reasonably equitably, then it is also vital that inclusive politics provides opportunities for Somali citizens to select their representatives – and remove those who are ineffective.

While elections are therefore instrumentally important, so is an understanding of the established, discursive system of democracy. This helps to explain why it has been very hard to find a way for Somali women, so vigorously active in business and all other spheres of Somali life, to participate fully in politics. It also explains why Somalilanders, no less than other Somalis, are quick to become disillusioned with their politicians. People whom they would once have called to account frequently are now installed in office for five years at a time – or longer when inevitable electoral extensions occur.

In one of the key Somaliland peace conferences – that held in Booraame (Borama) town in 1993 – the chair was noted for urging delegates that “voting is fighting; let’s opt for consensus”.⁴ For many Somalis, consensus-based politics remains the baseline that informs often unspoken understandings of the ideal nature of democracy. It is unsurprising that the representative politics of the nation state – internationally recognised or not – frequently falls far short of that standard.

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A highly selective application of history is also deployed by sceptics to justify the view that Somalis are ill equipped to operate within the confines set by a system of state. Somaliland has achieved a great deal in consolidating governmental institutions that enjoy broad, if qualified, support. Yet it is not the first successful Somali state, and it is incorrect to view Somali society as naturally inclined to anarchy or chaos.

Throughout the past millennium, the Somali Horn of Africa has had vibrant trading ports that periodically spawned or supported systems of government. By the mid-14th century, there were a number of successful and stable trading cities on the long Somali coast, marking the start of a period of at least 200 years of considerable prosperity. One account identifies at least 20 such towns on the Gulf of Aden coast and in the immediate northern hinterland alone.⁵

Several notable empires were founded on the wealth of coastal trading centres. In the north, the Walashma dynasty built the powerful and long-lived Adal Sultanate, with Seylac its commercial heart and a settlement close to Harar, in today’s eastern Ethiopia, its political centre. Although the sultanate was identified primarily as a Muslim rather than a Somali empire, there is little doubt that Somalis comprised a significant proportion of its population. The 16th-century Adal military leader Ahmed Ibrahim al-Ghazi “Gurey” is still revered amongst many Somalis as the first great Somali nationalist.

It is incorrect to view Somali society as naturally inclined to anarchy or chaos

It is certain, despite a dearth of authoritative documentation of the period, that the Adal Sultanate enjoyed great wealth and considerable territorial control for at least three centuries. Initially it lived at peace with its highland Ethiopian neighbours, with whom it enjoyed extensive trading links, but the relationship grew tense as both sides developed aggressive territorial ambitions. A long period of intermittent trade links and conflict saw huge territorial fluctuations as the Adal Sultanate seized or lost ground to successive highland rulers. Only when the Ethiopian emperor Galawdewos secured the support of the Portuguese, as “fellow Christians”, against Ahmed Gury, who received some backing from the Ottoman empire in what was explicitly framed by both sides as a struggle between Islamic and Christian armies, did the balance of power alter decisively. The Adal forces were roundly defeated on the shores of Lake Tana in 1542, forcing the sultanate into a period of terminal decline.

The Adal Sultanate was one of the most famous of early Somali states, but by no means the only one. The Ajuuraan and Geledi Sultanates in southern Somalia are other prominent examples of distinctively or predominantly Somali governance enduring over long periods of time.

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Somaliland enjoys neither the territorial expanse nor the longevity of most of the earlier Somali states. Its uniqueness therefore lies not in its novelty as a resilient Somali state, nor in its democracy, but in its success in building a durable and broadly representative system of government within the borders of a contemporary nation state.

During the colonial era in the 20th century, Somali “states” did not allow the involvement of Somalis in governance. Colonial territories could not by any stretch be described as Somali nation states. The representative democracy ushered in by independence in 1960 and the exuberance of reunification of the British Somaliland Protectorate and Somalia Italiana was lively and vital. It was also chaotic and riven by clan division and dispute. The first attempted coup occurred 18 months later. A mere nine years on, Siyaad Barre’s coup was greeted with relief by a population already disillusioned by the winner-takes-all nature of elections and representative politics.

Siyaad Barre’s government began with a surge of reforming zeal. Clans were symbolically abolished and women were encouraged to play a full part in politics. Again, dissatisfaction followed in short order and, in an effort to retain power, the general was forced to exploit the very clan affiliations he had denounced. Desperate to keep his government in place, in 1977–8 he used a war against Ethiopia to rally his population. Defeat left him with few other options, and he steadily lost power even as he resorted to increasingly brutal repression in an effort to retain it. The insurrection that finally ended his rule started not in Somaliland, but amongst the Majerteen of what is now Puntland.

This series of events underscores the point that while Somaliland is not the first successful Somali state, and did not introduce democratisation to the region, it is the first successfully to combine electoral democracy with nation state government. That is no mean feat, albeit neither the unqualified success nor unacceptable imposition of centralised and clan-based hegemony that are the dichotomous opposites frequently suggested by observers.

The establishment of any nation state is inevitably accompanied by debate and dissatisfaction over critical issues such as citizenship. Not all who reside within a state’s borders will be happy to be regarded as citizens. In some areas of what was once British Somaliland, particularly the easternmost, a significant proportion of the population is emphatically unwilling to be classified as Somaliland citizens. This is certainly not a trivial objection, and it remains to be seen how it will be resolved. But it barely detracts from the importance of Somaliland’s success in other respects.

Often derided by critics as a one-clan state, Somaliland is in fact far from that. Although dominated by the large Isaaq clan, this is a clan grouping rather than a single, united lineage. The socio-political system requires support from a number of non-Isaaq clans: for example to bolster constituencies within the divided Isaaq group. Indeed, it was when the Isaaq clans started fighting each other in the early 1990s, once the unifying spectre of the Muqdisho autocracy had vanished, that many other clans gained confidence that Somaliland would not turn out to be an Isaaq hegemony.

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If Somaliland’s transition is not one of democratisation, then, but of progression from a patriarchal, discursive democracy to a more inclusive, representative one, that is a transition which could usefully be replicated elsewhere in the region. It is precisely what is currently being negotiated in Puntland, albeit with less success to date. Southern Somalis too are being urged in a similar direction by a heavily invested group of international donors, diplomats and major NGOs.

There is little hope that Puntland will achieve a planned return to electoral politics, following the cancellation of its first popular election – for local council representatives – in mid-2013, unless there is a greater understanding of precisely the transition that is required. There is even less prospect that the ambitious roadmap for the south, which anticipates a constitutional referendum in 2015 followed by full elections in 2016, will succeed in the absence of a more nuanced understanding.

“Federalism” means so many wildly divergent
things to Somalis and non-Somalis alike that it is in effect a meaningless term

Many Somali observers have for years been calling for a return to the sort of local peace-building that worked so well in Somaliland. That process does not necessarily need to replace completely the Muqdisho-centred efforts that have dominated for some time. But the ejection of al-Shabaab from most southern Somali towns and villages provides a real opportunity to transfer some of the ample investment in top-down federal reconstruction to a more localised reconciliation process that allows Somalis throughout Somalia to make the critical decisions about their political future. If the rhetoric from donors about providing support for “Somali-led solutions” is to carry any meaning, it is in precisely this kind of shift.

The difficulty is that this approach will be slow and the results unpredictable – as has been the case in Somaliland. However, without the kinds of local agreements generated by such a process, there is little hope that the always heated and often hysterical debates on federalism and elections will lead to the establishment of durable political systems.

“Federalism” means so many wildly divergent things to Somalis and non-Somalis alike that it is in effect a meaningless term. Puntland’s leaders argue for a version that accords so much autonomy to the constituent parts of the Somali state they hope even Somaliland might be tempted back into the fold.⁶ Their federal Somalia would look more like a multi-state free trade zone than a single nation. President Hassan Sheikh, meanwhile, has modified his centralising inclinations only slightly, still preferring a far stronger Muqdisho government than many outside the capital are willing to countenance.

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If it is to be peaceable and to consolidate progress, Somaliland’s own future will require agreement on some deeply contentious issues. Parliamentary elections are five years late, and now scheduled to be held in the middle of 2015 – at which stage a presidential election is also due. Before any elections can take place, a much delayed process of registering voters must be completed in tandem with a civil registration. The last attempt at voter registration, in 2008-9, was so deeply divisive that it brought the country to the brink of conflict.⁷

If we bear in mind the transition that Somaliland is making, it is not surprising that it has proved extremely difficult to count voters. The last Somali census was conducted in the final years of Siyaad Barre’s regime, and so threatened to upset the balance of clan power that the results were never released. The Somaliland count carried the same risk of endangering established agreements on clan representation, and it is inevitable that a new effort at registration will be fraught with similar dangers. It is possible that the experience of the 2012 local elections – which prompted widespread recognition that the lack of an electoral register was a key factor in enabling multiple voting on a massive scale – has focused minds in a way that will permit the exercise to be conducted without provoking a crisis this time round. But caution, patience and sensitivity aplenty will be required.

Somaliland’s own future will require agreement on some deeply contentious issues

The situation in the east of Somaliland also seems to be heading steadily towards some sort of denouement. In the areas around Buuhoodle town and throughout most of Sool region, the competition between Somaliland, Puntland and the nascent, Dhulbahante-based regional state, Khaatumo, is becoming increasingly intense. To date, a systematised ambiguity has operated in which each of the interested parties has simultaneously laid claim to the area and operated more or less as though that claim had substance. It is not inconceivable that this ambiguity could be maintained, but it seems less and less likely. For one thing, there are hopes that commercial quantities of oil will be found in the Nugaal Valley, which runs through Sool. Everyone wants to lay unambiguous claim to that.

It is imperative that those wishing to support continued political development in Somaliland and throughout the region take full cognisance of looming threats as well as past successes. An appreciation of the historical and cultural context in which recent political development has occurred is equally essential. This, of course, applies just as much to non-Somalis in diplomatic, donor and development communities as it does to diaspora Somalis and those in the Somali Horn.

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NOTES

1 Samatar, Said S., “Genius as Madness: King Tewodros of Ethiopia and Sayyid Muhammad of Somalia in Comparative Perspective”, Northeast African Studies 10, No. 3 (2003), p. 29.

2 Walls, M. and Kibble, S., “Somaliland: Change and Continuity”, Report by International Election Observers on the June 2010 presidential elections in Somaliland, Progressio, London, 2011.

3 Kibble, S. and Walls, M., “Swerves on the Road”, Report by International Election Observers on the 2012 local elections in Somaliland, Progressio, London, 2013.

4 Walls, M., A Somali Nation-State: History, Culture and Somaliland’s Political Transition, Ponte Invisibile/ redsea-online.com, Pisa, 2014, p. 178.

5 Lewis, I.M., A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa, James Currey, Oxford, 4th edition, 2002, p.27.

6 Ali, Abdiweli M., “Solidifying the Somali State: Puntland’s Position and Key Priorities”, talk at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), London, 24 October 2014.

7 Farah, Mohamed, “A Constitutional Solution to the Political Crisis in Somaliland”, unpublished paper, Academy for Peace and Development, Hargeysa, 2009.

 

Mahiwa-Nyangao is certainly not listed among the better-known battles of World War I. Even people living close by these settlements on the B5 road, which runs inland from the southern Tanzanian port of Lindi to Masasi, are unaware of the fighting between British and German colonial troops that raged in their neighbourhood almost a century ago. Yet here, in dense bush, one of the most ferocious actions of the entire East Africa campaign of the Great War took place over four days in October 1917.

Casualties among the 5,000-strong British force – including three battalions from the Nigerian Brigade, three from the King’s African Rifles, and the Bharatpur Infantry and 30th Punjabis from India – were estimated at between one third and a half. The 16 companies of German Schutztruppen opposing them – about 2,000 men – sustained 25% casualties. Equally importantly at this stage of the campaign, when all hopes of resupply from Germany had evaporated, the German units expended nearly a million rounds of precious ammunition during the battle.

The combined casualties at Mahiwa-Nyangao were comparable to those of the bloodiest battle in the Anglo-South African, or “Boer”, War of 1899-1902. In addition to being recognised in contemporary military histories as “one of the greatest battles ever fought in Africa”,¹ Mahiwa-Nyangao also prompted the universal acknowledgement that “the courage displayed on both sides by the African soldier, be he Nigerian, King’s African Rifles, or German askari was remarkable”.²

Almost a year after Mahiwa-Nyangao, as the war entered its final phase, German and British forces clashed at Lioma and Pere Hills, to the east of Lake Nyasa in what is today Mozambique. For displays of outstanding courage 28 Distinguished Conduct Medals were awarded to askari of the King’s African Rifles. This was one sixth of the total number awarded to the regiment during the Great War in East Africa – for a single battle. The citations make hair-raising reading. Three British officers were also awarded the Distinguished Service Order. One of them remarked of the askari: “they do not know what fear means; they have won the war for us in East Africa”.³

Although the losses at Mahiwa-Nyangao, the costliest battle of the Great War in East Africa, do not compare with those of the battles at Verdun or the Somme, the campaign was neither minor nor insignificant. The death toll among combatants and civilians was colossal. The privation suffered by the populations of a theatre of war encompassing an area of 750,000 square miles – three times the size of the German Reich – was far worse than in all but a handful of areas of Europe traversed repeatedly by fighting. The financial cost to the Allies was comparable to that of the Anglo-South African War.

1st King’s African Rifles occupying Longido in German East Africa early in 1916

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The first shot fired by a British unit anywhere in the Great War was from the rifle of an African soldier – Regimental Sergeant-Major Alhaji Grunshi of the Gold Coast Regiment – as an Anglo-French force invaded the German colony of Togoland (today’s Togo) on 7 August 1914. The last German troops to surrender did so in Northern Rhodesia (today’s Zambia) on 25 November 1918, fully two weeks after the Armistice in Europe.

Togoland fell to an Anglo-French force after a fortnight, German South-West Africa was taken by South African troops in mid-1915 and German resistance to British, French and Belgian colonial troops in Cameroon finally ended in March 1916. But the Allies’ attempt to overcome German East Africa from the six neighbouring British, Belgian and Portuguese colonies – and German resistance – was of an altogether different magnitude.

About 150,000 Allied combatant troops were deployed against an enemy whose strength never exceeded 25,000

At the outbreak of war in Europe the prospect of small colonial defence forces of a few thousand African troops in each colony waging war against each other was as remote as the likelihood of the “main show” lasting beyond Christmas 1914. But over the next four years more than 125,000 British imperial and South African troops served in the East Africa campaign, Portugal sent 20,000 men in a number of expeditionary forces to Portuguese East Africa (today’s Mozambique) and Belgium threw 15,000 men of the Congolese Force Publique into the fray.

In all, about 150,000 Allied combatant troops were deployed against an enemy whose strength never exceeded 25,000. The total ration strength of British imperial forces – combatant and non-combatant – in the final phase of the war was still over 110,000 men, despite the fact that the headcount of the enemy they were by then pursuing through Portuguese East Africa, back into German East Africa and then into Northern Rhodesia had dwindled to a few thousand.

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Improbable as it seemed to civilians and colonial authorities alike in Africa in August 1914, an imperial war on the continent – a final, bloody phase of the “Scramble for Africa” – had been considered a very real possibility by European leaders from the mid-1890s. In May 1896, Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, warned the House of Commons that such a conflict would be “one of the most serious wars that could possibly be waged…It would be a long war, a bitter war and a costly war…It would leave behind it the embers of a strife which I believe generations would hardly be long enough to extinguish.”

Three years after Chamberlain’s warning war did break out in Africa. Although it pitted Britain against the Boer republics of South Africa rather than a rival European power it was unmistakably imperialist in character and intent. Far from being the rapid and immediately profitable pushover envisaged by British hawks, the Anglo-South African war lasted two and a half years, involved the mobilisation of more than 400,000 British and colonial troops and left much of South Africa in ruins.

“In money and lives”, wrote the historian Thomas Pakenham, comparing the cost of the conflict to the Napoleonic Wars, “no British war since 1815 had been so prodigal.”⁴ The bill to the British Treasury was over £200m, £12bn in today’s money and ten times the value of the coveted output of the Transvaal gold mines in 1899. British casualties exceeded even those of the Crimean War half a century earlier; and the toll wrought on Afrikaner and African alike was immense.

None of Britain’s European rivals intervened in South Africa. But Germany, France and Russia roundly criticised the aggression, and incidents elsewhere in Africa exacerbated imperial tensions. In 1898, war between Britain and France over an incursion by the latter into the upper reaches of the Nile was only averted by the narrowest of margins. Belgium and Portugal were intensely suspicious – with good reason – that Britain, France and Germany meant to dispossess them of their vast African empires.

Many prominent and well-informed individuals even
believed that Africa was a prime cause of the whole conflict

Despite a period of Anglo-German entente in Africa immediately before the outbreak of war and a widespread belief in Africa that the palaver in Europe would not touch the continent, by the end of August 1914 the British government was planning military action against German ports and wireless stations in Africa and the creation of Mittelafrika, a “second Fatherland” straddling all of central Africa, had become a fundamental war aim of the German government.

The backdrop of three decades of imperial rivalry in Africa is crucial to understanding how the Great War came to be fought there as well as in Europe. Many prominent and well-informed individuals even believed that Africa was a prime cause of the whole conflict. At the Pan-African Conference in 1919, William DuBois, the African-American activist and founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, declared that “in a very real sense Africa is a prime cause of this terrible overturning of civilization which we have lived to see [because] in the Dark Continent are hidden the roots not simply of war today but of the menace of wars tomorrow”.⁵ In similar vein, Sir Harry Johnston, the African explorer and administrator, was convinced that “the Great War was more occasioned by conflicting colonial ambitions in Africa than by German and Austrian schemes in the Balkans and Asia Minor”.⁶

Although the importance of Africa to imperial rivals meant that the war may have shared the same roots as the conflict in Europe, the conduct of the campaign in East Africa could not have been more different. For the most part it was as mobile as trench warfare was static, but equally attritional.

 

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When 50,000 British, Indian, South African and Belgian troops advanced into German East Africa from the north and east in early 1916 they did so on a front 1,500 miles long – nearly three times the distance from Calais to Nice. In 1918, when the fighting had moved to Portuguese East Africa, the area of operations for just 12,000 British and German combatants was two-thirds the size of France. That year a column of two King’s African Rifles battalions marched 1,600 miles in seven months, forded 29 large rivers and fought 32 engagements. In July alone it covered 330 miles virtually without rations, subsisting on what could be foraged. When the officers and men were inspected at the end of their stint in the field they were described as resembling the victims of famine. Their experience of the hardships of war in East Africa was typical, not exceptional.

In the north-west Belgian troops commanded by Colonel Tombeur advance towards Tabora, capturing the town in September 1916

The war in East Africa, in the words of the quartermaster of the Cape Corps, a unit raised from South Africa’s “coloured” population, “involved having to fight nature in a mood that very few have experienced and will scarcely believe”.⁷ The accounts of many a British – and German – combatant in East Africa attest to the fact that “there is no form of warfare that requires so much inherent pluck in the individual as bush fighting”; and to the terrible loneliness which “tested the nerves of the bravest”.⁸ In 1917 an officer in the 40th Pathans who had fought on the Western Front wrote: “what wouldn’t one give for the food alone in France, for the clothing and equipment. For the climate, wet or fine”.⁹

Disease was a bigger killer of British troops than combat, exacerbated by the poor supply of inadequate rations and a scandalously deficient medical establishment. The troop return of the Gold Coast Regiment is instructive. By the time it returned to West Africa at the end of its service the regiment had sustained 50% casualties in a force 3,800-strong. Those killed in action numbered 215 whereas 270 had died from disease. The wounded totalled 725, those invalided by disease 567.

Keeping troops supplied with adequate food and within reach of rudimentary medical attention was virtually impossible. The supply line for General Northey’s troops in Northern Rhodesia extended back to Durban, via Portuguese East Africa – the longest supply line of any British force in the Great War. As the availability of livestock for transport proved incapable by mid-1916 of matching the depredations of disease, the onus fell on the only alternative – human porterage. The mathematics are sobering. For example, the distance from the railhead to Northey’s front was 450 miles. This meant that 16,500 carriers were required to transport a single ton of supplies – enough to feed 1,000 askari and their camp-followers for one day – for the simple reason that 14,000 of them were needed to carry food for the column while 2,500 carried the food for the troops.

In the first two years of the war service as a military carrier was voluntary, short-term and remunerated nearly as well as service as an askari in the King’s African Rifles. But as the theatre of war and number of troops expanded, carriers’ pay was cut to a pittance and recruitment became in effect by force. The seeds of one of the greatest tragedies of the Great War were sown.

*“It’s a long way to Tipperary”: King’s African Rifles marching song

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The official death toll among British imperial troops who fought in East Africa was 11,189 – a mortality rate of 9%. Total casualties, including the wounded and missing, were a little over 22,000. But the troops required more than a million carriers to keep them in the field. No fewer than 95,000 carriers died, bringing the total official death toll of the British war effort to more than 105,000. Among African soldiers and military carriers recruited from British East Africa alone, today’s Kenya, more than 45,000 men lost their lives. This equated to about one in eight of the country’s total adult male population.

The true figures were undoubtedly much higher. As many a British official admitted, “the full tale of mortality among native carriers will never be told”.¹⁰ Even 105,000 deaths is a sobering figure. It equals the number of British soldiers killed in the carnage on the Somme between July and November 1916. It is more than 50% higher than the number of Australian or Canadian or Indian troops who gave their lives in the Great War – and whose sacrifice is much more widely recognised. Indeed the death toll alone in East Africa is comparable to the combined casualties – the dead and wounded – sustained by Indian troops in the Great War.

The troops required more than a million carriers to keep them in the field

The scale of the catastrophe which befell the men employed or impressed as carriers did not attract immediate attention in Europe or Africa, not least because the compilation of statistics was delayed by the many problems of demobilisation. Even when the details began to emerge in the summer of 1919 the Chief of the Colonial Division of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference speculated that “the number of native victims…may be too long to give to the world and Africa”.¹¹

There were many British combatants in East Africa who paid tribute to the carriers on whom they were utterly dependent for survival. General Northey declared that he “would award the palm of merit to the [carriers]”.¹² Colonial officials warned the military establishment in 1917 of the consequences of seeking to mobilise virtually every adult male in the entire theatre of war. But when the mortality rate became common knowledge in Whitehall it was deemed a “bloody tale” best ignored, or even suppressed, as Britain sought colonial prizes in Africa at the Paris Peace Conference. As one colonial official put it, in particularly arresting terms: the conduct of the campaign “only stopped short of a scandal because the people who suffered the most were the carriers – and after all, who cares about native carriers?”¹³

The logistical challenges – and the solution – were no different for German commanders. No fewer than 350,000 men, women and children undertook carrier “duty” and it is inconceivable that the death rate among them was lower than one in seven. In contrast to the practice in British colonies, no records were kept for the carriers and, with the exception of those permanently attached to German units, they were not paid.

To exclude dead carriers from the death toll of the Great War in East Africa, as has been the case for a century, is unacceptable. At best it fails to recognise that the campaign could not have been fought without them; at worst, it is tantamount to depicting them as somehow not human.

As for the financial cost, when the contributions of India, South Africa and Britain’s African colonies were included the bill, in the words of one senior colonial official, “approached, if it did not actually exceed that of the Boer War”.¹⁴

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The brunt borne by East Africans during the conflict was not limited to carrier service. In German East Africa newly harvested crops were routinely requisitioned by German colonial troops without payment. In 1916, in central Ugogo district, the effects were exacerbated by poor rainfall and the following year brought a famine during which one fifth of the population died. All told, an estimated 300,000 civilians perished in German East Africa, Ruanda and Urundi as a direct consequence of the authorities’ conduct of the war, excluding those conscripted for carrier service. This was an even higher death toll than that inflicted by German colonial troops during the suppression of the Maji-Maji rebellion a decade earlier.

Although the peacetime administration was less dislocated in the British colonies and protectorates, sowing and harvesting were disrupted almost everywhere – by the weather if not by the absence of men on carrier service or fighting. Food price inflation, tax rises and increasingly repressive land and labour laws compounded the hardships. “People in South Africa tell me they are sick of hearing about the German East Africa campaign; I’m sure that these poor natives in East Africa are pretty sick of it too”,¹⁵ wrote an officer in the 5th South African Infantry in late 1917.

The worst calamity of all was saved for last. For the surviving troops and carriers on both sides, and for the civilian populations prostrated by four years of fighting, October 1918 – “Black October” – brought something worse than total war. The Spanish influenza epidemic spread far more rapidly along the wartime lines of supply and communication than it would otherwise have done. This new curse was so virulent that a man could simply drop dead while on a short walk.

The official influenza death toll for British East Africa was 160,000. But it is unlikely that fewer than 200,000 died – a far greater loss of life than that caused by the war itself and nearly a tenth of the total population of the country. By the time the epidemic was over 1.5-2 million had died in sub-Saharan Africa in a matter of months. It was the final, diabolical confirmation that the Great War in East Africa was above all a war against nature and a humanitarian disaster without parallel in the colonial era. One phrase was common to many oral histories of the time: “there came a darkness”.

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A post-war booklet declared that “if there had been no war in Europe the campaigns in the German colonies [in Africa] would have compelled the interest of the whole world”.¹⁶ The point is a good one. Using any yardstick but the war in Europe, the scale and scope of the Great War in East Africa, in particular, was gargantuan. It produced cameos of extraordinary courage and preposterous improvisation on land, on sea and in the air to rival anything witnessed in the “main shows”. Comparison with the Anglo-South African War is arguably more appropriate than comparison with the “main show” of the Great War, the Western Front.

The fighting in East Africa – and its consequences – also put the highfalutin’ talk of the European powers of their so-called “civilising mission” in Africa, and imperialism itself, on trial. In so doing it exposed unremitting colonial ambitions to adegree of scrutiny unsurpassed since the beginning of the Scramble for Africa. As William DuBois lamented at the Pan-African Conference, “twenty centuries after Christ, black Africa, prostrate, raped and shamed, lies at the feet of the conquering Philistines of Europe”.

If there had been no war in Europe the campaigns in the German colonies [in Africa] would have compelled the interest of the whole world

In East Africa, the memorials and graveyards of the fallen attract little attention. Elsewhere Africa’s involvement in the Great War is all but forgotten. There is no askari or carrier monument in London. The best-known accounts of the war are fictional – C.S. Forester’s The African Queen, Wilbur Smith’s Shout at the Devil and William Boyd’s Booker Prize-nominated An Ice Cream War. If an episode is recalled at the mention of the conflict, it is usually of the thrilling adventure variety: Germany’s attempt to resupply the troops in East Africa by Zeppelin in 1917; the extraordinary British naval expedition to capture Lake Tanganyika; the thrills of the British operation to sink the German cruiser Königsberg in the Rufiji Delta in 1915; the determination and ingenious guerrilla tactics of the German commander, von Lettow-Vorbeck. Perhaps the disastrous British expeditionary force landing at Tanga in the first months of the war, a precursor of the disaster at the Dardanelles in 1915, might be vaguely familiar.

These episodes have their place. But they are corners of a much larger canvas. They should not be allowed to obfuscatethe reality of war to the detriment of the memory of those who fought and the suffering of the civilian population. The voices and memorials of the Great War in East Africa are predominantly European. But African combatants and carriers called upon to march twenty miles a day for months on end, in searing heat and torrential rain, subsisting on minimal rations and out of reach of medical resources, would have concurred with the sentiment expressed by one young British officer. In 1914 Lt Lewis had witnessed the slaughter of every single man in his half-battalion on the Western Front and had experienced the horrors of trench warfare. Sixteen months later, in a letter to his mother from the East African front, Lewis wrote: “I would rather be in France than here”.¹⁷

Left: Askari of 2/4 King’s African Rifles in Portuguese East Africa.
Right: M’Ithiria Mukaria, the oldest surviving veteran of the King’s African Rifles, in Isiolo (photographed by the author, February 2002)

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NOTES

1 Downes, W.D., With the Nigerians in German East Africa (Methuen, 1919), p.226

2 Haywood, A., and Clarke, F., The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force (Gale & Polden, 1964), p.235

3 Matson papers 5/14, p.159, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House

4 Pakenham, T., The Boer War (Abacus, 1992), p.572

5 DuBois, W.E.B., The African Roots of War, Mary Dunlop Maclean Memorial Fund Publication No.3 (1915), p.714

6 African World Annual, 1919, p.29

7 Difford, I., The Story of the First Battalion Cape Corps (privately published, Cape Town, 1920), p.93

8 Sheppard, S.H., “Some Notes on Tactics in the East African Campaign”, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, February 1942, pp. 138-9

9 Thornton papers, Imperial War Museum

10 Duff, H., “White Men’s Wars in Black Men’s Countries”, National Review, Vol. 84 (1925), p.909

11 See Steer, G.L., Judgement on German Africa (Hodder & Stoughton, 1939), p.262

12 Northey papers, Imperial War Museum

13 CO/820/17, The National Archives

14 Duff, op. cit.

15 Lt Rice in The Nongqai, November 1918, p.508

16 See Foreword, Through Swamp and Forest: The British Campaigns in Africa, (privately printed, undated)

17 Lewis papers, letter dated 15 April 1916, Imperial War Museum