Africa has and continues to offer promise to a few while the majority make a living in abject poverty.

The pyramidal shape and structure of African society characterised by a few individuals at the pinnacle with the majority struggling at the bottom has regrettably not been affected by independence.

South Africa is the most developed of all African states accounting for about 45% of the continent's Gross Domestic Product.

What makes South African unique? Did it succeed where other African states failed solely due to racism? What were the dynamics at play?

What we do know is that only a few men leave lasting impressions and their actions and choices had a significant influence on the kind of South Africa we see today.

The institutional and legal framework in South Africa had to be aligned with the kind of framework that could attract skills and resources.

The men who made it happen had to think outside the box and made decisions whose implications went beyond their generations. They also had to think big.Post colonial Africa

We have seen that the mere transfer of political power to natives has not produced the kind of economic outcomes that were expected suggesting that the economic power structures created and sustained in post-colonial Africa may have little to do with race than the personal drive of the actors concerned, albeit supported by an unjust constitutional order.

We have seen black tyrants and also seen the results of bad governance.

Possessing state power alone is necessary but not sufficient to guarantee economic success. What lessons do we draw from the colonial system?

I have chosen South Africa as a reference country primarily because its interface with Europeans produced a new breed of Africans who have little or no connection with Europe. This tribe of Africa needs to be understood in a holistic manner if we are to deal effectively with the challenges on nation building.

We all know the ugly side of race-based policies but what we have not been exposed to are the experiences of the men who contributed to making South Africa a little Europe with the proviso that such a project could only succeed if it was underpinned by the proletarianization of the African peasantry and land allocation based on race.

We cannot change the past or relive it. We need to learn from it so that our future is inclusive and secure.

This can best be done if we also journey into our past to locate the points of light being the individuals whose lives had a lasting impact of the continent's civilization.

Such individuals include Mr. Abe Bailey who was born in Cradock in the Cape on 2 November 1864. He was a second generation Randlord whose parents were immigrants from Scotland and Yorkshire.

After his birth, the family moved to Queenstown where his father established a wagon-making and wool merchanting business. His father expanded his business interests to include a hotel.

His mother died when he was only 7 years old. With no mother to mould his character, his childhood was challenging and although, not of Afrikaner heritage, he found himself enmeshed in a Dutch speaking environment explaining why in adult life he had sympathy for their cause and culture.

The rebellious Abe dropped out of school at 15 and found work with the firm, Spreckley, White and Lewis, a London wool and cotton-trading firm.

The two years that he spent in London made him realise that South Africa offered more promise to an aspiring entrepreneur because it did not have the same rigid and hostile class system.

abebaileyHe reconciled with his father on his return and joined his father's business in Queenstown and in 1886 he moved to Barberton attracted by the gold rush.

He started with no experience in mining and soon enjoyed success as a stockbroker and financial agent.

Bailey has become the head by 1894 of what was called the Bailey Group of gold mines.

He began to establish himself, not as a consequence of a colonial project, as one of the chief mining magnates of the Witwatersrand.

Bailey was one of Rhodes' disciples and through networking with the master, he acquired substantial mining and land properties in the former Rhodesia and by the thirties had become one of the world's richest men.

Through Rhodes, Bailey entered politics and became part of the group that formed the Reform Committee that was linked to the Jamieson Raid.

Bailey was initially sentenced to imprisonment, then heavily fined instead for his complicit involvement in the Jameson Raid, but went on to pursue an active political life in government.

On Rhodes' death in 1902, he became Member of Parliament for his friend's former seat of Barkly West, and then in 1908, represented Krugersdorp in the first elections of the Transvaal Parliament.

In the First World War, he served as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General to the South African forces and was involved in recruiting men for the army.

He was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government and a baronetcy by the British one in recognition of First World Warthese services.

Like many of the Randlords, who without accessing South Africa's rich resource base could not have made it in Britain, Bailey spent a good deal of his life commuting between South Africa and Britain.

He had left London after a two year stint with no cash at his disposal, but after striking gold in Africa, he acquired a home in Bryanston Square, London and in East Grinstead, Sussex.

His wealth and influence allowed him to play a part in British political life as well. His second wife was after all the daughter of the fifth Lord Rossmore of Monaghan.

He was awarded a baronetcy for services rendered during the First World War. His London home was a venue for key and important political arbitrations.

In December 1916, he hosted at his house a meeting that resulted in Lloyd George replacing Asquith as British Prime Minister took place at Bryanston Square.

The discussions of 1926 that helped to bring to a close Britain's General Strike were also held at his address.

His friends included Smuts and Churchill plus a number of other leading British political figures who were frequent guests at his house.

He was a consummate diplomat and a networking genius who also helped facilitate in South Africa negotiations between opposing political groups. He was a common friend to Hertzog, Botha, Smuts, Duncan and Jameson which made it easier to manage the egos of these powerful men.

He was the key sponsor of the union movement in the belief that white South Africans ought to unite under a common umbrella.

He sponsored the Union Club movement and its journal, The State. He was passionate about South Africa, the country that provided a platform for his social mobility which would have been unthinkable in the England of the day. In post-colonial Africa, the interplay between politics and business has not been understood. Bailey would be called a "crony" if he was black.

There is a class of people who have not understood that without economic prosperity, the state as a going concern becomes an academic instrument for promoting and protecting sovereignty. Bailey knew the dangers of state power in the wrong hands and hence his decision to inherit Rhodes' parliamentary seat. It was important for people like Bailey to be seized with matters of the state because the alternative would have been too ghastly to contemplate.

This is what he had to say in 1930 about South Africa and its role in his personal transformation: "I did not come out of the top drawer. I am the son of emigrants. My parents went to South Africa and there I was born, and I love South Africa with all my heart,...for it was in that country...that I was able to rise from the bottom of the ladder."

No other country and civilization could have allowed Bailey to scale the economic and financial heights with ease.

Some would argue that he succeeded like many white South Africans because of the dispossession of native Africans and more importantly due to the introduction of an unjust and undemocratic constitutional order. Yet some would argue that it was the determination and hard work of people like Bailey that positioned South Africa for greatness in Africa.

Although the individual actors were rewarded handsomely, the resources of South Africa were exposed and exploited to the benefit not only of the generation of the time but also to future generations.

It was clear that the absence of a legal and institutional framework to support the exploitation of minerals required that one be put in place.

Equally, there was need to invest in physical infrastructure necessary to convey inputs, outputs and more importantly house human capital of all classes.

Bailey died at his Muizenburg on 10 Augist 1940 and was buried at nearby hillside. We all want to be remembered for something.

History will always be kind to those who chose to act than talk about dreams. Building South Africa was an enterprise calling for progressive minds not gamblers.

We are entitled to have different views on the men who made a difference to the South African story and ultimately to the African story.

The South African story without the involvement of these men would no doubt be different and to the extent that Africa is and continues to play a critical role in the African renaissance story, it is important that we invest in knowing whence we came from.

Ultimately, Bailey was human after all and a life of good fortune could not extend his life on earth.

The wealth he accumulated could not be consumed by him and his successors alone.

It was obvious to Bailey that his life accomplishments were nothing but an investment in legacy.

So he is aptly remembered as a South African diamond tycoon, politician, financier and cricketer.