Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
Continued from last Saturday
The Gambia is an 11,295sq km of land stretching inland for some 480km on both sides of the Gambia River. The country has no known mineral deposits.
Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, is situated west of Togo, East of the Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) with Burkina Faso on its north-western, and Benin on its north-eastern sides. A former British colony, the Gold Coast, blazed the decolonisation trail when it achieved nationhood on 6 March 1957 and became Ghana with Kwame Nkrumah as the founding President.

As its colonial name indicates, gold was plentiful in its coastal alluvial diggings, attracting a large number of wealth-hunters. Among them were the British who attacked the country’s traditional ruler, Asantehene (King of Ashanti) in 1874 and declared the territory a Crown Colony.

The country’s minerals are, of course, gold, diamonds, bauxite, manganese and crude oil reserves. Nkrumah was overthrown by a police-army engineered coup in 1966. He had as part of his foreign policy been calling for the decolonisation of the entire African continent and for its reunification to form a United States of Africa.

Nkrumah had also been advocating the creation of an African Military High Command to be armed and sustained by the resources of the independent African States. Those resources included mainly the minerals of those states. His proposal was rejected by what were called the moderates.

The moderates were Tunisia’s Habib Bourguiba, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, Malawi’s Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, King Hassan of Morocco, Liberia’s President William Tubman and several other rather self-centred West African leaders.

The Republic of Guinea lies south of Mali and Senegal. Liberia is on its south, Ivory Coast on the south-east, and Guinea Bissau on its north-west. The Atlantic Ocean is to the west of that well known country whose people were ravaged by slave traders some of whom came from the Dutch East India Company’s half-way (house) station at the Cape of Good Hope.

Its minerals are bauxite, iron and gold. Guinea’s trading partners are the US, the European Union (especially Italy, Germany and Britain) and the former Camecon member-states: Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, the Benelux nations (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.)

Guinea-Bissau is between Senegal on its northern side and Guinea on its southern. It is a former Portuguese colony and has no known minerals.

The Ivory Coast is surrounded by five countries: Burkina Faso and Mali on the north, Ghana on the east, Guinea on the west and Liberia on the south-west. The Atlantic Ocean washes the Ivory Coast’s southern shores.

Another former West African French colony, the Ivory Coast’s minerals are columbite, limelite and manganese, diamonds and oil. France and several European Union nations plus the US are the major Ivory Coast’s trading partners.

It is an Ecowas member and runs robust trade with virtually all of them, particularly Nigeria.
Kenya is in East Africa and lies among five countries which are Ethiopia in the North, Sudan in the North-East, Uganda in the West, Tanzania in the South and Somali along one northern part of its eastern frontier. The Indian Ocean is Kenya’s boundary along the southern part of its eastern side.

Its minerals are gold, salt, fluorspar, rubies, garnets, copper and limestone. Kenya’s has very strong trade links with its neighbours, Uganda and Tanzania. Its former colonial power, Britain, also does a great deal of business with that country.
Lesotho is one of the three African kingdoms and lies on the southern spur of the Drakensberg Mountains. It is surrounded by South Africa. Lesotho has no known mineral deposits.

Liberia is in West Africa, and became a sovereign nation on 26 July 1847. Its mineral wealth consists of bauxite, manganese, iron ore and diamonds. The country does a lot of business with the US, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and Ecowas member-states.

Libya is a former Italian colony. It is situated east of Tunisia and Algeria, north of Chad and West of Egypt. The Mediterranean Sea washes the country’s northern shores. Its minerals are oil and gas. Libya’s main trading partners are Italy, the US, Spain, the European Union especially Britain Germany and France. It also runs much business with Arabic neighbours (Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria) as well as with Chad and the Sudan.

Madagascar, also called Malagasy is a 587,021 sq km Indian Ocean island with a variety of minerals comprising radium, mica, graphite, quartz, copper, chromite, beryl, uranium and nickel.

Its major trading partners are its former colonial master, France, and the US plus Germany, Reunion, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Qatar plus other Indian Ocean islands such as Mauritius and the Seychelles.

Malawi’s 118,484 sq km surface area comprising largely water and mountains lies in East Africa’s Western rift valley with Tanzania on its north-eastern side, Mozambique on its south- eastern side, and Zambia on the West.

Its mineral wealth comprises bauxite, graphite and asbestos. Malawi trades heavily with South Africa, Britain, Zambia, the US, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Japan.

Mali is a Sahelian country with two major minerals gold and phosphates most of which are exported to its former colonial power, France. Other trading partners are China, Germany, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, the Netherlands and Nigeria.

Mauritania lies West of Mali, and is also a former French colony. Its minerals are iron ore and copper. It trades with Senegal, Britain, France, China, Japan, Germany and Spain. Most of its copper concentrates are bought by France.

Mauritius is one of Africa’s Indian Ocean islands. It is 800km east of Madagascar and is made up of a number of islands: the Cargodos, Carajos cluster of 22 islets, some 400km north-east of Mauritius proper; the 70sq km some 1,100km north of Mauritius, and the 109sqkn. Rodrigues island, 500 km eastwards. The 1,865sq km island together with the French Reunion dependency comprise what is called the Mascarene Archipelago. They are volcanic and have no minerals.

Morocco is one of the Maghreb states. Declared a French protectorate by Paris in 1904, Morocco became independent on March 2,1956.
It has a variety of minerals consisting of zinc, coal, phosphates, iron, cobalt, manganese, lead and some oil deposits. Its main trading partners are France, Spain, other European Union countries.

Mozambique’s western neighbours are Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Tanzania is its northern neighbour, and the Indian Ocean lies on its eastern side and Swaziland on its south-western tip.

Its minerals are coal and iron. There are strong indications that the former Portuguese colony has massive natural gas reserves. Mozambique became independent on June 25, 1975 after a bitter armed struggle. Namibia was formerly called South-West Africa. It became a South African League of Nations mandated territory at the end of the First World War. After many years of guerilla warfare, the country achieved independence on March 21 , 1990.

Situated south of Angola, west of Botswana, north of South Africa, and to its west the Atlantic Ocean, Namibia has some of the world’s largest diamond deposits along its usually dry rivers and arid desert sands. Other minerals are zinc, lead, tin, copper, vanadium and some silver.

Before the Great War (1914-18) the country was a German colony. Its trading partners are South Africa, Germany, Britain, Botswana, Zambia, the US, France, Israel, Angola plus several other African states. Niger is a 1,267,00 sq km land-locked Sahelian nation bounded on the north by Libya and Algeria, on the east by Chad, on the south by Nigeria, and on its south-western by Benin and Burkina Faso.
Granted independence by France on August 3, 1960, Niger’s mineral wealth comprises uranium, iron and tin. Its major trading partners are France, Nigeria and other Ecowas member-states—Ivory Coast. Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Cape Verde as well as Guinea-Bissau, the US, Algeria, Germany and Italy also trade with Niger.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with almost 150 million people who live on its 562 620 sq km surface area. It is a former British colony, and became independent on October1, 1960. It minerals are gas, oil, zinc, tin, coal, lead and Columbite.

To be continued

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