Africa, is a full case study when it comes to rising to the heights of superpower to falling to the depth of slavery. Over 2,500 years BC to as recently as the 17th century AD, Africa had empires and kingdoms who were super powers and ruled the world. It was in Africa that the first university in the world, Sankore University was established, in Timbuktu, Mali in the 12th Century AD and students came from Europe to study there.
The sophisticated bureaucratic system and court procedures of the Songhai Empire are adopted today by this modern world. The Nubian kingdom of Kush was once the most powerful military nation in the world with the strongest navy.
Then all was lost. Black Africa fell flat and became slaves for the West and Arabs. The Europeans under the influence of alcohol, run sketches on the map of Africa and out of the mess, they created boundaries for nations which they named and came down to colonise; except Ethiopia, which fought out the invaders and Liberia which the West brought in freed slaves to join the indigenous ethnic groups of Kpelle, Bassa and others to form a nation.
And when the Europeans came, they took away our rich natural and mineral resources to build their countries and left us in slums and wretchedness.We struggled to be free. Our freedom came but was tied to the economic decisions the West took.
We decided to mistrust the West and started looking East for support to grow. And recently we saw in China, a partner to help us develop. We differentiated the Chinese from the Whites. The Whites came and took over our countries and directly rule us in what is called colonisation, and indirectly after we gained independence. But the Chinese are coming with no intention to enter into politics but are only in for business and development, we happily said, or so we thought.
What the Chinese have in mind is worse than what the White Man had. In the early 2000’s, I was with two African diplomats and was shocked to receive the information that whenever China is bringing down human workforce to Africa to embark on a project, majority of them are criminals, serving jail terms.
No doubt there is lawlessness and racism against Ghanaians on our home soil by the Chinese. For example, a certain Chinese woman by name Aisha Huang could enter into our forests, set up a camp and engage in illegal mining. Whenever an indigene mistakenly stepped into her grounds, she will shoot the person dead.
The Chinese dominated the illegal gold trade, from the galamsey sites to smuggling of stolen gold into their fishing vessels on high seas. The gold is stolen because by law all minerals under or on the ground are vested in our president for the people and for posterity.
When we started making noise about the conducts of the Chinese, one of their ambassadors warned us against accusing her people or we will be denied economic assistance and loan. Our leaders kept mute. Another ambassador told us that his country people do not know where our gold mines are, but we took them there so we must take the blame for the irresponsible and illegal mining the Chinese are encouraging our people to do. Our leaders kept mute.
The sad thing is, the Chinese may smuggle $3 billion worth of our gold out of the country every year and they do not compensate us let alone pay for it. When we go for $1 billion loan from China, it will take the proceeds from the sale of the gold they stole from us, and give it to us as loan with interest and other charges. And we are mandated to pay.
China’s approach to African nations is worse than what the West did to us. The West pilfered our resources, and China is also doing that. The West gives us loans, China is also doing that. When we default the West will not take over our resources but continue giving us more loans. But as for China, it will take over our very important resources and institutions in a new form of colonization. And many African countries have fallen victim to this.
It seems Ghana is soon going to be colonized by China. On October 11, 2024, Ghanaweb reported on its business page, that by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, the Chinese government would likely have access to our mineral and electricity revenues due to our failure to honour our loan agreement with China, which as at the end of 2022, stood at $1.9 billion.
Like seriously, after carefully executing a plot to offload its nationals into our forests to steal our gold, the Chinese are saying that today we owe them and must forfeit all our minerals and electricity to them. What about our gold they stole which all their ambassadors are aware of? They better go and collect their money from their people who came here to do galamsey, for the Chinese government will certainly know the culprits. Either that or we calculate how much gold was stolen by the Chinese and force China to payus the difference.
We were colonised before but this time we must join Asantes to fight any country attempting to colonize us.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle
