Enlightenment is man’s emergence from
self-incurred immaturity-- to throw off the spoon-fed dogma and formulas and
‘cultivate our minds’. The Age of
Enlightenment, which was not a set of ideas more than it was a set of
controversial values, arrives as an era in philosophy and intellectual,
scientific, and cultural life, centred upon the 18th century, in
which reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority. On the other hand, the
prevailing intellectual movement of the Renaissance was humanism, a
philosophical underpinning that humans are rational beings and emphasising the
dignity and worth of the individual, an emphasis that was central to
Renaissance developments in many areas.
Aesthetics,
the other dominant theory of the Renaissance on human beauty, asserted that
reality consists of archetypes, or forms, beyond human sensation, which are the
models that exist in human experience. The book underpins the challenges to African enlightenment grounded
on slavery, colonialism, militarism and barbarism, pseudo democracies and fake
elections, the role of international development agencies and regional
political establishments, globalisation and the politics of enlightenment. It
also analyses the impact: state fragility, failure, and collapse. Within
current projects of political reform, enlightenment is either conventionalized
or sterilized on terrain of theory and often vacuously formalized on the ground
of practice. It enters African society in relatively abstract, syncretic, and
plain form, yet is expected to land itself to immediate and vital African
polity's socio-political experience. It suggests itself and seems within reach; only to
elude, and appears readily practicable only to resist realisation.
In composing an African enlightenment, the
main trajectories are the philosophical entrenchment of an African renaissance,
democratic citizenship, culture, arts and music, education for critical
thinking, women’s equality, and empowerment, paradigmatic shifts on the role of
rules and institutions towards an era of new public management for an African
enlightenment. The central hypothesis is that the relative strength of thinkers and organizations determines the
rules of the political game that are installed. Enlightenment requires a plural
set of rules, which ensure critical thinking, and promote, and protect rules of
peaceful participation and competition. The concern here is not so much the
diversity of ideas, values, and opinions allowed to gain currency during
enlightenment as modes of their competitive and co-operative articulation.
A vital trait, which
runs through much of in the history of governance and governmentality, is
between the authoritarian stewardship, on the one hand, and navigation errands of
the state, on the other. Recently the discussion has shifted tremendously to
the developmental state. Some
of the identified elements of an effective state and an engaged society are:
rule of law and anti-corruption civil society, executive accountability of
governing institutions, legislative accountability and judicial accountability;
and efficiency of budget processes administration and civil service. Development of public information and media enhance human security and cultural democracy, tourism and the rize of
the arts.
Political leadership
in Africa requires intimate knowledge of public policy analysis, formulation,
and management and development of strategic plans and implementing them a commitment to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). There is a need for an independent review of the
capacities of institutions as regards the MDGs and the rights-based approach it
promotes to developing the institutions and developing knowledge management
systems, stopping the brain drain from the nation and from the civil service
and turning it to brain-gain.
On the human security
front, states need to develop integrated packages of policy, technology and
investment strategies together with appropriate decision-making tools including
a land use policy and a strategic land use plan; revolutionising food security
and the agricultural sector to promote large-scale mercantile food production;
promoting small and intermediate-scale entrepreneurship as a vehicle of future
growth and higher levels of value-added and economic diversification, by
surmounting current deficit of skills that are necessary to establish a range
of managerial capabilities; evolving viable credit and capital markets; and
improving the quality education and health: learning throughout life and
education for critical consciousness.
A disciplined,
healthy, nourished, and motivated labour force is required to produce and
distribute such goods and services needed for sustained human development.
Leadership teams that are committed and willing with positive attitude to
facilitate the process of opening up greater opportunities for every citizen
are needed. To meet this challenge by developing think tanks is synonymous to
meeting the development challenge at large.
The executive arm of
government should resist the temptation to manipulate the other two arms either
in a subtle or flagrant manner. In spite of their enormous powers, head of
governments’ stature and achievements depend largely on his personal vision and
sense of mission as well as the experience and managerial responsibility he
brings into the office.
In addition, leaders
must appreciate the importance of his personal commitment to the highest ideals
of good governance and the vision of a united and prosperous nation; show
personal example of fairness, industry, discipline, decorum, dignity, probity
and respect for procedures in the conduct of government business. They need to engage
in the appointment of people who meet the strictest standards of integrity, competence,
and loyalty - people who share the vision of the leader and are more interested
in making history. They must have the ability to motivate teams to project the
image of a government that is austere, cohesive, disciplined, and
achievement-oriented consistently. They must have the ability to prevent
cleavages in the body politic and to ensure harmonious and speedy conduct of
government business.
In order to restore
true federalism it is important to foster the restoration of the powers and
responsibilities of local governments in accordance with the provisions of their
Constitutions; the dismantling of all institutions that are inimical to true
federalism; a review of the statutory allocation formula to make more funds
available to the local governments and thereby empower them to perform their
constitutional functions and revisit the issues of devolution of powers in
order to further decentralize government activities, and make them responsive
to local needs.
More important, the
book addresses the necessity for governance and leadership capacity building – reinventing the
quality of training and education in human development, undertaking a serious
and concerted effort to build a core civil service and processes that
indubitably must be initiated to develop that sector -- focusing on political,
social, and economic governance responsibilities of the state’s oversight responsibilities. On the other
hand, the
state needs to develop corporate strategic and business plans for the 21st
century where the state must establish capacity for policy and strategic harmonization
recognition and acknowledgement of the importance of credit and capital
markets; creation and nurturing of enabling environments for entrepreneurship
to attract investors and tourists.
Indeed, African Governments recognize that weak institutional capacity
is a major setback to development, and unless it is corrected in a timely
manner it will hamper the decentralisation and democratization process that the
country is striving to implement. The strengthening state capacity will have
major knock-on effects for all other areas of development and poverty reduction
agenda. Capacity building is integral to overall poverty reduction strategy.
Hence, the main objectives of the priming an effective state and engaged
society are to develop the main elements of the discourse on an effective state
and the relevance of capacity building in contributing to one, to set the
agenda on the political rules and institutions for what the effective state can
best achieve.
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