If Looters Had Built On Old African Technologies

 By Farouk Martins Aresa

What discovery, institution, plant or industry has these billionaire politicians established? They pick and choose billionaires that make returns as kickbacks. It is an insult on African Youths' intelligence when those choosing politics for retirement home promised to be the one to revitalize the economy after destroying the same all their lives.

When Virgin Airlines could not stomach the money, shares and partnerships demanded in kickbacks from politicians that had absolutely nothing to contribute, they ran out of Nigeria. Though, Airlines are still making money, they cannot take their profits out forcing local travelers going abroad to purchase their tickets in the U.S dollars.

Intellectual properties have been patented as the most guarded secrets because of the billions collected when copied and improved for local use. What is lost in the claims at the World Trade Organization and the local courts is how these technologies move from one country to another. The Americans are making billions from these claims as they accused the Japanese and the Chinese of stealing their intellectual properties.

The fact is that the Americans stole intellectual properties from Europe. Before then, the Greeks and the Romans referred to Northern Europeans as Barbarians because of their lack of skills in Science, Technologies and Arts. The irony is that the Science, Technologies and Arts were learned from Upper and Lower Egypt.

Yet, privileged Africans with little or no tangible businesses are bleeding the Central Bank of foreign currencies. African countries have always produced the richest brain and mind in the world. Voracious acquisition of money is not limited to Africans but those that eat and chop alone with nothing to show for it must die miserably alone. We are still stuck in the Feudal system the world Far Right groups are promoting.

Africa is directly under the sun in the tropics. If only one of those billionaires looters got ambitious and invested in Solar Energy years ago before other cold continents caught on, Africa would have been the place to import Solar Technology the intellectual property from. The same is true of the most arable land in the world begging other continents for food. Foreigners use starving African kids to start charitable organizations while they pocket over 90 percent of the donations.

Gadhafi created the Great Man-Made River in the desert to supply fresh water and green agriculture for his people. A great project that should have benefited his people for over 100 years has been almost abandoned after they killed him. If he had successfully acquired Nuclear Technology from Pakistan, nobody would have dared touch him or kill him like a dog. The Mansa Kanka Musa and the Queen of Sheba of the world came from our part of Africa, they were admired for their waste.

Almost every African knows what our problems are but solutions that stare at us in the face cannot be implemented. Take the case of crude and refined oil. It does not take much brain to figure out and understand that a country that produces oil needs working and efficient refineries to be self-sufficient in refined petroleum products. But African oil producing countries cannot account for what they produce or refine all the oil they need for domestic consumption.

Indeed, there are Africans sabotaging internal and local refineries to make them incapable of operating efficiently. Local Navy, with approval of politicians in high places are colluding with foreign international shipping lines to steal crude oil on the high seas. Gold and diamond are mined with local laborers by foreign countries landing helicopters to fly out raw minerals with the full cooperation of local Chiefs.

God, no matter your religion, endows every human with different talents. Some of us work harder hiding talents than we do exploiting God given endowment and natural resources because we prefer what others have. These are self-inflicted curses out of inferiority complex, criminality and foolish greed that does not benefit us in the short or long term basis.

The rush to deposit even legitimate local profit abroad that could have alleviated poverty at home, cannot be sustained at this rate. We are willing to empty the local Treasuries at home to spend in a hostile environment where our last and next generation can never be comfortable. This is why Africa has been dying for the past 500 years.

It is one thing for others to exploit you in their best interest but it takes useful fools to exploit his people against his own interest. Those who improve, built on crude technologies of Upper and Lower Egypt, of the Black Heads of Sumeria or Chinese gunpowder are the beneficiary of today's Supreme Powers. They worked to develop them.

Yet, the loot is not plowed back into legitimate ventures where they can be productive. The 1.6 billion donated to extreme far Right was recently exposed in the United States. What else was it used for other than to use a powerful and loud minority to dominate and stifle the votes of the majority. Their point is to compete with the Left donations that benefit liberal democracy. Where are the liberal donations in Africa to improve the lives, votes and freedom of the majority?

Look at private schools. While public schools are languishing by the grace of politicians that refuse to fund them, their private schools including universities are faring better. The same is true about private hospitals. St. Nicholas Hospital was established by a former Federal Minister of Health. It is now one of the leading hospitals in Africa.

Most Africans cannot imagine the amount of money stolen from Nigeria. They are not captured by Forbes list of billionaires. Acquisition of money in itself becomes a game of greed used for power, a double edge sword. The money can be used to benefit mankind or it can be used to intensify subjugation. Africans and others have been exposed with their offshore dark money but donation to a cause to improve the life of the masses as Mo Ibrahim does is African problem.

If the civilization of Egypt and Sudan were not invaded and Africa was not sent into the Dark Ages for 500 years, imagine the development that could have been improved on and built upon. However, Africans for immediate individual selfish gains they decided to help satisfy the selfish interest of other continents instead of improving their own "crude" Arts, Science and Technologies.

*Farouk Martins Aresa is a commentator on public issues