Algeria is currently the fourth largest economy on the African continent. Its economy is largely propelled by oil and gas exports and the industry built around the sector. By land size, Algeria is number one in Africa and tenth in the world. While most of the central and southern regions are deserts, the vastness of the country gives it wider geopolitical reach and importance. It links the western parts of the Sahel region of Africa to the Mediterranean and southern Europe and also links the upper Atlantic coast of northwest West Africa to Libya and the greater Middle East. On security, Algeria has one of the best-equipped and modernised militaries on the continent and is the largest Russian arms buyer. These, in addition to having the second largest population in North Africa (after Egypt), place Algeria in a good position to lead Africa together with other bigger economies.
What has been the story of Algerian leadership?
Extremely few countries in Africa had gone through what Algeria experienced in the struggle for its independence. It was a bloody and bitter experience. France, the colonial power that controlled the territory, had seen it as an extension of its European territory. Located just across the Mediterranean, this position looked convenient to the French. A robust agricultural industry was created by the colonial power in northern Algeria, made possible by Mediterranean vegetation. Consequently, when the Algerian people decided to pursue self-rule, France considered it a national security threat. The acrimony that followed did not only pit the colony against Paris but also divided French elites. It was as a result of the Algerian War of Independence that brought Charles de Gaulle back to front-line politics in the early 1950s. The war nearly resulted in a 20th-century coup in France. During the war, Algeria received support from some already independent states in Africa. Ghana was one of these.
In 1962, Algeria attained self-rule and under its independence leader, Ahmed Ben Bella, had committed itself to African unity. Ben Bella supported Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and other leaders in pursuit of a continental union. He supported a political, economic and military union of Africa. After his removal from power through a coup, Algeria’s leadership role in Africa was largely curtailed, instead becoming a more domestic-oriented security state. The Algerian civil war which lasted for over a decade from 1991, further concentrated Algiers’ attention to its own national security needs.
But times have changed. It’s about time Algeria used its powerful stature to help lead Africa’s Renaissance. Its experience with fighting extremism will be particularly beneficial.