Africa must build homegrown wealth, ditch aid for industry — Shettima

Abdullateef Fowewe

Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima, has called on African nations on Friday to prioritise homegrown solutions over imported aid, spotlighting the Dangote Refinery as proof that the continent can leapfrog into fuel export status and economic self-reliance.

Speaking Thursday at the High-Level Accra Reset Initiative on the sidelines of the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF), Shettima urged a shift “from import dependency to local production, from aid to investment.”

He declared, “Africa cannot rise on applause alone. We rise when we build.”

Shettima highlighted Nigeria’s transformation, noting the Lagos-based Dangote Refinery—Africa’s largest—is positioning the country “on the verge of becoming a net exporter of refined fuel.”

This marks a pivot “when African capital meets industrial ambition,” turning nations from “price takers to value makers,” he said.

He touted technologies like modular factories, AI, and robotics, adding that Africa can now “industrialise faster in the twenty-first century than ever before,” evolving from a continent “known only for what it digs or grows” to one defined by what it builds.

The VP emphasised human capital, pointing to $95 billion in remittances from Africans abroad in 2024—equivalent to over 5% of the continent’s GDP.

“That is not charity,” he stressed, advocating free movement to let “skills and ideas flow as freely as goods and capital.”

Prosperity, he insisted, “is not imported; it is built it must be homegrown and earned.”

Shettima praised Nigeria’s Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PUHVAC), launched in 2023, as a model for “health sovereignty” through local manufacturing and standards.

He hailed the Accra Reset as a “bold reimagining” shifting Africa “from dependency to dignity, from aid to investment, from rhetoric to results,” predicting an “African boom built on the bedrock of innovation, industry, and interdependence.”

Ghana’s President John Mahama, who hosted, decried transactional ties with the Global North trapping Africa in “cycles of conflict and multidimensional poverty.”

He positioned Accra Reset—launched at the 2025 UN General Assembly—as a “practical answer” for Africa’s role in the emerging global order, urging leaders to shape it together.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo warned of a “new age of disruption,” stressing true sovereignty means “discipline and the ability to make choices and carry them through,” including regional coordination to avoid being “bargaining chips.”

Ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo echoed the need to “rethink strategies for transforming economies.”

The forum underscores Africa’s rising clout, with Shettima framing it as the “pulse of the world’s demographic and economic future.”