Ake

Call it a new but eventually to be refined form of graft – giving military officers and NCOs a way to share wealth while being productive at the same time by using development funds to build infrastructure for the glory of state power with the side benefit of creating economic development. Colonial power control of African economics led to commodity-based systems and uneven patronage, as well as a lack of local skill-sets to accede to that control after independence and provided a model of power and gain through kleptocracy that grew, thrived, and remains the rule today. (p.3)
 * Notes on Claude Ake: Democracy and Development in Africa, Brookings 1996 **

“Power was the top priority in all circumstances and sought by all means…and politics was inevitably reduced to a single issue: the determination of two exclusive claims to rule.” (p.3)

‘…while agitating to overthrow the colonial regime, the constituent elements of the coalition were also trying to block one another from appropriating it. (p.4) “The struggle for power was so absolute that everything else, including development, was marginalized…Since what mattered in this type of politics was the calculus of force, the out-of power elites strove constantly to put together a credible force to challenge those in power, or, at any rate, to limit their own vulnerability to harassment and abuse. In a highly statist postcolonial polity, they did not even have the option of channeling their ambitions into economic success, which was primarily a matter of state patronage. To become wealthy without the patronage of the state was likely to invite the unpleasant attention of those in control of state power. Political power was everything; it was not only the access to wealth but also the means to security and the only guarantor of general wellbeing. **For anyone outside the hegemonic faction of the political elite, it was generally futile to harbor any illusions of becoming wealthy by entrepreneurial activity or to even take personal safety for granted For anyone who was part of the ruling faction, entrepreneurial activity was unnecessary, for one could appropriate surplus with less risk and less trouble by means of state power.”** (p.7)