A fortnight ago, international news agencies circulated a story of a mountain that collapsed in the DR Congo region of Katanga revealed tons of copper, a mineral currently in acute demand as, alongside rare earth metals, makes transition from fuel to electric powered motor transport possible.
And the story went mute, even before we were told the name of the miracle mountain. (At least when a Ugandan garbage mountain collapsed near Kampala killing scores earlier everyone got to know it was called Kiteezi).
If the ‘Mount Copper’ story was true, the ensuing immediate silence could be instigated by a deep conspiracy by big mining entities. If it weren’t true, then the fabrication must be an even deeper conspiracy.
A fabrication could have been motivated by local economic interests to create a buzz and attract speculators/investors to spark economic activity; to generate online traffic and spur clicks with accompanying advertising; to divert attention from some political problem or to manipulate copper market prices.
Let us look at Mt Copper from three perspectives of interested parties; a neo-apartheid philosopher, a local neo-apartheid agent and a rational East African, in their own words.
Neo-apartheid philosopher
When we were in charge, we developed a strategy of hiding what we didn’t want Africans to know by putting it in a book, knowing their aversion to the printed word. But now even fair-skinned people rarely open books, also swiping and clicking away.
So we need to test if we can hide things online, but first we must establish what Africans search on their mobiles besides sex and soccer.
Let us tempt them with a story of huge wealth which requires some effort to exploit, like a mountain falling in their land and revealing tons of a high-selling metal, but one in which they already have experience to mine and smelt.
If it galvanizes intense interest on their continent, we’ll know the internet is not a hiding place, and we may have to continue using printed books.
Local neo-apartheid agent
Hey, this Mt Copper is big money. Our people must not know about it. They might get excited and expect us to provide them with good schools and hospitals, yet we need the money to take holidays abroad, build big mansions and acquire young wives.
This can only be possible for a few of us dealing with foreign dealers to take raw ore out, using minor slave miners.
And even if years later hungry others come to look for residues of the mineral in the closed mines, we shall let them die down there calling them criminals, and only rescue dead bodies to teach others a lesson. It’s being done elsewhere so no need to re-invent the wheel when dealing with DRC’s hungry unwashed.
Rational East African
Hmmn, this is another reminder to fully integrate DRC in the EAC, since that forgotten ka-ceremony to welcome them a couple of years back.
Whether Mt Copper is true or false, it jogs us back to our senses; for a start, let the other member countries quietly pay DRC’s membership dues and we deliver the receipt to Kinshasa so the government there has no excuse to tempt us into saying its membership has elapsed.
Then we proceed and continue making EAC integrated transport plans. So, Mt Copper or no Mt Copper, we bind DRC to participate in the plans for regional transport routes and the associated industries.
With individual members like Uganda already building roads in DRC, we know our Congolese brothers and sisters are not averse to regional cooperation.
So, we take this matter a notch higher and jointly develop transport technologies with some factories located in DRC where the crucial minerals are.
And looking at the immense territory with abundant fresh water DRC has, EAC’s aviation industry can get reborn as we can “grow” Sustainable Aviation Fuel in DRC and ship it across and northwards the Atlantic to American and Europe respectively.
In half-a-decade, DRC would be powering half of the world’s planes with SAF, which is non-pollutive, making the single biggest reduction in transport based carbon emissions. And a richer 100 million-plus Congolese would be a beautiful market for other EAC products.
The rich countries can continue collecting their diamonds and gold from DRC, while EAC makes automobile batteries and aviation fuel which are not yet competing with the powerful outsiders who otherwise wouldn’t love Congolese development.
