Are Corruption and Bad Leaders the Only Reason Africa is Poor? | Part 2| Sankofa Pan African Series

0:00 [Music] why is the continent which is the richest in terms of resources the poorest in the world welcome to the sankofa pan-african series please sustain us by turning on your subscription and notification buttons thank you because of their desire to industrialize african countries had to depend on their former colonizers

0:46 for equipment and other machinery which they did not produce these were expensive and so the desire of african countries to industrialize was turned into a noose with which to continually strangle africa now this imbalance of of trading is actually what the world trade organization was established to to ensure i i i'm sorry to admit that while it is interesting to see that a nigerian woman now hates the wto

1:33 the world trade organization that organization has done has done so much damage to sub-saharan africa that i would like to wait and see how much change one single person can make the wto imf and the world bank have been major instruments for the economic oppression and suppression of these of uh of sub-saharan africa and other developing parts of the world for instead the imf and the world bank are responsible for africa's lack of self-sufficiency in food production the wto is responsible for the agreement

2:20 on agriculture which stops african and caribbean countries from subsidizing their food production while okaying a country as rich as america and european countries to continue to subsidize their farmers when you see those african children with empty eyes on tv usually put up by do good organizations begging for money on their behalf remember remind yourself why the children are starving in the first place it is because their parents are toiling and sweating on mines and

3:06 farms from which they cannot carve out a decent living from their toy and sweat so how can you sit in good conscience watching the uh watching news items night after night as young african women and men risk their lives through the desert and the atlantic to get to europe after being forced by the same kind of conditions that made that hungry starving child with empty eyes that you see and um and donate to on tv how can the majority of europeans rest easy at

3:51 night when they see tens of thousands of young africans some pregnant with a with babies some accompanied by their young children in a desperate reversal of the direction of the transatlantic slave roots how those africans who had chosen to throw themselves overboard or had died due to the terrible conditions on the slave ships across the atlantic must be turning in their watery graves at the thought of these young africans going to be enslaved in europe

4:36 i am really anxious to see how dr ungazi willa kunju will ensure that the stranglehold with the wto has enforced on africa the caribbean and other developing countries to stop us from industrializing are removed i i can't wait to see what she's going to do about removing those um those those strangleholds so why do superpowers give our foreign aid to africa in billions of dollars every year if they want us to continue to remain poor you may want to

5:22 ask apologies to american and european celebrities and other do-gooders in advance please ask yourself this question do you know any poor country in the world that was transformed through aid alone into a rich or even marginally self-sufficient country please share the information with me if you if they can find a country in the world that became self-sufficient through aid the truth is that rather than eliminate poverty we should be our target

6:07 the insane concept called poverty alleviation proposed strategies or aid only further increase poverty research shows that developing countries in africa and the uh and the caribbean lose more money annually than they receive through aid investment and remittances by investing foreign investment according to an account published in 2017 more than three times the amount that africa receives in aid was taken out mainly by multinational companies

6:55 who fraudulently misreport the value of their imports of exports to reduce tax these multinationals exploit the crippling structural adjustment policies of the world bank and imf and amass so much wealth from developing countries that often their bank balances are way bigger many times bigger than the size of many african and caribbean economies now this wealth does not only allow multinationals to act above the laws of the host

7:41 countries but it allows them to coerce effectively and collude with political leaders and and also to and this continues corruption they continue to corrupt the system with their countries now proclaim loudly as the reason for africa's poverty their governments are of course also ever ready to prop up dictators so long as the dictators do not stand in the way of their continuous exploitation of of africa so let us look at the issue of corruption and poor leadership which no doubt of

8:26 course play a role in our problems however if we are to believe that poor leadership and corruption are the only reasons for africa's underdevelopment then we have to first of all believe that there is something inherently wrong with us as africans and and that we have an innate propensity for corruption which is the narrative that these developed countries keep pushing at us the the truth of the matter is that there is

9:12 corruption everywhere and africans are not inherently corrupt by any stretch of the imagination america is the global capital of kleptocracy and other developed countries are no different however while the systems in those countries have been allowed to to evolve you know so that um there are checks and balances to keep corruption from becoming rampagious the same cannot be said for developing countries where uh where corruption um and and poor leadership have actually

9:59 been groomed it's like they've been deliberately um entrenched now we cannot get away from the fact that evil corruption has been and continues to be exploited to work against africa some have even suggested that the very idea of governments of developed countries giving aid was designed to actually start the corruption process in the developing world in the first place and it has continued to be used to entrench corruption and prop up poor leaders in the name of you know one idea one

10:46 political ideology another in the name of say democracy they prop up you know um poor leaders the very things that africa and caribbean countries need to end poverty are aggressive industrialization control of our resources and fair trading terms so that we can extract and exploit our natural resources ourselves it's not rocket science we need to be able to process our raw materials our natural resources and determine the prices at which we sell them globally

11:32 as the yoruba will say the chinese do not have two heads in other words they are not special they are a superpower today because they found ways to industrialize this is why we need to consciously challenge the imf the world bank and the wto even when it is now headed by an african woman we should not cut them any slack until we see that our interests are being ensured it is not just enough to add a little black and stare if african economies are allowed to grow

12:20 the majority of our problems be poor governance security patriarchy masquerading as a religion and culture high unemployment rates ethnicity and whatever they may be these problems will be better tackled if and only if our earning capacities are not hindered by all that we have been talking about here we will be able to afford to educate ourselves to the same level as the superpowers with that alone we won't need anybody to try and teach

13:05 us about democracy or rule of law the the list of reasons why and how africa is being impoverished is almost endless look at how our land is being destroyed through the exploitation of the colonizers and multinationals who extract oil precious metals and other other resources from africa look at how we suffer as a result of climate change caused predominantly by the developed countries there is no getting away from the fact that the global economic trade and information systems are set up to continue screwing over

13:52 developing countries even in recent times unfair intellectual property laws persist i'm sure you've heard that a european country owned by white people who have nothing to do with yoruba ethnic group try to trademark the word yoruba and therefore stop anyone else including flesh and bone and flesh and blood yoruba people from trying to use it this is a crazy world in which we live in we cannot get away from the fact that the standard of living in the developed world is being enjoyed on the backs of citizens of places um like sub-saharan africa

14:38 and the caribbean so you are simply living in denial if you are living the good life as a citizen of the developed countries and donating money for aid or even campaigning to save the environment without questioning very vehemently why your government alone your government your government along with other global powers insist on perpetrating the kind of unfair trade balance called globalization the time to insist on africa's true emancipation is now not tomorrow it is today

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