From Sankara to Soludo : Positioning Africa ’ s Economies for Recovery , Resilience and Regeneration
Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu
Historically , copy-and-paste approaches to national advancement have been established to be , over the longer term , detrimental to economic growth . Decades of procuring oftentimes expensive , ever-changing external solutions from the West and the East have dissipated Africa ’ s drive to achieve its economic aspirations . Begging for or borrowing money , ideas and expertise outside of Africa has consistently proven abortive in securing the strength of the kind of national economies that Africans are working hard to build .
Photo from Wikimedia
In the efforts to rebuild economies following the effects of the Pandemic , African countries have yet another opportunity to re-strategize by focusing on an Africa-centric economic advancement trajectory . What the region needs are radical , grassroots-based policy changes that can yield wide and far-reaching transformations . To achieve this goal , an endogenously established thriving manufacturing sector , strong agricultural base , strengthened social sectors of health and education , among others , are fundamental . President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso , within the short period of time he ruled , tried to re-position Burkina Faso ’ s flagging economy on a path of enduring growth . Emerging pandemic leaders such as Professor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State Nigeria have made policy pledges that mirror Sankara ’ s .
What is needed in Africa today is the kind of policies implemented by the Burkina Faso president , Thomas Sankara , in the few years he led the country in the 1980s . Some of the leaders emerging in the ( post- ) Pandemic era in Africa , such as the renowned Pan-African economist and intellectual , Professor Chukwuma Soludo , have adopted such endogenous approach as the centrepiece of their economic policy . In recent times , Professor Soludo made some policy statements that no leader or politician in Nigeria ’ s recent history has made . Pointing at his outfit , he reminded listeners that it is the Akwete fabric , which
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