I am by now known as a borrower of other people’s works to do the headings of my own work. This time, I am borrowing from the work of the Guyanese Walter Rodney’s seminal book, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ to make my  ‘How The West Is Under Developing Africa’. Since I am not a scholar of political science or historian of note, I cannot claim reading this most famous Walter book.

But I sufficiently understand that it is not just for self esteem that the Republic of Niger and other African countries expelled the French military or told the the European country to leave their lands, warts and all, after years of forced association. Economic consideration has everything to do with the decision. Before then, France, which is not known to have any deposits of Gold underneath the mainland, had the second largest gold reserves after the United States. France got all ‘its’ gold bars from its former colonies in Africa. The country also got most of the uranium it uses from Niger.

France is not the only Western country that relies heavily on Africa to feed its juggernaut of industries for the manufacture of the products that they export to other countries, especially in Africa.

It is of course, in their own interest to keep Africa perpetually undeveloped if they were to continue carting away its abundant mineral wealth that God, the almighty, Has made abundantly available on the continent.

The narrative has always been that the Western World is maintaining Africa and its economy through aids, while it is Africa that is actually keeping the Western World and its economy away from total collapse. Through the deliberate plunder of the abundant minerals resource Africa is blessed with, it keeps itself and economy safe, while organisations of its creation spend billions of dollars annually in advertisements to give the world the false impression that the West is the ‘benevolent’  benefactor.

The same West also uses still other organisations and weak locals to bring down strong African countries and their economies in order to bring them down to their knees and in abeyance to its whims and caprices, no matter how ruinous they may be to Africa.

The West uses such organisations as Oxfam, UNICEF, Red Cross, Life Aid, etc to run a multi billion dollar advertising campaign to sustain the image of Africa relying on handouts from it, while institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are used all the time to do the actual killing. 

Other organisations such as Amnesty International use the locals to also do the dirty work of the West in bringing down strong so called third world countries and their economies through the false charge of ‘human abuse and or the denial of human rights’. They never mention the crimes the so called ‘victims’ have committed to warrant their arrest, detention and possible prosecution.

But the same Amnesty International is always deafeningly silent when Western governments are involved in the same ‘human abuse and or the denial of human rights’. They are also no where to be found when white suprematist groups commit all manner of unimaginable crimes in the Western societies against minorities.

According to a highly educated Afro American lady economist, Ms. Mallence Williams, “it is Africa that feeds the hungry manufacturing industries of the Western world with the raw materials that they need for export to keep their economies not only afloat but growing as well. 

In a paper titled ‘Africa and the World’, she recently delivered in the United States to an almost white audience the fearless Ms. Mallence noted that, “The perception is that a healthy and wealthy Africa would not disperse its resources as freely and cheaply, which is logical. Of course, it would sell its resources at world market prices, which in turn would destabilise western economies, established on the post-colonial free meal system. 

“Last year the IMF reports that six out of the ten fastest growing economies are in Africa measured by their GDP growth.

“French treasury for example, is receiving about 5 billion dollars year in year out from African countries based on a colonial debt they force them to pay. Former French President Jacques Chirack stated in an interview recently that ‘we have to be honest and acknowledge that a big part of our money in the banks comes precisely from the exploitation of the African Continent. In 2008q he stated that without Africa France would slide down in the ranks of third world power”.

In yet another very ominous scenario, one of the courses taught at an elite white suprematist university in one of the countries in North Europe is, ‘How to Keep Africa in Perpetual bondage’. Very scary, to all Africans who actually care about the continent, wherever they may live.

In the classroom, the all White students were taught that due to the abundance of mineral resources on the the African continent, the developed world could not afford to let it become developed, because the transformation of Africa into a developed continent would sound the death knell for the already developed countries of the Western World.

Given all the above scenarios against the backdrop of racism by some white people against black people, it is little wonder that people like Alhaji Aliko Dangote are constantly reminding fellow Africans that the responsibility of developing the continent is nobody else’s but theirs.

This sentiment is equally shared by a host of other black people elsewhere, some of who, by the unfortunate accident of history, found themselves living in the white man’s land advised the black person “to stop thinking that the white person considers them as their equal”. 

The legendary Muhammad Ali and Malcom X, who converted to Islam because they felt the society they were living in was very hostile to people of black colour, believed that Africa was destined for greatness, but only if the Africans decide to make that happen.

The stagnation of many projects in the continent could be explained by the fact that not everyone is keen to see to its development. If that should become a reality, not a few of those who live on the fat of the land in Africa would fall by the way side, because that is the way of the natural progression of the fittest, even in the human world.  

And natural progression means development, and  development would ensure that ‘free meals’ would be no more free, as every country would now have to work for their money, including those who work to undermine the African continent.

May Africa have leaders that always think of and about the continent and its people, not of and about themselves and their immediate family?

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.