Earlier this month, while I was on the Obasanjo internet and combing through X for social listening purposes, I came across a very interesting comment from one of my favorite players in response to unsubstantiated accusations sprinkled with bias. “If you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants in a jar, nothing will happen.However, if you shake the jar, the ants will start killing each other.Each red ant believes that the other black ant is the enemy, but the real enemy is the one who shook the jar.”I thought this was profound.
It reminded me of the world we live in, how real power brokers function under deep shadow conditions. The most powerful people are not the ones you see on TV or on magazine covers. They are the men in gray suits pulling the strings behind the scenes. In intelligence circles, this approach or strategy is known as cloak and dagger. The ability to influence outcomes without being detected.
That’s when a light bulb went off in my head and I drew a straight line from that anecdote to Africa. If I were the intelligence chief of some fictional country and was assigned a hypothetical top-secret mission to destabilize Africa, how would I make sure that even the best forensic experts couldn’t find my fingerprints at the crime scene?Simply, I’d go for the kill shot, targeting seven key sides of the continent, watching the controlled chaos from afar.
About leadership
If it really all depends on leadership, I would be very interested in leadership recruitment efforts in African countries. My concern is not whether such a process is free and fair. It is far more important that the leaders that emerge align with my strategic interests. All is fair in love and war, even if psychological warfare, targeted control of politicians, espionage, media manipulation, economic pressure, or other means must be used to achieve this outcome. Such leaders will need to be willing to implement the policy advice I offer, even if it is to the detriment of their own people. I support such horrible policies, give them diplomatic protection, and let others know that such leaders are obedient. I cannot afford to have a leader with a people’s heart. I must stop their rise at all costs. If such leaders are already in power, I will find many ways to destabilize their government. I can’t afford to have a government that turns my desired reality upside down.
About unity and cohesion
The oldest trick is to divide and conquer. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Africa and Africans never unite. Whether it’s language, currency, borders, religion or geopolitics. If they are always at war with themselves, they will never have the time or space to demand good governance or think about development. I would let them litigate old grievances from time to time, reopen fault lines and weaponize divisive narratives. Encourage them to embrace the perspective of tribes that fight wars of supremacy and alienate large sections of the population. Second, I cannot afford to have leaders who will uplift the people and inspire them to be loyal to their country over their primitive feelings.
About natural resources
This is one of my favorites. It’s so obvious that it seems to be hidden. Raw materials will continue to be exported, but processed products will not be allowed to be exported. The wisest way to keep them in check is to never industrialize them. They can own gold, but they cannot have gold reserves. Let them brag about being the largest exporter of crude oil unless they have a functioning refinery. They can sell all the cocoa they need as long as they don’t produce chocolate. i’m good. If I’m lucky, I might get a few large corporations to control the mining rights to rare earth minerals and oil fields, siphoning the nation’s wealth from the ground and into my pocket via special purpose vehicles. Any leader who advocates the idea of nationalizing resources is clearly not one of my allies. I derisively call such countries equal development partners, but all they get is aid, not trade. If they make any deal, I will dictate the terms. Worse, if they were thinking of hitting the belt with the road, I’d accuse them of poking a bear.
About economy
Political independence means nothing without economic power. So I would focus on keeping their GDP as low as possible. I regularly chastise business leaders that their currencies are overvalued and need to be devalued. Critical infrastructure supporting production, such as electricity, will remain unstable and epileptic, and I will encourage price increases to create energy poverty. Did I mention that services not provided are subject to higher taxes? Yeah, that’s a brand to me. I guarantee they will never escape the debt trap, get loans at exorbitant interest rates and be locked into unfavorable terms. If conditions are too good, they may orchestrate disruption and provide funding to drive away investors and discourage capital formation. Don’t forget about aid, both countries will get more aid than a mutually beneficial trade deal. The goal is to maintain continued dependence on aid. We keep more of our population poor and vulnerable, thinking only about their survival, not just their prosperity.
About culture (education and history)
Culture is not only the way a group of people lives, but also how people are designed. If you want to influence the way they think, one way to do that is to instill in your curriculum that the average student processes information in a certain way. We are not interested in advanced curricula that will make our people more competitive. I want them to learn enough to get on the lower rungs of the world ladder. I want these young people to grow up thinking that they are inferior, that their culture is not cool. Until I give them an award, they will feel that their thoughts are invalid, no matter how good their songs are. If it were me, I would have convinced them that the locals were inferior and that they were incapable of excellence, so they would adopt my culture. I’m going to screw up the system so that it thinks what I offer is the only viable path.
About security
The first idea I pitch to them is that they cannot protect themselves from external attacks without my involvement. I sell them weapons, but never the technology to manufacture them. I would like to convince them that military bases are necessary to maintain stability, even if they will never allow military bases in their country. Keep your military assets obsolete so that resolving tensions always requires foreign intervention. I will secretly fund coups that are favorable to me, and publicly denounce those that are not. I fund separatist, rebel, and violent groups to create chaos and use it as a bargaining tool to get my way. For me, war is better than peace. How else will the military-industrial complex survive?
About desires
I use the media to misrepresent the continent’s character, control the narrative, own influential media assets for propaganda purposes, and tell their stories. Rather than exploiting excellence, I intended to force-feed the rest of the world a dark, dystopian narrative of the African continent, imposing an image of poverty and despair. Such escapism, rather than interrogating and dealing with real problems, becomes the goal of good people. I would like to encourage the factors that have made access to quality health care virtually exclusive to the wealthy and a place of prayer for the poor. I headhunt these geniuses and encourage them to never go home again. I would water down their successes, or at most make a cameo about how my generosity was a true game-changer.
Wisdom suggests to the red ant that the black ant is no enemy, and to the black ant that the red ant is no enemy. The real enemies are those who are constantly shaking the bottle. Sera.
