ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — If you listen to the African leaders addressing the U.N. General Assembly this year, the message is emphatic and unanimous: The continent is done being a victim of a post-World War II order. It is a global power in itself and must be partnered with — not sidelined.

Most of Africa has logged a lifetime of independence — roughly 60 years — and the continent of more than 1.3 billion people is more conscious of the challenges stifling its development. There’s also a new boldness that comes with the African Union’s G20 seat.

“We as Africa have come to the world, not to ask for alms, charity or handouts, but to work with the rest of the global community and give every human being in this world a decent chance of security and prosperity,” Kenyan President William Ruto said.

In recent years, Africa has been clear about its capacity to become a global power, from efforts to tackle climate change at home — such as the existential threat of climate change upending lives and livelihoods in the region, despite Africa contributing by far the least to global warming — to helping to foster peace elsewhere, like in Russia and Ukraine.

In his address, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo blamed Africa’s present-day challenges on “historical injustices” and called for reparations for the slave trade. President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said the continent is poised to “regain its position as a site of human progress” despite dealing with a “legacy of exploitation and subjugation.” Nigeria’s leader, Bola Tinubu, urged his peers to see the region not as “a problem to be avoided” but as “true friends and partners.”

“Africa is nothing less than the key to the world’s future,” said Tinubu, who leads a country that, by 2050, is forecast to become the third most populous in the world.

With the largest bloc of countries at the United Nations, it is understandable that African leaders increasingly demand a bigger voice in multilateral institutions, said Murithi Mutiga, program director for Africa at the Crisis Group. “Those calls will grow especially at a time when the continent is being courted by big powers amid growing geopolitical competition.”

A PARADOX, YET UNSTOPPABLE

On the U.N.’s sidelines, the African Development Bank mobilized some political and business leaders at an event tagged “Unstoppable Africa,” a phrase seen as reflective of the continent’s aspirations just days after the first-ever Africa Climate Summit called richer countries to keep their climate promises — and invest.

But with a young population set to double by 2050, Africa is the only rapidly growing region where its people are getting poorer and where some are celebrating the rampant takeover of their democratically elected governments by militaries.

“Africa is a paradox,” said Rashid Abdi, Horn of Africa/Gulf chief analyst at the Nairobi-based Sahan Research think tank. “It is not just a continent of dwindling hope, there are parts of Africa where we are seeing innovation, progressive thinking and very smart solutions.”

Abdi said the world is becoming more interested in Africa and how it contributes to current global challenges.

“There is definitely potential for Africa to be more assertive and to drive progressive and fairer change in the global system,” he said.

For Ghana’s Akufo-Addo, correcting an “unfair” world order must begin with the payment of reparations from the era during which an approximated 12.5 million people were enslaved, according to the often-referenced Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

“It is time to acknowledge openly that much of Europe and the United States have been built from the vast wealth harvested from the sweat, tears, blood and horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the centuries of colonial exploitation,” Akufo-Addo said.

A SEAT AT THE TABLE

The continent relies heavily on foreign aid for its development needs, receiving the largest share of total global aid, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Still, it continues to suffer from a global financial system that forces its countries to pay eight times more than the wealthiest European nations, resulting in surging debt that eats up what is left of dwindling government revenues.

In 2022, Africa’s total public debt reached $1.8 trillion, 40 times more than the 2022 budget of the continent’s largest country Nigeria, according to the U.N.’s agency for trade and development.

“Africa has no need for partnerships based on official development aid that is politically oriented and tantamount to organized charity,” President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo said. “Trickling subsidies filtered by the selfish interests of donors will certainly not allow for a real and effective rise of our continent.”

Tshisekedi’s country has the world’s largest reserves of cobalt and is also one of the largest producers of copper, both critical for clean energy transition.

What Africa needs instead, according to Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, is a more inclusive global financial system. In such a system, Nyusi said, Africans can participate as “a partner that has (a) lot to offer to the world and not only a warehouse that supplies cheap commodities to countries or international multinational corporations.”

The coronavirus pandemic laid bare how the challenges could be life-threatening: Officials were forced to confront that barely any drugs or vaccines were made on the continent, and that more solutions need to start at home.

CHALLENGES LIE AHEAD

Africa’s capacity is not only in its population but also its rich natural resources. However, speaking with a collective voice is stymied by national-focused, rather than regional, policies , said Ibrahim Mayaki, the African Union’s special envoy for food systems.

“The main obstacle to Africa’s development is its fragmentation in 50-plus countries,” said Mayaki at a New York event organized by the Africa Center think tank.

As African leaders spoke glowingly about the continent as a force on the global stage, some at home said the leaders must begin by delivering the dividends of democracy to their people.

In this richly endowed region, at least half of its 54 countries are among the 30 least developed in the world, according to the latest U.N. Human Development Index.

“People will respect you naturally if you’re doing well as a leader and they see your people are not suffering,” said Grace Agbu, a resident of Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. “You don’t beg people to respect or partner with you.”

In Nigeria, chronic corruption and bad governance have robbed millions of the benefits of being Africa’s largest economy.

And on the day Ghana’s Akufo-Addo demanded equal rights and justice for Africa in his address, police officers in his country were arresting dozens protesting the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

“If Africa wants to be taken seriously, its leaders need to address the serious challenges the continent confronts including preventable ones such as acute conflict in several parts of Africa and a wave of coups, some driven by despair among the population about a failure to deliver security and basic governance,” said the Crisis Group’s Mutiga.

Guinea’s military leader told the General Assembly the continent’s challenges sometimes have to be addressed by soldiers like him when elected presidents fail to do so. He took power after a 2021 coup.

“The era of the old Africa is over,” Col. Mamadi Doumbouya said. “This is the end of an unbalanced and unjust era where we had no say. It is time to take our proper place.”

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PARIS (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron announced Sunday that France will end its military presence in Niger and pull its ambassador out of the country as a result of the coup that removed the democratically elected president.

Niger’s junta said in response that the announcement signals a “new step towards the sovereignty” of the country.

“Imperialist and neo-colonialist forces are no longer welcome on our national territory. The new era of cooperation, based on mutual respect and sovereignty is already underway,” it said in a statement.

The announcement was a significant, if expected, blow to France’s policy in Africa, with French troops having had to pull out of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso in recent years after coups there. France had stationed thousands of troops in the Sahel region at the request of African leaders to fight Islamic extremist groups.

France has maintained some 1,500 troops in Niger since the July coup, and had repeatedly refused an order by the new junta for its ambassador to leave, saying that France didn’t recognize the coup leaders as legitimate.

But tensions had mounted in recent weeks between France and Niger, a former French colony, and Macron said recently that French diplomats were surviving on military rations as they holed up in the embassy.

Macron’s announcement came after the coup leaders issued a statement earlier Sunday that they were closing Niger’s airspace to French planes, commercial and military, so that the new leadership could “retake total control of its skies and its territory.″ The decision did not apply to other international aircraft.

Ali Sekou Ramadan, an aide to Niger’s deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, told The Associated Press that Bazoum requested that Macron withdraw the French ambassador, Sylvain Itte, “in order to reduce tension.”

In an interview with the France-2 and TF1 television networks, Macron said he spoke to Bazoum on Sunday and told him that “France has decided to bring back its ambassador, and in the coming hours our ambassador and several diplomats will return to France.”

He added, “And we will put an end to our military cooperation with the Niger authorities because they don’t want to fight against terrorism anymore.”

He said the troops would be gradually pulled out, likely by the end of the year, in coordination with the coup leaders ‘’because we want it to take place peacefully.”

He said France’s military presence was in response to a request from Niger’s government at the time. That military cooperation between France and Niger had been suspended since the coup, however. The junta leaders claimed Bazoum’s government wasn’t doing enough to protect the country from the insurgency.

The junta is now under sanctions by Western and regional African powers.

Insa Garba Saidou, a local activist who assists Niger’s new military rulers with their communications, said they would continue to monitor developments until the French ambassador leaves the country. He also demanded a clear deadline for the withdrawal of the French troops.

“This announcement from the French president announces the victory of the people of Niger. However, we are going to take it with a lot of reservation because I no longer believe in Mr. Macron,” said Saidou.

The junta in August gave the French ambassador 48 hours to leave. After the deadline expired without France recalling him, the coup leaders then revoked his diplomatic immunity.

In New York on Friday, the military government that seized power in Niger accused U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of obstructing the West African nation’s full participation at the U.N.’s annual meeting of world leaders in order to appease France and its allies.

Experts say that after repeated military interventions in its former colonies in recent decades, the era of France as Africa’s “gendarme” may finally be over, as the continent’s priorities shift.

Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow with the Clingendael Institute, a think tank, said the decision marks both an acceptance of a “harsh reality for France in the region and may possibly put some limits on the U.S. deployments in Niger, though as we have seen, the U.S. and France have not followed exactly the same positionings in Niger.”

Rida Lyammouri, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank, said Niger will feel the loss of French support in its fight against violent extremist groups.

“France has been a reliable partner providing support to its operations and Niger simply doesn’t have an alternative to fill this void by the French, at least in short and mid term,” Lyammouri said.

Macron last year withdrew French troops from Mali following tensions with the ruling junta after a 2020 coup, and more recently from Burkina Faso, for similar reasons. Both African countries had asked for the French forces to leave.

France also suspended military operations with Central African Republic, accusing its government of failing to stop a “massive” anti-French disinformation campaign.

• About
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Texas Guardian News

INTERNATIONAL GUARDIAN is the boldest and brightest issue-oriented international newspaper published in Houston, Texas. Strategically, it strives to promote private enterprise, support responsible government and advocate social justice.

Latest posts by Texas Guardian News (see all)

• At UN, African leaders say enough is enough: They must be partnered with, not sidelined - September 25, 2023
• Mark Meadows burned so many documents before leaving the White House - September 25, 2023
• President Macron says France will end its military presence in Niger, pull its ambassador after coup - September 25, 2023