Why we’re uncomfortable in our pan-African skins

 

By Charles Onyango-Obbo

I have noted before that if there are two things that East Africans seem to be able to do better than the rest of Africa it is to run airlines (Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airways, RwandaAir to mention the bigger players), and marathons.

In fact, when it comes to the marathon, we rule the world.

In Africa, Southern Africa often offers a challenge with South African Airways, and occasionally the marathon. And North Africa too, with Egypt Air and those Moroccan runners.

Yes, the West Africans are better at sprints, football, and writing and, well, music. But, or so it seemed, little else.

Not exactly. There is something that the West Africans do several times better than East Africans — banking. We shall not mention the South Africans here, but will focus on this old grudge match between East and West Africa.

Take Nigeria’s Zenith Bank. It has subsidiaries in three other West African countries, then it made a jump and landed in South Africa, and then the UK.

United Bank for Africa (UBA), also Nigerian, has subsidiaries in 20 sub-Saharan countries, and representative offices in France, the UK, and USA.

No East African or rather, Kenyan bank (Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi have no banks that play outside their borders), has a presence outside the region, or across the ocean.

Another West African bank, Ecobank, operates in 33 countries across Africa as well as in Paris, and has representative offices in Beijing, Dubai, and London.

So why are East Africans shy about playing outside their region, or rather how come they are incompetent when they try?

To begin with, while East Africans talk a good pan-African talk, we have hardly had any truly committed pan-Africanists from our part of the continent since the death of Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Our engagement with Africa is mostly opportunistic; when we need it to help us achieve a selfish interest. We are also very ambivalent in our African skin, which is why apart from the Ethiopians, we don’t have much of a national dress.

Even with the Ethiopians, you won’t see their president or prime minister appearing in traditional dress on the world stage the way the West Africans do.

And within the East African Community, Kenya is unusual in that it has companies that have crossed borders and are dominant — Nakumatt and Uchumi Supermarkets, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and Equity Bank, Bidco, Diamond Trust Bank, Serena Hotels, East African Breweries, and so on. The airlines don’t count, because they really just drop in and out, even though they have offices.

But even with these Kenyan companies, there is an uncomfortable story to tell. The majority are either owned or were started by Kenyan Europeans or Asians. If not that, they are listed (KCB, Uchumi).

It is almost only Equity Bank that was started by Kenyan Africans and is active and successful outside the nation’s borders.