MAL /23/18
FIRST WORD
On New Horizons
Marketing Africa limited
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MARKETING AFRICA
TEAM William Kalombo, Mutua Mutua,
Riapius Magoma ,Stephen Waweru,
Harliet Njenga.
EDITORIAL
CONTRIBUTORS
DESIGN & LAYOUT
Mutua Mutua
Herman Githinji
Evans Majeni
Diana Obath
Boniface Ngahu
Carolyne Gathuru
Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
Timothy Oriedo
Wasilwa Miriongi
Dr. Clifford Ferguson
Eugene Wanekeya
Dr. Maureen Owiti
Kepha Nyanumba
George Mbithi
Flavor Mangula
Dennis Mbau
Caroline Mwazi
Dr. Ken Tarus
Andrew Human
Tekisha Harvey
Olga Yurovski
Jonathan Karanja
Polycarp Igathe
Joe Otin
Njeri Wangari
Angela Mwirigi
Walter Nyabundi
Peter Nduati
Wachia Kilei
Sharon Kiggundu
Isaac Ngatia
Richard Wanjohi
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MAL /18/17
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Marketing Africa
02 MAL23/18 ISSUE
On March 21st 2018, in Kigali, Rwanda Africa took a bold
step towards the future we wish to see by signing what may
very well be the most significant agreement attempted by the
African leaders, the African Continental Free Trade Area.
The fact that you could actually get more than half the
countries in Africa to sit together to deliberate on the
continent’s future is testimony to the caliber of the current
crop of African leaders that are resolved to take control of
Africa’s fortunes.
It was truly heartening to hear the South African president
wax lyrical on what he saw as his date with destiny and his
place in history as one of the leaders that put pen to paper
to dare dream of an Africa that was not only united but one
that was prosperous.
That Africa he was placing on a vision has a combined
population of 1.2 billion, is resource rich and has seventy
percent of its population under 30 years of age. You can read
those statistics as a ticking bomb about to explode or see it as
a challenge for creativity.
What is certain is that we cannot remain insular and hope
that the problem on the horizon will vaporize into thin air
as we continue to protect our tiny fiefdoms of countries that
should have been declared insolvent decades ago.
Our colonial past masters will not be of any help since they
are the ones that invented the divide and rule concept and
managed to offer us political independence while withholding
and denying us economic independence. Yet we still run to
them to ask for pocket money to run our economies.
Our new trading partners from the east are of no help either
as they are bent on exploiting our resources and as fast as
they can extract them before we realize that we have been
raped economically and stripped bare of what we need to
progress.
As the tin gods of our impoverished African countries
continue to tighten the noose around their frail economies
convinced that protectionism is the answer to thwart the
envious attention of their neighbors, the foreigners continue
to clean them out.
In the past the under thirties had a plan. They would spend
all their waking moments figuring how they would escape
the hell hole that is Africa and look to a better life in the so
called civilized world where doing menial work is made to
look like a privilege.
But the world is changing and new wave of nationalism
is sweeping the north and the poor European just cannot
stomach the idea of having to compete with an even poorer
African for the same pathetic jobs and they are pushing back.