President of the Republic, John Dramani Mahama has urged African leaders to leverage the continent’s rich natural resources for its own development.
He said Africa must break away from the historical trend of allowing foreign interests to exploit its wealth while citizens remain poor.
Speaking at the Executive Leadership Retreat in Ada on Thursday, April 24, Mr. Mahama said although colonial powers looted Africa’s resources in the past, the current situation is not much different under foreign companies.
“The time has come for Africa to unashamedly take advantage of the natural resource endowment that God has given us,” he declared.
He said during the colonial era, gold, diamonds, palm oil and other resources were taken out of the continent, and that trend has continued in modern times through economic control without political rule.
“They don’t need to bring a governor to sit here, But from wherever the colonial headquarters is, they control your resources and still derive the benefits as if they had colonized you,” he said, quoting Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
According to him, the excuse in the past was that Africa lacked the human resource, technology and capital to manage its wealth, adding that is no longer the case.
“Today, I think that in Africa, we’ve developed the core of human resource capable of also taking advantage of some of these resources. We have the technology and access to capital to do what the big conglomerates are doing,” stated the President.
