I have been reflecting on the psychology of fear a lot lately. A man can never truly live if he’s afraid of death. The Psalmist tells us that to be constantly conscious of our mortality is to live prudently. We can choose to live under the terror of the inevitable or draw immense creative energy from the unknown expiration date. Expiration that visit us via Mosquitoes, Car-wrecks, Bacteria or Viruses etc.

This is not a call for carelessness but to prevent cessation of movement to  slide further down cessation of thinking path. It’s a call for a genuine and unafraid debate.This is not a lack of empathy to each loss or suffering but the discussion that we must have even in personal pain and tragedy. Civil obedience thrives in civil discourse.

As I see it, the narrative thriving in our forums and discussions about population control in Africa misses what we must see. Our increaseed youthful population is the celebrated and highly coveted Gold Mine for the world. The world (East and West) is positioning itself to enrich itself from  the 1.25B youthful Africans with a spending power of $2.5Trillion by 2030 while we hanker down in fear. Genuine fear in our personal realms but not in epidemiological terms.

Let’s look at investors’ actions that doesn’t seem to register or draw guidance from the current fear that has  gripped us for months now. With porous lockdown, lack of hand-washing water and masks on chins for months, the fear that seemed to be wished on Africa would be real by now with a virus whose incubation period is about 2weeks. If we see spikes in Kenya now or in coming weeks, it would be confounding under our congested spaces, slums and matatus that know no social or physical distance. Conditions in which we have lived for months now as before, unbeknown to the African ‘expert’ who has confused Kibera for New York and Makoko for Venice. In other words, the regurgitation of WHO’s guidelines. Whose guidelines? Should have been the first question.  Again, with all these conditions made for super infection transmissions,  the fear  did not translate to the warned dangers, the apocalypse. Not that we hope it translates but simply stating what’s become of the fear.

No one driven by the propagated fear would oversubscribe Ghanian 40 year Bond by 500% and 97% in Kenya in March 2020. Not if the apocalyptic death in Africa was imminent.

Corporate Council on Africa (don’t be duped to think it’s African – it’s a ThinkTank with eyes on Africa’s SME based in Washington and Funded USAid) is currently fishing for SMEs in these pandemic conditions. 

Kenya which is party to Africa Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) a COMESA on steroids is looking for another treaty with an economic Goliath. The treaty (CFTA) demands that 90% of  imported goods and services be exempt from tariffs. In weeks, Kenya is likely to enter FTA ( Free Trade Agreement)  this time with the U.S if all goes to plan.  I hope it doesn’t.

Again, all these investors’ market actions are happening under the auspices of the pandemic.

On these free trade agreements, I submit the following; Comparative advantage theory is fronted as the defense for free trade treaties that allow for unbridled entrance of foreign goods (mostly masking country of origin) and competition. The theory held when countries were islands. In this information age where a country’s competitive or comparative advantage can be transferred to another country while maintaining the deceptive appearance of benefits of these trade arrangements to the host country, we have to be woke. 

If David has no archery skills, he should not invite Goliath for a battle. Treaties like CFTA ( Continent Free Trade Area) which demands 90% of commodities, goods and services to be exempt from tariffs across Africa is not Africa-Centric. Individual African countries will undoubtedly have asymmetrical benefits. This is true if you admit the information that the trade of goods and services under this treaty across Africa is mostly by companies whose ownership is not Africa. A company having registration in Africa or through a Western or Eastern subsidiary hosted in an African country does not make it African. The accelerated wealth transfer will be exacerbated by FTA with the U.S. It’s not and cannot be win-win arrangement.  The individual African Countries 30 of whom have ratified the CFTA are simply many Davids with zero archery past.

Kenya signing FTA with an economic Goliath will be a single David with disadvantages that cannot be exaggerated. On the Atlantic Council’s forum, The Kenyan President invited America to sell ‘them’ (referring to us)  toothpaste and toothbrushes while Kazi Kwa Vijana is proudly training our  educated youths on how to dig trenches and open drainages.  The treaty is not a match made in Heaven.

All these market actions that are contrarion (contrary) to the pandemic and it’s fear should thoroughly inform us. These investors are privy to information that we are not.  We can deduce and proximate our decision based on their action in the market-place. It should blow a wind of calm on us as the psychological toll that we have been under for months now is being measured in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

None of these investors would succeed if we all died in Africa. None of them seems to think it will happen. None of them seems to think that the deliberate disruption will apocalyptically devastate or collapse political stability or the supply chain on which these investors’ bets depend on. Their actions are informative, let’s draw from them in an environment where analysis is stifled, thinking paused, threatened or ceased all together.

Your thoughts?

Robert Mwangi, MBA. Author of Dollar Altar

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