‘Keep politicians at arm’s length’

A leading African Catholic scholar has urged the Church to “maintain a sacred distance from most of our African politicians who are corrupt, greedy, violent, sit-tight leaders” who benefit from a system of patronage and state capture.

“We have so many old sit-tight rulers in Africa who do not wish to give up on their stranglehold on their people and who milk their countries dry,” said Fr Stan Chu Ilo, research professor at the Centre for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University.

Africa is home to some of the longest-serving leaders in the world. Six out of the 10 longest-serving come from the continent, including Teodoro Obiang Nguema of the impoverished Equatorial Guinea, Paul Biya of Cameroon and Denis Sassou Nguesso of Gabon.

Ilo said the patronage system and the kleptocracy that bedevils Africa today have created a gulf between the rich and the poor.

“The state in Africa has suffered from what they call ‘state capture’ [in which] a few families and a thin top layer of the political and religious elites are swimming on top of a sea of wealth, while the majority of Africans are drowning,” Fr Ilo told The Tablet.

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