By Musa Muhammad Hadejia
The recently held Nairobi ‘’summit’’ concluded with an eleven-pillar declaration that are more of a renewed agenda for the French domination of the African continent in a subtle and tacit maneuver to control its resources and destiny – ably and blindly supported the African desperate leaders.
Fear, despair, blindness and vaulting ambitions are the key factors that seemed to inform the quick and bizarre attendance of the summit under the lead of France in the modern or renewed partnership. France has pledged 35 Billion Euros investment in Africa. For over 100 years, the relationship between France and its colonies has been that of master / servant relationship. The summit was captioned ‘’Africa Forward: Africa / France Partnerships for Innovation and Growth is said to aim at bringing together heads of businesses and leaders, and innovators to forge a new partnership built on ‘’equal ground’’.
The summit also captured the presence and voices of multi-sectoral participants with First Ladies, ministers, ambassadors, multilateral leaders, technology and civil society partners; along side the children and youth whose voices anchor the sessions. The summit was co-hosted by William Ruto of Kenya and Emmanuel Macron of the French Republic was the first of its kind that portrays Africa as partner in global ‘’progress’’.
The summit aims to demonstrate the African continent’s innovation capacity and affirm a shared commitment to developing common, mutually beneficial solutions based on effective multilateralism and a spirit of transformative partnership. However, African leaders have to be quite extra-cautious, as France has never been a trusted and sustainable partner in progress – alas, a partner in exploitative and debilitating policies that have never done even its former colonies such as Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso any good.
The summit is aimed at accelerating actionable solutions across key priority areas, that included but not limited to: peace and security, energy transformation and green industrialization, reform of international financial architecture, sustainable and value-added agriculture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Digital Transformation, Blue Economy, and then Health and sovereignty.
In the entire history of French brutal and merciless colonial escapades – there has never been a single of its colony that has seen the light of the day. France is now seemingly looking for bigger ‘’new preys’’ to entangle.
AS Macron meets with African leaders and investors, on the same vain, president Trump of the US met with XI Jianpin of China on a similar note. Can this be a coincidence?
It smells more of a rat that needs more reflections.
The summit is said to also aim at shared objectives of unlocking capital, scale innovation, deepen trade and investment linkages, and create inclusive growth pathways that are resilient, sustainable, and African-led.
France – trusted like a fox, has come again to those that do not see beyond their nose. Looking at the big picture is very critical in the current global survival dynamics.
The summit is a mixture of Franco-phone and Anglo-phone countries of Africa. A very interesting mixture of economic and political dynamics. France claims that, one of the strategic choices is in ensuring the private sector is the driving force behind the new momentum.
Africa Forward Summit thus, seems to have a larger objective or motives behind the screen. It is left for the African leaders to clearly scrutinize the real and behind the screen objectives so as to immunize and insulate their countries and citizens from the decades long devastating plunder and ravages of the Euro-American Zionist egocentric and thieving agenda.
Nigeria has participated, many other African countries have done so; and what remains to be seen is weather the renewed relations will surely meet President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda or otherwise. The deal has been made, and practical equitable implementations of the 35 Billion Euros French investment in Africa will surely be a step forward, or many more steps backward.
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