Will Africa Ever Overcome Its Chains?

Africa will never succeed, at least not in our lifetime—unless we experience a rude awakening, a grand revolution, and a reset. The systems in place to keep us poor are elaborate and have stood the test of time, delivering results that continue to oppress.

Earlier in South Africa, young South Africans couldn't come to terms with a lady named Chidima contesting the Miss South Africa beauty pageant. They sent petitions, protested online, and harassed her until she pulled out. Their reason? She wasn't "South African enough." Once it was known she had Nigerian roots, they demanded she leave. Ironically, the winner of Miss South Africa, declared yesterday, has the surname Le Roux. How South African! And we won’t even discuss her skin color.

The ignorance and xenophobia among young South Africans are precisely the tools imperialists need to continue manipulating and exploiting them. Divide and rule has always been the oppressor's greatest asset. As the Bible says, a house divided against itself will never stand. When, in the May election, young South Africans rejected Comrade Malema and his EFF because they couldn’t support a party that favors a united Africa devoid of the artificial borders imposed by colonialists, they casually walked their country back into colonialism. The ramifications will be dire as the grand coalition of puppets and puppeteers in charge continues. It won’t be long before they realize the system is designed to keep them impoverished.

To the east in Nigeria, we are beginning to understand why the Tinubu government is determined to bring down the Dangote refinery, which could be the catalyst for solving Nigeria's energy needs. Prominent journalist David Hundeyin recently published a story revealing how a Western NGO offered to pay him to write an article portraying the Dangote refinery as a severe environmental hazard contributing to climate change. Being a man of integrity, he rejected the offer.

This morning, a prominent member of Uganda's opposition National Unity Party living in the United States, who describes himself as a Harvard-trained human rights activist named Hillary Taylor, was at the center of controversy after publishing a paper titled “The Dire Cost of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).” Given what we know from David Hundeyin, many Twitter users quickly suspected that this individual is likely a Western-funded scholar who will be used to campaign against and jeopardize the EACOP project—a 1,443km pipeline that will transport Ugandan crude oil from Uganda to Tanzania. In my view, this project is crucial to solving the energy needs of both countries.

With an energy self-sufficient Africa, we are looking at numerous benefits, including reduced reliance on imported fuels, economic growth, and increased energy access for rural and underserved communities. It will also lower energy costs and enhance energy security. Additionally, self-sufficiency can drive investment in energy infrastructure development, foster regional cooperation for sustainable development, and improve the lives of our people.

These benefits are not good news for the imperialists. They don't want Africa to stop coming to them for our energy needs. So, when they concoct stories about the impact of our reliance on fossil fuels on the environment, making it sound terrifying, and bribe a few of our woke, Western-educated elites to amplify the noise, we succumb and continue to remain dependent.

Nobody is oblivious to climate change and its impact. However, climate change should be the least of our worries as Africans. We are not the highest polluters. Countries in the Global North are polluting in volumes Africa can never dream of. So why should Africa, which is still very underdeveloped, be the Robin Hood of the planet? The fact is that alternative or renewable energy sources are very expensive. In Africa, with our current economic difficulties, we cannot afford to fully transition to renewable sources. In fact, Ghana's Energy Transition Framework projects that by 2070—yes, 2070 (five decades from now)—only 20% of our electricity sources will be made up of renewable sources such as solar and wind. So when a presidential candidate tells you they’re going to move our energy needs entirely to solar and bring in electric vehicles, you should know it’s either a complete joke or that they’ve been pushed to lead us into energy doom—or both.

Africans must do what works for us and work together for our collective good, irrespective of our countries. Our educated elite should be able to see through Western-backed propaganda designed to impoverish us and, like David Hundeyin, reject it for the greater good. It should not be said that young South Africans would humiliate a fellow black person in favor of a white person.

But that’s what we’ve become. When Malema came to Accra earlier this year, he said in his fiery speech that nobody likes the black man. The Arabs don’t like us, the Europeans don’t like us, the Indians for whatever reason don’t like us, the Jews don’t like us, and the Americans don’t like us. We are discriminated against everywhere we go. So why can’t we love ourselves? Why do we still allow ourselves to be useful tools for the imperialists to keep us poor?

Sometimes you hear about certain deals and contracts our leaders have committed us to, and you wonder how any sane person would agree to them. But it’s the system that drives them to do what they do. Have you ever wondered why one country can invite 54 African leaders to an economic forum on Africa in their country and not in Africa?

Some of the exchange programs, learning opportunities, and fellowships African leaders and young, intelligent Africans are invited to abroad are actually designed to brainwash Africans and position these beneficiaries as useful tools for the continued exploitation of Africa. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. As Africans, we can use these trainings to our advantage.

In conclusion, Africa's success remains elusive, and without a collective awakening and radical transformation, we risk remaining trapped in systems designed to keep us impoverished. The persistent manipulation and exploitation by external forces, aided by our own divisions and the complicity of some within our ranks, continue to hinder our progress. To break free from this cycle, we must reject the tools of imperialism, embrace unity, and pursue what truly works for us as Africans. Only then can we hope to rewrite our future and achieve the prosperity that has long been denied to us.