“EVERYONE SAYS AFRICA SHOULD FEED HERSELF.” SO WHY IS EVERYONE STILL EATING FROM HER TABLE?

“EVERYONE SAYS AFRICA SHOULD FEED HERSELF.” SO WHY IS EVERYONE STILL EATING FROM HER TABLE? Because too much of the world loves the idea of an Africa that is “developing” as long as that development never matures into real control. They praise self-sufficiency in speeches, but remain deeply comfortable with an arrangement in which Africa supplies the cocoa but not the chocolate, the crude but not the refinery, the cotton but not the textile empire, the lithium and cobalt but not the battery dominance, the land but not the full value of what that land can produce. In other words, they want Africa productive enough to keep the global system fed, but not powerful enough to own the kitchen.

That is the ugly truth behind the hypocrisy. The same powers that lecture us about governance, efficiency and modernization have spent generations structuring trade, finance, extraction and dependency in ways that keep African labor cheap, African raw materials accessible and African transformation limited. And yes, our own corrupt leaders and comprador elites have often helped set the table, signed the contracts and welcomed the looters to dinner. But the central insult remains: the world keeps telling Africa to feed herself while still treating Africa’s soil, minerals, rivers, labor and markets like a buffet for everyone else.

A continent cannot become truly nourished while outsiders keep reaching for the plate, pricing the harvest, owning the processing, controlling the shipping and lecturing the farmer at the same time. If Africa is ever going to feed herself in the deepest sense, then the table must stop being open season. We must protect the land, control the value chain, confront the collaborators, and finally ask with cold seriousness: if everyone claims to want African prosperity, why are so many still building their comfort on African consumption without African control?