By Steve Orji
The world has changed so much in the last 20 years that people born in the last lap of the 20th century are looking like ‘historical orphans’ because they have already lost sense of history due to the magnitude of change that took place and how fast such changes were within this time burst.
In the last 10 years alone, four events of significant proportions have taken place. Not in any special order, the COVID pandemic reset global travelling protocols and brought under test the global health infrastructure and crises response initiatives of various countries. Businesses around the world were impacted, resulting to close to 3% GDP contraction globally.
On January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom exited the European union, these changes redefined not just the immigration policies of the respective countries, it brought a new economic and geopolitical realignment, as much as the Russia-Ukraine war gave the world a bad hit which resulted in supply chain crises of essential commodities globally, including oil.
Russia’ ambitious Nord stream natural gas project that delivers energy to western Europe through the Baltic Sea as a result was halted.
In another breathe, the crises in the middle east, will have consequences, especially by Iran closing off the strait of Hormuz could bring on energy shortages that might hit most parts of Europe and the Americas.
However, a good number of these changes have remained spatial, even though some are gradually falling through into real life, practical economic consequences around the world.
Could these portend positive economic opportunities for oil and commodity producing clusters in Africa?
Africa manages to rise to the occasion by signing into statue the African free trade agreement, a regional economic framework capable of bolstering genuine home-grown economic growth and capacities, if well husbanded can turn into real economic transformation Africa needed.
Could Africa take advantage of these global economic upheavals to craft a profitable regional action plan?
Unfortunately, these changes around the world which have created huge supply chain gaps Africa could easily fill, is not readily within Africa’ provisioning capacities.
A sad irony of how a deeply endowed continent fails to take advantage of low-hanging opportunities mainly due to lack of proactive and visionary commitment to regional economic planning.
Europe’ response to situational and existential crises underpins its response framework in context to its domestic needs.
For instance, during the COVID pandemic, the United Kingdom unveiled a financial stimulus called ‘bounce back loan’ to support businesses through the fiscal shock brought on by the pandemic. I was so lucky that my company which had barely come on stream few months earlier could become a beneficiary of that financial lifeline.
Not quite long after the COVID disruption, in February 2022, Russia begun a dangerous imperial campaign that could reshape the geopolitics of that zone.
How did Europe respond to that threat?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provided Europe an interlude for fresh thinking around its security infrastructure. Within these years of crises, Europe realised how badly inadequate its security responses have been and how vulnerable it has become in the face of the new imperial overlord, Russia has now become.
NATO essentially draws its oomph and global overreach off the coffers of America’ huge defence contributions to NATO which trump is unwilling to sustain. Respective EU countries are now resetting their security parameters and forming new regional and geopolitical alliances they think would be better suited to match the threats posed by China, Russia and North Korea in the context of proxy escalations.
“Europe’s two nuclear powers, France and Britain announced the creation of a joint steering group, paving the way for joint operational planning, during French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to London on Thursday, July 10. The stated goal is to deter Moscow from escalation”. French newspaper le monde reports.
This is just another front on how Europe is responding to issues around them.
The deportation spree kicking off in America and the United Kingdom which have affected Africans and mostly Nigerians should spark regional collaborative synergy within the African union to be able to checkmate the demographic distortion these changes could create. Africa today is a whooping 1. 4 billion people, sporting a good texture of 70-80% of its population being under 40 years, a bullish demographic energy house that puts Africa in pole position of manpower autonomy.
Have these happenings become compelling talking points for the African union, the-not so-clever imitation of the European union? Beyond talking points, have these triggered the much-needed intelligent and creative debates able to galvanise initiatives and containment strategies to confront the belittling of Africa as its people are huddled out of these countries shamefully and dumped like rotten apples back to their own native climes.
These Africans returning to their own countries are not treated any better than the slavery conditioning their ancestors had to live through. The circumstantial factors that made African forefathers’ slaves may be practically different, but the cultural optics and fundamental racial logic have remained the same even after 100 years of evolutionary social and ethical changes, so called.
What is Africa doing about all these?
How would one ever think that Africa will emerge into the moving stream of respected people when no assertive or coherent diplomatic and state rebuttals are seen coming from its policy and strategic initiatives?
And what are the domestic economic and social conditionings by African countries that can prod and sustain creative and productive talents of African youths indulging in the delusion of a better life outside their own continent?
Africa is home to burgeoning technology, musical and creative talents that can dwarf America’ Silicon Valley and India’ Bangalore. African leaders buy cars for themselves and fuel expensive trips and create the social and economic eco-systems that breeds poverty, an easy means to sustain a vicious cycle of poverty whilst enthroning the reign of a sophisticated elite culture. Business upstarts are suffocated and forced to close, industrial complexes wind down due to stifling economic conditions, private sector establishments perform below optimal capacities due to harsh operating conditions.
Another strand of thought is this.
What If there were no Europe or America at the ready to serve as involuntary recipients to millions of despondent African youths knocking about seeking sanctuary and existential protections from the hostile and insufferable conditions their swinish leaders have subjected them to?
In the heat of these avoidable human catastrophes, our leaders feel sufficiently chuffed to be hosted and treated to rock star receptions and military parades by the nations in which their people are despoiled and systemically dehumanised.
Don’t run away with the advertorial glitz of media ghosting in the developed world throwing up adverts of black people as loved and respected in these countries, which in the grand scheme of things serve as mere ceremonial smoke screen to hide the underbelly of a thriving racial culture.
You would spare yourself the pain and mental agony if only you haven’t lived long enough in the developed world to see through the technicolour racial ideology firmly embedded in the social and cultural matrix of society.
As the opportunities present itself for Africa to up its ante in energy resourcing in order to bridge the supply gaps the energy shortages created by the war in Ukraine and Iran have created, Africa’ major energy producer, Nigeria is stymied by systemic policy and leadership failures which renders it incapable of any feasible revolutionary economic master plan to take advantage of the moment. Nigeria refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna have had their last productions many years back, now turned to a cesspit of perennial corruption.
Incumbent leaders in Africa are trapped in the web of self-gratification when the world has moved on.
Africa can never be accused of being less gifted by providence, as its gift of people and natural resources would be enough to keep it boisterously wealthy by all standards.
But you can accuse her of being dead-slow, unimaginative and recklessly optimistic of a future they are not aware has already come and gone.
- Steve Orji is a public opinion analyst and a doctoral student at Portsmouth University, United Kingdom
