Radical redistribution of power is needed

Colonial rule relied on a systemic decapitation of Africa’s traditional institutions. Western-style court systems and laws replaced and took precedence over local laws on issues of state interest. Essential power was intentionally concentrated in the hands of the colonisers who required the uninterrupted control to build and protect their newly built economic systems.

The colonial system effectively eroded and replaced local power structures in the process relegating traditional laws to an inferior status in comparison to Western-style laws and courts in national issues; locals were marginalised from essential political and economic decision-making processes in the new state.

In building extractive economies whose focus was the transfer of raw materials from colonies to the metropolitan in the West, the colonisers marginalised locals and weakened local socioeconomic and political power structures to ensure total control of the population.

The degradation of local power systems led to concentration of influence, power and resources on the few elites. This newly acquired power structure has been the boon of most postcolonial governments in Africa. There have been no serious efforts to tear down the unjust colonial systems and institutions and actively address their negative consequences in local communities.

Concentration of power on the few at the expense of the many must not be normalised. It is not only immoral but has proven disastrous for the average citizens who are forced to fit in the margins of a world designed by the elite for the elite.

By far the most significant consequence of accumulation of power, influence and resources in the few has been a startling increase in the incidence of poverty and marginalisation of the average citizen in the postcolonial Africa.

How the average person interprets the world is influenced by the education system funded by the elite; that must be changed. To view poverty as subject to laziness of the poor and that coming out of it can be achieved simply by working harder is music to the elite.

We must foster attitudinal changes so the needs of the impoverished due to systemic issues are given attention. Public psychology has been modelled to give attention to, and view welfare in the domain of efficient outcomes and redistribution through taxes as objectionable waste of resources. However, inefficiency out of market behaviour and market outcomes is deliberately ignored and overlooked.

The result is the biased focus on the expense of welfare and cost-saving measures instituted to reduce expenditure on welfare which is often given negative perceptions by the elite funded legacy media, yet the main problem is the increased public expenditure on bailing out poorly performing businesses of the elite.

It must be highlighted too that many citizens who find themselves in need of government welfare support are in full-time employment but poorly paid hence they cannot meet their household needs. In a world controlled by the elite, critical reference to welfare is more convenient than any talk of the problem of suppressed and devaluing of wages over the decades.

Let us use all resources at our disposal, including irregular media platforms to render elite power and legacy media irrelevant in poor neighbourhoods; we need to articulate to the poor person the world as experienced by the average person and how behaviours of the elite are directly responsible for the systemic impoverishment of the average person.

Progress will only be achieved through redistribution of power – the shifting of influence, authority, and resources from concentrated elites (government, corporations, etc.) to broader population groups such as the average person, communities, or marginalised population groups.

Marginalised population groups must overcome the disabling disunity among themselves to take control of the redistribution of power. When poor locals target and fight poor immigrants or poor individuals from dominant ethnic groups cannot work with poor individuals from minority ethnic groups, the rich elite who deserve scrutiny disappear under the radar and maintain their hold on power.

Redistribution of power aims at greater equity and justice through mechanisms like decentralisation, unrestricted funding, and reforming institutions. There must be changes in how decisions are made and who benefits. We have learned that simple resource allocation alone is not the answer and what is required is a total revamp of power structures that create, sustain and maintain inequality.

The need for the redistribution of power must be taught and emphasised to the average person and application of systems that enable fair power sharing forced down on the elite. It is inhumane to ignore systemic injustices that harm sections of the population; it cannot be right that in an independent Africa (or anywhere in the world for that matter) the average person is, literally, an appendage of the elite and continues to be exploited. The average person must realise he possesses power via superiority in numbers and in all intent and practice, the elite need him; there must be radical redistribution of power so that everyone’s priorities are given equal importance, reviewed and objectively prioritised.