A keynote lecture was delivered by Professor Fulufhelo Netswera, Executive Dean, Faculty of Management Science, Durban University of Technology (DUT). The public lecture was delivered on 17 March 2024 at the ABUAD Hall; commemorating the hosting of the DUT delegation at Afe Babalola University, Nigeria.

• Introduction

I’d like to start by paying my respects to the Chancellor and Founder of ABUAD University, Aare Afe Babalola,CON, SAN. You have done a great job for Nigeria and continue to do a remarkable job for all Africans. You unite us in your various endeavours, and you let your generosity speak volumes. I also want to acknowledge your wife, Yeye Aare Modupe Babalola, for her involvement in making this university one of the greatest. It is already a great institution, and we can only hope that the sky will not even be the limit.

On behalf of DUT, I pay respect to the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Smaranda Olarinde, for warmly welcoming us and for your hands-on leadership. I wish many of our Vice-Chancellors across the continent would embody the dedication that you show to this sector and the society they serve.

And of course, I would like to pay homage to the King of Ado-Ekiti (Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe Aladesanmi III), who welcomed us yesterday. As you can see – I am adorned with the gown from the palace, courtesy of his majesty for making me his Ewi in court.

Fellow Africans, I believe it is appropriate that we exchange some intellectual thoughts about Africa, its place in global affairs, where Africa should be purposefully located, and the role Africa must play in shaping global affairs.

Indeed, over the years, Africa has been undermined, sidelined, forgotten and has not taken the mantle it rightfully deserves in global affairs. But the Africa of yesteryears is not the Africa of today.

The Africa of old was responsible for the construction of the Giza Pyramids. It built the greatest wall, larger even than the Great Wall of China, right here in Benin which many may not know because colonialists deliberately suppressed this history. The Africa of yesterday built the biggest empires on earth in Carthage and Mali where the richest man who ever walked the earth emerged – Mansa Musa.

As we begin, let us pay homage to the exceptional Nigerians who have made the country and the continent renowned across the world. Among them being Chinua Achebe whose works many of us read at primary and secondary schools especially Things Fall Apart. That story holds deep significance for Africans, and its meaning transcends generations.

We also honour Wole Soyinka, an outstanding scholar from this country. And we remember Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti-who, as many may not know was the only black African woman from the continent to win the USSR Vladimir Lenin Peace Prize in 1970, for her activism and her relentless fight for women’s rights.

We pay homage to her son, Fela Kuti-my personal icon, idol and inspirer. In honour of his legacy, I would love to perform a small rendition and I hope you’ll join me:

Zombie o, zombie (zombie o, zombie)
Zombie o, zombie (zombie o, zombie)
Zombie no go go, unless you tell ’em to go (zombie)
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell ’em to stop (zombie)
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell ’em to turn (zombie)
Zombie no go think, unless you tell ’em to think (zombie)

Thank you very much. And to my fellow South Africans-please familiarise yourselves with Fela Kuti’s works.

His messages are profound. They speak directly to the heart of this continent and its liberation. I engage with those messages daily to remind myself that I am African-the significance of this identity is something we must never forget.

2.0. Reclaiming Africa’s Agency

Too often, we forget who we are. That’s why we see ourselves rushing to Europe and across the world for our collaborations first—and only think of Africa and fellow Africans last. That must STOP if we are to take Africa into its rightful place in the future.

Africa’s challenges are countless, immense and multifaceted. I will fast forward to one of the most critical phases: the challenge of political emancipation-what I call Phase One.

Africa’s post-colonial political struggle was led by liberation icons across the continent, and it ushered in political systems we believed we owned; systems we thought we could account for. Among the leaders of that wave, we must appreciate Julius Nyerere, Patrice Emery Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Mohammed Ben Bella and many others.

But many may not truly understand the real reasons why Kwame Nkrumah was dethroned. Recent testimonies from the historic CIA agents reveal that it was his book, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism that got him dethroned. In that book-which I encourage you to study carefully—he explains why Africa’s post colony was another version of imperialism.

Yes, we may have achieved political independence, but we are still not the true architects of our future. Our destiny continues to be shaped by the global North and our former colonisers. And that must STOP – the future must be reclaimed.

3.0. Military Leadership and the Crisis of Democracy

The second wave of leadership in Africa came through military intervention. Driven by frustration—frustration with the limitations and failures of the initial liberation episodes. Military figures saw our states running in circles, stuck in cycles of underdevelopment and broken promises.

Discontented and disillusioned, many military leaders across the continent decided that enough was enough. They felt that independence had become meaningless without tangible economic progress of the citizenry.

Among them Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi, Thomas Sankara, and, of course a series of Nigeria’s own military rulers-Murtala Muhammed, Yakubu Gowon, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and others. Taking power from democratically elected governments, they believed that radical changes were necessary.

But this shift raised critical questions:

What does democracy mean for Africans today?

What has democracy done for us?

What benefits have we truly derived from it?

These are questions we must continue to ponder over and over until we begin to reshape our systems into ones that works for Africans, not against them. And as it is now common knowledge, those military leaders fell by the same sins of incumbency.

4.0. Economic Emancipation

The third and ongoing phase of the anti-imperialist struggle is economic emancipation. This may be the most critical of them all-perhaps even more important than the struggles fought with guns in the bush.

The anti-French sentiment currently sweeping through the Sahel is significant. Why? Because, to this day, 14 African countries-mostly in West Africa-continue to pay over 500 billion euros annually in COLONIAL TAX to the coffers of the French Treasury. This arrangement is a glaring symbol of neocolonial control, and it must STOP.

Yet, these intransigence, are so glaringly absent in the Agendas of both the African Union and the United Nations. That means, as Africans, we effectively feature nowhere on the global Agenda.

We must commend the few military leaders who have dared to reclaim sovereignty from Paris, attempting to place their nations’ futures back in their own hands. Take Burkina Faso, for example-despite international pushback, it is making real strides. Democracy or not, what our people need is development.

They need food. They need economic self-sufficiency – they need to restore their human dignity.

Meanwhile, in Eastern DRC, the final battles for economic emancipation are being waged. Massive multinational corporations—including tech giants like Apple—are looting the region’s immense mineral wealth, while millions of Congolese people wallow in abject poverty.

This should be our priority-ensuring that our continent’s resources serve the development of our own people, not the profit margins of foreign interests.

In South Africa, many of you may have heard of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)-a political formation with a bold Agenda. Despite the controversies surrounding the political party, the movement highlights a fundamental issue: land ownership and the quest to address the legacy of apartheid.

A group of conservative Afrikaners, who control over 70% of South African land, have even reported a democratically elected South African government to the American White House—accusing Africans of trying to “take our land.” Their land, they say; such notions are heartbreaking.

This issue has massive consequences. Africa is not in a position to defend itself—economically, politically, or militarily.

As the late Ali Mazrui observed, Africa does not produce what it eats, and does not eat what it produces.

Currently, Africa holds 60% of the world’s arable land. Yet, not long ago, we watched African presidents line up in Moscow, begging President Putin for grain produced in Russia and Ukraine. That moment should have humbled us—but also enraged us.

Africa has every potential to be the breadbasket of the world.

5.0. Rewriting the Terms of Engagement

I was particularly inspired by the response of Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso at that Russian summit of Africans. He stated that next time Africa meets with world leaders, it should be on equal footing—not begging, but offering value in exchange for fair trade.

That is the mindset we need across the continent.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki conducted a study showing that nearly $800 billion is siphoned out of Africa annually through illicit trade, mining deals by shady multinational operations. Imagine what $800 billion could do for us Africans:

• clean water across the continent.
• roads, bridges, and railways.
• education, innovation, and infrastructure.

Yet, this wealth is stolen-with the help of local collaborators. We must CALL THEM OUT. We must sideline those who enable post colonial looting and reclaim the destiny of this continent.

Even the African Union (AU) runs 60% of its operations on European Union grantss. That is unsustainable and furtherance of post-colonial enslavement. As the economist Dambisa Moyo wrote-“Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.” It help us NOT. It circles back to the donors and stunts our development.

6.0. What Is to Be Done?

The timeless and urgent question posed by Vladimir Lenin beckons: What is to be done?

Yes, Africa faces countless problems. But more critically, we lack bold and sustainable solutions – we lack decisive leadership whose obsession is the development of their nations and Africa itself.

Frantz Fanon, in Black Skin, White Masks, warned that many African leaders—even those we entrust most with power—do not lead for Africa. They lead to satisfy the interests of the post colonizers.

Mobutu Sese Seko and Ibrahim Babangida are prime examples—leaders who accumulated illicitly personal wealth in excess of FIVE BILLIONS of dollars. Not into Africa, but stashed in Switzerland, Europe generally, Panama, and all over the Western Hemisphere. Their priority – luxury villas and not the liberation or their people.

We must begin to think differently and run our affairs differently.

We must fight corruption, both political and economic.

We must challenge the Western corporations that continue to loot our resources—in the DRC, in South Africa, and across the continent.

My personal share of a recent experience:

Driving from northern KwaZulu-Natal back to Durban, I saw something deeply unsettling—over a thousand trucks lining to the Richards Bay port – hauling coal from our province of Mpumalanga to Europe.

I lost count after 900.

The obvious question struck me: If thousands of trucks are exporting our coal daily, what benefit do South Africans derive from export of this natural resource?

After digging deeper, I discovered the truth, only 29% of the profits go to the South African government in tax. The rest? Private individuals, often foreign owners of our mineral resources take a lion’s share.

Compare that to Saudi Arabia, where oil belongs to the state. Aramco, their national oil company, is one of the world’s largest and most profitable because they’ve taken ownership of their resources.

Why haven’t we done the same with our platinum, coal, gold, diamonds and coltan in Ghana, DRC and South Africa?

We could establish unparallelled SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS that secures our livelihoods and those of our future generations. But we’re too afraid-afraid of what Washington or any other West power might say. Afraid as we are for standing up for the Sahel against Paris.

7.0. Building Intra-African Strength and Self-Reliance

We should establish strong intra-African relations, both politically and economically. Only through unity can we build institutions that serve our common interests and drive genuine development.

The African Development Bank, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) are the vehicles through which we must unlock Africa’s vast potential.

Our universities, too, must play a central role in our development – practical education in collaboration to usher expertise that resolves our fundamental developmental challenges — African engineers, scientists, and thinkers building the continent with their own hands.

We must stop importing mega infrastructure projects from China, the USA, and Europe. If this outsourcing continues, then what’s the point with our universities in train engineers, architects, and planners?

We should build our own roads, our own bridges, and our own future.

Take the Inga Dam in the DRC, combine with the Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam – we have a blueprint for energy self-sufficiency in Africa.

We are not short of sunshine. Solar energy could revolutionize development across the continent. But for that to happen, we must STOP letting global powers, whether the USA, France, Russia, or China define our energy strategies and economic direction.

8.0. Conclusion: A Call to Commitment and Unity

Colleagues, let me bring this to a close, because I can see you’ve been seated for quite some time.

In me, you have a friend someone who believes in this continent, who believes in the African people. Because if we lose that belief, what else is there left?

Without it, we alienate ourselves from our roots, from our environment, from our identity, and ultimately from humanity itself.

As Karl Marx reflected, when individuals are estranged from themselves, their potential, they become powerless, and their relevance in society fades.

That is why today, we reaffirm the work that has been done by the Chancellor and Founder of this great university – Afe Babalola University. His contributions steer us away from alienation and give the entire continent a beacon of hope—right here in Ado-Ekiti.

The work we’ve started here should be admired and replicated across the continent.

As Professor Anwana and others said earlier, we hope this becomes one of the most premier partnerships for DUTand a flagship of running institutional cooperations in the continent. Together, we can upgrade all of your master’s graduates into doctoral scholars; turn them inside out, upside down into the scholars that Africa needs and deserve. Together, we can not only publish the critical relevant research done at this great institution but turn it into practical implementation.

Thank you for the afforded opportunity to speak with you.

Pictured: Prof Netswera delivering the guest lecture at Afe Babalola University last week in Nigeria.