We are exploited by foreigners because we allow it to happen

For many Africans, this is an old story: the second scramble for Africa is in full throttle and we are doing very little to counter it. In fact, according to political economists, our ruling elites are doing everything to abet it for personal or group gain, which is one reason the continent, which is supposed to be rising, is instead receding at a rather fast pace.

The hunt for cheap African resources has never really abated since the colonial days. We have been told that the reason Europeans invaded our shores was to rob us blind. That school of thought holds that “civilising” us was a mere "by the way", and we survived only because Africans were too many to be decimated the way Indian Americans were by settlers from Western Europe.

Another school of thought insists that the reason most of the continent is still underdeveloped and vulnerable to exploitation is because of venal leadership, lack of vision, corruption and an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. This, they argue, has resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy: we are exploited because we want it to happen.

It is a fact that many Europeans who settled in Africa did not do it for altruistic reasons. Maybe the missionaries did, but the majority of the adventurers that followed the explorers did so in a search for the fabulous mineral wealth the continent is endowed with. Some of them succeeded while others just settled down to exploit the cheap labour available, the good climate and the fertile soils that provided great agricultural yields and fantastic returns.

IT'S HISTORY

But as they say, all that is now history. The question today is, why are these people, and others, now scrambling for what is left of the continent’s wealth? Since we are now a lot more enlightened, why are we allowing them to extract our mineral and energy resources so cheaply?

This line of thinking was provoked by a report released by a charity, War on Want, which insists that nine British conglomerates are engaged in recolonising Kenya with the full connivance of their government.

According to the charity, which focuses on British firms, in the rest of Africa, foreign firms control the continent’s gold, platinum, diamond, copper, oil, gas and coal resources.

In a way, it is a blessing that we in Kenya do not possess anything else but oil, which has not yet reached a commercial production stage, but War on Want makes its point thus: “It is a scandal that Africa’s wealth in natural resources is being seized by foreign, private interests, whose operations are leaving a devastating trail of social, environmental and human rights abuses in their wake”.

But whose fault is that, you may ask? Can we really blame anyone else if our leaders continue selling our birthright cheaply for 30 pieces of silver worth of commissions? In my view, British, Japanese, Chinese or Indian firms are not to blame; we keep harping on development partnerships but do not take the trouble to ensure we are not always the junior partners in every enterprise.

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The rather arrogant admission by a former Mathira MP that he regularly “facilitates” some Nyeri County Assembly members with cash handouts for “development projects” is a pointer to exactly where our vaunted devolution is headed. Is it any wonder that Nyeri Governor James Nderitu Gachagua has had such a hard time running the affairs of the wealthy county without the support of half his assembly?

It is curious that an individual, whose political animosity towards Mr Gachagua has become legendary, and who is not known for philanthropy, should purport to develop a whole county single-handedly, when there is an executive government and a legislative body, whose mandate is to do just that job. A bribe by any other name smells just as odoriferous, and undeserved bounty always attracts the avaricious the way offal attracts flies.

If such tactics are replicated throughout the country, isn’t it clear that in the very near future, we shall be ruled by the new oligarchs, MCAs, whose power is slowly eclipsing that of governors? One can understand why some governors have allowed MCAs to spend billions of shillings on self-aggrandisement rather than on development. And they always get away with it because governors dare not oppose them. We are, indeed, in big trouble. Someone please call 991....

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