Ending centuries of Africa’s exploitation

HISTORIES OF AFRICA’S legendary under-development have many underpinnings in forms of anecdotes, allegories, illustrations, folklores, causes and effects of disruptions to traditions – real and supposed – or blame games over undesirable past experiences. While they all have their various roles in shaping our understanding of Africa’s past, the realities around us clearly show that reliance on these histories has not helped much in shaping the future of the continent. Africa was once – unfortunately, though – a fertile ground for slave trade, a business model introduced and perpetrated for centuries by the pre-Industrial Revolution European explorers. Perhaps because of the cruelty and inhumanity involved, the modern chronicles of globalisation appear to downplay, skip or ignore this important phase that involved movement of people from Africa to other continents, including the many small island countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.

The events associated with the end of slave trade have been variously described. But, without the advent of industrial revolution, slave trade would probably not have fizzled out the way it did. It was not enough for the invaders to simply have ended human trafficking and just replaced it with colonialism. Machines were beginning to perform many functions earlier assigned to men and the ability of such devices to turn out replicas of products faster thus meant that efficiency and similarities of outputs were more preferable to the earlier craft-like products that needed hard labour and with wide variations in final attributes of eventual outputs. And, why must the business owner choose to continue to bear the trouble of keeping and sustaining a slave and his family when simple machine could do even better works, more obediently and to the master’s exact specification? And why wouldn’t the explorer have chosen rather to stay and lord it over the people in their native land than continue to transport them over the seas to be used as servants at the final destination, particularly with all the uncertainties of many of them dying on the sea voyage?

Slave trade and colonialism were clearly two sides of a bad coin, the latter succeeding the former in a manner that involved taking over the man and his natural environment. It was thus more convenient to extract material goods, using the same set of native people, and transporting such goods back home while keeping the people under subjugation. Another era of brazen exploitation came to stay, at least for few more centuries, with the exploiters becoming the official rule makers, law enforcers, tax collectors, administrators and economic decision influencers. Africa has thus become a field for exploitation – first for the human inhabitants and later for the natural endowments. The history of “scramble for Africa” is well known, just as the “Berlin Conference” is well acknowledged for its peculiarity. The imprints on the continent from the November 15, 1884 to February 26, 1885 “Conference” and arbitrary lines drawn over the continent then have only undergone minor adjustments in few instances since over the past 130 odd years.  The meeting at which the major European powers negotiated and formalised claims to territory in Africa was another chapter in the annals of transformation of exploitative exploration on the continent.

Those imaginary lines that became national boundaries are now the setters of limits within Africa and definers of differences between countries as remote influences come into play. Most African countries have formally laid claim to independence from colonial masters for more than half a century ago; many have undergone name changes to further buttress their independence. Yet, either the continued dependence by the colonial masters on the former colonies remains strong or that of the colonies on the colonial masters remains unchanged over the years. In general, the relationship has remained asymmetric to the disadvantage of African countries ever since. Whether the name has changed from Southern Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia to Zambia, Gold Coast to Ghana, Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, Dahomey to Benin Republic; or from French Soudan to Mali or from British protectorate of Bechuanaland to what we know today as Botswana does not seem to matter much in real terms. They seem to make no difference, even while using appropriate national development indices such as Gross Domestic Products (GDP), or individual human development indices on health, education or earning capacities.

The past does not necessarily have to define the present so much, nor should it define the future of Africa. But Africa’s present still seem to remain defined by the past influencers. Till now, Africa still remains tied to the apron string of the former slave traders and erstwhile colonisers. Export trade was a major national revenue earner for most of Africa in the last century. It still remains so till now, with all the negative consequences. Nigeria, Africa’s foremost and leading economy in terms of size, has depended so much on petroleum export after the export of tree crops and some grains gained less revenues. Zambia became a leading copper exporter. Niger Republic took a lead in uranium export. South Africa has become a major exporter of expensive minerals. Cote d’Ivoire is Africa’s leading exporter of cocoa. Cameroon and DR Congo have led the way in timber exports. All of these come at a huge environmental cost to the various countries. In essence, the world’s industrialisation has largely taken place, and continues to take place, at Africa’s expense.

The structural transformation of the global economy, with greater emphasis on services and industrialisation, has largely rendered commodity-dependent economies weak and uncompetitive. Africa is thus in a quandary as the economies of most of the countries – north, south, east or west – are mostly export commodity-dependent. Such economies experience periodic see-saw of fortunes depending on the global movements of commodity prices – mostly determined outside Africa. A commodity-dependent Africa still remains dependent on the past colonialists as long as it has to export its raw commodities to those industrialised countries for processing. Economically, African countries remain caught in a double-trouble. They have to import finished products made from the raw commodities exported originally from them. These have become customary, with the disempowering implications of annual capital flights and weaker country currencies. The disadvantages are many: African countries earn little from the global value chains on exports of primary products. They face the de-industrialisation dilemma as local conditions are less favourable for industrial growth in general and manufacturing in particular. The service industries have so far largely eluded African countries, with brain drain rampant from many countries into the developed economies where such services are highly prized and well rewarded.

The world is entering another era in industrial revolution, one that calls for a departure from the polluting technologies that have characterised most of the past and present. In reality, the “green economies” that are fast becoming the vogue will not be altogether pollution-free as experiences from some countries have shown. Countries from where the green technology raw materials are extracted will have to grapple with environmental degradation of unprecedented proportions. Copper is central to the world’s green economy. Chile is a country with a high production of copper. It is also a country with high negative impacts of copper on human health and safety. Zambia – a copper mining country – can thus be said to be exposed to the same risks as Chile. The DR Congo is one of the foremost sources of Lithium, an important component of renewable energy batteries. Uranium is considered one of the safest green energy sources. Although France depends on uranium for much of its electricity generation, exemplifying the green energy leadership, the other side of the green energy is seen in Niger Republic – a former French colony – that exports uranium to France. Reports are emerging of exposure to radioactive substances at the mines and environments.

The environmental risks to these countries are extensive and existential, despite a contribution of just about three per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Water pollution, exposure of humans to radioactive substances, destruction of pristine or otherwise green forests, rivers and landscapes are becoming a commonplace, thus raising the questions of whether the future of energy will indeed be truly green and whether Africa will be at great disadvantage again this time instead of benefitting from the emerging green economy. Infrastructure is a major backbone of modern-day economy. Africa’s infrastructure deficit still remains significant. By implication, Africa’s economic development will remain low in years ahead. The new wave of industrial revolution that is mostly dependent on green energy and information technology looks set to leave Africa behind. Despite Africa’s population of nearly 1.3 billion people, the contribution to the global economy still remains dismally low. The contribution of the entire continent to global trade remains just about three per cent of global exports and imports.

It is not difficult to extrapolate into the future about Africa’s continued relevance as a source of raw materials for industries in former colonial countries. They possess essential and strategic documents about Africa, much of which African countries do not possess. Libraries, archives, museums and other repertoires of strategic documents are treated as less important in African countries than in former colonial countries. Although some European countries recently returned some antiquities to some African countries, there are items of greater economic and power relevance in the hands of former colonists than Africans are currently aware of. Records and reports of geological surveys on Africa will remain important for strong reasons. They provide insights and information about where to find rare metals, lithium, copper and other metals relevant to green economy and the fourth industrial revolution. African leaders should both be curious and alert. When China comes knocking at the door of DR Congo in search of lithium, or the US prospecting for rare metals in South Africa, it should be clear that these countries are armed with technical information replete with economic analysis of decades of profits. Those who sign Memoranda of Agreements, or approve leasehold of land for mining must henceforth be wary.

Too much of Africa’s wealth in the sub-soil is being frittered away based on ignorance. Africa still remains a rich source of raw commodities for powering global economy. But political leaders in Africa need to take a stand: to review the concessions that they have made in the past and revoke those agreements in which they have given away much for so little. Late John Magufuli once had to revoke a mining approval when it became obvious that the company in question was over-exploiting Tanzania. Recently, Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo had to call some Chinese miners to order for overstepping their bounds. Beyond national policies by individual countries, the African Union needs to be proactive in its strategies, particularly reviewing the Agenda 2063 against the background of realities. For so long, Africa has been a ground for exploitation of human and material resources for the development of elsewhere. Now, Africa needs to take a good control of its resources. To break free from poverty, Africa must begin to utilise much of its resources for the development of the continent. The African Continental Free Trade Area is now a reality. Where possible, henceforth, intra-continental trade must be used as one of the tools to drive Africa’s development. With ever-attractive sources of various raw commodities, African leaders need to urgently evolve strategies that will make the continent less dependent on commodity exports but more dependent on local content for economic development. Centuries of exploitation by foreign exploiters should now begin to give way to new dispensation of developing the continent with what is extracted from within the continent. The world is aware of Africa’s riches. Let Africans turn these to tools for development. Can this begin to happen in 2022?