Protesters call to ‘end oil colonialism’ in Africa

TAKING A STANCE: Demonstrators honed in on a meeting about African energy resources in London (Extinction Rebellion)

PROTESTERS GATHERED outside a London hotel on Wednesday calling for an end to “oil colonialism” throughout Africa where heavy-hitters in gas and oil resources met with African delegates to hash out new deals.

The two-day African Energy Summit, held at the £351 a night Mayfair Hotel, turned sour when a coalition group of campaigners, including Extinction Rebellion Africa and African Rising hung banners outside the hotel’s porch and lobby while blasting audio against new oil deals by African activists.

Demonstrators were also reported to have glued themselves to the doors of Gordon Ramsay’s Heddon Street Kitchen restaurant which led to the planned gala being cancelled.

The campaign groups are calling for rich countries to stop taking the natural resources of gas and oil that the African continent has boasted for years amid warnings that it would leave already poor countries in survival mode after years of colonialism. 

African countries like Nigeria, Benin and Gambia are just some of the few that are expected to be driven into debt if a new oil deal is struck. 

Rob Callender, a member of Jubilee for Climate, said: “Oil companies need to get out of Africa, as our partners on the continent have been saying. They are calling on rich nations like the UK to cancel the debt which is like a knee on the neck, forcing governments to extract anything and everything just to service obscene levels of unjust debt, leaving nothing for the kind of development that benefits the people. 

“If the UK was serious about allowing Africa to develop, it would write off the debt, which it can and which would allow African states to invest in the continent’s huge renewable energy potential – a far more resilient energy source in most communities.” 

“The debt payments of 44 African countries was $75 billion in 2019 – far greater than the amount of public finance needed to tackle climate change. Rather than enforcing this colonial hangover, global north governments should be meeting their loss and damage commitments to this part of the world – the least responsible for climate change – an issue shamefully sidelined at the UK-hosted COP26.”

As the cost of living crisis bites in the UK, the highly-anticipated conference was backed by oil giants like Shell and Schlumberger, who are reported to have made record profits in the last quarter when fuel prices are skyrocketing for millions.

It comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed a proposed windfall tax on oil companies at a time when they are continuing to expand throughout African countries. 

The continent is predicted to be hardest hit by developments in the West following a report by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) that showed the use of fossil fuels could result in Africa’s population being displaced within the next eight years, according to Extinction Rebellion.

Cathy Allen, a member of Extinction Rebellion Global Support, said: “Africa has contributed just 2% to global emissions to date, while almost half the continent cannot access electricity. Yet the impacts of climate change throughout the continent are already brutal. How can we stand by and watch these money games in Mayfair? 

“What’s happening here is unregulated oil companies signing exploitative new oil deals with debt-burdened African nations which need to cope with not only the pollution of oil exploration in their country, but the global effects of oil exploration – the drought, floods, food insecurity, displacement and conflict. This is not a conference – it is a crime scene disguised as a party.”

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3 Comments

  1. | Stuart Black

    Africa is rich in sunlight not only a pollution friendlier resource for the planet it is also safer in terms of working. Debt is partly a result of the economic value of different currencies. The currency rates were established partly through enslavement and pillaging. An internally based solar power energy system could assist in some redistribution of wealth between the wealthier African nations and the more impoverished nations. Cancelling the debt is a repayment of the pollution caused by Western states and oil companies and enslavement, exploitation by Western governments and companies. Cancelling the debt and creating an internal solar energy market could create much peace across Africa.

    Reply

  2. | Chaka Artwell

    Nigeria may be the eight largest oil producer, but Nigerian oil profits only benefits the Elite Families of Nigeria; rather than the whole nation and infrastructure of Nigeria.
    The same is true of the Congo’s Coltan and Zambia’s Copper.

    The continuing problem with the continent of Africa is the wealth of African little benefits the people of Africa.

    Reply

  3. | Chaka Artwell

    So long as the end of Caucasian Christian Western European Colonialism is not replaced by colonialisn to Communist China whose offers of assistance benefits China.

    Reply

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