There are questions that history asks once, and there are questions that history keeps asking because humanity has failed to learn the answer. One of them is on ‘what happens when a people repeatedly surrender the interests of their own society to the interests of a privileged few; and more importantly – which is the greater evil: the slave trade, Africans who participated in it, or an African political elite that continues to undermine Africa’s development?’
The transatlantic slave trade was one of humanity’s greatest crimes. It commodified human beings, destroyed families, emptied communities and subjected millions to violence, forced labour and death. UNESCO describes slavery and the slave trade as among the gravest and longest-lasting crimes against humanity. The historical record also shows that African rulers, merchants and intermediaries participated in the capture and sale of other Africans, often in cooperation with European traders. That uncomfortable truth should neither be denied nor weaponised. The fact that some Africans participated in the slave trade does not absolve European and American slave traders, plantation owners, financiers, governments and institutions that created, expanded and profited enormously from the Atlantic system.
Perhaps, there is an even more uncomfortable question for our generation. If slavery was evil because one human being treated another human being as an instrument for private gain, what should we call it when, centuries later, African leaders and elites knowingly allow millions of our own citizens to remain trapped in poverty while public resources are diverted to private wealth, political patronage and unnecessary personal luxury?
The slave trader sold the body of another human being. The modern corrupt political elite may not sell a person but may sell the road that should connect her village to the hospital; sell the electricity that should power her factory; sell the public examination system that should educate her child; sell the public institution that should protect her rights; or sell the economic future of an entire generation through irresponsible borrowing, corruption and policy failure.
“There is nothing inherently wrong with importing foreign products or using foreign expertise. Japan, South Korea, China and other successful economies have imported technology, capital and knowledge. The difference is that they used external relationships to build internal productive capacity.”
The forms are different but the moral question is disturbingly similar. ‘What happens when human beings are reduced to instruments of private interest?’ Africa’s development statistics make this question impossible to ignore. The World Bank reported that in 2024, while Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 16 percent of the world’s population, it contained 67 percent of people living in extreme poverty. In April 2025, the Bank noted that although Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy was growing, real income per person was still expected to be about 2 percent below its 2015 peak, while the region struggled to create sufficient productive employment for its young population.
Why do we still have this kind of record in 2026? Africa’s continuing dependence on exporting what it has not processed and importing what it could increasingly produce is a reflection of Africans selling Africans. UN Trade and Development reported in 2025 that 95 of 143 developing economies remained commodity-dependent, with commodities accounting for more than 60 percent of merchandise exports. There is nothing inherently wrong with importing foreign products or using foreign expertise. Japan, South Korea, China and other successful economies have imported technology, capital and knowledge. The difference is that they used external relationships to build internal productive capacity.
You are selling millions of African children by sending your own kids to foreign universities and private schools while neglecting your own educational system; you are selling the health of every citizen, each time you seek foreign and private medical treatment while allowing public hospitals at home to deteriorate; you are selling our future, each time you fail to invest in scientific research and you use recent tech and engineering inventions; you are selling our continent, each time you corruptly enrich yourself and make corruption an institutional culture; and each time you fail to govern well, you are selling your country and its people.
The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators identify government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption among the central dimensions of governance, noting the relationship between inclusive, accountable institutions and stronger development outcomes.That is why the African development crisis cannot be solved merely by changing governments. We must change the culture of governance.
The African Development Bank estimated that Africa needs an additional $402.2 billion annually by 2030 to accelerate structural transformation, with transport infrastructure constituting the largest part of the financing gap, followed by education, energy and productivity-enhancing technologies. The question is not simply where will the money come from. It is more of what will we do with the money when it arrives? A billion-dollar development programme cannot compensate for a billion-dollar culture of waste.
Africa does not need another generation merely angry about slave trade, colonialism, and the global institutions. It needs a generation that understands history without becoming imprisoned by it; a generation that respects public institutions; pays taxes; rejects corruption even when corruption is convenient; values competence over connection; produces as much as it consumes; respects the dignity of labour; protects public property; demands accountability; and understands that constitutional government is not merely about elections but about the disciplined exercise and limitation of power. The ultimate measure of our generation will therefore not be how much wealth we accumulated, how many titles we acquired or how long we occupied political office. It will be whether we strengthened or weakened the institutions we inherited; whether we expanded or diminished human dignity; whether we created opportunities or captured them; and whether we handed the next generation a society more just, more productive and more humane than the one we received.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ekpa, Stanley Ekpa, Lawyer and Leadership Consultant, wrote via [email protected]
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