Page 11 - Audacity Edition 2

Tony O. Elumelu

Africapitalism is a development model opportunity to be and we know that

that prioritizes our youth and creates they risk their lives as stoways.

hope for them. It is a bottom

up approach to development, an all- They cross the Mediterranean or at-

inclusive approach that brings develop- tempt to cross the Mediterranean on

ment to everyone. One that creates eco- canoes and you know the outcome,

nomic empowerment and one that cre- most of them die, they don’t even get

ates hope for the future. to the destination. Not only that, we

have also seen some of them trust Traf-

Poverty surrounds us in Africa. Our fickers, that traffickers will take them

youth, our youth need jobs, Plenty jobs. to the Promised Land or the land of

Our youth need hope, economic hope, milk and honey. But when they get

hope for a better tomorrow – plenty there, they are subjected to the worst

hope. There is so much uncertainty form of human degradation, human

about the future; we have seen extrem- evil and the so-called economic oppor-

ism, ethnic tension and social discontent tunities that drove their actions – they

on the rise. won’t get to experience it. Some of

them end up selling their organs to

In Africa, we have tried different devel- survive. We have seen the rise of hu-

opment approaches to deal with these is- man trafficking; we can’t just allow this

sues of poverty eradication, job creation to continue. This is not right. We can’t

and creating economic hope for our peo- look on without doing something.

ple. In fact, we know that we have not

made much progress. In some areas, we We saw the Arab spring and what

can even say that we have regressed as a led to it. It was a lesson

continent. Our development partners are
but unfortunately as a continent I
not left out; they too have tried to sup-
don’t think we learnt so much from
port us.
that lesson. In Africa, I say to peo-

ple and we have all heard it today,
Aid inflow into Africa in the past 10

years, is more than half a trillion dollars we have the most precious devel-

-$469 billion but we all know that pov- opment resource and that is people

erty remains unabated in Africa and the – our people are young. Our people

basic human development index has not are young, talented, energetic,

significantly changed. At times, the fu- hardworking and extremely enter-

ture looks so bleak that our young ones prising. Let us remind ourselves

are forced into migration, they want to
about the power of individuals.

go to where they perceive economic