When we talk about Africa, the conversation almost always orbits the same tired planet: resource extraction and export to the developed world. And right there sits one of the most persistent fallacies of our age. When a Nigerian president thunders about “Nigerian empowerment,” what I actually hear is something far more specific: a demand that all the extraction projects should be owned by Nigerians, run by Nigerians, and that the proceeds should flow into Nigerian pockets. On the surface, nothing to object to. In principle, perfectly reasonable. But beneath that? A glaring question nobody seems to want to touch.
Why is the only viable dream always the same: dig it up, ship it out, and pray there’s enough left over after the usual cast of intermediaries, politicians, cousins, consultants, and miracle-working procurement officers have taken their cut? Why is the national horizon forever stuck at “remove resources, sell resources, repeat”?
African economies are anemic—there’s no polite way to put it. They barely register on any global ranking that matters. Africa as a whole is an economic minnow, a ghostly footnote in world output. And this is no marginal landmass; this is the second largest continent on Earth, a titan in scale, with a massive population and some of the strongest demographic prospects on the planet. A once-in-a-century gift of human capital, squandered.
Imagine, just for a moment, if the resources weren’t endlessly siphoned outward but used to build decent domestic economies. Actual industries. Real value chains. Internal markets sturdy enough to withstand the winds of global fashion and the avarice of foreign powers. Instead, the cycle continues: dig, ship, enrich a handful, impoverish the rest.
Africa doesn’t suffer from a shortage of resources. It suffers from a shortage of vision—and a surplus of people who confuse extraction with development.