Economist and businessman, Dr Kofi Amoah, has implored the new breed of African leaders to emulate the strategy of the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) in order to break away from the continent’s dependency on the west which has not yielded many benefits to Africa.
In an interview with www.ghanaweb.com, Dr Amoah said only a major paradigm shift would lift the continent from the despair and despondency that has become palpable amongst the youth in Ghana and Africa.
The Asian Tigers, according to Dr Amoah had fine trade and bilateral agreements with the west but ultimately the Asians only implemented what was in the best interest of their citizens. That is what he says has brought so much success to many of Asian countries.
“We must do what the Asian Tigers did to the West, agreeing with them verbally but doing what was good for them without arguments and debates… because if you tell them your true plans which may not be to their advantage, they will sabotage the plans.”
Dr Amoah who is affectionately called Citizen Kofi affirmed that “the west needs Africa’s cheap resources and open markets to succeed and progress further.
“It’s about time we change our mindsets to re-plan, re-focus and move ahead, yes we can.”
Dr Amoah has in the last couple of years fought against the insatiable appetite of African leaders to borrow from the west without investing those loans and grants into the establishment of jobs and wealth creation for the African youth.
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He said, the establishment of the IMFs, World Banks among others is part of a grand plan to maintain a stranglehold of Africa by the west.
“We then became beholden totally to the colonialists through:
1. World Bank/IMF Advisors
2. Loans, Grants and conditionalities
3. Membership into the WTO to open our borders to the West to dump their products on us and kill any opportunities to industrialize, depending on raw natural resources sold for cheap to their factories to produce and sell to us and the world at high prices, making them richer and richer.
Africa won’t get anywhere unless we reverse this “quietly” without announcing it at the mountain top.”
The aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war have left unspeakable hardship on many African countries forcing many leaders on the continent including Ghana to seek a bailout from the IMF.
Dr Amoah says only a concerted effort to unite and unify the African continent, harnessing the natural resources of the countries therein to create strong economies can bring real and meaningful economic progress.
“Africa’s pioneer leaders, the fighters for independence, were quite aware of this devious plan of the West to control our minds and resources to their advantage, especially those who attended the Panafrican Conference that established the determination and program for continental liberation.
It’s the second and third wave of African leaders, including the coup makers who removed the pioneers, that after tasting the largess of power and the sweet words of Western leaders like “we are development partners with you”, who succumbed and totally disbanded the plan to build our own strong economies from our natural resources and putting out people into employment… the cardinal first step of any program for economic and social development.”
