Whither Africa?

I love all things Africa. I love it's people. I love to see success stories come out of the continent. I love to see Africa take its rightful place in the world. It is this love for the motherland that has compelled me to write about the current state of affairs in Mozambique. Since 2017, the Mozambican security forces have been battling Islamist insurgency in the region of Cabo Delgado. The insurgents are pursuing a secessionist agenda aimed at establishing an Islamist state. About 2,000 people have been killed and close to 400,000 displaced and the insurgents now control two towns and are set to capture more.

How barbaric?

In April 2020, at least 52 people were massacred in a village in northern Mozambique after they refused to join the Islamist group.

During the first week of November 2020, 15 boys and 5 adults were massacred during a male initiation ceremony. Their dismembered bodies were found scattered across a forest.

This past week, there were reports that a football field was turned into an execution ground as 50 villagers were beheaded by the same Islamist militants.

Where is the government?

What is sad is that 3 years down the line, the Mozambican government does not seem to be making any progress at all in quelling this insurgency due to whatever reason and the consequences are devastating. The militants have been strengthening in both sophistication of weaponry used as well as tactics. They are estimated to be between 3,000 and 3,500 and the question is how on earth can a whole government fail to crush such a small number or terrorists? If they cannot crush them, then why not negotiate? I admit that I may be assessing the conflict from a simplistic point of view or from ignorance but one thing for sure is that the continued killing of defenceless citizens is totally unacceptable. This conflict threatens to destabilise the SADC region and a good question would be to ask what SADC is doing about it? Well nothing much!

Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human rights states that 'Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.' The responsibility of guaranteeing this right lies squarely with the government. Citizens neither have the means nor the ability to protect themselves. The citizens are being let down by their government and how painful it should be for them wake up everyday knowing that they are at the mercy of a bunch of terrorists.

Remember the Chibok girls?

276 school girls were kidnapped on the night of 14-15 April 2014 by Boko Haram militants in the Nigerian town of Chibok and it is extremely unbelievable that until today, 112 of the girls are still missing (most likely in captivity), more than 6 years later! How on earth is that even possible? Whatever excuse one can give, it doesn't cut it, all I can say is that we need new leaders in Africa!

Is it a curse of natural resources?

Mozambique is estimated to hold approximately 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. In 2010, huge natural gas deposits were discovered and guess where? Yeah, you are right, Cabo Delgado, the current centre of the conflict. This region is now home to Africa’s three largest liquid natural gas (LNG) projects: the Mozambique LNG Project worth US$20 billion, Coral FLNG Project worth US$4.7 billion, and Rovuma LNG Project worth US$30 billion. This combined investment of almost US$55 billion is equivalent to four times the size of the country’s current Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Interestingly, while the villagers are being massacred, these projects have been largely unaffected by the conflict (there has only been one reported attack on a company in the last three years) and multinational companies continue to pour billions into the gas projects in the region. The fact that in such a region rich with natural resources, locals do not have access to health, education and other social services only serves to complicate the conflict and intensify radicalisation. Another question that arises is to what extent is foreign capital fuelling conflict within the region?

One cannot make reference to the curse of natural resources and not mention the Democratic Republic of Congo which is widely considered to be the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources, with its untapped deposits of raw minerals estimated to be worth in excess of US$24 trillion. Yet with a GDP per capita of US$785, it is considered one of the poorest countries in the world. Underlying this contrast is the fact that the country has never known peace for the longest of time and one wonders why.

Need for introspection

Africa cannot continue blaming outside interference for its problems. Or, is the interference because outsiders know that we can easily be manipulated to turn against our own? Until when will we choose self enrichment at the expense of the greater good of our communities? Should I even talk about the plundering of African resources by multi national companies? It's just tiring. If we were to count good leaders in Africa today, how many would we come up with? By the way, how did we allow the African Union Headquarters to be "donated" by a foreign government? Where is our pride? How can Africa, with a population of 1.2 billion not have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council? Africa's median age is 20 years compared to 43 for Europe and 39 for North American but the question is to what extent is the African youth involved in charting the continent's future? Does it make sense that most of our leaders whom we have entrusted with our future may no longer be there in the next 15 years? Or can one argue that we are all complicit in that we choose our leaders by participating or choosing not to participate in the electoral process?

#WeNeedNewLeaders😭

#AfricanLivesMatter💔