Africa Doesn't Need Aid, It Needs Good PR

I spoke on the phone this afternoon with Dr. Leslye Obiora, a dear mentor of mine from Yale who served as Nigeria's Minister of Mines and Steel Development from 2006 - 2007, directed the World Bank's (don't worry!) program for Women and Law, and has also founded the Institute for Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC).  We'll be collaborating this summer on a piece centered on aid effectiveness, along with Dr. Alfred Monye of Nigeria's National Planning Commission.  She alerted me she recently wrote an article for The Christian Science Monitor, published on May 20.  After five seconds of Google-ing, I came across her phenomenal article, which calls for the international community to view Africa (and Nigeria specifically) as a much more than a land of corrupt scam artists, but rather, as a land where a largely ethical and hardworking population must remain resilient in the face of the greed of a few in power.  Indeed, a reading of Karl Maier's work on Nigerian history un-optimistically entitled This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis emphasizes that the wider global community is affected by Nigeria precisely because the so-called "419" internet scams "have become the number three form of internet fraud." Rather, I would argue that the Nigerian crisis touches us at a more profound, more humanistic level. That Nigerians must resort to these tactics for capital accumulation is not endemic to their character: the nature of the global political economy has left little other resort. Perhaps more appropriately Africa needs to launch a PR campaign against the unsavory tactics of the West.