Is Africa a calf on fattening regimen?

Africa summit, Afro-Turkish summit, France-Afrique summit, AfroIndia, Afro-Japan… the list goes on, ad nauseam. This what makes the main dish of Africa’s international relations, garnished with ‘credit-rating’, ‘singlevisa’, ‘investment destination’, ‘ease of doing business’, ‘investor incentives, ‘railway line to the sea, et al..  

Then comes whimpers and grumbles over ‘travel advisories’, ‘aid-cuts and suspensions’, ‘bad press’ ‘negative image’, et al. These are the key ingredients of the African Story menu. And 99 percent of this is meant for extra-African consumption. Virtually each country works to outdo the others and position herself to external suitors, relative to her neighbours, including those in the same regional economic communities, despite preaching ‘doing as one’. 

 African economies are linked more to Europe than to Africa. A BBC interview recently revealed that the two giants of West and East Africa, Nigeria and Kenya respectively, have no economic activity or trade between them. 

The only thing Nigerian in Kenya, mentioned in the said interview are the movies, and occasional West African attire. Nothing else. Yet these are the economic giants in their respective regions.   Isn’t it time Africa told her story to herself? A few years back, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told  delegations of ministers and technocrats from all over Africa to meeting her in Nairobi that Africa must begin looking to herself for trade and investment. 

The one billion strong market here is enough to drive investment and trade, without the milliard ‘Afro-this’, ‘Afro-that’ summits as if the entire continent were  one country. How big is Turkey,  for example, relative to Africa? 

Africa must tell her own story, and to herself, define her own economic parameters, concepts and their implications. Already it is becoming the child-game of ‘ I did it first’, as each country proudly announces beating the deadline on ‘this’ or ‘that’ Millennium Development Goal!! Uganda has actually turned it into a political song, parroted and repeated whenever occasion arises. But are we really any better by simply reaching a statistical threshold? I am not convinced. 

The Independence generation played their role because their task was clearly cut for them: colonialism was alive and kicking, apartheid was crimson-red, and it was the era of the limits, be it ideological or religious. What will the ‘Nkrumahs’ of today rally Africa against?  Today, all is hazy. 

All is there. Nothing is clear. And each ‘stakeholder’ seeks pleasing their respective ‘partners’ overseas. This is what has made Africa a fattened heifer, smeared to look attractive. But all this in whose interest? 

Ben Matsiko Kahunga 

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