It is Still Extractive Imperialism in Africa: Ghana’s Oil Rush, Extractivist Exploitation, and the Unpromising Prospects of Resources-Led Industrialization

The longue duree of the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources is a good index of Africa’s position in the capitalist global economy. From the slave trade in the fifteenth century, through to colonialism in the nineteenth century, to neo-colonialism in the twentieth century, Africa’s natural resources have been the main ligament through which the economies of its countries are integrated into the global economy. Throughout these epochal moments of the history of the capitalist global economy, the continent and its people have been subordinated to the powerful states as a quarry for drawing valuable natural resources for development in their countries. Situated in this historical backdrop, our contribution probes the natural resources-led development discourses which have emerged from the new scramble for Africa in the twenty-first century global order. Making a radical break with the leftist discourses of imperialism and accumulation by dispossession, the new scramble is viewed as auspicious development opportunities for the continent to industrialize on the back of its natural resources. Popular even among African leaders and scholars, this new development thinking suggests a new world order in which the scramble for Africa, as The Economist put it, is benign; with bright prospects of Africans becoming winners. Problematizing this new thinking, this paper draws on Ghana’s oil rush to argue that the position of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, has not changed. Despite the peculiarities of the new scramble and the twenty-first-century global order, Africa is exploited by extractive imperialism, the dynamics of which are unpropitious of industrialization in resource-rich countries