Mineral Mining In Nigeria
If Africa is the richest continent by resources, sub-Sahara Africa precisely with trillions of dollars worth of minerals and oil, and the number of investment opportunities it has to offer globally. Why so poor?
“Underhand dealings in the mining of diamonds and other rich minerals here have fuelled poverty.” — economic analyst, Jameson Gatawa.
The director of UK campaigning organisation Global Justice and a former director of Jubilee debt campaign Nick Dearden (2017) report in Aljazeera.com titled “Africa is not poor, we are stealing it’s wealth”. He highlighted that sub-Sahara Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world. Their revenues are spent in paying billions in loans from high commodity prices e.t.c which carries whopping rates of interests.
Furthermore, over $500billion is leaving the continent yearly some from dodged taxes by multinational corporations stolen legally and held in tax havens, others from repatriated profits made in Africa and sent abroad. On the other hand, $29bn are being stolen in illegal logging, fishing and trade in wildlife and $36bn is owed to Africa as a result of the damages to it’s societies and economies yearly.
According to Late Prof. Bade Onimode, a renowned professor of economics & former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Africa & other third world countries are poor due to the control exploitation and manipulations by the giant Multinational Corporations. This is coordinated through foreign investments,exports-import trade and foreign aid (Imperialism and Multinational Corporations: A Case Study of Nigeria, 1978).
In Nick Dearden’s views first we need to change the way we talk & think about Africa. The “simple statement, repeated through a thousand images, newspaper stories and charity appeals each year, so that it takes on the weight of truth. When we read it, we reinforce assumptions and stories about Africa that we’ve heard throughout our lives. We reconfirm our image of Africa.”
Going forward Mr Nick suggested that Western Governments need to stop forcing African governments to open up their economy to privatisation, and their markets to unfair competition. Adding that for African countries to benefit from foreign investments they must be allowed to legally regulate that investment and the corporations that often bring it. With the attractive sector also inclusive. To prevent tax dodging, governments must stop prevaricating on action to address tax havens. No country should tolerate companies with subsidiaries based in tax havens operating in their country. He concluded that Foreign aid only prolong poverty but wealth taken away from Africa should be returned as a form of reparations and redistribution, just as the tax system allows us to redistribute wealth from the richest to the poorest within individual societies.
Adding to Mr Nick’s views, the type of leadership that is prevalent all across Africa is one that can be characterised as not so interested in the type and style of leadership needed to turn things around. For there to be a real form of leadership as enjoyed by the west economies, Africans must start to think outside the box, to achieve a leadership with a vision, capable of negotiating the future of African.
An African National Leader will at some point negotiate with other nations in trade and commerce, therefore should posses such skills and knowledge capable of carrying out such task with ultimate conviction.
