Dickson Igwe, Senior political contributor
Once upon a time there was a land on the Continent of Africa sitting on the fertile and geographically diverse west coast of that vast continent. This was a country that practically ‘’had it all.’’
The north of the country was a spectacular geography, with boundless plains that sat herds of cattle in the millions, great expanses of forest and jungle teeming with wildlife, and a tourist paradise of rambling hills, stunning plateaus, and a rich equestrian culture that made the country a limitless safari resort of thousands of square miles.
The North was Moslem and possessed a rich and attractive equestrian and warrior culture, and had evolved from Moorish North Africa.
From the middle of the country to the great Atlantic Ocean Basin to the south, sat not only huge gas and oil reserves, but infinite stores of iron ore, bauxite, syenite and tatium, gold, clay, dolomite, phosphates, lignite, granite, marble, coal. Lead, zinc, limestone, and much more.
The land was so fertile, that the country could easily have fed the African Continent, and exported food to other parts of the world: foods such as rice, plantains, bananas, cassava, palm oil, sweet potato, onion, tomato, garlic, livestock, bush meats, and so much more.
In the early 1960s at independence from the UK, the country was a cultured, urbane, and honest society, that was the envy of the world, with the strongest currency in Africa, and a thoughtful, charming, and food sufficient population.
Then billions of barrels of oil were discovered in the south, with even greater deposits of natural gas. A bloody civil war led to decades of military dictatorship, riddled with corruption and conflict of interest.
An entitled minority drove the country to the economic and social abyss by the 1990s.
Today the country is a failed state with awful social matrices: millions of children out of school, a land of bandits and terrorists, frighteningly dangerous roads, unsanitary towns and cities featuring mountains of refuse, hospitals that have been described as abattoirs, and public officers that are owed salaries going back months in arears.
A tiny minority of the entitled and connected live in a bubble, travelling about in armed convoys, flying about in private jets, and do all that they can to isolate themselves from the reality of the suffering, sorrow, and pain, of the vast majority of the starving population.
The preceding hell can be put down to one single reason: poor governance.
Governing impunity, a lack of any check and balance on rulers, and the outright theft of the country’s financial and physical resources by a cabal of murderous rulers and strongmen with zero integrity and conscience has destroyed the livelihoods of the country’s residents.
The Virgin Islands may not have been heading the same road as the preceding African country. That failed nation was once a British Colony gaining its independence in the early 1960s.
However, there are many similarities: entitlement as opposed to competence, rulers who believe they have a right to do whatever they want, secret deals using taxpayer cash, a total lack of accountability for taxpayer cash, no governing vision, and victimization and fear of those who would dare speak out.
Thank God for the UK Commission of Inquiry that is holding the feet of high officials to the fire. Or one day we will all wake up to a country like that failed African State, where even a Haiti will look like heaven to its suffering residents.
Good governance is worth its weight in gold for all generations of resident.
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Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: 'The Adventures of a West Indian Villager'. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
