By Charles Onyango-Obbo

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It’s that time of the year when we bring you a conversation with an East African who has subversive ideas and is happy to talk to us on condition of anonymity for fear he could lose clients, get in trouble with his in-laws, or his church leaders. We shall call him Rogue Scholar (RS).

Charles Onyango-Obbo: I know you are a dispassionate scholar, and I have heard my fair share of irreverent views, but I must say I wasn’t quite ready to hear you say that the floods that have killed close to 500 people in EAC region alone, and have destroyed property and infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of dollars are, as you put it, “one of the best things to happen to East Africa this year.”

Rogue Scholar: I don’t celebrate the deaths and destruction; they are tragic. My point is that they are not in vain. In Africa, governments respond most to crises. The “gift” this El Nino has brought is that it is saying we need to take serious action to deal with climate change. We need to erect resilient infrastructure and stop stealing and building these cheap things that are easily swept away by heavy rains.

Read: OBBO: Bangladesh, Taiwan have done it and saved lives; so should EA

We need to get on with reforestation, kicking people off wetlands, reclaiming lakes and rivers. But, also, invest in climate science, and so forth. I am not sure even the current deadly floods will bring that change, but I am hopeful they will force a start in the countries ruled by more responsive governments.

I attended the session where you drew a bleak picture of the economic state of Africa, arguing that healthcare in several African countries is worse today than in France at the end of the 1800s. I had read that the literacy rate in Scotland in 1750 was 75 percent, and when I checked I found that was higher than in 23 African countries today, so I could see where you were coming from. The point you made that intrigued me was what you described as the “damaging tyranny of the Asian development model” on Africa’s thinking about how to grow rich. Explain.

My first problem is why African countries are fixated on being like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, or, lately, China, even Vietnam. They are inspiring cases, yes, but if you study world history, they are outliers.

Most countries in the world which are reasonably well off muddled through to get there. For most, it hasn’t been so quick or linear. Some, such as Norway and Finland, sneaked up on us. And the US, the world’s leading economy, has poverty pockets that make some parts of Africa look shiny. So, why don’t we try to be like Costa Rica, Estonia or Denmark. Why Singapore or South Korea?

I guess the issue is why reinvent the wheel? Why spend time and money on foundational work, when you have approaches that have been proven to work elsewhere that you can just steal and get going?

I don’t agree. Depending on when you think fire was invented, it wasn’t done in a single place then it spread around Earth. There were no means for that then. You can have innovation and industry happening simultaneously in several places.

Read: OBBO: Faye, Ruto and Malema have same political father, different mothers

There was no single Stone Age family which invented tools in their cave and then spread the discovery to others who were just lying around doing nothing. This looking around for “models” has been done in stretches of the past 2,500 years or so, yet modern humans have been around for 300,000 or so years, doing stuff; inventing, building nations, and pyramids. We need to just get on with it.

So what should Africa’s approach be?

Just like I think looking to Asian or Gulf models has imprisoned our imagination, I believe there shouldn’t be a single African model. We have had the “Botswana model,” the “Ethiopia model” under Meles Zenawi, the “Kigali consensus,” the “Kibaki model,” the “Ghana model,” and so forth, but we haven’t seen them replicated widely on the continent.

Besides, these countries never set out with an elaborate formula. They tried things, and when they worked, we looked in the rear-view mirror and said, “Ah, there is the Botswana model!”

But surely, it can’t be like Napoleon, who told his generals when they asked him about the strategy for a battle that they eventually won, that the plan was “let’s get there and see what happens.” You can’t run a country like that.

No you can’t, you need the basics. Napoleon, for example, went to that war with well-armed soldiers, supplies and horses. I think African countries that do motherhood things like education, healthcare, security, investment in science and research, literacy, studying history, farming right, not being corrupt, building infrastructure connecting domestic and international markets, and keep citizens happy so they can be creative, will get far.

I also think we have to accept that economic success in Africa doesn’t have look like Dubai, Singapore, or China. Consider this: Today, Africa just has about one million kilometres of paved roads. India has 4.4 million, four times more. Think of what it will take to catch up to India. We need to re-imagine how these things fit into our unique development quest.

Clearly, you are a believer that grandmother’s cooking is best — or at least very good.

I am not that crazy, after all.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3