Eddie Cross
As someone who has lived through all of these stages in our continent’s history, I am one of the few who know how far we have come but also how much remains to be done.
On the 25th of June, Mozambique celebrated 50 years of Independence. I first visited Mozambique in 1987 and found a country at war with itself, total devastation, starving people, smashed infrastructure. The Portuguese had withdrawn in a matter of months after Independence in June 1975. Leaving behind a country without an educated elite, one University, very few schools and an economy that had been systematically looted.
Today Mozambique is totally transformed – clean modern Cities, strong institutions, and a democracy that although flawed, works and yields a government that operates effectively. The changes are extraordinary but after 50 years, the new generation does not appreciate what has been achieved and there is a lot of discontent among younger people. I hope that the new leadership now taking over, drawn from the post-Independence generation, will bring more change and meet expectations, but they need all the help they can get.
Last week I transited through Adis Abba airport on my way to Nigeria. Remember Ethiopia and “We are the World” raising money for a terrible drought which killed thousands. Remember the images of children who were walking skeletons. They were seared into the memories of the world. But that’s not what I saw in Adis – Ethiopian Airways is the largest airline in Africa, the airport rivals Dubai and South Africa. At midnight when I passed through, thousands of passengers were arriving and leaving for every corner of the world.
Flying in over the Capital City I saw a well laid out modern City which is the Capital of Africa as it hosts the African Union. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it has a Christian Head of State and hunger is a memory. The crew in my plane was Ethiopian and competent, the aircraft clean and new and it carried nearly 500 passengers. I found myself wanting to come back and visit the country. I have Ethiopian friends in Harare and know that security is still a problem, but the changes in a short time, from what was to what it is today is also extraordinary.
It reminded me of an incident back in 1974 when Ndabaningi Sithole was released from detention after 10 years in Wha Wha Prison outside Gweru. During his detention he had not been able to witness the progress being made in the Independent States of the North. He had been astonished when he was released and driven to Harare airport to be flown to Lusaka in the Zambian Presidents executive jet. What he could not believe was that the crew was young and black. When he came home, he attended a meeting where I was in attendance, and he was asked by an older man in the audience “what does a young man need to become a pilot”. His response was brilliant, he said “Old man, he needs Independence”.
He was right, unfortunately – until Africans governed and managed their own States, they could not expect to secure the opportunities they had been denied in decades of colonial occupation. Of course, they have made mistakes but when I travel around the continent the progress is remarkable. The biggest change that is least appreciated is dignity and pride. In Abuja, the capital of our largest African State, I attended the annual general meeting of an African Bank – Afrexim Bank of Cairo. Formed by African States as a multilateral bank it has grown into a continental Bank with branches in all 54 States and of the island States off the US coast and settled by African slaves and migrants.
It is led by Africans; it serves African clients and sitting in that hall with dozens of State Presidents and thousands of clients and corporate and national representatives, I watched the Vice President of the bank sign agreements for loans amounting to US$5 billion. I was one of the Executives there to sign a deal with the bank for a power station and involving millions of dollars. It was deeply moving, because my country has been under US sanctions for 23 years which deny us finance provided by the global multilateral financial institutions. But here I was among fellow Africans, and they supported this loan without question, only “would it make money, would it pay us back with a margin?”
The meetings started on the second day with a presentation by an executive from Singapore. He opened his talk with the statement “The West is dead!” He closed his talk with another terse statement “Africa, do not expect anything from anyone, the new world is a cruel place!” His thesis was that the old-world order has gone – the western States who in the 19th Century had controlled the world, were now rich and slow. Consumers rather than producers. The ethics and beliefs that had made them generous to the point of sacrifice – rebuilding the world after two World Wars, granting open access to their markets for the newly emerging States including China and providing funds to the poorer countries for food and social services, was gone.
The East was rising – Chinese GDP grown 130 times in 50 years, the fastest transformation in history – starting in 1975 with 70 per cent of its population classified as absolutely poor and in 25 years able to say that no Chinese family went to bed hungry. Now a middle-income State with the second largest economy in the world. The Asean countries now exhibiting all the features of China – rapid growth, export and technology driven. But these countries were not like the West in the past, they were aggressively pursuing their own interests.
He described Africa as the next rising power. A continent with 1,4 billion people. A young population with the majority of the globe’s resources under their feet. Now the fastest growing continent in the world, potentially another giant, in a world of giants competing for space and opportunity. His emphasis was that we were on our own, we could not expect help in any real help from anyone, we had to make the future ourselves. The world was a cruel place he said, taking what it wanted when it could. Denying opportunity in the face of competition. We were on our own. We have always been on our own – but Afrexim Bank shows what we can do when we work together.
Eddie Cross
Harare 4th July 2025
Post published in: Featured