BRICS with China, Russia and India in the lead is and should be Africa’s first choice of technology transfer.
Reason number one is that the west doesn’t want advanced technologies in Africa or to other countries and has indicated that in its actions and technological war on China.
Two, Africa cannot afford western technologies, they are a liability, they come with so much maintenance cost that they break down after a period with no spare parts and the best you can get is debt burden, sanctions, and western arrogance and superiority complex from them.
Three, while president Xi-Jinping indicated in his speech at the 15th FOCAC in south Africa, “China, after reform and opening-up of over 30 years, now has the technology, equipment, professional and skilled personnel and capital needed to help Africa realize sustainable self-development. In particular, China has the strong political commitment to supporting Africa in achieving development and prosperity” which shows us that China has indicated its willingness to share technology with Africa, the same cannot be said of the west.
Since 1958 during President Kwame Nkrumah’s first visit to the United States as prime minister, he had unwaveringly expressed his desire to have the United States share its technology with Africa and Africa would share in the resources since this would help Africa to develop rapidly, the United States in their bigoted and racist approach ignored him at best and started to plot in removing him from power at worst until they achieved it. There is no interest in Sharing technology from this group.
Last but not least, African heads have to stop vacillating from west to east, they have to be clear about not only what specific continental projects they are working on, want to work on and want help in, and then be very clear about the possible partners on these projects.
There is a feeling that China wants Africa to Unite, this is from the gift of the 200-million-dollar AU headquarters gifted to Africa by China, to the 80-million-dollar African CDC all located in Ethiopia, which are all symbols of African Unity. The same cannot be said of the west after 600 years of exploitation of Africa’s resources. Not that we need them now.
Additionally, in one of his recent speeches, a Chinese top intellectual Prof. Zhang Weiwei, an author and former interpreter to former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping blatantly mentioned that Pan-Africanism is important if Africa wants to develop, the small countries are holding Africa back because you need the entire 1.4 billion people on the continent as a market.
©Kwame Gonza
