(Voice of Paul) – Is the international community of the Global North painstakingly interested in keeping the Global South economically subjugated? I have seen many videos on the internet where if people are asked to name the poorest country in the world, 90% of the time, people would mention Africa even though Africa is a combination of 54 countries and even though the poorest country is Burundi which is in Africa, a country should not be equated to a whole continent. That aside, poverty is a man-made problem that can be solved using basic economic principles.
If a country produces and consumes everything it needs by itself, the country would not need to import other products or services from other countries, which will make the country not to need US Dollars, or loans from institutions such as The World Bank, International Monetary Fund or The World Trade Organization – most of the loans which eventually drown those countries. Going back to the fact that local production and consumption is the only proven way to economic freedom, why is it that when an African country decides to rise above the shackles of the limiting economic burden placed on it, the powers in the Global North stand as a hindrance and tend to do everything possible to kid the economic lid on?
Nigeria with a staggering 220 million people does not own a National Airline even after several attempts by different regimes that have been in power since 1999. We cannot independently say that external forces have been behind this as well but somehow there are some pointers to them. Now, in all of these struggles, a Nigerian citizen decided to create an airline called Air Peace and many Nigerians including myself loved it but this economic milestone seemed to have infuriated some powers in the Global North. Since 1988, British Airways has been enjoying uninterrupted direct flights from and into Nigeria’s most industrious cities including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, and other places.
Now that Nigeria has an airline, just for the UK government to reciprocate the gesture of allowing Air Peace to fly into the UK’s busy airports, all the efforts have proven abortive and are evolving towards a diplomatic showdown between these two countries.
The economic implication of allowing Air Peace to fly into the UK’s busy airports will empower Nigerians to choose Air Peace over foreign airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic and then boost the revenue of Air Peace from Nigeria which will directly increase the GDP of Nigeria and arguably reduce the price of flight tickets for Nigeria. Additionally, revenues of for foreign players will nosedive. The airline industry is one area where Nigeria has been held economically hostage, the other one is the petrol refinery where Dangote who invested a whopping $19 Billion USD still had to import crude oil from the United States, even though Nigeria has the world’s 10th largest oil reserve.
Geopolitically, what could we say is wrong here? Is it a crime for African countries to be economically independent? Or Does becoming economically self-sufficient puncture the presumed Western economic powerhouse?