Recent years have witnessed an abundance of critical political economy research on rent, rentiers and rentiership. This scholarly interest reflects a recognition that global capitalism is increasingly dominated by accumulation through the control of scarce rent-generating assets rather than productive activities. This shift has been enabled by processes of ‘assetisation’ through which an ever-expanding range of things, from natural resources to intellectual property, are transformed into financial assets from which rental income can be extracted.

These tendencies are captured by the concept of ‘rentier capitalism’, popularised by geographer Brett Christophers in his recent book of the same name. To date, rentier capitalism has primarily been associated with highly financialised post-industrial contexts in the OECD. For example, Christophers argues that the entire UK economy has undergone a process of ‘rentierisation’ as a result of neoliberal reforms since the 1970s, and that rents are now the primary basis of growth in the world’s sixth largest economy.

Writing in ROAPE’s Capitalism in Africa series, anthropologists Thomas Bierschenk and Jose-Maria Munoz argue that the concept of rentier capitalism is also useful for understanding African political economy. In particular, they highlight how this concept can inform ethnographic understandings of the practices of African businesspeople and their reliance on access to political elites as a key source of rents. In contrast to alternative concepts for understanding these political-economic relationships, such as ‘crony’ or ‘patrimonial’ capitalism, Bierschenk and Munoz observe that rentier capitalism is less normative and is not premised on the assumption that capitalism in the global North and South are somehow fundamentally different.

Bierschenk and Munoz’ argument resonates with recent innovations in urban studies that seek to bring capitalist development processes in the global North and South into comparative dialogue. As urban geographers, we draw on our own research on infrastructure megaprojects in Ghana and Kenya to demonstrate that the concept of rentier capitalism can generate insights into the dynamics of urbanisation in Africa. In particular, we contend that these projects have hastened urbanisation processes in historically rural areas. This is a direct result of infrastructure initiatives creating opportunities for the assetisation of land and the appropriation of rents by various actors. Building on Bierschenk and Munoz’ anthropological focus on the agency of African businesspeople, we show that urban rentiers include actors situated at a range of scales, from global real estate developers to local land speculators. In addition to broadening the scope of actors engaged in rentier activities, our analysis explains how rentierism is incentivised by development regimes whose stated purpose is to augment industry.

The class politics of urban land rent has been a central concern of Marxist urban geography for nearly half a century. Neil Smith’s theory of the ‘rent gap’, first proposed in 1979 to understand gentrification in US cities, has become widely used to understand uneven development at the urban scale in diverse contexts globally. In his 1982 masterpiece The Limits to Capital, David Harvey observed the capitalistic tendency for land to be treated as a ‘pure financial asset which is bought and sold according to the rent it yields’, anticipating subsequent debates around the financialisation of urban development.

The early 21^st century saw calls from postcolonial scholars to shift the geographical focus of urban theory production away from the North Atlantic cities in which Harvey and Smith formed their concepts. In the context of this Southern shift in urban theory, there is now a growing body of research that employs and extends land rent theory to examine how practices of rentiership are shaping urbanisation dynamics in Asia. For example, geographers Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard draw on Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall to develop a multi-scalar ‘conjunctural’ approach to comparing urban land transformations in Jakarta and Bangalore. Arguing that these transformations are shaped by the dialectical relationship between the general and the particular, they propose the concept of ‘inter-scalar chains of rentiership’ to analyse ‘how the assetisation and financialisation of land emerges from a diverse set of actors and instututions, operating at scales ranging from the global to the local, each seeking to appropriate land rent’. In sum, studying the rentier practices of actors operating at various scales can inform a conjunctural analysis of urban change under conditions of global capitalism.

In our recent ROAPE paper on infrastructure megaprojects in Ghana and Kenya, we demonstrate that inter-scalar chains of rentiership is a useful concept to understand the relationship between rentier capitalism and urban geography in Africa. In particular, this concept reveals how grand initiatives to enhance infrastructural connectivity and foster structural transformation have ultimately created opportunities for land rent appropriation by actors operating at global, national and local scales. This has resulted in what urban scholars refer to as “extended urbanisation,” which is best characterised as the urban transformation of historically rural and isolated places (rather than the growth of cities). While cities remain centers of gravity in urban networks, an emergent geography is taking shape that includes urbanisation on resource frontiers and along transportation corridors. In contrast to the geographical expansion of cities, extended urban landscapes commonly cohere into transnational urban agglomerations.

In the case of Ghana, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is coordinating the ongoing Abidjan-Lagos Corridor (ALC) initiative to upgrade the coastal road network that connects the country to Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Nigeria into a 1000km six-lane highway. Funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Corridor is primarily intended to enhance regional integration and trade and enable the growth of labour-intensive industry. For example, the project is intended to complement Ghana’s national strategy to achieve structural transformation through ‘industrialization especially manufacturing, based on modernized agriculture and sustainable exploitation of [the country’s] natural resources’. However, manufacturing value added as a proportion of GDP has remained stagnant since the ALC was launched in 2014.

Although the ALC initiative has had scant impact on Ghanaian industry to date, it is clear that the planned highway is already creating opportunities for rentiership by actors operating at multiple scales. The resulting construction boom is contributing to the emergence of a transnational ‘mega-city region’ of 30 million inhabitants along the West African coast. For example, a master-planned new city is currently being constructed on the route of the highway in the rural district of Ningo-Prampram 50km east of central Accra. This public-private partnership has created opportunities for rent extraction by Brazilian real estate capital through the construction of ‘affordable’ housing units. National political actors have also been accused of engaging in illegal land grabbing and leasing in the project vicinity. In addition, local traditional land custodians have taken advantage of rising land values to enrich themselves, leading to resentment and resistance from dispossessed indigenous youths.

In the case of Kenya, the launch of the Vision 2030 national development strategy in 2008 has seen the government embrace investment in large-scale connective infrastructure as a central pillar of achieving social and economic modernisation. Vision 2030 flagship projects include the Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) that seeks to enhance both domestic and international connectivity through an extensive network of ports, highways, railways, pipelines and industrial zones. In addition, the government has invested in a series of major road building projects to transform Nairobi into a ‘world class African Metropolis’ by 2030. As with the case of Ghana, there is little evidence to date of structural transformation. The Kenyan government’s ambition was for infrastructural upgrading to foster flagship projects in agro-processing, textiles, leather, construction services and materials, oil and gas, mining services and IT related sectors. According to UNIDO, however, manufacturing value added as a proportion of GDP decreased from 10.4% in 2011 to 8.5% in 2020.

Although infrastructure projects have not catalyzed structural transformation in Kenya to date, they did precipitate a real estate boom. For example, international developer Rendeavour is building a 5,000-acre private new city close to the Chinese-financed and constructed Superhighway that connects Nairobi to the town of Thika in Kiambu County. Rendeavour lease plots to commercial developers and individual homebuilders within a master-planned enclave that boasts secure land title, reliable infrastructure and services, and special economic zone status. Road building has also benefited national political elites, and the decision to expand Nairobi’s Eastern Bypass was allegedly influenced by former president Uhuru Kenyatta’s plans to build another new city on 11,800 hectares of land owned by his family. At a smaller scale, wealthy Kenyans are participating in the assetisation of land  by building highly profitable tenement housing in areas serviced by Nairobi’s new roads, such as the Mathare Valley informal settlement. In addition, local speculators have taken advantage of peri-urban road building to acquire large parcels of agricultural land and subdivide them into plots of highly valuable real estate.

These examples demonstrate that the concepts of ‘rentier capitalism’ and ‘inter-scalar chains of rentiership’ are useful tools for analysing the emergence of new urban geographies in Africa. Infrastructure-led development is primarily justified in terms of catalysing economic development and structural transformation by addressing Africa’s ‘infrastructure gap’. The infastructure megaprojects discussed above remain a work in progress, and our research does not rule out the possibility that such initiatives will contribute to industrialisation in Africa in the future. However, Tom Goodfellow observes that many African countries are characterised by political-economic incentives, such as weak property taxation and poorly enforced planning regulations, that encourage speculative investment in real estate rather than productive activities.

The cases of Ghana and Kenya suggest that unless this incentive structure is addressed, large-scale infrastructure projects are likely to encourage rentiership, and contribute to further urbanisation without industrialisation. Indeed, in many instances the announcement that a large-scale infrastructure project is planned is enough to precipitate a flurry of land speculation as investors big and small flock to secure assets in anticipation of future rents. Thus, rentiers appear on cue in proximity to large-scale infrastructure projects, while investment in capital goods and manufacturing is rarely so forthcoming. Instead, industrial transformation remains a long-term objective that is perpetually postponed.

If capital that could be used to boost industrial capacity is used for speculation in land, then it stands to reason that urbanisation is taking place at the expense of industrialisation. The implication is that policy makers should discourage rentierism, and instead incentivise productive investment. Here we follow Franklin Obeng-Odoom who argues that constraining the power of the rentier by socialising and redistributing land rents is necessary to addressing inequalities and achieving inclusive urban development in Africa. For example, Ambreena Manji and Jill Cottrell Ghai advocate land value taxation as a progressive tool to fund affordable housing construction in Kenya. However, previous studies have found that powerful landowning elites, such as those discussed in the examples above, are an obstacle to effective land value capture policies. If policy initiatives to socialise and redistribute land rents are to be successful, therefore, they must be accompanied by political movements to challenge the vested interests that benefit from rentier capitalism in Africa.

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This article was first published by ROAPE.

A few weeks ago an uncle of mine, who’s very active on our family Whatsapp group, shared a meme that read as follows: “When will the next slave trade be? I want to leave [the country].” This was not the first time he sent one. Actually, we get several of them almost everyday, which very quickly generates laughing emojis or funny stickers as responses. That’s what happened in this case too. Some cousins ​​laughed at this meme, after having surely shared it with other people. I couldn’t laugh at this one. It took me a few minutes to process why.

In recent years, memes have become quite something on Angolan social media. Memes have become a way for online Angolans to cope with their various daily concerns, just like we historically have done with music and dance.

As many others still do, I initially looked at memes as mere funny internet posts with the sole purpose of making someone laugh. That’s why I didn’t think too deeply before sharing or even attempting to create some of them in the past. It took one such as my uncle sent for me to start looking at memes as more complex manifestations.

Attempting to compare memes to cartoons, Ribio Buse and Lesley Braun write that “In postcolonial settings they continue to be mediums that covertly—and sometimes explicitly—mock and challenge abuses of power.” That’s probably what memes are doing too, the authors claim, as they show how in the Democratic Republic of Congo, people are using memes online to laugh at powerful people and themselves.

In the Angolan social media landscape memes are now everywhere.  On WhatsApp stories and groups, on Instagram, on Twitter and obviously on Facebook, which is believed to be the main source of the most hilarious memes. Unlike “typical” memes, Angolan ones are mostly text-based, usually with no images. They are generally plain texts reporting issues on almost anything, from the country’s current affairs, common relationships issues, to well-known colloquialisms.

Memes are becoming so serious in Angola that there is already a popular name, memeiros, given to those who create and share the most memes, as well as exclusively dedicated social media pages for the daily sharing of memes made in Angola. Angola Depressão, for example, has more than 300,000 Instagram followers—1,000 times more than Angola’s president João Lourenço.

The intersection between memes and social reality is undeniable. The “When will the next slave trade be? I want to leave [the country]” meme, which, by the way, is very popular on Facebook, clearly illustrates a case where memes are used to express deeper frustration or a cry for help. This meme is undoubtedly part of broader socio-political discourse currently happening in the country. Dealing with an unprecedented social and economic crisis, Angola is each day a harder place to live for most of its nearly 35 million inhabitants.

Lack of jobs and opportunities for young people, the country’s largest population, difficulties in accessing health and education services, regular rising in food prices and the increase in fuel prices (-after the government announced the withdrawal of fuel price subsidies recently), are some of the key reasons leading many to believe there’s no hope for their future.

And that’s why memes aren’t always only memes.

My uncle’s shared meme, for instance, can be framed within a recent social phenomena where many Angolans, especially youngsters, are deliberately seeking to go abroad  to look for better life opportunities. Although there is no official data on how many have already left, the scenario is quickly unveiled due to the constant floods of people that can be seen at the doors of Western consulates in Luanda. At the Portuguese consulate, Angolans “favorite” destination, some people even spend the night outside just to secure their visa interview spot.

The scenario is so dramatic that there is even an inorganic movement called “Civic Movement, Let’s Leave Angola.” Created in 2019, it is popular on Facebook, with almost 60,000 followers, and posts featuring discontent with the country and the ruling party (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), advice for people willing to join the movement, and also stories of Angolans who have already successfully left the country.

Edmilson Ângelo, an Angolan scholar, argues that recent political memes targeting the government should be understood as “reflections of the evolution and solidification of social media in our political sphere, as well as visible changes in the social contract between who governs and who is governed from the point of view of Angolan youth.”

As for now it’s unclear whether the fast-growing meme culture poses a real threat to the long-time ruling party. However, there’s a well-known African proverb that says: “When ants unite, they can lift an elephant.”

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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.

Amid the chaos and randomness of life, sometimes we are served with stark synchronicities that must not be ignored. These windows of opportunities, give us a moment to pause, reflect and see the connection between two seemingly unrelated events.

A case in mind is the recent passing on of Mukami Kimathi, the wife to Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi who was largely the face of the anti-colonial war in Kenya which culminated with the fall of the Union Jack on 12 December, 1963. Kimathi’s death coincided with the coronation of King Charles III who is inherited the scepter of power from Queen Elizabeth II. While pomp and glamour rocked Westminster Abbey earlier last month, gloom and somber reflection filled the small town of Njabini  as Kenya mourned one of its independence heroines.

The hoisting of the Kenyan Flag in Uhuru Gardens ushered in a new era of self-rule in 1963. Finally, the fruits of the protracted struggle that had started in the early 20^th century by warriors such as Samoei Arap Koitalel, Muthoni Nyanjiru, and Mekatili wa Menza, finally paid off. The air was pregnant with expectations from the new Kenyan-led government with the promise of a democratic state, of the people, for the people, and by the people. The land and freedom that was at the center of the struggle was now controlled by one of our own. This meant that we could now chart a path to prosperity determined by the people. Tragically, as we know, the dream was quickly broken by a cabal of rapacious political turn-coats.

As history would later unfold, the first prime minister and president of Kenya, Johnson Kamau Ngegi (Jomo Kenyatta), and his clique turned against the dream at the expense of the newly formed nation. Impoverished by over-exploitation by the British Government, Kenya was in dire need of visionary and pragmatic leadership to steer the country from agriculture to a more diversified economy that would ensure the growth of a non-agricultural sectors such as manufacturing and public services.

The dream to eradicate diseases, ignorance, and poverty was shelved to allow the elite to buttress and consolidate wealth for their families and friends. The political and economic elite embarked on a looting spree of whatever was relinquished by the colonialists: white highland farms and other properties across the country through the infamous One Million Acre Scheme in which Kenya received a milti-million pound loan to buy land from white settlers living the country. This was a tactic to diffuse the danger of a radical land redistribution movement.

The power had been transferred from a foreign oppressor to a homegrown oppressor who was hellbent on using state machinery to maintain the newly acquired wealth and status. Together with their close allies and family, they formed a comprador class which continued to rule on behalf of the former colonial master.

Fake independence and resistance

Kenya’s independence sixty years ago this year  was reduced to a mere flag which had to a large extent, no socio-economic impact on the majority of Kenyans. With a meagre 12% high potential farming land, most Kenyans worked as casual labourers on white owned-farms. These farms grew cotton, coffee, tea, pyrethrum and horticultural produce for exports.

Fully conscious of the betrayal, some  KLFA warriors led by Musa Mwariama and General Baimunge, went back to the forest to continue fighting for land. The president did not lift the ban on KLFA and proscribed and labelled it as terrorist. What ensued was a crackdown of our independence heroes who felt cheated by the independence settlement. This marked the beginning of the assassination and exile of some of the leaders and fighters. To fortify the new power, dissidents were silenced too through imprisonment and assassination such as the shooting of the fiercest critics, Pio Gama Pinto in 1965. Having established the foundation of the newborn state on the rubble of cronyism, nepotism, betrayal, and corruption, Kenya’s second president perpetuated this grubby legacy.

After the fall of the apartheid government in South Africa, Nelson Mandela – who claimed to have been inspired by the leader of the armed struggle in Kenya  – visited Kenya hoping to meet Dedan Kimathi’s Mausoleum or grave site.  To his dismay, the two governments which had ruled for more than thirty years had not bothered to locate Kimathi’s remains from Kamiti Maximum Prison which is believed to hold his remains although in an unknown location.

Just as Kimathi was forgotten, other heroes still alive were forgotten and continued to wallow in abject poverty with only a few former fighters being given small parcels of land. Despite their active campaigning to secure the state’s recognition and support, they never felt the warmth of an independent state as the dream was hijacked and individualized by a few.

Mukami Kimathi – a freedom warrior

During the KLFA war, Mukami organized the women battalion, helped in administering oaths, coordinated spies in the Mount Kenya Forest and also ensured mobilization of resources for fighters and other logistical issues. Her contribution in the struggle spanned both the pre and post-independence period.

All these sacrifices were ignored too, by the different independence governments until Mwai Kibaki recognized the KLFA movement and offered a small amount of land to her but which still was not a recognition befitting the role she played in the country’s independence. Most freedom fighters continue to die without any recognition from the government or compensation.

Yet the government failed to fulfill her only dream of being able to bury the remains of her late husband. Every year 20 October when we celebrate Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day), it is always an opportunity for the government to pay lip service to war heroes. This continues as the elite continues to acquire illicit wealth while consolidating political power to propagate their vast and unquenchable interests in various sectors of the economy. Through this, the country has become what J.M. Kariuki foresaw as a country of ten millionaires and ten million beggars.

Royal rituals, visits and reparations

On the other hand, the British Government has been reluctant to compensate war heroes in Kenya despite many calls for reparations. Instead there are only a few instances with only a handful benefitting from ‘reparations’.

An example was the £19.9 million payout to three KLFA veterans granted by the British High Court. Despite this unwillingness, the British Government has continued with its grandiose coronations, royal weddings and burial rituals. It has also continued to participate in invasions, wars and conquest, whose cost would have otherwise helped to compensate the KLFA and other victims of Britain’s atrocities around the world.

The state rushed to give Mukami Kimathi a state burial ‘befitting’ her status, yet she lived a spartan life. Her burial was an attempt by the Kenyan government to redeem itself and avoid any backlash from the public. Unsurprisingly, the Kenyan Flag was not hoisted half-mast even for an hour to honor her courage, sacrifice, and commitment to the country’s independence, yet it was hoisted half-mast for three days following Queen Elizabeth’s death last year. Kenya continues to betray the collective dream by not recognizing our history while also erasing significant parts of our history.

Mukami’s burial ceremony, which was attended by political honchos, was turned into another elite parade where the leaders in both government and opposition exchanged insults without taking time to let the family and other mourners reflect on the rich legacy which she was leaving behind. Outrageously, the cost of her state burial would have been enough to provide for her and her family when she was alive.

King Charles III has announced, his plans to visit Kenya later in the year to deepen ties that date to the colonial era. For activists we should use this visit to push for reparations for the many victims of atrocities committed by the colonial government in the concentration camps that were set-up across the country. His visit should only be permitted if his agenda is to provide a way for restoration, compensation, and healing to the broken families and individuals who were incarcerated, tortured, maimed, and killed.

The UK King’s visit should be largely centered on ‘undoing’ the dispossession which his family and country orchestrated. The government cannot claim to be putting the interest of its citizens first when it is clearly not interested in fighting for the justice of its people. Before we embark on trade deals, military cooperation, and knowledge exchange, let us first heal our historical wounds rather than covering them up.

As we celebrate 60 years since independence this year, Oginga Odinga’s  – Kenya’s first vice-president – autobiography,Not Yet Uhuru, reverberates strongly to the current state of the nation which was sadly foreseen.

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This article was first published by ROAPE.