How Africans lose money to western nations
Besides the rape and plunder of Africa’s resources by Western transnational corporations – of course in cahoots with Africa’s leaders – the other way that Africa loses money to rich countries of the world, is through African presidents’ ‘investments’ in those countries.
Many African despots that were deposed from power by military juntas have almost invariably ended in western countries’ shores replete with booty - stashes of Africa’s money that is ‘invested’ in Swiss banks.
More often than not, they end up losing these millions and millions of dollars to the banks! And you can imagine what this capital flight denotes for Africa’s development!
During their tenures these presidents would have failed dismally to develop their countries to the extent that when they themselves fall sick, they seek medical help from these western nations!
ey have no conscience at all! It is beyond their mental faculties to imagine that the same health facilities that they travel thousands of miles to access in Western nations can easily be replicated in Africa!
It’s not surprising therefore, that when their reign comes to an abrupt end, they escape to western nations or their proxies in Africa fleeing from their crimes and the wrath of their own people.
Most times these leaders are tried in absentia and sentenced accordingly – leading a terrible blow to any prospects of their return to their native lands.
If anything, they will only return to their homelands as corpses in gold-plaited coffins on chartered planes. How pathetic Africa’s leaders can be?
But in former President Ian Khama, I sense something of an aversion to this ‘norm’. Although he enjoys British citizenship through his maternal parentage, Khama appears grounded in Africa!
He may after-all, champion the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) integration agenda, which seems to have stalled! I mean take a look at what Khama is doing!
When he fled the Directorate if Intelligence Security Services (DISS), he escaped to neighbouring South Africa! No, he didn’t go to the United Kingdom or United States, where he could have easily found refuge, but he chose an African country, and our neighbour at that!
Well, we hear now that he has run out of favour with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) allegedly after it was found that he was cosying up to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) – the ANC’s nemesis!
Consequently, this has once again set Khama on the run, especially also after he lost the extradition challenge in South Africa, a matter which means Pretoria is bound to hand him over to Botswana when she comes looking for him. Now we hear that Khama has landed in ESwatini – the former Swaziland – a homogenous group of the Nguni people, and has found refuge from his ally, the Monarch, King Mswati III.
If you seriously consider these escapades in light of what we introduced at the beginning, you’ll realise that Khama is not cut from the same cloth with the despots earlier mentioned. His flights are an indication of someone yearning to return to his homeland, which is explained by the choice of countries he ends up in. South Africa and Eswatini are both members of SADC and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
These organisations are integral to regional integration and have set in motion various processes to bring this about, one of which is the Protocol on Free Movement of People, Goods and Services across the region.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has championed this Protocol and with the active support of his late ‘brother’ President of Namibia, Hage Geingob, worked tirelessly to bequeath us the use of national Identity Documents (IDs) as travel documents. You can now travel to Namibia using only your O Mang for a period of 30 days, and the same is true for a Namibian travelling to Botswana. ey only need their ID to come here!
Masisi has also entered into agreement with Zimbabwe’s President, Dambudzo Emmerson Mnangagwa to also facilitate or extend the use of national IDs as travel documents to their respective citizens!
is is what we want – eventually to collapse the borders that separate us and prevent us from doing serious trade with each other. We see that at Heads of State and Diplomatic level, SADC has already created a SADC Passport to facilitate free movement for this group of people.
We say the same courtesy must be extended to all the citizens of SADC as we see obtaining in the East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – both of which have created an EAC and ECOWAS Passport for their citizens!
e idea is that eventually, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA); Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CENSAD); East African Community (EAC); Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS); Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); and Southern African Development Community (SADC) – converge into one bloc that makes the United States of Africa, or as currently say, the African Union.
ere is also the Arab Mahgreb
Union (UMA) made up of countries that identify themselves predominantly with the Islamic culture – Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Mauritania – but was not recognised by the African Union by reason that it had not acceded to the 2008 Protocol on Relations between Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the African Union (AU). Now, you may understand why I believe Khama’s flight to neighbouring countries should be seen within the context of building an integrated Southern African region. I believe SADC has protocols and procedures in place to deal with issues of conflict resolution as well as how to handle wanted persons, or persons considered persona non grata; and fugitives.Therefore, it should not be hard, provided member states in question (South Africa and ESwatini, and Botswana) have ratified the enabling instruments, to extradite any citizen of the region from any of the member states, where he or she could have fled. And at this juncture, I am reminded that next year February, Heads of State of all