Aid, loans, commodity exports and prospects of Africa’s prosperity (4)

POLITICAL ANAESTHESIA called democracy had numbed the diplomatic sense of Niger Republic until July 26, 2023, when the military junta struck and removed Mohamed Bazoum as president, thus truncating his democratic regime. Despite the local, regional and international outcry, resistance and threats of forceful removal of the new military regime, the junta held its ground, remaining unfazed and resolute in its bid to remain in power for the time being while correcting some perceived ills it claimed were festering under successive democratic governments in the country. It might not be too difficult to establish a link between the military coup that removed the democratic government in Niger and those three preceding it in quick succession within two to three years in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea Conakry. As it turned out, one of the greatest resisters of Niger’s coup d’état – that is France – was doing so for clearly selfish reasons and would prefer a continuation of the status quo under flowery decoys. The toppled president Bazoum, vehemently referred to as a Western ally, was nothing but just an instrument for continued pillaging of Niger by France.

The case of Niger was not so different from those of Mali and Guinea Conakry which are natural resource-dependent. For instance, Guinea is reputed for its large scale exports of gold, diamonds and bauxite. Guinea has 23 percent of the world’s reserves of bauxite and became the second largest bauxite exporter after Australia. Guinea’s bauxite deposits are exploited by international consortia in which the Guinea government holds major shares. This is in addition to other mineral resources, including cement, salt, graphite, limestone, manganese, nickel and uranium. Burkina Faso too is recording significant earnings from mineral resources. According to a 2022 report from the International Trade Administration, a think tank, the mining sector in 2021 accounted for about 10 percent of GDP and over 70 percent of export earnings. It grew on top of an increase in output of over 20 percent to 61 tonnes of gold or about $3.5 billion in exports by 2020 to reach 67 tonnes, generating $544 million in revenues or 15 percent to the state budget in 2021. Overall, Burkina Faso’s real GDP in 2021 grew at an estimated 8.5 percent, attributable to increases in gold exports and the services sector, according to the World Bank.

Mali, in turn, has a mining industry dominated by gold extraction, by far the country’s most important export, comprising more than 80 percent of total exports in 2021 and 21 percent of government revenue in 2018. In 2022, Mali produced 72.2 tonnes of gold, including six tonnes by artisanal gold panners, according to the then mines minister, Lamine Seydou Traore. The country exported 69.3 tonnes of gold in 2022, compared to 63.9 tonnes in 2021. Mali’s gold, the dominant in its natural resource sector, places Mali as the fourth largest gold producer in Africa after Ghana, South Africa, and Sudan. Mali also produces diamonds, rocksalt, phosphates, semi-precious stones, bauxite, iron ore, and manganese.

Surprisingly, France held on to these and other Anglophone former colonies for reasons of these natural resources which they get year-in-year-out at heavily discounted prices compared to what obtains at the world market. It took Niger’s military leaders’ audacity to expose France’s hypocrisy of touting insecurity in Niger as a major concern and why the coup leaders should not be allowed to stay in power. However, the civilian leadership led by their ally has been unable to hold Niger’s bull by the horns on tackling the persistent and pervasive insecurity or bringing it to a manageable level. Although the insecurity in Mali, Burkina, Guinea and Niger are yet to end in the past four years, Mali has led the way in calling the bluff of France by asking for the end of the counterinsurgency operation which it led under the name “Operation Barkhane,” in response to Mali’s crisis in 2013, but which formally commenced on August 1, 2014 and formally ended on November 9, 2022 with the withdrawal of French troops. Niger’s military junta, in its own case, had no such patience. Upon seizing power, it asked for the immediate removal of France’s military, a proposition that was initially vehemently rejected by President Emmanuel Macron under the pretext and excuse that his country cared more for the vulnerable population in Niger and that Africa cannot protect itself.

It took the military junta’s temerity to expose France that has long been ripping off Niger in the export of its prized mineral resources, notably uranium. Within weeks of ascension into power, the military junta was able to establish that, for years, France has been buying Niger’s uranium at a terribly rock bottom price of €0.80 per kg, but the new government is now selling the mineral at €200 per kg on the export market, a development which has raised concerns about uranium mining in the country by the French group Orano. In spite of the previous years’ experiences, and going by the reckoning of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Niger’s real GDP was projected to grow 7.0 percent in 2023 and 11.8 percent in 2024, with all sectors growing at least five percent. In the World Bank’s projections, the economy is expected to grow at an average of 3.4 percent between 2023 and 2025, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected real GDP change of 4.1 percent for 2024 under the vilified junta. How far the seeming consensus of the three financial institutions will play out in reality in 2024 is a matter that requires a great deal of patience, assuming also that the draconian measures taken by the ECOWAS against Niger do not slow down the country’s economic growth.

What can be more revealing of a Western country holding down an African country and yet screaming with a near deafening decibel level of voice that African countries are poor! It became clearer that France has been exploiting its former colonies in Africa for its own selfish end. Not surprising, however, that the Brookings Institutions once published that, “out of the 14 African countries currently considered off-track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 1, eight are members of the Francophonie.” To put it more pungently, the Brookings disclosed that, “by 2030, one in three people living in extreme poverty — 167 million people — will inhabit an African Francophonie member state.” It pointed out that “current projections suggest that most — but not all — of the African countries of the Francophonie will not have the economic growth needed to achieve SDG1 by 2030,” which is in six years’ time.

The fact that only France has been unmasked shows what to expect when others come under scrutiny. It is a pointer to the greater ill perpetrated by other Western countries through their complicit, stinking but affluent so-called ‘allies.’ The reasons for Africa’s continued underdevelopment were just becoming clearer and a decoupling of all the francophone African countries from France politically will potentially hurt France in more ways than one. The warnings of François Mitterrand in 1957, that France would not have any position in 21st century history unless it maintained its control over Africa, seemingly reinforced in 2012 by former French president Jacques Chirac’s acknowledgement that “without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power,” seem to be turning to harsh realities now, with the defiance of Mali, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Niger and, lately, Gabon. In March 2023, the newly re-elected president of the DR Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, openly called the bluff of President Emmanuel Macron on the podium during the latter’s visit to Kinshasa. Tshisekedi did not mince words as he upbraided Macron and asserted himself as co-equal in status to Macron as president.

The superiority complex of the Western countries over Africa is thus being demystified as it is becoming clearer that they are more dependent on Africa for economic survival than Africa’s purported dependence on them. Until July 2023, after the removal of President Bazoum, much of what was heard about Niger was that it was either the poorest country in Africa or about the second, third or fourth poorest, depending on the source of information. It was also reckoned as a net foreign aid-dependent country. Unsurprisingly, but disappointingly, these views were widespread in global media and in the international community, especially in development agencies. Nothing much was said about the dependence of France on Niger – for 75 percent of uranium used for operating the nuclear power that supplies electricity to France – a country that generates 50 percent of its own little electricity from coal and the other 50 percent through an agreement with Nigeria from Nigeria’s national grid sources. Even at that, only a tiny percentage of Niger’s population — essentially the urban — has access to this electricity. The real reasons for Africa’s poverty are getting clearer.

The death of Tanzania’s John Magufuli in March 2021 was conveniently rumoured as linked with his refusal to toe the mainstream media, the global populists and politically correct line of accepting the prevalent narrative on COVID-19 which was amplified by his rejection of the COVID-19 vaccines. But in a sweeping response to Tanzania’s exploitation by vested interest and influences from outside Africa, Magufuli declared ‘economic warfare’ on foreign mining companies, which he accused of draining the country’s minerals, in what could be described as resource nationalism. In his displeasure over the exploitative tendencies of the foreign miners, President Magufuli ordered a sweeping review of all the Mining Development Agreements as well as redrafting of the gas and oil laws to protect his country from reckless exploitation by the foreign firms. It is thus easy to establish a circumstantial link with the direct or remote cause of Magufuli’s death. Similar to Magufuli’s tough stance was that of DR Congo’s Tshisekedi when he informed in 2021 about his intention to review the mining contract with the Chinese miners in what he described as seeking for the DR Congo a fairer share of its vast mineral wealth. It is obvious that the truth about the economic inequalities between Africa and the West and the true causes of Africa’s poverty are coming to light. More countries are expected to take such heroic stances of Late President Magufuli and President Tshisekedi in a determined effort to free Africa from the shackles of perennial poverty and vulnerability. But the task is more for those individual leaders vested with political powers, not of ordinary Africans.

• business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com