Professor Patrick Lumumba, a Kenyan professor, claims that Africa is doomed to have bad political leadership and that Africans should express their unhappiness and demand more.
“The rank of many political leaders in Africa are thieves. Let’s call them by their names. They are thieves. They are individuals who are not interested in the interests of their countries.
“As long as we continue electing such individuals into positions of power they are going to be manipulated. What then is the responsibility of the citizenry? It’s to make demands,” he said.
He called on Africans to be more aggressive in their demand for better leadership.
He added:
Lumumba was presenting on a panel at the 10th National Security Symposium in Kigali, Rwanda, which featured some of the top academics, activists, and politicians from Pan-Africa.
The seminar, which had the theme “Foreign Interference in Africa: The Enduring Destabilizing Factor,” was organized jointly by the Rwanda Defense Force Command and Staff College and the University of Rwanda.
“Interference in Africa started with slavery. When slavery lost its value it graduated to colonization. That’s the context in which the Berlin Conference (15 November 1884 – 26 February 1885) must be seen,” he said.
However, African nations mimicked Western government structures to reclaim their independence from the West. He cautioned that the next stage—neo-colonialism—is the most dangerous.
He stated:
This, he added, as major world powers were scheduled to gather in Hiroshima, Japan, for the Group of 7 Summit.
Additionally, Lumumba stated that the G7 in Africa was interfering with the military on the continent, and that “ensure that you in the military are trained in Sandhurst (Royal Military Academy) [and] West Point (a US military school).”
“They affect your mind,” he said.
Top African military leaders are still enrolled in these schools, but some of the graduates have gone on to carry out coups in their home nations.
Four of Africa’s youngest presidents, who range in age from 34 to 42, were installed in office through military coups. They studied at military colleges in France, Germany, and the US.
Additionally, Lumumba discussed the debt trap, the West’s intervention in African affairs diplomatically, and how African leaders were viewed inferior to their Western counterparts.
He said:
“They interfere through institutions such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank. They interfere by ensuring that our economic infrastructure is beholden to theirs. They interfere through dollarization, through education, by influencing our processes,” he said.
The debt of low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa rose to around R15.70 trillion (roughly US$789 billion) in 2021 from approximately R14.04 trillion (roughly US$702 billion) in 2020, according to the World Bank.
African nations’ debt to China and the US has been the subject of a geopolitical tug-of-war between the two giants since the beginning of the year.
“By [foreigners] lending us advisors who tell us what to do, the neo-colonial project is alive and well and it is at its most dangerous and we Africans must smell the coffee,” he added.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), according to Lumumba, were created as “trojan horses” to penetrate African institutions and cultures.
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The ownership of the African Development Bank (AFDB) also caused him some concern.
With a 15.6% stake as of 2021, Japan has the highest stake, followed by the US (15.6%), China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%).
Lumumba proceeded by saying that the Commonwealth was how the British continued to have an impact on Africa.
France on the other hand, he said, maintained its hold on former colonies through the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
Quoting one of the founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which evolved into the AU, Lumumba said: “Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana’s first president) warned us. He said, ‘If we are not united, they are going to interfere with us militarily, they are going to interfere with our economy, they are going to interfere with our agriculture, they are going to interfere with our health.’
“I hope that when heads of states meet in Addis Ababa next week it will not be another jamboree at which proforma speeches are read.”
He added:
The Malabo Summit emphasised the importance of agriculture as a policy initiative for the continent’s economic development and the fight against poverty. Agriculture should continue to be a top priority for the continent’s development.
Lumumba claimed that if African leaders talked with one voice rather than as individual states, it would be feasible to deal with the new race for Africa, in which the US, China, Turkey, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and other nations sought to possess a stake in the continent.
“At times I wish, we too had a nuclear weapon because that is what Europe and Americans understand,” he said.
Lumumba urged the AU to fund itself and work towards self-sustainability because it is dependent on outside forces to determine what needs to be done.
He noted that because of this, negotiations are taking place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, rather than in Africa, where the Sudan situation should be resolved.
Africa Day is today, when the African Union will commemorate its 60th anniversary.
