A spark of flame from Africa’s smouldering fire (2)

LAST WEEK’S OFFICIAL TRIP to the Middle East by the US President Donald Trump was remarkable in many ways. Apart from the possibility of promoting regional peace and stability, Trump’s Middle East trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, as announced, has raked in $243.5 billion deals, covering energy, aviation, military, among others, expected to generate $1.2 trillion worth of economic exchange. In global geopolitical delineation, the Middle East and North Africa are often lumped together as a region. With that stretch of imagination, and considering the events extending westwards to Egypt from Israel, Lebanon and Gaza, the Middle East trip is likely to have some impacts on North Africa. 

The rest of Africa, generally described as sub-Saharan Africa, made up of 48 countries, struggles for attention. To underscore their relative importance, consider that the US president had to travel all the way to the Middle East to meet individual countries’ leaders. But, very soon, all of Africa’s leaders will go in droves to the US to seek the president’s attention. And this has been happening over many years. This year, it may not be different as the US-Africa Summit brings all African countries together under one umbrella. Meanwhile, African countries tend to treat such engagements differently, asking for aid rather than making deals. For a continent so well blessed with a lot of natural resources, chiefly valuable minerals, to keep depending on foreign handouts is rather unfortunate. 

Take one country in West Africa as an example. Guinea is one of the world’s poorest countries despite having plenty of natural resources. Guinea has been unable to make good use of its minerals for the overall benefits of its people. But, recently, Guinea’s military junta has cancelled over 50 mining permits for gold, bauxite, diamonds, and graphite as the military leader, Mamady Doumbouya, is seeking greater control over the sector since coming to power in a September 2021 coup. The decree issued to this effect, also ordered permits to be withdrawn from companies that do not comply with the country’s mining code. At the end of this month, foreign companies are expected to submit proposals for building refineries to ensure local processing of the mineral, bauxite. This has not been the practice in many countries of Africa. But the snag here is, such a reform is coming under a military regime. Meanwhile, such an idea would have been bogged down by official red tape under civilian democratic rule. This brings concerns about whether democracy, which the Western countries advocate for Africa, is actually the best form of government to move African countries forward in economic terms. Juxtaposing the Middle East with African countries, the differences in the impact of leadership are easily discernible. And leadership has been the bane of Africa’s economic development. A decision has to be taken on the choice of leadership African countries need if they are to make any real progress.

The inauguration ceremony of Thomas Sankara Mausoleum in Ouagadougou this last weekend is significant  in its symbolism, attracting Allamaye Halina, prime minister of Chad and Ousmane Sonko, prime minister of Senegal to participate. This sense of camaraderie is in sharp contrast to the stories emanating from some leading ECOWAS champions. While Senegal, a major Francophone country in West Africa, is trying to support Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire politicians are reportedly tirelessly working with France to destabilise Burkina Faso and take down Captain Ibrahim Traoré. And to extend the goodwill beyond ECOWAS, Chad is showing obvious signs of support too.

African countries have so far not successfully transformed their diversity to practical benefits. Rather, they have been operating in many cases at cross purposes. This has served to perpetuate the interest of Western foreign exploitations and expropriation. The regional economic communities and the continent-wide political and intergovernmental body still remain far from achieving any of the ideals that underpinned their formation at inception. At 62, the African Union (AU), formerly known as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), still totters, relying on external help to move. Shamelessly, the organisation that started with 32 independent member countries on May 25, 1963, still relies much on donations, handouts and crumbs from foreign countries for its operations even now that its membership has grown to 54. Disappointingly, these 54 countries deceive themselves and others that they are wearing the toga of “independence,” when they are actually wearing golden fetters.

Over these past years, many are dependent on foreign aid. Some have economies that are so minuscule as to be smaller than those of some European or American towns. Yet, they have retinues of state officials, living in affluence and stashing stolen state funds away in European or American banks. 

Sixty years, and African countries cannot get their acts together to help ailing or troubled member countries? Or, some countries, under the guise of democracy, are ignoring their failings while ostracising military regimes irrespective of their good performances. Somalia has been in trouble since the exit of Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. From sea piracy to kidnapping of seafarers, the country has become a hotbed for terrorism, spreading to other East African countries. Yet, the AU has been unable to muster just $85 million to stabilise Somalia. The country’s problem got compounded by climate change and mass famine. Yet, AU looks helpless. But a few African countries can donate such an amount if they truly see it as a priority, considering how much their leaders help themselves to.  

Sudan has been in turmoil since over two years ago. The AU is still watching. What kind of intergovernmental organisation is this, that merely convenes ritualistic gatherings and makes grandiose and outlandish declarations, yet without following up with actions? Emperor Haile Selassie set the tone on the day of the inauguration of the OAU in 1963. Sixty two years on, those ideals remain a mirage. It’s even  ridiculous that leaders of countries with a few millions of people are the ones trying to drive Africa towards the path of self-respect and self-reliance. Think of Rwanda, Ghana and Senegal, and imagine their presidents leading in talks where a bigger country is taking a backseat.

For many years, Libya has been run by two different governments. The oil-rich country has been going through hard times since the NATO attacks that unseated Muamar Gaddafi. Libya has not known peace since then. It is doubtful if AU has been able to play any effective stabilising roles since that country fell into crisis. The Central African Republic has been a hotbed of high-value mineral smuggling, aided by corrupt government officials and benefitting foreign collaborators. The persistent and repeated attacks on North and South Kivu provinces on the eastern flank of the DR Congo has eloquently exposed the failure of the AU to meditate in criss. This is as it gets clearer that the prolonged crisis has the remote hands of foreign plunderers. And the brazen activities of foreign operators further complicates the prospects of continental jeopardy. It exposes Africa to more vulnerabilities in the hands of the so-called benefactors. Why should African countries willy-nilly make themselves instruments for the actualisation of China’s expansionist Belt and Road Initiative? Most embarrassing was the disclosure few years ago that China, after building $200 million worth of edifice for the AU in Addis Ababa (as donation), bugged the building and daily eavesdropped on the building and digitally transferred sensitive documents from there to Beijing for five years before an office worker discovered by chance.

Although the AU Commission will have to be empowered to represent African countries, should 54 African heads of governments all throng Beijing at the same time to meet Xi Jinping? Why should African countries willy-nilly make themselves instruments for the actualisation of China’s expansionist Belt and Road Initiative. Nothing close to unity has been achieved by the AU, other than the recent realisation that the organisation is still far from united. When the countries and their leaders are ready for unity, they will lay the groundwork for it. But, for that to happen, Africa will first build self-respect and self-reliance. Their leaders will learn to work together and look inward for solutions to Africa’s problems instead of trotting the globe with a delusion of grandeur.

Why do those privileged to rule in most countries of the continent have an inordinate predilection for travelling to Europe and North America for children’s education, family health tourism and social outings?  Herein lies the wonder on why Africa remains backward. It remains to be seen what the AU wants to celebrate at 63 years of existence: political and economic refugees into the US, Canada and the EU from Africa, or mass remittances from them that contribute much to some countries annual forex inflows, or continued aid supplies from Luxembourg, Poland, Netherlands, Austria or Switzerland, none of which has a population equivalent to that of Lagos? And yet those small countries have economies bigger in size than many big African countries. On the flip side, many otherwise prosperous African countries have been brought into penury by selfish and avaricious leaders. Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Chad and Nigeria, to mention a few. Those idealists of the AU, then and now, seem to believe in having their cake after eating it. Before the disparate countries of Africa can truly come together and effectively bond under the AU, they will have to overcome their individual profligate tendencies (or those of their leaders). They will have to believe that this land of Africa can become a destination for fortune and will work individually and collectively towards attracting people to it.

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