Welcome to Breakout Africa.
Breakout Africa was birthed from Eric Mensah Kumeh´s passion to inform and garner momentum among African youths towards accountability in use of natural resource rents in Africa.
Trained as a natural resource manager, Eric has over more than four years working experience on natural resource governance. He believes that, we, African youth, seem to have entrusted, and in some cases, ceded power and control of our resources to a largely older generation. Without active engagement, our interests are not represented, instead resource rents are siphoned to enrich a few who buy our support us to entrench themselves in power.
Contrary to our task for our leaders to use our resources to meet our needs and make our Continent an attractive home and a destination of choice for future generations, they continue to enrich themselves through corruption with no sense of shame whatsoever. As I write, the desire of our leaders to win unwarranted favors is driving them to exchange our treasured resources for next to nothing. We cannot let this continue because our home, Africa is all we have and we are all it has. We need to return to our roots and fight for the ideals that drove us to become independent in the first place. Ideals of freedom, transparency, accountability and justice for all.
We need to ignore their narratives that preaches: we, youths are the future. Because we are both the present and the future. We need to use the present to put them on their toes to create the future we want. We need to turn the scales and make faithful servants of leaders. We need to ensure that they fight for the African dream that our founders stood for. The dream of a unification of our people and transforming it a shining light: a place where every aspiration with adequate perspiration becomes reality.
With this blog, I hope to rekindle and fan the flames our fathers before us saw and fought to liberate us for slavery. Except this time, the fight is to liberate us from ourselves. I appreciate that I cannot do this alone. I acknowledge that there is a great wealth of knowledge and resources beyond my reach. And so in unity, I ask that you join me to make the dream of placing accountability at the forefront our continent´s development.
Breakout Africa – Building an Africa Worthy of Our Resource Endowments.