Trump's declaration that he is stopping US aid to Africa has caught many unawares

There was a glint of delight in his eyes as he took a deep bite into the drumstick. With his fingers, he swept clean the remaining gravy with the piece of chapati. Slowly, gently, he placed it in his mouth and began to chew.

I watched him gulp a mug of water. With a loud burp he said: “My son, I didn’t know five shillings was a lot.” Tears welled in my eyes. I struggled to control my rage. I wanted to strike him, but he was my father. He left me hungry and penniless.

Years later, my father watched me with a warm smile as my fingers flew across the typewriter. Now a practicing journalist in Kisumu. We were covering the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the February 1990 murder of Dr Robert John Ouko.

“You see my son, if I hadn’t been tough, you wouldn’t have turned out this well” said my father who had dropped by the office. 

My father had done to me what US President Donald Trump has done to African countries; threw me into the deep sea. I was angry and bitter. I resented him. Now, I realise how precious ‘the ruthlessness’ was. I imbibed critical life lessons after he brutally unplugged me from the socket of dependency.

When Trump announced the ‘demise’ of the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid), Africa went into panic. Many foresee doom for millions living with HIV/Aids who rely on World Health Organisation (WHO), and Usaid programmes.  

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Trump just did Kenya and Africa a great favour. Despite the pain, agony and frustration to millions, Africa can finally break away from slavery and dependability. 

My childhood encounter made me reflect upon the history of Africa, the White race, humanity, slave trade and colonialism. I peered into relief and economic aid. Does Africa, rich in human and natural resources, need aid from the West? The answer is No! 

In 24 years, Usaid has injected into Kenya Sh1 trillion in funding. The money went to fighting HIV/Aids, maternal and child health, family planning, emergency response to drought, floods and food insecurity. Trump’s action will create a gap of Sh28 billion in the funding of HIV treatment and care services.

Trump has always stirred white supremacism. In 2018, during a meeting with bipartisan group of senators at the White House, he referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”.  

The US might have abolished slavery and tasted the civil rights fire, but it teems with genes of racial discrimination. Africa must seek creative, domestic solutions to grow.  

Trump’s treatment of the Black race runs in the white system. Former foreign affairs minister of South Africa, Grace Naledi Mandisa says: “If you look at a lot of the world’s problems, there is a common denominator related to the chaotic and complex problems that we experience today. And that common denominator is Europe and the United States of America.”

The US and Europe created and sponsored chaos and bloodshed throughout Africa. The CIA, says Naledi, supported Unita in Angola to fight the liberation movement “so that Apartheid continues to reign supreme. It was in Mozambique that intelligence agencies created, financed and armed Renamo…to fight us because for them South Africa was a white island of privilege that they wanted to preserve”.

The Covid-19 pandemic should have been our wake-up call. The West failed to initially promote a global pandemic response cooperation. Hit with panic waves, African countries grappled for vaccines. 

US politician Bernie Sanders, accuses Trump and Elon Musk of perpetuating an oligarchic agenda where “billionaires dominate not only our politics and the information we consume from the media but our government and lives as well” Sanders says that: “Elon Musk has illegally and unconstitutionally dismantled government institutions,” because billionaires in the Trump administration believe they own the world. America and Europe believe that Africa is theirs by right. For them it is all about power, control and wealth.

In Lords of Poverty, Graham Hancock explains how aid works: “Long after the experts and professionals from the EEC or USAID…have packed their bags and their cute ethnic souvenirs. Boarded their aircraft and fled northwards, the ill-conceived development projects that they have been responsible for continue to wreck the lives of the poor”

Graham says that “during the past twenty years, millions of rural people in Africa, in Asia and in Latin America have been forcibly removed from their homes to make space for the expanding reservoirs of giant hydroelectric dams; like ghosts not yet laid to rest, troubled but invisible, the disposed will wander from place to place in search of recompense.”

In his book, Hidden Agenda’s, John Pilger tells of the military being used to forcefully resettle millions of Third World citizens. Villages have been bombed, settlements burned, women raped, livestock killed or driven off, thousands indiscriminately shot to give way to “aid and development”.

Lords of Poverty argues that the International Aid business is ‘profoundly dangerous to the poor and inimical to their interests; it has financed the creation of monstrous projects that, at vast expense, have devastated the environment and ruined lives; it has supported and legitimized brutal tyrannies”

Prof Ali Mazrui in, The Africans; A Triple Heritage, argues that: “…European colonization of Africa was not the only way of Africa’s entry into the global system of the twentieth century. Africa could have made such an entry without suffering either the agonies of the slave trade, or the exploitation of colonialism or the humiliation of European racism.”

Mazrui questions Africa’s helplessness: “If eastern Africa was the cradle of Man, northern Africa was the cradle of civilisation. We have drawn special attention to the grand scale civilisations which emerged along the Nile Valley…But even the degree of dependent modernisation which Africa had achieved under colonial rule is in the process of being reversed…Africa is in the process of decay or social decomposition. Instead of African economies growing, they show signs of shrinking.”

In Africa’s Moment, Pete Odeng argues that: “It doesn’t take a genius to come to the conclusion that the battle for Africa’s future will not be won until it is first won in the mind of the African. From east to west, north to south, Africa is in desperate need of a new direction. With all the dark clouds hanging above her, Africa stands like a severely disabled child, helplessly watching the coming storm, feeling the bitter cold but not having the strength or the mind to do anything about it”

“It is because of poverty”, says Odeng, “that Africa sits immobilised like a crippled beggar on a mat by the roadside”

No amount of money thrown at Africa will pull the continent out of poverty. Our painful answer lies in what the Amref Heath Africa CEO Githinji Gitahi says; that the withdrawal of the USAID funding: “would leave the government with the alternative of seeking funding from other donors, philanthropists or mobilizing of domestic resources from the private sector.”

Once we fix our leadership and tame corruption, we can use our numerous resources to run our own affairs without humiliation from the West.