Africa Is Not Poor. Africa Is Looted

The world calls Africa poor. I am tired of that lie.

Africa is not poor. Africa is looted.

Look at my country, Ghana. We have gold. We have cocoa. We have oil. We have timber. We have some of the most fertile land on earth. And yet our children still walk miles to fetch water. Our hospitals still run out of medicine. Our graduates still queue for visas to clean floors in London.

How can a land so rich produce people so poor?

The answer is simple: the wealth leaves. The poverty stays.

Every year, gold leaves Ghana by plane. Cocoa leaves by ship. Oil leaves through pipelines. And what returns? Aid. Loans. Pity. A white man on television holding an African child and asking you to donate one dollar a day.

We do not need your one dollar. We need our gold back.

Let us be honest about history. Europe did not develop because it was smarter. It developed because it took. It took our men as slaves. It took our gold as tribute. It took our land as colonies. And when it left, it left us with borders drawn in Berlin, with languages that were not ours, and with economies designed to serve London and Paris, not Accra and Lagos.

And today? The theft has a new suit. It is called a contract.

A foreign company comes to Ghana. It signs a contract for our gold. It takes 90%. We take 10%. It calls that investment. We call that theft.

A foreign company comes for our oil. It drills. It pollutes our sea. It pays tax in London, not in Accra. It calls that development. Our fishermen, who can no longer fish, call that hunger.

And when we complain, the world says: “Your leaders are corrupt.”

Yes, some are. But who pays them? Who signs the bribe? Who keeps the money in a Swiss bank?

Corruption is not African. Corruption is a partnership. One hand in Accra takes. One hand in London gives. Both hands are guilty.

Look at Congo. Your phone, my phone, every phone in the world runs on cobalt from Congo. Congo has the cobalt, but Congo has no light. The children who dig that cobalt will never own a phone.

How is that fair? How is that civilization?

The West does not send aid to Africa. Africa sends wealth to the West, and the West sends back pity.

I am not asking for revenge. I am asking for respect.

Pay a fair price for our cocoa. Pay a fair price for our gold. Let our minerals be processed in Africa, by Africans, for Africa.

Stop calling us poor when you are wearing our wealth.

Africa is not a charity case. Africa is a continent that has been robbed and then blamed for being naked.

We are not poor. We are looted.

And until the world admits that, no amount of aid will save us.