Africa’s disunity vs Canada’s sagacious expenditure

AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. PHOTOS | FILE

What you need to know:

Organically, Africa was a single country that didn’t depend on donors for many centuries before its division. Again, after being divided; and later became politically independent, due to colonial carryovers, and partly, greenhorn founders and their myopic successors thereafter, Africa’s remains divided for its detriment.

The unification of Africa has always been an uphill task. Today, I’ll show how Africa in general loses a lot due to its colonial and post-colonial divisions and poor vision.

Organically, Africa was a single country that didn’t depend on donors for many centuries before its division. Again, after being divided; and later became politically independent, due to colonial carryovers, and partly, greenhorn founders and their myopic successors thereafter, Africa’s remains divided for its detriment. Aren’t African countries still blindly and crassly serving and servicing their colonial monsters’ ploy of weakening them by dividing them into minuscule; and rickety states? Is there any ever-dependent African country that’s truly independent?

In their division, African countries are on the line while in their unity they are supposed to be stronger. Why can’t they see that their perceived insecurity resulting from warmongering and fear mongering between; and among them result from the very tactic colonisers engineered and foresaw for perpetual exploitation?

The fear of the unknown, and of each other among African countries helps arms-producing countries to sell even more arms to Africans so that they either butcher one another or waste a lot of time and money on feeding such pseudo fears. If Africa were a single country as it used to be, the money currently spent on arms could boost its economy a great deal more than the aid it receives from its former colonial monsters. How many gunky armies does Africa have that have never fought anywhere; and if they did, they just did so against their neighbours; or were abusively used to intimidate citizens in such countries? How much money do African countries spend on arms geared by the mere fear of their neighbouring Africans?

Further, how much do African countries spend on maintaining embassies in other African states they’re not supposed to have any? All this money’s burnt because of disunity. Africa needs to blaze its trail by facing reality, the reunification.

Consider this then decide how much Africa loses to its division. To put it in the context, country X has 98 embassies abroad, including in African countries. In 2015, country X bought a $50 million apartment in New York to house its embassy to the UN. Suppose country X decides to build its own offices to house all embassies wherever it’s represented; which’s cheaper than renting. How much country X will burn pointlessly? This is a typical replica of many African countries. Multiply $50 million with all 50-odd African countries times over 50 years of independence times at least 20 embassies per country which is less than what it actually is. This means: many African countries burn money on the same to end up becoming poorer and poorer.

How many embassies do African countries have abroad and within Africa that’d be reduced through reunification? I can say: the amount the reunification of Africa can save’s anecdotally zillions of dollars. Add the money lost due to the lack of free movement in Africa.

Cogently, Canada avoided economic quandary and megalomania through uniting its provinces and territories to form one country. Compare Canada’s 2015/16 C$ 1.3tn. Take education for example. According to the Globe and Mail (January, 23, 2014), Canada spends C$ 9,000 a child. This is why providing a computers to all students isn’t a hoax just as it the case in Kenya when Jubilee promised a computer a child to end up offering hoo-has instead. Again, how much do EAC countries spend on education? Sub-Saharan Africa spends 5% of its GDP on education (politicafact.com, 7 Aug., 2014).

Further, according to the Forbes Magazine (October, 1, 2014) Kenya’s GDP was $1,246. This means: Kenya, hypothetically, spent approx., $62.3 a child. According to the countryeconomy.com (2015), Tanzania’s GDP was $931 or $46.55 a child and Uganda’s $676 or 33.8 a child in the same year. Compare the stats with Canada’s.

Again, how Canada’s been able to raise and spend such humongous amount of money with such a relatively small population of 36,741,055 as of 2017? It vigorously collects revenues, uses its resources wisely; and above all, Canadians work hard to develop their country not to mention taking on mega corruption pragmatically as opposed to the real situation in Africa.

The writer is a Tanzanian writer based in Canada