Aaron Gono
Africa, instead of emerging as a leading trading partner in the world, it is still licking its imperialism wounds.
The continent is endowed with all rare earth minerals, and its Achilles heel is poor decision and policy making. Looking at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries which include Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
These countries are major oil producing countries in the world. OPEC has key functions that include;
(a)setting production levels for member countries to influence global prices.
(b) establishing a unified negotiating position on oil prices
(c) providing member countries a platform to discuss and formulate oil market strategies.
The above objectives of OPEC countries make them role models for modern development. Look at all Arab oil producing countries. They have changed their begging bowels and are now investing greatly in their countries’ gross domestic product. United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are good examples of how they turn their sorry states to envies of the world.
So African countries are immune from development and why ? Because they lack the key functions similar to OPEC. Technological development is driven by lithium, bauxite, platinum, etc, which are aplenty in Africa. But is the continent benefitting from its resources? It’s a big ” NO.” They call it resource curse. Once any rare earth element is discovered in the countries, guns will start blazing.
They only blaze when something is about to change and uplift the GDP of an African country. Ethnicity in Africa is usually exploited to make it real. In Mozambique when major gas deposits were found in Cabo del Gado province ; a militia linked to the Islamic State of Iran and the Levant ( ISIS ), accused the Mozambican authorities of sidelining it.
In the Sudan, the same modus operandi is currently destroying the country. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the same resource curse is topping the bill.
Lithium and bauxite are rare earth elements, that are powering Silicon valley in the US, and African countries have huge deposits of the minerals in their bellies. Instead of setting production levels for member countries to influence global prices; each country is exploited by its friend from the East or West. They then stockpile the minerals in their countries in huge quantities and start determining the market prices of the commodities. Lithium is now costing less as well as bauxite.
African leaders are not unified and are easily exploited to part away with their resources for a song, benefitting nobody but a few elite. As China, Russia, America, Britain and France are clamouring for attention, African leaders instead of taking it as an opportunity to make great deals.
They are divided, some will be called names and others are tagged as good examples of democratic leaders. The Democratic ones get a lot of aid and good public relations in big western media houses which shower them with accolades. Some are given titles like ” a good ally of the United States.”
Those divide and rule tactics are a curse on the continent now run by opportunists and quas-revolutionaries. The oil producing countries provide member countries a platform to discuss and formulate oil market strategies. African leaders view this as interfering in their countries’ internal affairs; thus give them an opportunity to loot because there is no oversight in everything they do.
Libya’s Muammar Kadaffi was a threat to the establishment and he was extinguished from the crime scene. So the western world rely on the Hypodermic Needle Theory where African leaders are passive consumers of their diktats and vulnerable to manipulation. Zano Pangwa Unerako, haikona kungoitwa zvidzoyi zvevarumbi.
It takes me back to my school days in the 1980s, during holidays l would visit my aunt in Zaka ( pa Ferry apo). There was this mentally handicapped herdboy. He would just look at someone’s field, and if he noticed some weeds in it, he would let his cattle finish off everything in it.
And we would ask him, why are your cattle have shinning tummies early on the day? His reply was ” ndinorovesa muzviminda zvakavata.” That’s what the Europeans and Pakis are doing ” varikurovesa muzviminda zvakavata.”
