You raise a very important point. With the onset of the internet, there are no more borders to cross in order to put your point across. Am sure Africa will grab the opportunity to make its case, and many people like you will be waiting to read the African story as told by the Africans themselves.

However, you also ask a very important question: Why do African professionals flock western capitals for menial jobs?

My answer is simple. African economies are too small to absorb their professionals. Am told Stanford University in the US has a budget which is like 10 times that of Uganda! But even where it has been possible to absorb our professionals, the pay is soo meager that one cannot sustain a family.

You also need to understand that it’s only in Africa where the extended family is still part of a culture. When you complete university, you are expected to pull your relatives out of poverty. This makes small earnings useless.

The solution lies with people like you campaigning for greater investments to Africa which will produce big businesses to absorb African professionals.

This also entails tying western aid to good governance which will give way to patriotic leadership and eventually less corruption which means more resources to go around every citizen in order to increase our purchasing power to support locally produced industrial products.

But I thank you for your honest comments. The next time you visit your Tanzanian friend, pay a visit to Uganda too. It should be a less than two-hour flight to Kampala.

Come see the source of the great Nile River and very warm people.

You may also carry along one or two investors!

All the best.

Rugyendo

- Dhruti Shah

That’s the question that every development-oriented African has been grappling with for the last half a century. Colonialism has been away for nearly the same time.

Whereas it is largely to blame, there is also something wrong about how we manage our resources as Africans.

It is true that colonialism left a huge scar on many African economies. Their growths have been largely hampered by acts of colonialism. Africa was largely balkanised as different colonial masters competed for its resources. There is no doubt that much of the fine infrastructure we see dotting western capitals like Brussels was largely a result of plundered resources from Africa.
The question of slavery and how it depleted Africa of its human resources is also a vivid example.

But I do not entirely blame this for the African misery. No African country is under colonialism now.

I believe we were colonized largely because we were disorganized. Our chiefs were greedy and gave out huge resources and land to the colonialists for exchange of things like necklaces.
This disorganization is still with us today. The political leadership is corrupt and bankrupt, presenting a weak response to the neo-colonialists.
Africa needs three things: Good and patriotic leadership, western markets for our products and science.
These we don’t have at the moment and the colonial legacy is still exacerbating the problem. I will expound on this in my next article….

Thank you so much and your views will always inform by future analyses!!!!