The Great Betrayal: How Africa’s Leadership Is Sabotaging the Continent from Within

There’s no easy way to say this: Africa is bleeding not from external wounds, but from internal betrayal. Our people are not poor because we lack resources, intellect, or innovation. We are poor because our leadership has failed us spectacularly, time and again. The image shared—simple as it seems—is a tragic mosaic of contradictions that should enrage every citizen of this continent. It is a mirror reflecting how nonsensical our policies are, how detached our leaders are from reason, and how urgent the call for change has become.

Angola spends $300 million importing milk from Portugal and New Zealand. Let that sink in. Portugal, a former colonial power, still earns from Africa centuries after drawing blood. New Zealand, tens of thousands of kilometers away, ships milk across oceans while South Africa, Angola’s regional neighbor, drowns in 3.3 billion liters of milk yearly. This is not a failure of markets; this is policy sabotage. If SADC were functioning as a true economic bloc, trade protocols would favor regional deals. But what we see is a failure of leadership that ignores proximity, logistics, and common sense.

And Mozambique—beautiful, fertile Mozambique—spends $94 million on wheat from Russia while Zambia, her neighbor, sits on a stockpile of 250,000 tons. This isn’t just illogical; it’s criminal. With food insecurity a reality for millions, prioritizing trade agreements with distant nations over regional solidarity shows how disconnected the political class is. Leaders prefer expensive, headline-making deals with global powers over humble cooperation with neighbors. Why? These deals are laced with kickbacks, commissions, and diplomatic favors.

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Zimbabwe imports over $30 million worth of chicken from Brazil. Meanwhile, just across the Limpopo, South Africa’s poultry industry is overstocked and underutilized. What is preventing a bilateral poultry supply chain? Corruption. Leaders benefit more from expensive foreign deals. This is not ignorance; it is willful economic sabotage. It’s a deliberate decision to keep African countries dependent and fragmented, no matter how high the cost to citizens.

Nigeria—Africa’s most populous nation—spends over $500 million annually importing tomato paste. Yet nearly half its locally grown tomatoes rot due to poor storage. This is scandalous. For a country with over 33% youth unemployment, why haven’t we invested in building processing plants, cold storage chains, and domestic value addition? Because leadership is not concerned with solving problems—it is concerned with enriching itself through imports.

Ivory Coast is the world’s top cocoa exporter, earning billions annually. Yet it imports chocolate at 3–5 times the price. Africa grows the raw material but buys back finished goods at inflated prices. Our leaders are fine with us remaining plantation economies—producers of raw exports for others to refine. Industrialization threatens the global order and domestic monopolies, and that’s why it’s stifled at the policy level. Leadership, both political and bureaucratic, keeps us stuck in the colonial loop.

Kenya, with its fertile soils and favorable climate, imports over $200 million worth of rice annually. Right next door, Tanzania has a surplus. Why hasn’t East African leadership streamlined a policy to balance these dynamics? Regional economic communities exist on paper, but in practice, they are empty shells. Political egos, trade restrictions, corruption, and a lack of vision have turned what should be a regional food corridor into an economic absurdity.

The Democratic Republic of Congo sits on the second-largest river system in the world. Yet it imports over $60 million worth of fish annually. With waters teeming with aquatic life, why can’t Congolese citizens eat their fish? Because no leadership has invested in fisheries, storage infrastructure, or regulatory systems. The rivers are either overexploited by foreign operators or underutilized due to weak governance.

Ethiopia, too, spends over $500 million yearly on tomato paste. Its farmers lose produce due to poor roads, market access, and logistics. Ethiopia imports processed food while drowning in fresh produce. This is what happens when governments invest more in arms than in agriculture. When ministers prefer import deals with China to investing in rural cold chains. When leaders don’t eat the food their people grow.

Ghana exports $6 billion in gold. That’s $500 million monthly. Yet it spends millions importing jewelry. Why don’t we process gold locally? Why don’t we have a world-class jewelry district in Accra? Because local value addition reduces the rent-seeking opportunities of export cartels. Our leaders have allowed foreign buyers to extract value and repatriate wealth, while we beg for loans and celebrate opening Western fast-food chains.

Malawi, in times of maize shortages, imports from distant lands while Zambia, literally next door, has a surplus. This is a leadership decision. It’s not that maize isn’t available; it’s that leaders don’t trust, respect, or care to prioritize African supply chains. It’s easier to take cuts from foreign contracts than to build reliable continental food networks.

In case you missed it, Angola features again—this time buying even more milk from Portugal and New Zealand. So much so that this one country’s import dependence drains hundreds of millions that could have built milk processing plants, training programs for dairy farmers, and regional supply chains. But instead, we enrich foreign farms while rural African youth migrate in search of nonexistent jobs.

And again, Mozambique and wheat. This duplication is not a mistake. It’s a pattern. A damning indictment of Africa’s ruling elite. How can leaders justify importing wheat from war-torn Russia instead of buying from Zambia, a fellow member of the SADC bloc? The numbers don’t lie—$167 million yearly is spent outside SADC on goods that can be sourced within it. This isn’t just wasteful—it is a betrayal.

If this isn’t a governance crisis, what is? Leaders fly to Europe to beg for aid while signing contracts to import what their neighbors have in surplus. They attend AU summits that produce lofty declarations, then return home and refuse to implement a single clause. They speak of Pan-Africanism while doing business with everyone except fellow Africans. They toast to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), then enforce border restrictions that choke trade.

We cannot afford to pretend anymore. The issue isn’t a lack of resources—it’s a lack of vision. It’s leadership that is allergic to self-sufficiency. Leadership that views economic sovereignty as a threat rather than a goal. Leadership thrives when the people are desperate, dependent, and distracted.

Change must come now—not through polite policy papers, but through civic pressure, accountability, and electoral revolution. We must elect leaders who trade African goods with Africans. Leaders who invest in infrastructure that connects rural farms to urban markets. Leaders who build processing industries, support SMEs, and prioritize intra-African trade.

We must raise citizens who ask the hard questions: Why are we importing what our neighbors grow? Why are we exporting what we can process? Why are our leaders negotiating with faraway powers while ignoring those across the border?

Until we do, the absurdity will continue. The hunger will persist. The youth will flee. And the wealth of our lands will keep enriching foreign powers.

Africa is not poor. Africa is poorly led.

And that must change now.

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