Young Africans frustrated by false promises
• Gap between expectations and experiences widening
Anti-regime protests in Sudan. An attempted coup in Gabon. An opposition leader inaugurated as president in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Bloody demonstrations against spiking fuel prices in Zimbabwe.
Driving the backlash against some of the continent’s most entrenched leaders is a growing sense of discontent among many young Africans over their lack of economic opportunities. Those anti-establishment forces, accelerated by a bruising commodities crunch, will resonate as the continent’s two largest economies, Nigeria and SA, head to elections in coming months.
Governments have struggled to respond.
“We have to recognise that we have a demographic challenge,” Zimbabwe finance minister Mthuli Ncube said in January after his president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, sought to distance himself from a crackdown on protesters. “We have to be careful about how we manage these transitions.”
With a median age of 19, Africa is the world’s youngest continent. It is also one of the most rapidly urbanising regions, with millions abandoning subsistence farming for megacities.
Many end up in sprawling shantytowns, where they are less bound by restrictions on political expression sometimes imposed by ethnic or other traditional leaders in rural areas.
Crucially, these young men and women are arriving at a time when their countries are significantly poorer than Asian or Latin American nations when they reached similarly high levels of urbanisation.
The result is a dire lack of jobs and government services, which poses a contrast with the often swanky lifestyles of the ageing governing class. Frustration over poor living conditions and lack of opportunities has been the chorus accompanying the anti-regime backlash.
Similar to the anger over fuel prices in Zimbabwe, the protests in Sudan were ignited by the government’s decision to cut subsidies for wheat at the end of December. They have since swelled into a multicity uprising against 75-year-old President Omar al-Bashir.
Gabon’s failed coup plotters accused President Ali Bongo, 59, whose family has governed the resource-dependent country since 1967, of being unable to govern effectively because of a recent stroke.
In the DRC, departing President Joseph Kabila’s handpicked successor received a pounding in December 30 elections. Though two parallel vote tallies suggest the official result was manipulated in favour of Felix Tshisekedi, the opposition candidate who had been less critical of Kabila, it was a tacit admission by Kabila that his 18 years in power had failed to win over Congolese voters.
Apart from Kabila, who many observers believe will try to retain significant sway over the DRC’s politics and military, none of the leaders under attack look ready to leave office. Instead, they have responded with repression, notably in Sudan and Zimbabwe, where security forces have killed and tortured protesters.
In all four cases, authorities turned off the internet in an attempt to stop unwanted messages from spreading.
In places where longstanding leaders have been removed in recent years, it was often because of a recognition within governing parties that something had to give. The results have been mixed.
In a surprise move in Angola, President Joao Lourenco targeted family members of his predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos, in an anti-corruption drive, raising some hopes for a more accountable government. Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has rushed to open up the one-party system and make peace with Eritrea.
It is clear the trends underlying the recent upheaval are only going to quicken. Research from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation projects that by 2050 86% of the world’s extreme poor will be living in sub-Saharan Africa more than half of them in Nigeria and the DRC.
“The gap between young people’s expectations and their lived experiences is widening every day,” said Ken Opalo, assistant professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “I don’t think most African leaders are prepared for that.”
MANY END UP IN SHANTYTOWNS, WHERE THEY ARE LESS BOUND BY RESTRICTIONS ON POLITICAL EXPRESSION