By Victor N. Gomia
More than six decades after independence, the African continent remains on the last rung of world’s economic ladder, not because there isn’t potential but largely because respective and successive leaderships as well as the continent’s peoples lack the fortitude to DARE. The continent’s history is littered with pockets of civil strife, civil war and and wanton apathy, with Cameroon, an erstwhile ‘haven of peace’ (whatever that means) in the sub-region tottering on the brink of a full-blown civil war. Surprisingly, the continent has what it takes to turn things around the way most of South East Asia has been able to do in the past six decades. According to some sources, South Korea’s GDP was less than that of Cameroon in 1960. Today the Cameroonian kleptocrats, adept at and obsessed in ruling, ruining and reigning are reportedly knocking on the doors of SK for loans. … Before I veer off the subject of this precis, one of our own, a prolific scholar and accomplished Development Economist, Ni Joe Fomunung, has just published an academic book titled “Africa’s Path to Economic Development: A Guide for Policymakers and Scholars”. Sometimes one has the gut feelings that when people like Ni Joe talk, others do not listen. When they listen, they do not hear and when they hear they seldom understand. This text is one of the informed feasible paths to “development within culture” if we were to agree with other scholars in the field who have argued over the years that underdevelopment is “development outside of culture”. If you are that African in Africa or in the Diaspora tired of being looked down upon or disrespected just for being African, and want to reverse these attitudes, then this book is for you. It is for anyone African or not who genuinely wants to see Africa develop and be respected too.Should you fall in this category, then this well researched data packed book is A MUST HAVE. Students of economic development and scholars would love its contents, so would development practitioners. Grab your copy from Amazon or from Spears Media Press . It comes in electronic version at $9.99 and in paperback at $17.99. Increase your knowledge and contribute to change.
