Ghana's Oil, Will the People Benefit?

Much has been said about Ghana's oil and the revenue that is supposed to flow into her coffers by 2010. The politicians and their associates are excited that Ghana will soon be swimming in oil money. But the people are not enthused as they know the history of oil rich countries in Africa. They are also not excited because years of gold, diamond, cocoa, timber and other mineral exports has not brought any benefit to them rather they are still wallowing in chronic poverty with no access to water, healthcare, education, electricity with transport and other infrastructures crumbling. The question is will the people benefit from the oil if they could not benefit from gold and other minerals? Is there any guarantee that the people will benefit from the oil proceeds when it begins to flow in 2010?

For decades several billions dollars has been realised from the sale of gold, diamond, cocoa, timber, bauxite and many more but Ghanaians still wallow in deep poverty without electricity, water, proper housing infrastructure, sanitation. The only people who seem to have benefited from the revenue from these valuable assets are the corrupt politicians, their associates and the multinational corporations and they are the very people who are likely to benefit from the oil. The only 'benefit' the people will have as is the case of gold and diamond, will be paying for the cost of environmental degradation, pollution of soil, rivers, wells, creeks that will render many farmers and fishermen jobless.

Already effort by the government to get Ghanaians to participate in forums to discuss how the proceeds from oil should be used to help the poor has been hijacked by the politicians and the so called elite with the people reduced to mere spectators.

What makes the situation troubling is the fact that Ghana is not the first country in Africa to produce oil or gas. Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Algeria have been oil producing and exporting nations for decades. The reality is that none of these countries has been able to use the huge oil revenue to better the lives of their peoples with poverty and corruption sitting deep in those countries.

How will Ghana be different from her neighbours is still unclear but her own history of corruption in the mineral, timber, cocoa sectors and the history of her neighbours give an idea as to where she might go.

In Nigeria for example 80 million people or even more still live on less than a dollar a day despite nation receiving over $400 billion from the sale of oil. All that Nigerian leaders can show for the billions they have received are the deep poverty, violence crimes, kidnappings, instability in oil producing areas, massive official corruption seen at all levels of government both federal and state as well as environmental degradation and pollution of rivers, wells, creeks and the soil which has rendered millions of farmers and fishermen jobless. The events in Nigeria in the last 40 years since oil was discovered leave much to be desired. There have been more military rulers in that country than civilians with only one transfer of power from civilian to civilian in her 49 years of independence. The stories of Sani Abacha and that of the evil genius Babangida and how they amassed wealth at the expense of the country still resonate around the globe anytime corruption is mentioned.

The oil producing and exporting countries of Angola, Gabon, Algeria, Libya and Equatorial Guinea are not any better. Millions of people in those countries live in abject poverty and in squalor conditions while the leaders live in opulence with luxury villas and numerous fat bank accounts in France, Switzerland, United States, Britain and their colonies of save haven centres in Caymans Islands, Jersey and the rest.

The opulence among the leadership and the unparallel levels of poverty among the population in those countries, prompted a French judge to investigate how these leaders came to acquire the properties that they and families enjoy. The investigation follows lawsuits by the French branch of anti-corruption group Transparency International and rights lobby Sherpa Association. The presidents’ families and their associates have been accused of using government funds to buy luxury homes in Paris and luxury car models such as Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari and Maserati.

They also hold fat bank accounts in France suspected to be theft proceeds, mainly from oil resources. Mr Bongo of Gabon who died yesterday, “the king of bling”, and Mr Obiang of Equatorial Guinea are believed to have used their countries’ huge oil resources to enrich themselves, their families and friends. Sherpa claims the three leaders are using relatives as nominees to hide valuable real estate and cars in France as well as offshore bank accounts with huge volumes of loot.

President Bongo is suspected to be hiding 59 apartments, 70 bank accounts and nine luxury cars while Mr Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo is believed to be concealing 18 apartments and holding 112 bank accounts and several luxury vehicles all bought from money stolen from the oil revenues. Police investigations in 2007 revealed that Mr Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has an apartment and eight luxury cars in France. Only God knows how much money sits in those accounts. A US Senate investigation in 1997 found the spending habit of these corrupt leaders to be very astonishing. The report established that Mr Bongo and his family spend £55million a year, mainly from oil proceeds.

The Independent Newspaper writes of Angola: “As the threat of starvation sweeps across war-ravaged Angola, its secretive government is coming under pressure to explain how billions of pounds in oil revenues have gone missing. A fresh humanitarian crisis has hit Angola since fighting with UNITA rebels ended. Three million people are on the edge of famine. Angola's President, Eduardo dos Santos, has appealed for international help, pleading that his government is broke. But a swelling chorus of diplomats, campaigners and angry Angolans is asking why he is unable to pay his way out of trouble when his government earns billions of pounds from a burgeoning oil exploration business that will soon rival that of Nigeria as Africa's largest. And while only a tiny amount is spent on helping suffering Angolans, every year a large chunk of the profits – between 20 and 35 per cent – mysteriously disappears. Last year, for example, the International Monetary Fund estimated the oil revenues at £2bn, of which £750m simply vanished. Campaigners such as the UK advocacy group Global Witness call it wholesale state robbery. They say that Angola's vast oil profits are disappearing into the pockets of the Futungo – a secret, powerful élite linked to President Dos Santos – on a scale similar to the excesses of the notorious kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.” Source: the independent.co.uk

According to the Sunday Times, quoting a police probe report, the Bongos bought a mansion worth 18.8 million euros in Paris in 2007. The 21,528-square-foot home is in Rue de la Baume, near the Elysée Palace, the home of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. A Luxembourg-based company that bought the home is owned by two of Bongo’s children, Omar, 13, and Yacine, 16, and his late wife Edith.

So far there is nothing to show that the 1.4 million Gabonese have benefited from the oil. In fact they have become worse off as the following 2008 Human Rights Report by US State Department shows: “The country's human rights record remained poor. The following human rights problems were reported: limited ability of citizens to change their government; use of excessive force, including torture toward prisoners and detainees; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; an inefficient judiciary susceptible to government influence; restrictions on the right to privacy; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association, and movement; harassment of refugees; widespread government corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, and noncitizen Africans; trafficking in persons, particularly children; and forced labour and child labour.”

The same poor human rights were recorded in the report for Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria with citizens subjected to torture, killings and inhumane treatment by the leaders. The fear is that like her neighbours in the region there is a high probability that the flow of oil money into Ghana may encourage unscrupulous army officers and unelected Ghanaian leaders to take over the administration of the nation by force and suppress all dissents as happened during gold and diamond discoveries where army officers seized power overnight, stole as much as they could and mismanaged what remained of their loot with Ghanaians and the economy ultimately paying for their reckless corrupt actions. This is what has sadly happened in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola, Libya and Congo which are all been ruled by corrupt dictators with over 150 years of reign between the five of them.

Apart from corruption, there is the added danger that the flow of oil revenue will lead to the collapse of other vital sectors of the economy such as agriculture and tourism due to over dependence on oil revenue. Nigeria for example used to be major cocoa and other cash crop producing hub but the discovery of oil has led to the collapse of that vital industry. Such a dependence as in Gabon has had very devastating consequences in terms of food prices, jobs and revenue losses. What is more, these countries remain crude oil producers with little diversification, a practice that makes them more vulnerable to the shocks that are associated with the oil market and explains why they continue to remain poor despite years of oil export.

Worst of it all, it is the role of multinational corporations who exploit the oil in these poor countries that leave much to be desired. These corporations acting in their own selfish interest have a history of paying bribes to corrupt leaders to secure concessions. They also have a history of helping the corrupt leaders to steal and hide their loot in foreign banks. In 2003 Elf executives admitted paying Omar Bongo $50 million a year through Swiss banks in order to win concessions. The Elf executives, who were themselves tried for corruption, also admitted paying huge bribes to Cameroon’s Paul Biya and his counterparts in Congo, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. In 2004 Royal Dutch Shell of Netherlands admitted fuelling corruption, poverty and violence in Nigeria and toady June 9, 2009 has agreed to pay $15.5 million to the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni eight for her complicity in their execution by the corrupt Abacha regime. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa. Their secretive and non-transparent dealings with corrupt governments are no secrete. In Angola, Western oil companies such as BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron stand accused of refusing to reveal their annual payments to the Angolan government a charge similar to those in Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Algeria and E. Guinea.

What is worrying is that these are the very companies that are lining up to exploit Ghana’s oil and nothing shows that they will operate differently in the country.

Also the lasting environmental damage the corporations will cause Ghana and the ultimate price Ghanaians will pay for the destruction of the ecosystem and the pollution of their soils, wells, lakes, lagoons, rivers as well as the destruction of fish stock that have made environmentalists to worry and as a result gearing up for a long battle. Already the global environmental destruction caused by these corporations is estimated at $1.8 trillion with oil and mining countries in Africa sharing about a third of that. In Nigeria as is in many other places Shell has refused to clean up oil spills that have polluted rivers, lakes, lagoons and soil with the people enduring the health hazards posed by it. Anyone who visits the Niger Delta Region will find it hard to come to terms with the poverty, deprivation, collapsed infrastructures, environmental destruction and the billions of dollars Shell and her counterparts make in that country annually. The only thing that has kept millions of poverty stricken people surviving is a belief in God and a hope of a better life after death.

This has been the history of oil rich countries in Africa and guided by its own history of corruption in the mineral, cocoa and timber sectors there is no doubt that without a strong monitoring and strong accountability system backed by fiscal prudence, Ghana will join her neighbours in the chorus of poverty, violence, pollution and corruption. Already the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has been embroiled in corruption and mismanagement allegations with its former head Tsatsu Tsikata who was sent to jail on the grounds of corruption and mismanagement.

However, Ghana can avoid the calamities of her neighbours by learning from the Gulf States notably Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia where revenue from oil has changed the once barren and poverty stricken nations into prosperous ones. Even though there is a huge gap between the rulers and the people and corruption, nepotism and tyrants exist, during the last three decades these countries have been able to use revenue from oil to build their infrastructures, develop their industries and diversify their economies by focussing on technology, agriculture, tourism and financial products that is banking with success. More can also be learnt from Norway where sound fiscal management coupled with sound environmental practices has made her an icon in the world of oil production.

Instead of embezzling it or using it for white elephant projects, government of Ghana should use the proceeds to build durable roads, schools, hospitals, irrigation, sanitation, high speed train network linking all parts of the country, provide housing for low income groups and invest heavily in technology and agriculture so as to avoid being over dependence on oil revenue.

Ghana should put in place proper laws that will make the exploitation of the oil sustainable, environmentally and eco-friendly. Therefore environmental impact assessment should be conducted for every project linked to the oil operation.

The laws must also seek to ensure that oil money will not line up the pockets of the elite to the detriment of the people and the economy. Therefore, the utilisation of the proceeds must be transparent and democratic. The best way to do this is to actively involve all stakeholders including the people, the government, opposition parties, NGOs, CBOs, Church and all interest groups. Record must be kept by every institution that receives oil money and the release of those records to anyone with a genuine interest must be made mandatory.

All oil companies directly or indirectly involved in the drilling, marketing, distribution or export of oil must be made by law to publish what they pay. They must also indicate whether they have paid bribe to officials within or outside the country. Every ministry or department which receives oil money for project must publish in detail how it utilised it. The law must propose for stiffer penalties for officials and companies who will misconduct themselves.

Therefore, the law must take care of how the oil should be managed; how contracts should be awarded, how the proceeds should be utilised and how the environment should be protected. A fund could be created where all proceeds from the oil could go into with parliament given the sole power to determine and certify how money could be drawn from the fund. Therefore the proceeds should be removed at all cost from the control of the executive branch of government.

A financial court should be created to investigate and prosecute entities who may try to enrich themselves overnight. Government must hire experienced tax experts and fraud detectives to scrutinise activities of multinational corporations who may want to import their shady deals of theft, tax evasion, bribery and false accounting into the country. Government must do this as a necessity even if that means hiring foreign experts.

The media should play its role as the fourth organ of government any law that will hinder their operation should be repealed. More investigative journalists should be employed by the media houses and their capacities build up to reflect the challenges of the upcoming battle. The position of independent democratic and anti-corruption watchdogs such as Serious Fraud Office, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice should be strengthened and provided with all the resources they need to function effectively.

With this Ghana could be praised again for leading the continent in the right direction as her democratic credential shows.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

*The Author is a political activist, anti-corruption campaigner and a columnist for American Chronicle. He blogs at www.ghanapundit.blogspot.com

Why Are We Still Poor?

Why Are We Still Poor?

Look at the woman in the above picture and her surrounding carefully. Does she look like someone who has been given help by Aid Agencies like United  States Agency for International Development (USAID), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Swedish International Developmet Agency (SIDA), Oxfam, Action Aid, Christian Aid, Advenstist Development and Relief Agency (DRA)? Does she look like someone whose government has received billions of dollars in loans from the World Bank or the IMF? Does she look like someone who has received financial or material help from US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France or Italy? Does she look like someone whose government receives billions of dollars in revenue from gold, oil, gas, coltan, diamond, timber, cocoa, cotton, tea, coffee, bauxite and uranium every year? What has happened to all the aid money or the IMF and World Bank loans or aid and grants from US, Japan, European Union and the revenue from the natural resources? In short why are the people so poor when Aid Agencies are helping them every day; when the world Bank and IMF give them loans every day; and US, Japan, Britain, Germany and others give aid and grants to the people every year? Who has benefited from all these monies? Could it be the donors and aid agencies themselves or the politicians who sometimes receive the money on behalf of the people? 

Why are we poor? This is a troubling question. I cannot understand why after so many years of aid and big loans Africa still sits at the bottom of the world's progressive continents. There are so many Aid and Humanitarian Agencies in Africa claiming to be helping the people to alleviate poverty but fifty years on Africans still wallow in object poverty. Why? Could it be that the Aid Agencies are not doing any work? Could it be that the Aid Agencies only cry for attention without necessarily doing anything to help the poor? Or could it be that the aid agencies use the plight of the people to raise money and then use the money to pay their staff fat salaries and bonuses and hold big parties without necessarily using the money to help the poor?

The World Bank and IMF claim to provide vital financial support to poor countries to help them alleviate poverty but more than fifty years of loans to these poor countries poverty is still decimating them. So what happened to all the billions of dollars that the World Bank and IMF claim to have provided to the world's poor? Could it be that the Bank and IMF give the loans and then turn round to force these poor countries to use it to service old debts? Could it be that the Bank and IMF give the loans to corrupt regimes who then deposit the money in their private banks in Europe and then ask the poor people who never benefited from the loans to use the little resources they have to service the debts? Could it be that the loans are given with conditions that benefit the creditors and not the countries who borrow the money? Can the World Bank and IMF explain to the World why so many poor countries remain poor after they had received tens of billions of dollars from them?

Every year United States, Japan, the European Union, Germany, Britain, France and Italy claim to give millions of dollars to the poor countries in the form of loans, grants and what have you. But we still have not seen poverty going down or stabilising. What has been happening to the aid money that US, Japan and Europe claim to have been given to third world countries? Who receives those monies and what do they use the money for? How has the ordinary people benefited from the grants and aid? If so much has been received then so much should have been done to reduce poverty isn't it?

Every year African countries receive tens of billions of dollars from the sale of oil, gas, diamond, gold, bauxite, coltan, timber, cocoa, tea, coffee, cotton and many others. What has happen to all the money? Could it be that the money has been wasted on white elephant projects? Could it be that the money is stolen out right by corrupt politicians, the business elite and their cronies in Africa? If so could it be that Switzerland, France, Britain may be having a clue as to what has happened to all the money? I mention Switzerland and Britain because their banks have had direct link with all the corrupt regimes that Africa has ever produced from Mobutu, Sani Abacha, Lansana Conte, Eduardo dos Santos, Bakili Muluzi, Paul Biya and Blaise Campore to Ibrahim Babangida. I mentioned France because Omar Bongo of Gabon and his family have are known to have 70 banks accounts plus 59 luxury properties and 8 luxury cars in France alone and Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo and his family also have 122 bank accounts, 24 luxury properties and a number of luxury cars in France alone not to mention those in Switzerland and other save haven centres. It is only God who knows how much money is contained in 70 and 122 accounts.

How do multinational corporations doing business in Africa pay for the resources that they exploit? And who receive the money they pay? Do multinational corporations declare all the profits they make in the African countries where they operate or they declare just a little and then hide the rest in their save haven accounts in Switzerland, Jersey Island, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, Hong Kong, Singapore, Caymans Island and the rest? And how does that deny the poor people the chance to escape poverty? 

If indeed the Aid Agencies, World Bank, IMF, US, Japan, European Union, Britain, Germany, France have given so much then why are we poor? Is it lack of luck or what? I really don't know can someone please help me?

 By Lord Aikins Adusei

The Author is a Political Activist and Anti-Corruption Campaigner

 

Obama tells powerful lobbies: Bring it on

AP – President Barack Obama speaks about his fiscal 2010 federal budget, in this Thursday Feb. 26, 2009 file …

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama challenged the nation’s vested interests to a legislative duel Saturday, saying he will fight to change health care, energy and education in dramatic ways that will upset the status quo.

“The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address. “But I don’t. I work for theAmerican people.”

He said his ambitious budget plan, unveiled Thursday, will help millions of Americans, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.

“I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight,” Obama said, using tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. “My message to them is this: So am I.”

Some analysts say Obama’s proposals are almost radical. But he said all of them were included in his campaign promises. “It is the change the American people voted for in November,” he said.

Nonetheless, he said, well-financed interest groups will fight back furiously.

Insurance companies will dislike having “to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs,” the president said. “I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy.”

Passing the budget, even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, “won’t be easy,” Obama said. “Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.”

Congressional Republicans continued to bash Obama’s spending proposals and his projection of a $1.75 trillion deficit this year.

Almost every day brings another “multibillion-dollar government spending plan being proposed or even worse, passed,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who gave the GOP’s weekly address.

He said Obama is pushing “the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible.”

Africa: The Curse of Being Resource Rich

Africa is the most underdeveloped and the poorest of all the continents in the world. The continent is lagging behind all the continents in the world in terms of economic and social development and political advancement. All the countries on the continent have similar problems namely high unemployment, higher deficits, poor economic and social infrastructures, and poor state of public services, poor waste management practices and political instability. A lot have been said about why the continent is the poorest but very few would admit that the continent is poor because of the abundance of her natural resources. This is an irony but it is a fact that the wealth of the continent has made her the target of all evil plots both within and outside the continent.

On March 7, 2004 Simon Mann a British citizen and former officer of Britain’s Special Forces (SAS) and 69 other mercenaries were arrested at a military airfield outside Harare, Zimbabwe and charged with trying to stage a coup to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a nation of 600,000 people. During his defence he mentioned some powerful members of the British establishment as his financiers and backers including Jack Straw UK Justice Minister, Peter Mandelson former European Union Trade Commissioner and now Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise &Regulatory Reform, Sir Mark Thatcher son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer a key Tory member who was convicted for perjury and Ely Smelly Calil, a Lebanese oil trader accused of bankrolling the plot. Mark Thatcher was arrested in South Africa and charged with supplying the aircraft that carried Simon Mann to Harare. Mr. Thatcher pleaded guilty in South Africa and was later made to pay 300,000 pounds in exchange for a prison sentence. The coup plotters were to put Severo Moto, an opposition leader living in Spain in charge of the country and to give the backers unquestionable and free access to the oil resource in the nation. If the coup had succeeded Mann and his cronies would have turned Equatorial Guinea into one of the usual sad stories in Africa- bloodshed, corruption, mismanagement, poverty and what have you. The governments of Spain, South Africa and others in the West were seriously implicated for being privy to the plot. Thanks to the vigilance of the Robert Mugabe the coup was nip in the bud. Unfortunately, most resource rich countries in Africa have not been all that lucky. 

Centuries of slavery and colonialism deprived the continent of her able human and economic resources. The able men and women were carried away to work in the plantations far away in the Americas, the natural resources were looted by Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy in the name of civilisation. The slaves worked for centuries without pay and without basic human rights. After slavery was abolished the looting of the natural resources continued. The irony is that practically all the income from these resources was used to finance the economic and the infrastructural development of the European countries enabling the Europeans to finance their schools, build hospitals, roads and telecommunications. Very little or in some situations nothing at all was used to develop the various African countries where these resources came from. 

The poverty and the problems started immediately Europeans started having contacts with the continent. However it deepened after the Berlin Conference of 1844 and in what became known as The Scramble for Africa where the continent, her peoples and resources were divided among the so called great powers of the time mostly Europeans. It is sad to say that during the conference no African was present even though they were the bonafide owners of whatever there was on the continent at the time. The artificial division of the continent unquestionably disrupted the people, their social and economic life and what they had worked to accomplish. People of the same tribe and ethnic background and groupings were divided a situation that has brought more problems to the continent than could have been anticipated.

Immediately after the Berlin Conference each of the powers went about administering her share of the continent, plundering the resources and looting as much as they could without anyone to supervise what they were doing.

A clear example is the case of Democratic Republic of Congo where King Leopold II of Belgium enslaved the Africans and looted the country of her resources and virtually nothing was used to invest in the country except guns which the Belgium army used to kill the Africans in their millions. When the DRC was transferred from Leopold II to the State of Belgium the looting and killing continued till DRC gained her independence in 1960. In fact DRC (Congo Free State) was the main supplier of rubber a vital raw material for the tyre industry and all the money from the sale of the rubber went to Belgium. King Leopold II was able to transform Belgium from one of the poorest countries in Europe into one of the wealthiest, courtesy the enslavement and looting of Africans and their resources. Leopold was 250 million Euros rich at the time when he was transfering Congo to the Belgium state and the state also gave him 50 million Euros as compensation.

Belgium was not alone in what they did to the continent. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy all looted Africa of her gold, diamond, ivory, timber, cobalt, and all the minerals you can think of. The Africans who resisted the illegal activities were killed in their millions as happened in South West Africa (now Namibia) where the Germans in 1904 to 1907 committed the first genocide of the 20th Century by killing the Herero and the Namaqua people. Germany did all these to the people because of the rich diamond deposits in that country.

While Europe became richer, Africa became poorer and the trend continued till the 1950s when the African countries started gaining their ‘independence’ beginning with Libya in 1951, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia in 1956 and Ghana in 1957. It must be mentioned that the attainment of independence did not come on silver Plata. Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Namibia and to some extent South Africa all attained their independence from their colonial masters through arm struggles. They had to fight because the Europeans were unwilling to grant them indepence which would have meant a stop to their unquetionable access and looting of the resources.

After independence several attempts were made to recolonise the continent through the back door using mercenaries and the military to destabilise the continent and using economic means to manipulate, bribe and blackmail the leaders on the continent.

Among those mercenaries who sought to return Africa to their former colonial masters was Bob Denard. In fact, Simon Mann is just a small fish compared to Bob Denard, a French who made a career as a mercenary overthrowing leaders in Africa. When Bob Denard died in 2007, he had more than a dozen of coups to his credit four of those coups taking place in Comoros Island alone. French author Jean Guisner, who has followed Denard’s career and written extensively about the French government, says Denard did nothing that was contrary to French interests - and Denard allegedly acted in close cooperation with French intelligence services. Denard’s mercenary career took place between the 1950s and the 1980s. During that period, he was involved in post independence Nigeria, Benin in 1977, Angola, Zaire – now DRC and the former Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe. Registering their frustration and lack of justice for the Comorians, Mr. Abdou Soule Elbak, former president of Grande Comoro said “This man sullied our history”. “I regret he was not made to answer to all the crimes he committed in our country, the murders and the torture which he was guilty of,” said Moustoifa Said Cheikh, leader of the Democratic Front Party. All these mercenary activities took place on the continent because of the natural resources.

After independence the looting of the continent’s resources did not stop as the continent became a battle ground during the Cold War. The two super powers and their allies vied for influence and control on the continent’s resources and those leaders who resisted the looting became targets of assassinations and coups. A case in point was the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana on February 24th, 1966. Another example is the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba of Congo on January 17th 1961.Other leaders such as Nelson Mandela were imprisoned for either advocating for independence or improvement of conditions of Africans. The CIA and the Western intelligence community have been implicated for engineering the assassinations and overthrow of elected leaders of Africa. For example Larry Devlin, the CIA Station Chief in Congo during Patrice Lumumba’s era spoke to Washington Post in December 2008 saying he refused an order to assassinate Patrice Lumumba. But his refusal did not stop the CIA and the Belgium government from overthrowing and assassinating him. The assassination attempt on Gamal Nasser of Egypt on 24th October 1954 and the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 were the work of Britain’s M16 because teh British wanted to take over the administration of the Suez Canal which the Egyptians vehemently opposed. The invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel solely about the Suez Canal and her oil resources. The CIA, KGB and their allies encouraged and financed wars and political instabilities throughout the continent. Angola became the battle ground for the CIA, KGB and the Chinese as each tried to gain control over the country, her people and resources. The civil war that engulfed the country in 1975 only ended in 1991 after 26 years of conflict. When the war ended the resources had been looted and the few infrastructures that remained after the war of independence (1961-1974) were gone.

The product of these assassinations and coups were the political instabilities and the wanting destruction of lives and property including infrastructures that have bedevilled Africa till today. As the elected leaders of the continent were assassinated, overthrown and subjected to all forms of cold war tactics including bribery, arm twisting and blackmail the continent degenerated and faulted on all aspects of human endeavour. The new crop of leaders who replaced the post colonial independence and who were largely puppets of the European and American governments became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Because they were puppets they had little control over what the corporations who had been drafted into these countries to extract the resources were doing. For example Joseph Mobutu who became the choice of the Americans after they helped to assassinate Lumumba ruled Congo for 32 years and in those years the country became poorer as Mobutu and his cronies got richer and the Western countries notably USA, Belgium and their allies had free hand looting the mineral resources most importantly cobalt, a very important mineral needed for missile development. Little infrastructure activities was carried out by Mobutu as a result Congo can only be accessed by boats and canoes mainly through the River Congo. 

Today DR Congo is still suffering from the policies of King Leopold II and the Belgium State. DRC is a country equals the size of Western Europe has hardly known peace since the Stanley entered the place. Its population of about 60 million mostly scattered and live in the jungles of the forest with little or no infrastrcuture the billions of dollars of revenue were taken away by Belgium and the corrupt leaders who came after Lumumba. In 1884 the Congo Free State became a personal fiefdom of King Leopold II who administered the country with extreme brutality using force labour, massacres, kidnappings, rape, torture and intimidations to get the Africans to work for him without pay. It is estimated that about 10 million Congolese died under King Leopold despotic rule. Apart from the human casualty, King Leopold and later the Belgium state plundered the country of her natural resource and never used any of the revenue to develop the country. When bicycles and cars were first invented it brought with it the demand for rubber for tyres production and no country had the resource for rubber production at the time than Congo. And to get the Congolese to work for him Leopold’s barbaric soldiers used extreme force including the cutting off the right hand of those who failed to meet their daily target. All that King Leopold did to the Congolese have been documented but Belgium has locked them away from researchers and the public. The war is still ravaging on in Congo not for anything but for her rich natural wealth. 

As tyrants and dictators gained the support of western governments and did whatever they wanted with their economies without questions their people grew poorer, hopelessness and despair. As the little money that came into government coffers were taken by corrupt government officials and civil servants there were virtually no money to carry out infrastructural development and the poverty deepened. Poverty, desperation and hopelessness that engulfed the people coupled with their inability to change their leaders democratically sowed dissent among the population which serve as breeding grounds for more coups, civil wars and civil disturbances. This was evidence in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Algeria, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sierra Leone all experienced coups in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even to the early 1990s. These waves of coups was followed by civil wars that hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, CAR, Somalia, Uganda which also contributed to the destruction of roads, harbours, airports, rail lines, telecommunication, hospitals, schools and many more.

 

Today in the Delta region of Nigeria a serious instability is going on with young men kidnapping oil workers for ransom. The Nigerian Army is battling a growing insurgence in the oil rich Niger Delta region because of the black gold that is found there. In Sierra Leone and Liberia the civil wars that took place there in the 1990s were about resources. Gold and diamond found in large quantities in Sierra Leone fuelled the war resulting in the death of many and destruction of property worth several billions of dollars. The diamond from those parts of West Africa has been termed blood diamond. In South Africa apartheid was instituted to deny Africans from having access to land and mineral deposits in the country. In Zimbabwe the white minority took 85% of the rich soils and Robert Mugabe had to go to war in order to get a share for black majority. 

This has been the state of affairs in Africa, the presence of oil, gold, diamond, gas, timber, coltan, uranium, tin ore, manganese, iron ore, bauxite and rich soil have been a curse for Africans. They are poor even though the continent has a 50% share of the world’s natural resource stock. Conflicts and instabilities are everywhere because of these resources. Coups and dictatorships are everywhere because of the resources.