Africa is a land of great local and exportable opportunities
For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers. Proverbs 11:14
President Trump and sh**hole countries
At the outset, I move on the premise that Africa is the greatest and richest continent in the world; it has a variety of minerals ranging from gold, diamonds, silver, uranium, rubies and bauxite. It is also endowed with an array of a rich waterbed, rivers, lakes and water falls. East, West, North, South and Central African land scape are numeorus tourist attraction venues.
It has been two weeks since US President of the US (POTUS45) Donald James Trump, called African countries sh**holes and people from Haiti as all being infected with the HIV that causes AIDS.
The remarks were made in his furious reaction to immigration issues. Mr. Trump said he would rather have people from Norway migrate to the US than those from Africa and Haiti.
A snapshot of Norway that has gone viral on social media platforms, reveal that Norway has free healthcare, free college education, 30-hour work week, 6 weeks of yearly paid vacation, free child care, and a $16 per hour minimum wage, pay equity, free birth control, and strict gun control.
It appears this love is one-sided; no self-respecting Norwegian would desire to migrate to the US.
In the past 24 years, three US presidents traveled to Africa. This is POTUS42 William Jefferson Clinton and POTUS 43 George Walker Bush, and POTUS 44 Barack Hussein Obama II, all went to Africa several times during their presidencies.
While Clinton started development projects in numerous African and South America and Asian countries; George Bush created a program that provides treatment and free medicines for HIV and TB patients in Africa. This program was deemed good and worthy of continuation, so Barack Obama increased and continued it during his 8-year tenure as POTUS.
Apart from going overboard, off tangent and extremely uncalled for to lash out at African countries, when dealing with immigration to America. His comments are definitely and totally the sign of a ruler leading without counsel.
Senator Cory Booker’s iconic “I hurt” statement joins the many reactions to the unfortunate rash remarks, including calls for apologies from a variety of world and local leaders.
Waiting.
No apology has come, and train-wreck Trump presidency continues to cruise into one wreck after another. Instead in true Trumpian fashion, POTUS45 has moved on to other fish to fry.
Let us reassess opportunity gains and losses
Turning full circle to Botswana, land of the development-resistant Bushmen of “The Gods must be Crazy,” officials there had the audacity to ban Africa’s golden child, Prophet Bushiri – he of the 300,000 registered members, 27 mines in various parts of Africa, including South Africa and Zambia, with future mines to be opened in South Sudan, the Maravi Post Person of the Year, among other.
In November 2017, Maravi Post reported that prophet Bushiri visited South Sudan at the invitation of the government. During the trip the Prophet had finalized a U$200m deal with the South Sudanese Government projects.
In the MoU, signed by Malawi’s own son, Prophet Bushiri to make this multi-million-dollar investment in the mining industry and infrastructure is a great godsend to South Sudan and can be for any country willing and ready to open its doors for such an investment.
Closing the doors is not one of the ways to achieve this. The high Court in Gaborone is reported to have eased the ban and Prophet Bushiri entered Botswana and delivered his signature multi-thousand attendance open air service this past Sunday.
Two lessons were gleaned from this saga:
Touch not my anointed; No one throws stones at a bare fruit tree.
If I was president of any African country, desperate for aid money for development projects, I’s get out the red carpet and roll it out for this charismatic Diaspora, the man of God who is gifted with rolling out business ventures as easily as breathing.
Listed among the 10 prominent and 10 affluent Africans, it is surprising that countries in cash-strapped and western-aid-dependent Africa can choose to side-step or shun him altogether.
Then there’s this Fox News cable television highlight of a seemingly lucrative trade that has become a powerful economic activity in the USA; this is particularly in California and other states such as Washington State. This is the purchasing and selling of medical marijuana from Malawi.
The TV news item, showed a shelf full of Malawi grown marihuana, neatly labeled and in bold letters, proud flag carrier. Making millions of (not Malawi Kwacha) US dollars from medicinal marijuana, grown in Malawi.
But in Malawi, the same week the Fox news highlighted the medicinal shelf filled with Malawi marijuana, a local man was fined K300,000 for possessing Indian hemp (marijuana).
Again, a suggestion is mage to forex cash-strapped Malawi could invest in the growing of this medicinal commodity, purely for export purposes. Many states have legalized the use of medical marijuana.
It is time for Africa to help the US with the medicine it needs. And also help ourselves in forex-building ventures.