Corruption in Africa Somalian corruption is rampant in this impoverished nation. It has devastated millions of lives during famines, as tribal rivalries made the withholding of food and medicine a tactic. The food and medicine was then sold for profit instead of going to the needy. Any resources including oil will surely go to the greedy and corrupt officials that call themselves tribal leaders of Somalia. Somalians have suffered needlessly through the hands of their leaders. Leadership in Somalia is the most corrupt, abhorrent and disgusting in Africa.
Here is a list of other African nations that require new leaders who are more honest and have integrity to represent all their people equally and fair. The list is incomplete and it is obvious that the leadership throughout Africa is in a very bad state of affairs.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Teodoro Obiang / Pablo Manriquez
- Teodoro Obiang, president of Equatorial Guinea, has a genius for insuring that none of his country’s vast oil wealth goes to help its impoverished people, over 60 percent of whom live on less than $1 a day. His son, Teodorin, is building a mammoth $380 million luxury yacht, whose cost is three times more than the country spends on health care and education combined. This, in addition to a fleet of luxury cars and a $35 million estate in Malibu. Asked once how he managed to spend so outrageously on a government salary, the despot’s son and presumed successor said in a sworn affidavit that in Equatorial Guinea, government ministers can partner with companies that win government contracts. As a result, he wrote, “a cabinet minister ends up with a sizable part of the contract price in his bank account.
ZIMBABWE
Robert Mugabe / Mangwanani
- Thanks to Robert Mugabe, among the longest-standing leaders in Africa, Zimbabwe is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries by Transparency International. Citing the country’s unbridled corruption, the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against economic trade with the country, and barred Mugabe and his top officials from coming to Europe and the U.S. That, however, has not stopped Mugabe from spending his own country’s minimal resources for himself and his cronies: Mugabe is on track to spend nearly $50 million on foreign travel this year. He has a fancy house in the richest district of Hong Kong. His heavy-handed tactics have only brought violence and poverty to a country that was once seen as the breadbasket of Africa.
NIGERIA
Goodluck Jonathan / Official Photo
- Goodluck Jonathan took over one of the world’s most corrupt countries in May 2010 on the death of its president, and was re-elected last April. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country — with appalling living conditions. Education, health and health care are poor. Only about half the population has access to clean water and life expectancy averages 47 years. Polio is still a problem, even though it has been eradicated everywhere else in Africa, along with cholera, malaria and HIV/AIDS. In 2006, anti-corruption officials investigated Mr. Jonathan’s wife, Patience, over allegations she tried to launder $13.5 million. She has never been convicted of any wrongdoing, however. Oil-rich Nigeria is home to networks of organized crime and has suffered from drug trafficking and piracy.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
President Joseph Kabila / Helene C. Stikkel – DOD
- Since taking office as president in 2001 following the assasination of his father Laurent, Joseph Kabila is seen as doing little to combat corruption and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country is resource rich: Diamonds, cobalt and rare minerals used in electronics are all found in abundance in the DR Congo. Yet the country has a long history of corruption. Laurent Kabila’s predecessor, Mobutu Sese Seko, allegedly walked away with $4 billion and Swiss courts found that a statute of limitations ran out on collecting some of that bounty. Meanwhile, DR Congo remains one of the poorest countries on earth. Its citizens struggle with incomes that average $200 a year. Only two other countries have lower per capita income.