Scarcity is a necessity for innovation. Natural Resources create 'lazy prosperity'. Nations with either very little or nothing to dig up & export either descent into chaos or are forced to innovate & create good governance, its usually the latter (Singapore, S.Korea, Mauritius)

Natural Resources create stopgap measures for poverty. Instead of getting economic fundamentals right & investing in innovation, most African countries simply dig up more! It's far much 'easier' to mine gold, diamonds, oil & sell it raw for forex than to industrialize...

This is why most African nations aren't completely into chaos, the stopgap resources prevent this. Botswana got it right & to be fair, it only had diamonds with a small population & not that much tribalism. Rwanda is being forced to innovate too (little resources).

The 'richest' African countries: Nigeria, DRC, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Angola etc are some of the poorest places in the world. These countries have monster deposits of natural resources but horrible governance. They never improve because they have a mattress to fall on when it gets hard

Their governments simply mortgage their resources, rely on artisans to work the mines even harder & funnel out most of the forex receipts anyways. It can keep happening for generations actually. I called it 'lazy prosperity' because any idiot who takes power can continue it!

Their citizens also become very delusional in the process because resources are great propaganda! They can be used for political patronage, tribal conflict, extremism & nationalist policies. It's always about Western countries trying to steal our 'wonderful' resources, silly!

It doesn't take a disciplined government to base an economy heavily on mining exports. The US is truly a remarkable case study, like Norway too, you can't put a price on good governance, it just can't happen! Both of those nations have thus far escaped the resource dependence.

If Nigeria were to suddenly stop exporting oil, its political & economic system would collapse & its citizens faced with a choice for chaos or to work themselves out of that hole, there's nothing beneath the ground to soften the blow of their obvious poverty, no more illusions.

What's going to fund the militias, civil wars, rebels, oppressive militaries? Nothing has fvcked Africa more than its resources, or rather our ill discipline in handling them! If there's nothing to bribe citizens with, they will kick you out, no force if your military is broke