Dear Africa. Minerals are raw materials, not wealth. A thread
Kioko Mwitiki @KMwitiki is a trailblazing artist who makes amazing sculptures with scrap metal— he literary invented the genre. He is featured here:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-art/kenyan-sculptor-turns-scrap-metal-into-art-with-a-message-idUSKBN20115Q
and his website: …https://kioko-mwitiki-art-gallery.business.site 

Suppose Kioko buys scrap metal for Sh1000 ($10) makes piece he prices at Sh1,000,000 ($10,000)? On finding this out, should the scrap metal dealer turn around, point to Kioko and scream exploitation,

yet he sold scrap of equal value that was turned into karai (woks) and jikos (braziers) worth Sh5000. Should Kioko pay more because his product is more valuable? Yet Africa’s leaders -the hollow men- and lazy intellectuals are inciting young people that we are being exploited.

Young Africans. Here is the low down. Knowledge will make a nation prosperous, minerals or no minerals (Switzerland, Singapore, Japan) Switzerland got rich making watches with other people’s steel. Should Switzerland have paid more for steel than the makers of cutlery?

Minerals without knowledge can never make a nation prosperous, but they can, and do keep nations and people poor and miserable. They corrupt, cause Dutch disease (destroying productive sectors), sustain dictators, and fuel wars

Moreover, Africa is not mineral rich. Excluding four countries (Angola,DRC, Nigeria, SA) SSA is the world’s most mineral poor region. If Africa withheld all its minerals from world market, prices would go up by 5 - 10 % for a bit, go back to normal, and life would go on.

So why are African leaders obsessed with minerals, even in mineral poor countries? Simple. They get cuts from mining. Governments get easy cash to sustain elites ostentatious lifestyles. No thinking, no work required. Even people are not needed as mining requires little labour.

The only investment that creates wealth is knowledge. How much value could the scrap dealer add to earn more from Kioko? Its time to show hollow men the red card. As we say here in Kenya, ni hayo tu (that is all).