Africa not a mistake of geography

Vincent Gono, Features Editor
IF Covid-19-inspired lockdowns did not teach African countries lessons on self-reliance and self-sustenance as well as the need to invest and boost its manufacturing sector, then the Russian-Ukraine conflict should.

If it fails, then the continent should be shaken out of its dotard self and made to realise that it has everything that every other continent needs for survival. When Covid-19 struck without no one knowing how and when it is going to end, there were no solutions from within the continent. Neighbouring countries looked at each other, blank and vacant until China came up with Sinopharm and Sinovac then later Sputnik from Russia, Moderna from America, Astra Zeneca from the UK and many other such as Pfizer.

What is strikingly evident is that there was nothing from Africa. What it means is that Africa lined up with fat purses to purchase what was produced by other countries or simply be given doses not for free but for other things that are not material that would benefit the “benevolent” giver.

The world started producing vaccines with Africa in mind. There was a big market with a big appetite and less scrutiny. And so Covid-19 became booming business and an interesting science contest for other continents other than Africa. The continent remains scientifically crippled.

Covid-19 therefore took some air out of Marshal McLuhan’s global village theory. Although the globe remained a village due to communication technologies which is the import of McLuhan’s theory, it became a sad tale of each man for himself and God for us all in some aspects such as travelling and trade in general.

And local solutions to the pandemic began to take shape. That was of course out of desperation where communities began to prescribe herbs and other common solutions to flue and colds which are normally discarded when things are normal.

In Zimbabwe, “zumbani/umsuzwane” an indigenous plant and steam bathing became the local ready remedies. Zumbani was even displayed in supermarkets alongside other flue remedies. But with Covid-19 cases dwindling while a big chuck of the continent’s populations has been vaccinated, the local solutions are fast losing out to modern medicine as the borders have been opened.

Nothing is done to develop, or at least process the local solutions such as zumbani to get out its proper medicinal qualities in preparation for another wave if it comes through. Is the continent so fatuously forgetful or it just suffers from a dependency syndrome?

In terms of basic foodstuffs production and other technological necessities, Africa has remained surprisingly behind.

Surprising because its climate has remained the envy of many arctic European and Asian countries. It has both the land and the water but is a net importer of grain and cereals.

Surprising because most major ingredients used in industries to manufacture such things as motor vehicles, cellphones and even arms of war are minerals found in abundance in African soils and are shipped across the continent raw to be processed and sold back to Africa for an arm and a leg.

If Covid-19 was not a lesson enough to Africa, the world is not yet tired of giving out more lessons for free.

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is yet another lesson for Africa to learn to produce for itself and among itself. It should be a lesson for Africa to strengthen trade ties than engage in Afrophobia.

The conflict has distorted economic value chains around the world in a magnitude unimaginable and it continues to do so. The prices of fuel, gas, bread, cereals, oil and many other things continue to soar beyond the reach of many because Russia is not exporting. It has closed its grain, oil and gas for the global market and the world is sneezing.

But Africa has everything in its soil but has not been preparing itself enough for any such eventualities. The continent remains a rich continent with poor people. Its paradox remains that of plenty where its wealth is exploited by other people other than its populations while its politics has been riddled with wars such as that in Somalia that continues to laugh out loud at the AU agenda of silencing the guns by 2030.

It has continued to accommodate sponsored opposition parties and NGOs that advance the interests of imperialists and that has somehow perpetuated its dependency syndrome. It should get rid of corruption within its borders and act in one accord, the same accord that led to the formation of the OAU now AU on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

As we approach Africa Day, the continent should sit down and introspect. Its leaders should have a common interest and a collective consciousness of Africanism that guided the philosophical wisdom of its fathers such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and many others who fought not for their small nation states but the continent as a whole.

The first African leaders demonstrated that Africa — a continent of black people separated by the imperialist borders of the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884 is one continent and that it is not a mistake of geography but destiny authored by God.

The mantle is with the current leadership to take up the fight and sanctify the dream of a united continent by fostering and strengthening relations among its populations. Indeed, Africa is not a mistake or an accident geography. It is one continent populated by one people with different cultures.