PLO Lumumba asked the question. No one has answered it.
God gave Arabs oil once. They thanked him. They nationalized it. They built Dubai. Abu Dhabi. Qatar. Kuwait. Cities from sand.
God gave Africa diamonds. Gold. Crude oil. Lithium. Cobalt. Coltan. Uranium. Platinum. Everything the modern world runs on.
We gave the deeds to foreigners.
The De Beers family owns South African diamonds. The British founded the company in 1888. They still control the market. African miners dig them. European hands sell them.
Ghana is the world’s seventh largest gold producer. The mines are owned by AngloGold Ashanti. Newmont. Kinross. Canadian. American. Australian. Ghana gets royalties. The foreigners get the gold.
Nigeria has pumped over 13 billion barrels of oil since 1958. Shell. Exxon. Chevron. They built the rigs. They take the crude. Nigeria gets debt.
The DRC holds 70 percent of the world’s cobalt. Your phone needs it. Your electric car needs it. Chinese companies own the mines. Congolese children dig the tunnels.
Lumumba said it plain. We go to church every Sunday. We ask God to bless us. So we can sell what he already gave us. To the same people who never thank him.
Who bewitched Africa?
It was not one witch. It was a system.
The Berlin Conference of 1884 gave the mines to Europe. The independence agreements of the 1960s kept them there. The structural adjustment programs of the 1980s made sure they stayed. The free trade agreements of the 2000s locked the doors.
Every African leader who tried to nationalize died. Lumumba in 1961. Sankara in 1987. Gaddafi in 2011. The pattern is not coincidence. It is policy.
The Arabs nationalized in the 1970s. Saudi Aramco was American owned until 1976. Now it is Saudi. It is the most profitable company on Earth.
Africa tried. Ghana nationalized mines under Nkrumah. Zambia took copper under Kaunda. The IMF arrived. The World Bank arrived. The conditions arrived. Privatize or perish.
So who bewitched Africa?
We did. We signed the contracts. We took the loans. We sent our children to European schools to learn how to manage European systems. We built parliaments that look like Westminster. Central banks that answer to Washington. Armies that buy from Paris.
The blessing was never the minerals. The blessing was the will to keep them.
Arabs found that will. Africans are still searching.
Dubai was a fishing village in 1960. Lagos was a major port. Kinshasa was a capital. Look at them now.
The difference is not oil versus minerals. The difference is who owns the ground beneath your feet.
PLO Lumumba is still asking. Who will answer?
Drop a if you are tired of asking. Comment AFRICA MUST RISE if you believe Africa must nationalize its resources