FIGHTING THE AFRICAN LIONS & BEARS...The African Mafia (X)
Scripture: “Your servant KILLED (FOUGHT) both the LION and the BEAR; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God!” 1Sam. 17:36, AMBV, Addition & Emphasis Mine
“Hide me (the African) from the secret counsel and conspiracy (MAFIA) of the ungodly (LEADERS), from the scheming (manipulation) of evildoers.” Psalm 64:2, AMBV, Additions and Emphasis Mine
Dearly beloved, what a joy to come your way once again with the word of God that is aimed at enlightening the understanding of those who receive it. For some time we have been looking at the main topic in a view to bring sunshine on how people of Africa and those of African descent can rise up to fight some herculean challenges that confront the continent. And as much as I know that several things have been shared on this platform to educate people on the main subject, this topic cannot be exhausted on this platform. But permit me to say that as I conclude on it this week, the discussion would continue in a book I’ll put together and share with the world. Until then, let’s continue from where we left off last week and consider how the African mafia handled the economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ghana after which we would look at how to fight the African mafia.
Now you need to understand that the DRC is a hub of many minerals that are used in the electronic industries. It is estimated that it a storehouse of almost half of the world’s cobalt (a mineral used to make ultra-strong superalloys in turbines and jet engines) coming only next to Australia. Additionally, the DRC has deposits of tantalum, a mineral that is used in making small capacitors in electronic gadgets due to its high melting point and conductivity. And so as the envy of the world, most of the big players in the industrial world like the United States of America, United Kingdom, China and in fact all of Europe turned their attention to that country and fomented trouble that resulted in a tribal conflict between the Tutsis and Hutus. However after the genocidal war and Laurent-Desire Kabila had become President when Paul Kagame’s government helped to topple Mobutu Sese Seko, Kabila’s administration behaved in a manner that syphoned $4 million every week from state owned and private mining companies in the country. This meant that what was meant to go through the national books for auditing ended up in the pocket of the potentate.
As if that wasn’t enough, his government continued to collude with other foreigners to rip the country off. For instance, after his assassination and his son Joseph Kabila had become President, his right-hand man, Augustin Katumba Mwanke, who was appointed Minister at the presidency in charge of stated-owned companies, superintended over deals that transferred ownership of assets of at least $5 billion from state-owned mining companies to private ones when the UN conducted an investigation in 2002. The shady monopoly deal that was orchestrated by Senior Kabila and Dan Gertler, a Jewish businessman, is another form of mafia that was perpetrated on the people of the DRC. In this deal Senior Kabila asked Mr. Gertler to raise $20 million for him without delay to fund the war at the time so that he would make him enjoy the monopoly over the buying of the country’s diamonds. And records hold that once the young man did that, he was given an outright monopoly over the diamond buying business in the DRC.
At this moment I want to shift my focus to my own country, Ghana, and uncover some of the rots that “The African Mafia” has been perpetrating on her people with regards to her natural resources. Indeed, as a native of a mining town, Prestea-Himan, in Ghana, I have spent close to five decades of my life living in mining towns. Currently I’m domiciled in Tarkwa, one of the mining towns that can best be described as the mining enclave of Ghana with about four mining companies in its environs in addition to the allied companies that do contract mining or other forms of works for these mining companies. Not only that, I’m a trained and practicing Metallurgist, who has quite a fundamental knowledge about the mining industry in Ghana. And so it bleeds my heart to state that Ghana had only 7% of the gold revenue of about $2.1 billion in 2008 as compared to the benchmark of 45% to 65% global tax rate that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had estimated.
Most baffling to the mind is that, it is estimated that over the previous 18 years to 2008, Ghana had produced over 36 million ounces of gold that the world had benefited from. Yet the nation herself keeps on struggling for financial injection to carry out her infrastructure projects. To put it on record, I can say without a shred of contradiction that this 36 million ounces of gold was recorded but there are perhaps two times of this figure that was smuggled out without it going through the books. Now, for you to know the value of these ounces of gold, you need to understand that an ounce of gold as of my writing today (i.e. 3/5/2021) is $1,794.00. So the 36 million ounces comes to over $64.58 billion. Hence if Ghana has mined gold for over a century (i.e. 100 years) now, then you can imagine the amount of money that has gone down the drain with the citizens of the country still struggling to make ends meet. Mind you, in 2020 the GDP of Ghana stood at around $67.32 billion with the oil industry inclusive. This therefore means that Ghana has the potential to do well if only “The African Mafia” would allow it to do so.
Now talking about oil; Ghana drilled her first oil in 2010. And though when we discovered oil many people in the country thought that now that we have oil in addition to the other natural resources, Ghana was going to be turned into an economic hub for the sub-region. That trepidation of many Ghanaians after a decade of drilling oil has been thrown into oblivion because “The African Mafia” can’t just allow things to go on well for his people. Today even with the oil revenue, Ghanaians have woke up to see an introduction of a COVID-19 health recovery levy on our bill.
My dearly beloved, I can spend the whole day giving you a litany of instances where “The African Mafia” hasn’t been transparent with his people and thereby further pushing his people into an economic abyss. And though this exercise is good for enlightenment, yet I believe that our resolve to know how to fight these African mafias with all our mights to ensure that there’s good governance on the continent is what is most important. Hence I’ll make the attempt to enumerate the strategies without much elaboration on them so that you can also start mulling over them.
1. Awareness Creation
This is exactly what I have tried doing over the past two weeks to raise some pertinent issues regarding how “The African Mafia” has dealt with his people. This must not however end on this platform. The conversation must continue to even future generations yet unborn for them to be educated on matters of state policy.
2. Involvement
I just listened to a discussion on the monetization of Ghana’s mineral resources under the auspices of the Mineral Investment Fund (MIF) of Ghana. And I was shocked to note from one of the resource persons that he wants to stay away from politics. Indeed, the nemesis of some of the African problems is as a result of the fact that those who have their countries at heart have decided to stay aside leaving the country in the hands of a bandit of “crooks”, who would stop at nothing to rip their nations off. And so though you might not be interested in partisan politics yet you can be political. You must understand that being political isn’t an evil thing but being excessively partisan is. For instance it took Joseph of Arimethea, who was part of the Sanhedrin, to go to the authorities at the time to ask for the body of Jesus Christ for burial (see). The question is, why didn’t Apostle Peter or any of the apostles of Jesus go to the authorities? And your simple answer is that none of them knew the game of politics as Joseph. So if you know that you have a patriotic blood in your veins, then involve yourself in the struggle.
3. Exercise Your Voting Rights Well
Thankfully most African states are now on the path of democracy. Hence you must know that the power to appoint a president is with us the ordinary people. If you therefore choose to stand aloof and not participate during elections, then know that other people would choose your leader for you. I know that some of us think that our vote is only one and therefore it doesn’t matter. Actually it matters because when you add one to one the answer isn’t one but two. And when you add another one to the two it doesn’t remain as two but three. So as we put our positive votes together towards a particular direction, the bad leaders on the continent would be flushed out of office for good people to come and lead us.
4. Make Your Voice Heard In The Midst of The Political Cacophony
As a student of the Bible there are many characters in the Bible that I like. One of such people is blind Bartimaeus (see Mark 10:46-52). As a blind man, he found himself sitting at a place where the Saviour of the world and Healer of various diseases was passing. And despite the fact that he was handicapped, he chanced on the occasion to make his voice heard in the midst of a loquacious noise that had enveloped the whole atmosphere. And as he shouted aloud, redemption came to him. Much in the same way, we the people on the continent must not cease in making our voices heard. “The African Mafia” may threaten some of us to the point of calling for our blood, but we must not relent in standing for what is right.
All too soon we have come to the end of this sequel whose focus was on the African continent. But as said from the beginning when I was introducing the topic, people from various continents on the platform too can take inspiration from what has been shared to fight for the well-being being of their continents. However, if you live in a continent where things are being done well by the leaders, then you can consolidate the gains and make it more better for future generations. As you do you must remember that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and in Him does all things created consist (see Colossians 2:16-17). And so if you haven’t given your life to Jesus, then kindly surrender to Him for He cares deeply about you. Shalom!