African inventors and innovators must come together to build a strong African Defense System (ADS). It is a political decision to make, and not a scientific one only because African inventors and innovators are ready to move in that direction! Indeed, Serigne Mactar Bâ (Senegal) and Kwadwo Safo (Ghana) are proving, with limited funds, that it is possible to manufacture military equipment in Africa. They are, therefore, demystifying the process leading to the manufacturing of military weapons. The Senegalese and Ghanaian governments should encourage these two innovators in their endeavor to help Africans manufacture her own weapons, instead of importing them systematically from the USA, Russia, the UK, France or China to name a few arms manufacturers.
Due to colonization and slavery, Africans have been conditioned to believe that they are unable to design and manufacture sophisticated equipment. In their imaginary, quite a lot of Africans are still convinced that they are inferior beings intellectually and scientifically. As the founder of kumatoo.com, I once posted on Facebook a picture of the first robots that regulate traffic in the world that were manufactured in the DRC (Congo-Kinshasa). An African reacted this way to the post: stop with science fiction. I then shared a video of how the robot was manufactured by Congolese engineers. And he then kept quiet. As a result, when Africans embark in the design and manufacturing of sophisticated weapons like armored vehicles, rockets or missiles, Africans are the first ones to believe that such endeavors cannot emanate from an African brain or simply that it won’t work.
Africans are inferiorizing themselves too much, thus unable to admit their inherent capacity to conceive and manufacture sophisticated equipment. This explains, in general, why African governments do not support their inventors and innovators because the leaders are still, in most cases consciously or unconsciously, mentally colonized. Consequently, these rulers are convinced that the solutions to African problems must always come from the outside.
It is with such a mentality (inferiority complex) that the African continent is not taking off economically, scientifically and industrially. While the Chinese, the Japanese or the Koreans trust and encourage their talents so that they find solutions to their problems, Africans are still convinced that only other races can invent or innovate in science and technology. If they keep on thinking this way, it is almost certain that this continent will not develop.
Africa underwent slavery because her children failed to defend her territory. They also underwent colonization for the same reason. The lesson to be drawn from history here is that those who invaded and subdued the African people had sophisticated weapons whereas Africans still used traditional weapons. Unless African rulers have a concerted approach regarding the defense of the African continent, unless they trust the African talent and ingenuity, unless they invest in military research and development, unless they stop thinking that only external forces can train African armies, unless Africans start being serious and organized militarily, this continent will still rely on external forces to fight “terrorists” and the like. And this is the surest way to remain colonized mentally and physically due to the presence of foreign armies on the African soil.
Locating and gathering African talents so as to serve a common cause in the defense industry, but not only, should then be one of Africa’s top priorities. Those who think the opposite may not have drawn strategic lessons from history, and are not seeing or understanding that Africa’s borders are, once again, tentatively being redrawn by some of the exogenous forces that colonized Africa in the past. The balkanization of some African countries seems to be one of their objectives so as to access African minerals at low cost. This is why African resources must be protected by Africans themselves, just like Russia or the US protect their territory without any external help. Unless African countries can demonstrate their ability to protect their territory, there will be no peace, especially in mineral rich countries.
