Magufuli’s demographic gamble

 
John Magufuli has an ambitious plan for his country. The president of Tanzania wants his country to grow into a regional powerhouse. That is fantastic. But Magufuli has a rather strange and primitive means of achieving his ambition.
On July 10, 2019, he ordered Tanzanian women to “set free your ovaries” to help boost the economy into a regional powerhouse.
The president handed Tanzanian women the onerous task of making the country a regional power by flooding it with children.  
With an average of 5.02 births per woman, Tanzania has one of the world’s highest fertility rates. Kenya, east Africa’s regional powerhouse has average fertility rate of 3.8 births per woman.
Magufuli argues rather ludicrously that China is now a huge economy because of its intimidating population. He refers to India and Nigeria as two countries leveraging on demographic endowments to become regional powers.Magafuli’s perception of demography as the easiest means to regional power is grounded on primitive African believes that a man’s wealth is measured by the number of children he has. Global developments dismiss that perception as something of a demographic gamble and economic folly.Kenya, Tanzania’s neighbor has proved that point.  With a population of 49.7 million, Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) is $74 billion. Even with a bumper population of 57 million, Tanzania’s GDP is a scant $52.09 billion. Germany has proved that a strong and virile economy and even military muscle could be mustered without population explosion. With just 82 million people, Germany is the world’s fourth largest economy with GDP of $3.6 trillion. Africa with population of 1.2 billion lags behind with cumulative GDP of $3.4 trillion.  With a population of 60 million in 1939 Germany was strong enough to invade the whole of Europe and occupy every country, including France, for four years.When Dwight David Eisenhower, the American general who commanded allied forces in Europe, ordered one million men into the Atlantic in June 6, 1944 in a desperate bid to remove the scourge of the Swastika from the heart of Europe, the few German troops at Normandy Beach cut down 4, 000 men from the landing allied forces in the first five hours of the invasion.  The Germans resisted the one million-man allied forces for almost one year. That was not attained by demographic accident.  Erwin Rommel, the German general that Britain’s Winston Churchill used to describe as the “the good Nazi”, once routed an Italian division with less than a battalion of men. He lost only six men during the campaign.  That was the victory of focused leadership and superior tactical acumen, not demography.Unlike Magufuli, Chinese government officials see their bumper population as an economic burden. That view dates back to the early 1970s when the Chinese government decreed the average fertility rate of one child per woman.  As a young reporter with the Daily Times in 1989, I covered the visit of Edward Heath, a former prime minister of Britain.  During a press briefing he told us his encounter with Zhou Enlai, China’s premier from 1949 to January 8, 1976.Heath said that during his official visit to China in 1971 he lectured the Chinese dictator on the essence of democracy.  After the seeming monologue, the Chinese dictator told the British prime minister that democracy was about conducting elections. He then asked Heath: “what is the population of Britain”? Heath said “60 million”. The Chinese premier said: “I have one billion on top of your 60 million. Tell me how I can conduct elections”?Heath had no answer. Everyone knew that  jumbo population was China’s burden.  Magufuli can make his country the regional powerhouse with the population of 57 million or even less.Kenya has already achieved that feat with less population than Tanzania’s. What Tanzania needs is a formidable industrial base. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) recently listed Kenya among the five countries that would benefit immensely from the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).The other countries listed were South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Morocco.  Tanzania and Nigeria are clearly missing in the list. Nigeria with a population four times that of South Africa cannot compete with South Africa’s industrial muscle.Magufuli envies Nigeria for being a regional power based on its bumper population.  The Tanzanian president’s envy is wrongly placed.  He should envy Kenya, the domineering power in his region which has a population less than Tanzania’s.Kenya’s domineering role in the region is not a function of demographic accident as Magufuli wrongly perceives. It is borne out of economic foresight. The rulers of Kenya have invested heavily on tourism.   The Kenyan shilling is stronger than the Nigerian naira because the economy is predicated on something that can resist external shocks. The Kenyan shilling trades at 103 to the dollar while the naira trudges along at N360 to the dollar in the parallel market. The Tanzanian shilling trade at TZS2, 299 to the dollar. The glaring disparity is obviously not a function of demography. If anything, the naira is the casualty of many factors including population explosion.Nigeria is by no means an enviable regional power. It is sitting on a demographic time-bomb that has reduced it to the global headquarters of poverty and a training ground for kidnappers, bandits, armed robbers and murderous herdsmen.Tanzania has a poverty rate of 26 per cent.  Ironically population, something Magufuli envies, has escalated Nigeria’s poverty rate to 80 per cent. Magufuli’s plan of growing Tanzania’s economy through population explosion is a recipe for abject poverty. He can make it faster with a solid industrial base. 

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