Africa: Rich but Poor

By Joseph Godson Amamoo

Why is Africa, the cradle of Mankind, the second largest and second most populous continent in the world, endowed with abundant natural and mineral resources, the poorest on our planet? Who or what are responsible for this sad situation? Are the colonialists alone to blame? What has been the input of Africans in bringing about this predicament?
Any viable and realistic solutions to the present and future daunting challenges or is the great continent consigned to decades of more deprivation ignorance, human misery and diseases?
These are some of the pertinent questions that the author has tried to grapple with. He attempts to make the case that it is quite feasible in fifty years for all countries in Africa to be at least in the middle income group if certain actions and programs are adopted. Some views in this book may be found distressing and uncomfortable but they are meant hopefully to assist move Africa forward, so that the great continent of Africa as soon as realistically possible stops being the beneficiary of external aid, largesse and compassion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514410301

Joseph Godson Amamoo

The author was born and educated in Ghana and went to England to study medicine, but failing to do so switched to Law. He subsequently worked as journalist and diplomat in London. He was appointed at the age of 28 Ghana’s first ambassador to Hungary and International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna Austria and at that time was the youngest ambassador in the world. He has worked in Ghana as a newspaper editor, government minister and finally endured 15 horrendous months as a political prisoner. In London he worked as the Race Equality Officer for borough of Hackney for 11 years before retirement. Taught for 5 years at Kennedy-King College in Chicago. He ended his public life as chairman of the state-owned diamond mine in Ghana, 2001-2009. He has 10 sons who live in Libraries, the Internet and bookstores. He has been married to an outstanding Irish woman for 52 years and they have two married daughters both barristers with 5 children between them. His interests are classical music, art galleries, museums, inter racial harmony and marriage, walking and boxing. Joseph Godson Amamoo has travelled extensively in Africa, Europe, USA, Saudi Arabia and India. He has been privileged to interact with many people of different races and social background throughout the world. He has won some local and international awards.

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Copyright © 2015 by Joseph Godson Amamoo.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015915685

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-1031-8

                Softcover        978-1-5144-1032-5

                eBook             978-1-5144-1030-1

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Rev. date: 12/29/2015

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Historical and External Causes of Ghana's Underdevelopment

Chapter 2 Internal Causes of Ghana's Condition of Underdevelopment

Chapter 3 Remedial Measures for Accelerated Development

Chapter 4 Changing the Mindset

Chapter 5 Fighting Corruption

Chapter 6 The Sacrifices That Need to Be Made by Africa

Chapter 7 The Puzzle of Africa: Poverty Surrounded by Immense Resources

Chapter 8 Africa and Nuclear Power

Chapter 9 The Urgent Need for African Union

Chapter 10 Accelerating the Development of Africa

Chapter 11 Conclusion

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Sources and Bibliography

Dedication

Dedicated to President Barack Obama, whose outstanding life and work, and historic achievements have given immense hope and inspiration to millions of people throughout the world, especially in Africa, the cradle of Mankind.

Preface

As an African, I have been puzzled for a long time why the continent that historians, geneticists, anthropologists, and archaeologists tell us is the cradle of mankind has for the past few centuries, certainly the past five, been engulfed by or mired in poverty, disease, and ignorance. Why has Africa, at best, stagnated or, at worst, retrogressed when others forged ahead?

The questions become more poignant when one considers the vast natural and mineral resources of the continent of Africa and the paucity of such God-endowed resources in the rest of the world.

Right from the beginning of this study, I ruled out as completely unscientific, irrational, and unacceptable the fascist and racist view that the past and current predicament and distressing state of Africa and Africans are due to the genetic inferiority of black people.

For the more I lived, studied, and worked with Caucasians (people of European ancestry), the more my conviction grew that racists were absolutely wrong and were only peddling self-serving ideologies and propaganda meant to buttress their own preconceived ideas. My views have been crystallized and solidified long before I read and reread the remarkable, insightful book, an international best seller, Guns, Germs, and Steel, by the world-famous white American anthropologist, geographer, and academic Jared Diamond. This unique book, which has sold millions throughout the world, needs to be read by all politicians, academics, and leaders involved in one way or another in understanding interracial relations. By using scientific evidence and data, Dr. Jared Diamond, a white American, delves deeply into the puzzle of why some races have developed and progressed far more than others have although they all started from the same base, as naked hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago.

Yet despite this stance of mine, I cannot but face the fact that the continent, with all its vast resources, remains the most underdeveloped in the world. Conventional wisdom suggests that this situation should not arise. It should rather be Africa that, all things considered, ought to be the most developed or at least one of the developed areas of the world.

Over at least five decades of talking with a lot of educated and uneducated Africans, both in Africa itself and outside, from the whole gamut of society, I have come to certain conclusions and views that I must place on record for posterity. I will not be at all surprised if many Africans find some of the views expressed here offensive and unacceptable.

If they think that such views should be swept under the carpet and not aired for fear of giving ammunition to white racists, then I submit that they are wrong. For it is only through preparedness and willingness to accept criticisms and corrections that the continent and its people will quickly evolve from the past and present shocking state of underdevelopment mentioned above.

To me, the person who offers constructive criticisms is a better and truer friend than the one who, seeing and knowing too well that his fellow human beings are mired in preventable poverty, disease, and abject deprivation, puts on a wry smile and tells them, Man, carry on. Don't change. You are doing just fine!

So any African who might be tempted to pontificate that parts of this work sound or read un-Ghanaian or un-African must reflect seriously on whether in their heart of hearts they want the African to progress or not. They have to ask themselves whether they want to see the African always going to the white man, cap in hand, for loans, grants, food, diverse forms of aid, and medicines or if they want the continent to take its rightful and deserved place at the table of the comity of nations.

I have made my stand clear and remain committed to it. For I believe that constructive and well-meant correction and criticism constitute the path to development and progress, not listening to highfalutin and hollow expressions of heartwarming praises and commendations from people, black or white, who, as members of the developed world, do not want others to move out of underdevelopment to join them. For they know that so long as they remain developed and continue to do so and the rest blithely carry on lagging behind, the case of some of them for racism (however warped and twisted) would superficially have some evidential validation.

As the Bible states, the lender and the borrower cannot be the same! And to add to this the racial dimension, in that the lender is invariably white and the borrower nonwhite.

Furthermore, postwar Germany, the largest, wealthiest, most populous, and most advanced country in Europe, has a little lesson to teach Africa. You go there, and you find that the most vociferous critics of the past, terrible wrongdoings are the modern young Germans. Numerous books, documentaries, movies, magazines, and radio and television programs are being produced by Germans to highlight what went wrong so that the cataclysmic past mistakes and errors are not ever repeated. They don't try to hide the past or feel uneasy to discuss it openly. Therein lies the route to progress and advancement for themselves and mankind.

Thus, it's out of this program of trenchant nationwide self-criticism and self-study that they have built one of the freest and most democratic states in the world. Germany is now and has been so for the past six decades, one of the few countries where a sitting head of state or government can be dragged to court, prosecuted, and tried for alleged or suspected wrongdoing. There is no question of waiting till the man or woman has left office, as is the case in many established democracies. If the alleged crimes were committed while in office, then the alleged perpetrator must, under their constitution, be tried while he or she is in office. And who can disagree with the Germans on their stance, considering the traumatic experiences of the past?

The views and opinions expressed in this work are from two sources. Primarily, they originate from my own studies, readings, and life experiences of the past six decades. Secondarily, they are views of others that have been processed through me over the years and have matured to become part and parcel of me. For it would be incorrect to state that my numerous contacts with various people of all races and diverse nationalities have not in any way affected or influenced me.

Although too many to record here, there are certain people that I simply cannot forget as I owe them so much. By interacting with them, I learned a lot. Whether they benefited in any way from these encounters, brief or long, is not for me to say.

Three countries have impacted chiefly on me. One is Ghana, my country of birth. The following need to be mentioned: Sheikh Ibrahim C. Quaye, a former government minister who has the longest prison record in Ghana. This outstanding man, resolute defender of democracy and of the socially deprived and a devout Muslim, finds it easy to interact with Christians, Jews, Hindus, and followers of traditional African religions. A good and devoted family man, he has, despite his long eleven and a half years of political imprisonment, been able to stabilize his life and educate his children, thanks to his indomitable, ever-loving wife, Hajia Salamatu, who stood by her man in his grave plight.

I take this opportunity to also thank my personal assistant, Kojo Marfo, a brilliant, educated young Ghanaian man who, although a qualified aerospace engineer, is very knowledgeable about the plight of Africa.

Captain Kwadwo A. Butah, a British-trained naval officer, has contributed enormously to the political life of his country. In spite of being arrested, tortured, and imprisoned by Ft. Lt. Jerry Rawlings in his revolution of June--September 1979, the captain, with a large heart and a big pinch of magnanimity and forgiveness, forgave his erstwhile tormentor and served commendably and successfully for some years in the Rawlings administration, 1982--2000. In all his travails and tribulations, his Welsh wife, ably assisted by their three children, never failed in her support of her husband. Unlike some white wives who found convenient and good excuses for divorce when their husbands were in political trouble and the going got tougher and tougher, Welsh-born Mrs. Glenda (née Chivers) Butah, to her credit, never gave up on her husband.

My Indian friend from Gujarat State, Akoliya Patel, my adopted Indian son, a wealthy, devout Hindu, has proved to be the most honest businessman that I have interacted with. He is a strict vegetarian, teetotal, and devoted family man. The way and manner that he has conducted himself in Ghana and run his diamond/gold business are examples to many foreign investors. For many of them, in their enthusiasm to maximize profits, sometimes easily forget that at the end of the day, the local man, however poor and shabby his appearance, as the owner of the land, calls the last shot. Akoliya Patel's remarkable business success, moral considerations apart, lies in the fact that he has never underestimated the intelligence of the African.

Ken Potter, an African American diamond merchant who put his money where his mouth is by investing in Ghana, deserves appropriate mention. For distressed about the fact that the country with some of the largest diamond deposits in Africa has for centuries been exporting raw diamonds to Europe without adding value to them locally, he set up the first diamond-cutting-and-polishing factory in Ghana and the rest of West Africa. Sadly, this great and noble project got engulfed and destroyed in complex, protracted court proceedings.

I have interacted over the years with many ambassadors in Ghana. While not in the position to evaluate or assess their work, which is the privilege of the political and administrative bosses that sent them out, I must record here for posterity that the following envoys, from my dealings with them, demonstrated a remarkable commitment to the work and understanding of the vital importance in the existence of close diplomatic and trade relations between their countries and Ghana and Africa.

The following are from India: Ambassador (High Commissioner) Rajesh Prasad, later deputy high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and his successor, High Commissioner Mrs. Ruchi Ghanashyam, a charming hostess.

From the UK are Gordon Wetherell and his predecessor, Dr. Pullen, who, together with his wife, to their eternal credit and honor, adopted two orphan Ghanaian boys, thus giving them an education few in the world ever get. There is also Ambassador Nick Westcott. friendly and supportive.

It is right and appropriate to record that the most popular among these, who left a lasting impression on many Ghanaians, is Gordon Wetherell. Traveling to remote corners of the land, influencing and persuading people on behalf of Great Britain, frequently accompanied by his charming and beautiful wife, he epitomized the proverbial Englishman---suave, courteous, and sophisticated, with immaculate manners. I cannot forget the readiness with which he accepted my invitation to visit the state-owned Akwatia diamond mine, of which I was the chairman at the time (2004). Accompanied by his wife and daughter, he visited the various sections of the mine and talked with not only the managers but also the miners. The noble representative of Great Britain and his family were so distressed with the deplorable and deteriorating state of the hospital that he made a large donation to it for its improvement and the purchase of essential items, like oxygen equipment and cylinders, bed linen, and other necessary items.

To cap it all, Gordon Wetherell, before the end of his tenure of office, one hot, steamy Saturday, organized and led his staff, both black and white, in a major cleanup of the Osu Children's Home in Accra. This was after previous visits during which, on behalf of Britain, he made a financial contribution to the home. The man was indeed a great asset to the British foreign service, his country, and his people.

I'm heavily indebted to Diana Sitek of Minneapolis, U.S.A for generously and carefully checking my work and considerably improving it. A very remarkable woman I cannot thank her enough.

The Xlibris editorial team, led by Richard Dunn, did a good and professional job for which I am grateful.

From the bottom of my heart I express my gratitude to Maria Margaretta of North London for carefully and quickly typing all the corrections.

As always Breid, my dear wife, advisor and companion for over 52 years has given me invaluable assistance and help in this project.

Japan's contribution has been Dr. Mrs. Kazuko Asai. This outstanding lady, a lawyer by profession, was not only a family friend of my wife and mine but was also able, during her tenure in Ghana, to cancel a billion dollars owed to her country. Additionally, she gave millions of dollars in aid, grants, and loans to Ghana. Many roads, village clinics, libraries, hospital wards, schools, public toilets, and wells all bear loud testimony to the excellent magnanimity and generosity of this outstanding representative of Japan. That she left the country showered with awards and honors is a little indication of the great appreciation by the people of Ghana for all that the people and government of Japan had done for them.

Worthy of note is Darren Schemmer from Canada, who, with his wife, adopted a black orphan boy whose public behavior could tax the patience of Job. Dr. Marius Haas of Germany and his Burmese wife were, to me, a good resource and a shining example of biracial marriage and coexistence.

My interactions and conversations with ambassadors Mary Yates, Pamela Bridgewater, and Donald Teitelbaum of the United States of America have been beneficial to me. These three envoys projected the image of the only superpower left on earth magnificently, without arrogance or intimidation. They were successful at influencing people and making friends for their country. Naturally, the fact that Ambassador Bridgewater was an African American, whose ancestors had left West Africa forcibly five centuries earlier, was of considerable interest to Ghanaians. All three ambassadors left Ghana with local honors befitting their work for their country and Ghana.

During the five years that we lived in America, I gained a lot from knowing and talking with the following: Congressman Danny K. Davis, Congressman Bobby Rush, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dr. Arnold Bickham, Rev. Michael Jenkins, Judge Dorothy Jones, Dr. Cordus Easington, an outstanding African American physician with a profound knowledge of Africa, and Mary Swopes, the founder and chairperson of the Black Heritage Foundation. Although I never interacted in person with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, I treasure immensely his personal letter of thanks to me for my election campaign services to him when my wife and I lived in Chicago.

Great Britain has been an invaluable resource center for me. From there during my association for over six decades, I have gotten to know and learn from many wise and intelligent people. My expression of immense gratitude here is the least that I can do for all the benefits, tangible and intangible, that I have derived from them.

The list begins with Hon. Edward George Adeane. At a time when racism was part and parcel of everyday life in Europe and America, condoned or connived at by even high religious leaders, this scion of one of the greatest families in the nation invited me while we were dining at the Middle Temple to his home at St. James's Palace, London. This began a long and true friendship that has lasted decades. His wide knowledge and vast experience as a barrister, investment banker, and highly respected gentleman in the highest echelons of British society have been of immense benefit to me. In grateful appreciation of all that he has done for my family, I invited him to speak on the wedding of my younger daughter, Suzy, at Westminster Abbey, London, on my behalf as the father of the bride on July 4, 1992. The memorable speech that he made was hugely symbolic and important. For it, inter alia, showed that white and black people can coexist if there is the will to do so. As the 85 percent of the world's population of seven billion who are not white continue to better organize their societies and become better educated and more industrialized like the advanced nations, the developed nations will increasingly need white people like Edward Adeane as official and unofficial ambassadors and as geopolitical bridge-builders between the black and white races and countries. His great and outstanding but quiet contributions toward interracial harmony easily atone or make up for the awful, bigoted, and shortsighted antics, behaviors, statements, and books by millions of Caucasians who are blithely unaware that the world is changing fast. For I firmly believe that with the defeat and collapse of fascism, next communism, and last apartheid, the major international issue on the horizon will be racism. Unavoidably and soon, in a matter of a few decades, the majority of the world's population, namely, Asians and Africans, will demand that the minority accord the majority their due role and position in the international community and their fair share of the world's exploited wealth and resources.

I cannot forget the warm hospitality and help that was given to me by the BBC television engineer Mr. Fred Paddock and his graceful wife, Phil, when I went to their home in Golders Green, London, to buy it. Her telephone call to her husband:

Darling Paddy, there is a young African gentleman here to see the house, and he has written a book!

They kindly took me into their home, treated me like their own son. For the five months that I stayed with them, they looked after me like an honored guest, leaving me many items of furniture and furnishings when they left after my purchase of the house.

This began a long and lasting friendship. The way and manner that the Paddocks interacted with me should be contrasted with the unabashed prevailing overt and covert racism in Britain at that time.

Billboard and window notices such as Room to let: no blacks, only white gents were quite common. Some landlords or landladies in their proracism exuberance and zeal went even further by adding No Jews, no Irish.

The chance for a young African immigrant in London to meet some of the high-and-mighty in Great Britain was the result of a television encounter in Manchester, when my first book, The New Ghana, was published in March 1958. For being interviewed with me was a most charming lady whose travelogue on West Africa had then just been published. I learned that she was Mrs. Naomi Mitchison, a very famous and internationally acclaimed author. Her husband had been a cabinet minister (secretary) in the Labour government who had just left office after his election defeat.

After the television program, she kindly invited me to her home in Argyllshire in Scotland. At that moment, I had no idea of what was in store for me.

So for the next twelve or so days, I had the unique opportunity at Easter 1958, as the only African among the group of ten adults and six children, to dine and wine with some men and women who, a few months earlier, were governing the country as members of the ruling Labour (Democratic) Party government. The highbrow table talk and the whole ambiance of the large and grand country home called Carradale House, with its contingent of loyal household staff and tenant farmers, left an indelible impression on my mind as a young foreigner. Till that visit, I had never been treated by white people on an equal footing, an experience common to many black people and not at all unique to me.

This Easter visit was memorable to me in many ways. One, I met a bright and beautiful young girl (the stepdaughter of a famous statesman and television personality. Although we were mutually attracted, as I was thirteen years her senior, I felt it unwise to pursue the relationship. Years later, during my life in Britain, I was amazed and tickled to bits to read of men marrying women twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years their junior. So the old saying that Love is blind has some merit!

Two, one of the guests at the Easter party became a prime minister of Britain, and the other a cabinet minister, with responsibility for foreign and commonwealth affairs.

Three, I found out that the better educated, secure, and self-assured white people are not racist, or at least do their best to curb such propensity.

Four, that education, not race, is the key to social or national advancement and progress. Five, that democracy is the panacea for the world's economic and political troubles and challenges.

The opportunity that I had to engage in conversations with Lord Julian Grenfell and Bill Kirkman has been invaluable to me. The former, after a long and remarkable career with the World Bank in Washington, DC, became a highly respected deputy speaker of the House of Lords (akin to the US Senate), and Bill Kirkman, following a meritorious service in the media and British intelligence, ended up with a prominent position in academia. To these friends of mine and others, I take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude.

I have in this work given considerable prominence to Ghana for the following reasons. First, using it as a microcosm of Africa, I have found that its colonial history, background, natural and mineral resources are similar to those of many other African state. Two, all the African countries face the same or identical developmental or economic and social challenges. Three, talking with many educated African, I find that they all offer identical solutions to the continent's problems. Thus, an understanding or appreciation of Ghana's problems go a very long way towards a proper insight into the paradox of why Africa blessed with abundant resources, is mired in deep poverty deprivation and gross underdevelopment.

I have deliberately left out the names of the many kind women who have helped me with advice, information and constructive criticisms. For I did not want in my old age an irate husband or partner descending on me in sound and fury.

Introduction

This work is premised on the facts that, one, Ghana's past and current state of underdevelopment cannot be justified in view of the vast natural and mineral resources of the country. The huge resources of the continent bely Africa's poor and backward status. This being my contention, I firmly believe that a meaningful discourse has to start with some of the known and established facts, data, and information on both Ghana and Africa. For the view has been bandied about for far too long by foreigners that Ghana and Africa are poor that this misconception appears to have gained the status of established conventional fact. So it is necessary that we begin these reflections on Ghana and Africa with some known facts.

Ghana is a relatively small country of about twenty-five million people. This figure may be on the low side as in many remote areas, some people refuse or are unwilling to be counted. This is in spite of a comprehensive nationwide campaign by the office of national statistics in Accra.

The suspicion about census participation dates back to the colonial era, when the country was a British colony and the counting of households was associated with the poll tax, a very unpopular tax in Ghana at the time. The difficulties involved in reaching deep recesses of the country where about 65 percent of the people live, plus the fact that even in the major towns and cities, some roads and streets are still unnamed and unnumbered, also buttress the view that the official population figure is certainly lower than the true figure.

Land

Situated on the West African coast and wedged between Togo on the east, Ivory Coast on the west, and Burkina Faso on the north, Ghana has the Gulf of Guinea as its southern border. The country is on the zero longitude, close to the equator with an area of 92,100 square miles, about that of the United Kingdom (population---sixty-three million). Ghana is considerably underpopulated. In other words, there is a large room for expansion.

About 58 percent of the total land area of twenty-three hectares is suitable for cultivation, and of this, only about 40 percent is under active cultivation.

Climate

Being in the tropical zone and lying only about five hundred miles north of the equator, Ghana has a hot and dry climate, with temperatures between twenty-one and thirty-two degrees centigrade. The hottest period is during the harmattan season (November--January), when the hot, dry, sandy wind from the Sahara Desert blows south from the largest desert in the world. Rainfall is in two seasons, March to July and September to October, when the rains making the weather cooler temper the harshness of the weather.

Vegetation

The south is mostly tropical forest, while the north is dry savanna land. The coast is generally thicket mixed with savanna.

Topography

The country is not mountainous but has some elevated peaks in the middle, north, and east. On the whole, Ghana is a flatland.

Historical Background

It is speculated, in the absence of hard facts and data, that the people of Ghana have been on the land since 1000 BC, having migrated there from the east of Africa, the location of the earliest human beings.

Although definitive relations between Europeans and Africans on the west coast of Africa can be traced to the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese built a castle at a village that they called Elmina (the mine of gold), the Phoenicians are known to have traded with the west coast of Africa from as far back as 50 BC. But it was the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Prussians,