#AfricaNeedsToMatter from the Eyes of an African

A mild sequel to ‘...from an African Eye’; with an excerpt from a reader’s response to the parting question (How can we make Africa matter?) saying, "no rich black man should live a flamboyant life yet, they should all seat up and invest in Africa". A few would argue that; everyone is entitled to spend their money as they wish, a school of thought that I strongly subscribe to, but then a quick question: Why try to look flamboyant to the western world who may not have the utmost regard for people of your race and origin?. Deep question right? 😎😎

A more holistic way to view this is, no matter the status you attain in life, people still try to attribute some of the respect they accord you with, to;

• the home you came from.
• your family name.
• your family status in the society.
• your home town/village, etc.

Mind you this is absolutely bidirectional like the current flowing through a Transistor. This means, if you are a big mess in life and you are from a reputable family/home, you are still somewhat respected, courtesy the family name. Same way if you are a big success in life and you are from a lesser reputable family, you would still sometimes be disregarded, courtesy your family name as well. Vice versa should have done the trick, but some explicitness was needed there.

At this point I think we can all agree that the school of thought mentioned earlier on just got checkmated. Your flamboyancy wouldn’t earn you a 100% respect as a rich African, seeing that your home (Africa) is still in rubbles. Referencing our earlier bidirectional analysis, the other few times you get accorded some respect as a rich African, are times when that respect would benefit their economy. I call that selective respect.

Truth is, we can use the help of the western community to develop and make Africa matter, but be rest assured that the offered help would always be selective in nature, ones that would directly or indirectly put their profit margins as the instigating factor (wouldn’t blame them, typical for every businessman).

Looking at billionaires in the world, we can see how heavily they invest in their home countries, this is not saying African billionaires don’t invest in Africa. The slight difference is, others invest in other countries as well but on business grounds, whilst ours invest in other countries on leisure/luxury grounds. You don’t see a Mark Zuckerberg owning a luxurious mansion in Lagos, Jo’burg or Accra, but he has quite a number of businesses running in those cities, but check out the luxuxy acquisitions of our African elites, quite troubling 😔.

Invest in Africa I must say, and this applies to not just Africans and its elite members, but to other blacks all over the world (because the profit wouldn’t just be only figures, which is necessary for all business owners, but also that extra profit that is more abstract and ephemeral, AfricaMatters). Trust me, the day Africa becomes super great again, your respect as one with a Black origin would spike just as Tesla’s stocks.

Africa is a fertile ground for lots of business investment, don’t leave it to just the western community for investment (remember their investment is always selective, one that focuses purely on just profit margins, and not necessarily the development of Africa at Large).

This is a plea to all black stakeholders all over the world to come invest in Africa, because for BlackLivesToMatter in your respective western countries and communities, Africa needs to Matter first.

There are several sectors in Africa that’s needs urgent attention, and trust me those sectors are as lucrative as most of the businesses in western communities. They are still in their raw states, meaning anyone who comes in now becomes one of the forerunners in that sector. A list below in no particular order.

• Health
• Power (Energy)
• Football (Sports)
• Agriculture
• Art and Entertainment, and lots more.

As a Renewable Energy professional, I can say with facts that Power (Energy) is a major contraint for most businesses in Africa, and as such, makes solving that problem a lucrative business as well. Trust me, I can tell you that there are a lot of Venture Capitalists throwing in some decent investment in that sector (still barely saturated to about 10%), but how sweet will it be to have Black Venture Capitalist invest in this sector?? Africa is blessed with a lot of sun light with a GHI of 2000 kWh/(m²year)

“The distribution of solar resources across Africa is fairly uniform. The theoretical reserves of Africa’s solar energy are estimated at 60,000,000 TWh/year, which accounts for almost 40% of the global total, thus making Africa the most sun-rich continent in the world”. ~~wikipedia

Summarily, what we need is simply African Riches to make Poor Africans Rich, more rephrased as Rich Africa needs to work for Poor Africans.

My parting Question to us all would be, who are the stakeholders to make Africa Matter?

Adios.