West Africa has been for long the poorest and most crisis stricken region in the world. Knowing this it is quite impressive to come across a colossal building like the foundation de Houphouet-Boigny shown above. A remnant from the economic prosperous era of Le Vieux when there seemed no end to the economic growth of Cote d’Ivoire. The country was an oasis of calm and stability amidst other west African countries that stumbled from one crisis into another in the 60s and 70s of the 20th century. Labourers from all over west-Africa settled and fuelled the economic growth.
Under the tutelage of a couple of dozen French advisors Houphouet-Boigny provided Côte d’Ivoire of a descent infrastructure, 24/7 electricity and a skyline in Abidjan that can compete with western metropoles around the world. But this west African fairy-tale would not last longer than two decades, and after his death the country descended slowly into chaos under a political power struggle. The last decade has seen civil war taking hold of the country from time to time, while the economic decline continued. The, for the moment, final chapter was in 2011 when French and UN forces even interfered on behalf of the internationally recognised winner of the elections, presidential candidate Allassane Ouattara. The president in power, Gbagbo, refused to hand over power and was arrested in his presidential palace after days of pitched battles between loyal military and militias of the opposition.
It is highly unlikely that a president in the region is to hand over power peacefully to a democratically elected opponent and it often happens they are ‘driven of the throne’ by force. Promising exceptions to this are Senegal and Ghana, where the former presidents are still living in the country. Besides this it is less well known that most presidents in the region have their own ‘project’ during their reign for their own prestige, which costs millions and often a couple of hundred million. It is rare that this squandering of public funds meets strong opposition by the people that elected them although these same people have only a few euros per day to spend.
The first time I saw an example of this in reality was in Dakar. On the tip of the peninsula where the capital of Senegal is located, the former president, Abdullay Wade, has build a giant statue called Le Monument de la Renaissance Afriqaine. I could not help myself, but to look at it with irony when I saw the statue from a distance, not artistically very sophisticated. It is lit up in different colours every few minutes and just minutes drive away unpaved streets turn into mud pools after every shower. Irony because a closer look at the political situation in the region quickly shows the deep divisions between different peoples that live within the boarders of countries drawn up by Europeans. The millions would be justified if stability and a fair distribution of wealth is achieved, instead the statue is more like an awkward reminder of the widespread corruption. Moreover, ‘political stable’ Senegal still has to deal with a simmering civil war in the south of the country.
Ghana, that has already seen a couple successive presidents handing over power peacefully, seems to have a ‘grand project’ for every president. The last one, John Atta Mills, moved into the Flagstaff house and has recently died in office. This Flagstaff House is surrounded by controverses and it is not clear how much the construction has cost. As well, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s most famous freedom fighter, first president (turned dictator and was deposed in a Coup d'etat) in his last years in office got his own temple. Accra is dotted with such places of honour. Only Rawlings that has forcefully shaped Ghana into the democracy it is today does not yet have his own temple.
Ghana is stable and its economy is growing fast at the moment. I could feel the positive energy while travelling through the country. People would tell me with pride about their stable democracy and the fact that they were a peaceful people. For the first time I sensed something like nationalism in a region riddled with unstable and corrupt governments ruling states, but where the notion of a nation-state is non-existent. The rapid economic growth is fueled by the fact that Ghana’s soil is rich with valuable minerals, gold being the main one.
Côte d’Ivoire must have been like that in the 60s and 70s, when it flourished under the reign of le Vieux and it could exploit the natural resources in a political stable climate. Abidjan’s speedways and skyline took shape. The flip side was that the economy was too much dependent on the export of raw materials and its fate got almost directly connected to the world price of cacao. Besides the fact that the government of le Vieux had structurally been overspending. So when the cacao prices fell dramatically, Côte d’Ivoire’s glory fell with it. Almost all the skyscrapers in Abidjan were build more than thirty years ago.
A remnant of the same period, it is an almost surreal experience when entering into Yamoussoukro, the hometown of Houphouet-Boigny’s clan. He decided that it would be the capital and started immense projects. He build a basilique that is just a little smaller than the Saint Peters in Rome on request of the pope. Standing far away from the residential areas it has never been full since its official opening in 1989. The people go to a church closer by their home. To brush of critique that the excessive spending on the building Houphouet-Boignysaid he had funded the construction with private funds. One does not have to be a political scientist to know that the income of a president comes from the state, and its citizens.
Some people are confused by the fact that Amsterdam is the Dutch national capital and The Hague is the administrative capital where all the ministries and embassies are. Amsterdam at least is one of the biggest economic centres in the Netherlands. Yamoussoukro is neither, at most it is more or less the geographical centre of Côte d’Ivoire. Face it, Yamoussoukro is an irrelevant town that owns its legacy solely to one single man, Houphouet-Boigny. It is the sad legacy of the widespread syndrome of the ‘Big Boss’ that can do whatever he wants until he dies of age, is killed, exiled or sometimes forced by an ailing economy and pressure from outside powers to reform.
In the case of Houphouet-Boigny it was first the IMF and France that forced him to reform, but he only left office when he died in 1993. He left a country with a huge debt, stalling economical growth and a power vacuum. All ingredients to throw a country in a fragile region like west Africa into chaos. He left also some monstrous useless buildings, of which the Houphouet-Boigny foundation in the picture is one. It looks almost as big as the headquarters of the ‘the biggest foundation’ in the world, the UN. Although the purpose of the size of the building remains unclear to me, and many residents of Côte d’Ivoire alike. It is more a shamefully disproportionally oversized building, just across from the slums on the other side of the equally disproportional six lane road.
The town looks more like an ancient airport that has been turned into a city with its giant lanes leading nowhere and hardly any traffic. After I left Yamoussoukro I was most impressed by the fact that I have probably visited the one town in the world that will never see any traffic jam.
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