Mozambique, 50 years of people sleeping “in the shadow of a better future” on a compass with no direction for collective prosperity

Paulo Vilanculo "

Mozambique reached its 50th anniversary of independence carrying the symbolic weight of a nation that, despite countless speeches about progress and unity, continues to drift like a compass that spins in circles, unable to find the north of prosperity. This essay analyses the contradictions of a state that claims to be modern, but operates under outdated, clientelist and profoundly unequal logics, where the promise of freedom and well-being has not yet found its true destination. It proposes a critical reading of Mozambique's path after half a century of independence, starting from the analogy of the compass without north as a symbol of the fragmentation of the national project. Where are the leading district hospitals? Where has the education and training of the new man sunk? Where do the rehabilitated industrial and agricultural areas lie? The reflection that is needed is not only about what went wrong, but above all: how can we find the lost north? The country, which in 1975 raised its fist against colonialism with promises of freedom, equality and progress, now seems to be sailing in rough seas, armed with a compass that has lost its north. Five decades after gaining independence, Mozambique is still searching for its direction. The country's historical path has been marked by setbacks in poor governance that has led it off the path of development, with a future that is mortgaged by the inertia of each new government, re-issuing hopeful speeches and ambitious plans, but in practice it has led to a state that insists on moving blindly, without a thorough diagnosis of its structural problems. The roads full of potholes, the schools without teachers, the health centers without medicines, contrast starkly with the increasingly sophisticated government buildings, the luxury cars of the state apparatus and the showcase projects that have little to do with the daily lives of ordinary citizens. In the field of education and health, the challenges are still structural. Schools without desks, poorly paid teachers, hospitals without medicines and overburdened medical staff. The youth, who represent more than 60% of the population, find themselves in a limbo between poor schooling and chronic unemployment. The brain drain to foreign countries or to the informal market becomes the only possible escape. The terrorism in Cabo Delgado, which has trapped the northern part of the country in a bloody armed conflict that has already caused thousands of deaths and displaced people, does not seem to be just a military phenomenon, but rather the reflection of decades of exclusion and state neglect that exposes the State’s failure to guarantee security and inclusion for all its citizens. The country, which is abundant in natural resources such as gas, coal, rubies, fertile land and a strategic coastline, continues to be among the poorest in the world, in a paradox that is disturbing and defies any economic rationality. The path to social, economic and institutional development remains unclear, not due to a lack of resources or human capacity, but due to the absence of a clear, collective and fair path. The cyclical financial shortfalls and the hidden debt scandal inflated the social and economic indicators of persistent multidimensional poverty, worsened regional inequalities, endemic corruption, fragile national cohesion and threw successive stones in the path of a nation that never had enough time to heal its own wounds. The State, on many occasions, reveals itself to be absent, hostage to networks of clientelism and political patrimonialism in light of emblematic chaos of controversial political decisions, with institutional weaknesses, centralization of decisions, and the erasure of the role of the Assembly of the Republic, which have contributed to the country's shift away from the focus on equality and social justice, equity and sustainable development in a monocratic multiparty system without profound institutional reforms, where parties wander between discourses of renewal but with practices of conservation, seriously highlighted by the opposition, divided and sometimes discredited, facing unequal political fields, where electoral processes are often contested and the mechanisms of justice and oversight operate under strong influence of the executive. Samora Machel’s dream of a “free land of free men” is now being undermined by uncertainty. The Constitution that enshrines fundamental civil liberties is increasingly limited. The promise of decentralization has become a game of appearances, where real power remains centralized in political party elites. Politics continues to revolve around the partisanship of the State. Prosperity, far from being a shared right, has become a restricted privilege. Poverty continues to plague millions, social exclusion is deepening in rural and peripheral areas, and opportunities are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a political and economic elite. On this path, the country seems to be moving without collective direction, torn between symbols of modernization and realities of absolute abandonment. The metaphor of the "compass without direction" reveals a country with abundant potential, but hostage to erratic political choices, inverted priorities and a centralized governance model, disconnected from the real needs of the population, precisely when we see that what was supposed to be a participatory democracy has transformed, in many aspects, into a system of vertical command, where major decisions of national impact are taken based on personal desires, and not on participatory processes. At 50 years old, Mozambique does not just need to celebrate, it urgently needs to reconnect and rebuild its moral, social, institutional, political and economic compass. It needs to reestablish the social contract between those who govern and those who are governed, to put an end to the culture of impunity and to reclaim the sense of the common good. It needs to reimagine the north, where prosperity is not a privilege for a few, but a common right, where the State truly serves the people, and not the other way around.

2025/12/3