France Came With a $63 million Loan. Dangote Came With $4 billion Factories. Africa Must Wake Up!

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:11]In the last one week, there have been two major arrivals at the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

[00:00:20]These two arrivals signify uh something quite consequential for Africa.

[00:00:27]We're going to look at these two arrivals and then an app why they are very significant to Africa.

[00:00:36]The first arrival was by French President Emmanuel Macron on May 13th, Wednesday.

[00:00:48]He arrived in Ethiopia with a bag of goodies.

[00:00:52]Central to these goodies was what he considered as a gift to Ethiopia.

[00:00:59]And he told Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali for sure, "I've got a gift for you."

[00:01:06]Turns out that the gift was $63 million.

[00:01:10]Uh This was a loan, not a grant. It was a loan. It's money that Ethiopia has to pay back.

[00:01:18]This is very significant because for more than 100 years, African countries have been receiving loans from global geopolitical powers, from China, from America, from Britain, from France.

[00:01:33]We have been receiving so many loans.

[00:01:36]And this particular loan of $63 million, uh we are going to place it side by side by another much, much, much larger sum of money that Ethiopia then received barely a few days after Macron arrived.

[00:01:56]This money was 1.5 billion dollars. 1.5 billion dollars.

[00:02:04]And it came from none other than Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man.

[00:02:12]He too arrived at Bole International Airport just a few days after Emmanuel Macron left.

[00:02:20]And he had a gift, a much better gift for Ethiopia.

[00:02:28]Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, is making strides in Ethiopia. Over the weekend, Dangote visited Addis Ababa with intent of opening up a regional fertilizer plant.

[00:02:39]This gift was an investment of 1.5 billion dollars.

[00:02:46]It was in addition to an earlier gift of 2.5 billion dollars that he had invested in Ethiopia to set up a nitrogen fertilizer plant.

[00:03:00]I want us to compare the two.

[00:03:02]Compare the 63 million dollars with 4 billion dollars that Ethiopia received collectively from Aliko Dangote.

[00:03:14]Hidden in these numbers, 63 million dollars and 4 billion dollars, is the real story.

[00:03:22]The real story that we are going to unpack today.

[00:03:26]That loan of 63 million dollars has to be repaid.

[00:03:30]Maybe you're saying, "Hey, wait a minute, DJ Bu Khaled.

[00:03:34]That's a fairly small loan. Why is it a problem that it has to be repaid?"

[00:03:40]It's not being repaid in a vacuum.

[00:03:43]Just like many other African countries, Ethiopia owes billions of dollars. As a matter of fact, since 2020, Ethiopia's external debt has grown from $32 billion to $36 billion. That's That's a total of $4 billion. In addition, now repaying this money is going to cost Ethiopia a lot.

[00:04:11]To repay this money, Ethiopia is going to spend billions of dollars.

[00:04:17]These are billions of dollars that could go towards national development in Ethiopia.

[00:04:24]One has to wonder why Ethiopia is still accruing loans.

[00:04:31]When Ethiopia of all countries has shown Africa a better architecture of national development.

[00:04:39]I'm talking about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

[00:04:43]This dam was conceived years ago, but it came to fruition and was officially launched under the tenure of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

[00:04:56]Ethiopia spent about $5 billion on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

[00:05:02]Here is something wonderful that you need to know.

[00:05:04]This $5 billion was mostly locally resourced. This is Ethiopian money.

[00:05:13]I personally am in touch with Ethiopians who contributed $100, $200, $500.

[00:05:21]And that provided proof of concept that African money can fund African projects.

[00:05:29]Imagine if Ethiopia had taken loans, billions of dollars of loans to finance construction of this dam.

[00:05:37]Imagine if that had happened. At this time, Ethiopia would be owing billions of dollars. But that's not the case because Ethiopia financed this dam themselves.

[00:05:49]So, having financed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam with Ethiopian money, with African money, the challenge must be thrown to the Ethiopian government and to all other African governments that we must finally free Africa from this addiction to foreign loans, to external debt, because these external debts are bleeding Africa dry.

[00:06:16]Do you know that the first independent African country to be loaned money from external sources was Liberia.

[00:06:24]The year was 1871 when Liberia got a loan from some London-based financiers.

[00:06:32]And what happened in the subsequent years already became a screaming red flag.

[00:06:39]But if Africa had focused on that red flag, we would not be in a situation where we are addicted to external debts.

[00:06:49]President Roy, the president of the time when Liberia received this loan, ended up being hounded out of office.

[00:06:58]That particular 1871 loan triggered a chain of events that culminated in President Roy, Liberia's president, being kicked out of office.

[00:07:12]That's how toxic that first ever loan to an independent African country was.

[00:07:19]And things have never ever changed since then.

[00:07:22]To date, these loans that Africa remains addicted to continue triggering chains of events that leave Africa worse off, which is why we must take a close hard look at African capital financing African projects.

[00:07:43]Fellow Africans, African's development architecture must undergo a major overhaul.

[00:07:51]And it begins inside.

[00:07:55]We need to overhaul the development psychology of Africa so that we completely free ourselves, rid ourselves of this addiction to loans as a primary means of financing development in Africa.

[00:08:09]That has to stop. We have seen it in Ethiopia through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. We have seen it. The dam is operational. We have also seen it through this Dangote financing that is worth $4 billion.

[00:08:26]This proves that African capital can finance African development.

[00:08:32]And that is a path where that the entire Africa must completely follow.

[00:08:38]That's it, fellow Africans.

[00:08:40]We must completely free ourselves from external debt because it continues to handicap and strangle Africa.

[00:08:51]We need to ensure that African capital finances Africa's development.

[00:08:59]My name is DJ Bokhari and Africa is my superpower.

[00:09:04]I truly believe with all my heart that we as the African people can now charge a new form of financing Africa's development. I believe that we can completely free ourselves from this addiction that we have to external financing through loans.

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[00:09:39]See you soon, and let's keep transforming Africa.

[00:12:46]>> Mhm.