USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston, CLASS magazine, USAfricaonline.com, and Black Business Journal
As G8 countries concluded their meeting on July 8, 2005, in Scotland, in Great Britain, the debate about how best the rich countries in the world can help Africans at this crucial time of great poverty, wars and corruption continues. The leaders concluded an economic summit against the background of the terrorism on London by offering what they called an “alternative to the hatred” & emdash; a $50 billion aid package for Africa and up to $9 billion in additional support for the Palestinians over the next three years. AP reported the same day that “with a last-minute pledge from Japan, Blair won a key victory, announcing that aid to Africa would rise from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010. The United States did not make any additional pledges beyond Bush’s announcement last week that he would seek to double U.S. aid to Africa by 2010.” Britain’s Tony Blair is in the picture, right?
Many analysts and political types have suggested that rich nations should write off 100% of the debts owed to them by African governments. Others have suggested the rich nations should increase the amount of aid given to African countries to help them fight corruption, poverty, disease, and environmental degradation.
On the other hand, I subscribe to the group that argues that Africans do not need more aid from the rich nations; what Africans need is economic democracy. Africans need freedom to chart their own future. Africans need the freedom to decide how the vast mineral resources of the continent can be marketed. The second largest continent in the world is rich with an abundance of natural and human resources. If these resources are put in proper use, Africa will be self-sufficient and should not need any aid from any country or group of nations.
If Africans are allowed to set the price and market whatever comes from African soil, the continent can rid itself of poverty, hunger, wars, corruption, and disease. Africa is the way it is because there are outside forces playing greater roles in shaping events that take place in Africa. Indeed, Africans cannot turn any raw material into a finished good; however, should the foreign companies suck blood out of Africans in an effort to turn the vast raw materials into finished goods? Foreign companies create all kinds of confusion and conflict in every area where there is mineral resources that rich nations need.
On a BBC news of June 11, 2004, oil giant Shell admitted that it fed conflict, poverty,, and corruption through its oil activities in Nigeria. This revelation led many Nigerians to ask: Who needs a friend like Shell? Shell and other foreign companies doing business in Africa should encourage the people to develop and not help them destroy themselves. If rich nations want to help Africa, they should teach Africans how to turn raw materials into finished goods. A Chinese proverb says, “if you give a man a fish, you have feed him for a day, but teach a man how to fish, you have fed him forever.”
Large of amounts of mineral resources that are produced in Africa are consumed by rich nations. But who determines the fair market value of all these products? The answer is obvious. The rich nations that are busy providing aid for Africans decide the fair market value of African products. The same rich nations that criticize Africans for not doing enough to alleviate the sufferings of citizens are the ones that underprice everything produced in Africa. Last mont,h rich nations cancelled debts owed to them by some African countries, while holding billions of dollars that African leaders stole and banked in the West. Rich nations should give Africans economic democracy by returning the stolen money African leaders stashed in their banks.
Rich nations should stop encouraging African leaders to steal money and bank in the West. Some corrupt leaders use the money to buy properties and businesses for themselves, their wives, children, girlfriends and relatives alike. When there is a change of government, either by coup or an act of God inthe country from where the money was stolen, banks in the rich countries have always seized everything and never returned such to that country from where the money was stolen.
If rich nations want to help Africa, they should allow Africans to set the price of their products. Is it fair that the rich nations decide how much Africans can sell theirproduct without Africans deciding for the west how much Africans are willing to pay for any product from the rich nations? This is the heart of the problems facing Africa. Africans need economic democracy whereby they are free to decide who buys products and at what price.
If the rich nation wants to help Africans, they should remove rigid trade rules that make it difficult for Africans to trade with them, such as tariffs and subsidies. They should give Africans access to the international market by allowing an open market system without setting harsh standards that make African dreams a nightmare. It is difficult to understand that Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country, does not have an airline that can transport Nigerians to America, Europe, and Asia. Does it mean that Nigerian businessmen and women cannot afford to buy transport planes? We know that stringent rules set bythe rich nations have made it difficult for Nigerians to have their own Airlines that can fly to America, Asia andEurope.
Furthermore, if the rich nations want to help Africans they should recognize health problems affecting many Africans by giving them access to generic drugs no matter which company produces it .Twenty-eight millions of the world’s 40 million HIV-infected people live in Africa. According to Health System Trust, GlaxoSmithKline and 38 other drugs companies sued South African Pharmaceutical Company, Aspen Pharmacare for manufacturing generic versions of three of anti-Aids drugs; AZT, 3TC and Combivir. On October 8, 2001, Aspen Pharmacare won the concession from GlaxoSmithKline and 38 drug companies and was the patent holder to generically produce and supply anti-retroviral drugs for the government health service and non-profit with a warning not to make a profit. If rich nations want to help Africans, they should grant them economic democracy whereby African drugs companies can manufacture generic drugs for profit too. They should place an embargo on arms smuggling that has continued to encourage and promote wars in many African countries. American, European, and Asian military weapons are causing too many deaths, orphans, and amputees in Africa.
From Angola to Liberia and Rwanda to Sierra Leone, the news is troublesome. Most importantly, foreign companies should stop supporting corrupt leaders to remain in office longer than 8 years and acting as their agents in money laundering. If rich countries want to help Africans, they should discourage oil bunkering. According to the oil giant Shell, Nigeria loses over a million barrels of oil a day through oil bunkering. Who owns these ships used in stealing Nigerian oil? Which company buys these million barrels of oil stolen from Nigeria? If rich countries want to help Africans, they should report to Nigeria and other African countries the names and owners of ships involved in oil bunkering.
The west should not continue to criticize Africans for not doing enough to help their situations while turning away from the roots of the problems. Africans do not manufacture guns and bombs. Africans do not manufacture ships and planes, but these things and foreign banks are used to destroy Africa.
If the rich countries want to help Africa, they should grant Africans economic democracy by joining hands in fighting corruption, placing embargo on arms smuggling, removing rigidtrade rules that make it difficult for Africans to trade withthe west, and most importantly, by giving Africans access togeneric drugs.
Nwakwue is based in Houston, and served as a panelist at the USAfricaForum and Town Hall event organized annually on the first Friday and Saturday weekend of May inHouston, Texas (since 1992). The 2005 event focused on ‘Nigeria andObasanjo’s War on Corruption: window dressing or the real thing, whatnext?….’ The full report and features of the Forum and the USAfricaBest of Africa 2005 awards and 13th annual anniversary will appear in CLASSmagazine on July 30, 2005.
