“……been blind four hundred years, been deaf four hundred years, four hundred years in coma….” Jimmy Cliff Jamaican Singer.
Allegedly new ore was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On applying friction to the ore it produced sparks and on using a piece of the ore to close an electric circuit it lit a bulb. The supposedly new ore seem to readily yield its electrons thus its potential in either photovoltaic panels or batteries seem obvious. This created lots of excitement on social media platforms with usual comments that reveal the minds of Africans.
Another media clip claiming the discovery of richest deposit of gold in Uganda. President Museveni will soon become the new Mansa Musa shipping gold to some parts of the world to be acclaimed the richest man ever from the poorest continent ever. The resource list is endless but what has copper ore done for Zambia? What has bauxite and gold done for Ghana? What has uranium done for Niger and what has Coltan done for DRC? Only Botswana seem to have dodged the resource curse.
The right question to ask is why has resources not done in Africa what it did in other parts of the world. The usual answer to this question is usually as follows; because African leaders are mostly corrupt or the West want’s Africa to remain a resource source. But the reason Africa stays poor despite being the most endowed continent is deeper than these. Poverty of nations is the historical norm while rich nations is a very recent development, less than a hundred and fifty years phenomenon. The right question to frame is why has Africa not become wealthy despite its resource endowments.
There is an ecosystem that surrounds societal wealth beyond resource endowments. Beyond the external ecosystem is the internal milieu of the society which plays an active role. In the past it was land and the serfs or slaves to work the land that determined wealth. Then gold and silver in the bowels of the earth gained preeminence. This birthed the Spanish conquistadors raping the Americas of it’s gold and silver.
Societies blessed with adventurers ready to cross deserts, oceans and subdue the lands for their Kings grew prosperous as sedentary societies were stripped of their peoples and resources of value. An important determinant of wealth creation appeared around the 16th century with the beginning of the scientific age. The importance of human ingenuity in wealth creation rather than brute force became appreciated and encouraged and with it the first patent registration office in England in 1623, exactly 400 years ago!
What was happening on the African continent 400 years ago when intellectual property rights were being protected elsewhere? Our first shipment of our Human cargo arrived the colonies of North America in 1619. This further intensified the trade in enslaved peoples leading to more wars on the continent to capture more people and enslave them. With abolition of slavery these wars morphed into wars to extract minerals as we see in the Congo, the blood diamonds of Sierra Leone and the Niger Delta blood oil. Resources have become a scourge while the real wealth creating resource, our brain power go to waste unrecognised, under exploited and totally ignored
Nigeria does have a patent registration bureau but how many of the registered patents have yielded dividends to their owners and country. I digress. As the concept of intellect being important in wealth accumulation grew, the importance of other traditional wealth determinants such as land, labour began to diminish. Intellectual property is now of highest regard in the wealth of nations. Nations sponsor espionage rings to steal it from other countries and after being stolen it is copied or reversed engineered in trying to evade patent infringements.
It was brain power that birthed the oil industry in 1850s, the automotive industry in early 1900s and before them the industrial revolution that began in the 18th century. However other ingredients beyond brain power yielding patents have roles to play in wealth creation. These ingredients help turn patents into successful businesses.
Too often we see some invention from some Nigerian Polytechnic or university displayed on television followed with comments that government should assist the inventor to make success of his or her invention, yet to see this happen. Completing the ecosystem of wealth creation are other enablers some institutional others angelic but governments especially African governments are not one of them.
After some adventurers the likes like Marco Polo, 1271 from Italy, Vasco da Gama 1469-1524 from Portugal discovered and opened up distant lands for commerce, the Dutch introduced another niche of the ecosystem, joint ventures and best known of them the Dutch East Indian company established as far back as 1602. This company was established to conduct trade with far lands previously opened up by adventurers. That same year the first stock market, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was established. Four hundred years ago wealth creating institutions were being established while Africa slept.
Of all mineral resources only diamonds gold silver and precious stones have intrinsic value needing little further processing for value. Others like copper, oil, bauxite, coltan, lithium were of no value until uses were found for them through inventors and scientists. To take such discoveries out of the laboratories to market places took entrepreneurs and enterprising business men who went on to create wealth out of these resources for their country. Had a George Bissel not initiated the oil industry starting from 1840s and many others developed the internal combustion engine, the gargantuan oil industry will not be what it is today and the Niger Deltan fishermen will remain unaware of the various uses of the oil. Same fate for the piezoelectric ore found in DRC.
We have patent offices, stock exchanges research institutions strewn across Africa, some created by the white colonial masters and others copied from them after independence. So the question is why has Africa not benefited from the presence of these. Because it has not percolated into our souls, its just grafted superficially on our skin and not yet reengineered into our genes. This is reason Elon Musk abandoned Africa and emigrated to the US where the whole ecosystem go beyond skin deep into the DNA of the descendants of those who established the first patent office and their cousins who established the first stock exchange.
Africa wake up, stop whining. We are being pillaged of our resources because we don’t have the capabilities to build wealth around resources and like Esau we sell them for pottage. Like the indolent servant we don’t develop God-given talent and they remain buried in the deep crevices of our brains. Mere discovery of any mineral do not confer benefits unless significant capital, both FDI and local investment are deployed adequately. This we see with bitumen of which Nigeria is said to have 2nd largest deposits in the world yet we import bitumen for paving our highways.
Furthermore, in the western world changes were introduced in the financial system to finance the transformation of their societies. Fractional lending allowed banks to create their private credit beyond deposits in their vaults. Later in 1971 the financial system was unhinged from the limitations of gold by cutting the dollar from the gold standard. These allowed creation of limitless credit out of thin air, fiat money to finance development.
These were vehicles that enabled wealth multiplication from ideation to dollars in the bank. These have since been outdone by Angel investors and venture capitalists who now direct serious capital to unchartered ventures that will not be touched by today’s banks and stock markets. To show our misunderstanding what real wealth is our young are tutored in business studies and we call that ‘entrepreneurial training ‘ hence missing the essence of who is an entrepreneur, the ultimate pioneer in wealth creation.
Olugbenga Jaiyesimi jerry3jaiye@gmail.com
