THE AFRICAN ELITE

 Post independence African states did not inherit productive economies. They inherited extraction machines. Colonialism trained clerks, not engineers. It built ports to ship minerals out, not factories to transform them. After independence, a new class stepped into the same architecture. Politicians and state adjacent professionals learned quickly where the money lived. Not in invention. In access.

This is the class Fanon described. The political administrative elite and the professions tethered to it. Lawyers who thrive on regulatory complexity. Consultants who monetize proximity. Procurement networks that trade paper for kickbacks. Their wealth comes from circulation, not creation. Remove the state and the advantage collapses.

This is not a moral failure. It is an incentive failure.

African economies reward rent seeking because it is faster, safer, and politically protected. Production demands long term capital, reliable energy, skilled labor, and insulation from predation. In most African states, none of these are guaranteed. Elites behave rationally inside broken systems. They chase the highest return with the lowest risk. That return rarely sits in factories.

Critics often stop here and lapse into excuse making. That move is lazy. Structure explains behavior. It does not absolve it. Elites shape the very rules that protect their rents. They block reform quietly, through licensing, standards, feasibility studies, and litigation. They speak development while designing friction.

Manufacturing and industrialization remain the hard test. Every country that developed at scale built things. Manufacturing raises productivity faster than services. It forces discipline. You cannot bluff your way through exports. Either your product meets global standards at global prices or it fails. This is precisely why rent seekers avoid it.

Zambia illustrates the dilemma. Copper dominates exports. For decades the country shipped raw value and imported finished goods. That choice was not inevitable. It was political. Beneficiation threatens entrenched interests that profit from raw exports, logistics contracts, and tax arbitrage.

Copper based industrialization is the rational starting point, not the destination. Wire rods, cables, cathode based components for power and electric vehicles. These products sit close to existing capacity. They deepen skills, demand energy investment, and force export discipline. They also expose the limits of elite rhetoric. You cannot claim patriotism while exporting raw copper and importing finished wire at a premium.

The risks are real. Mineral beneficiation is capital intensive. It will not absorb labor at scale. Power constraints are binding. Without overcapacity, industrial policy becomes social conflict. These are not arguments against manufacturing. They are arguments for sequencing and enforcement.

The real political question is not whether to industrialize. It is who bears the cost of failure.

In successful cases, the state aligned private gain with national growth. Firms received protection and incentives only if they performed. Export or lose support. Miss targets and exit. No bailouts. No patriotic speeches. Just rules enforced without sentiment.

African states often reverse this logic. Failure gets rewarded if the firm sits close enough to power. Success invites predation. Under those conditions, rational elites avoid production.

The citizenry does not industrialize countries. History is clear. Citizens apply pressure. They withdraw legitimacy. They raise the political cost of looting. Their role is negative but decisive.

 They constrain. They do not design factories.

Transformation requires a state willing to make non production unprofitable. Kill discretionary licenses. Criminalize procurement rent extraction. Tie tax incentives to exports. Make local value addition a condition, not a suggestion. Protect infant industries briefly and punish them quickly if they fail.

This is where Fanon still bites. His warning was not about bad people. It was about a class that mistakes access for achievement. Condemning that class without redesigning incentives achieves nothing. Romanticizing the masses achieves even less.

The choice is stark. Either African elites move from brokerage to building, or they continue to manage decline with better language. Development does not care about intentions. It responds to structure, discipline, and enforcement.

Until production beats scheming, the image remains accurate.