It is surprising to note the outcry of many African countries on the initiative of President Donald Trump to make the fiscal and financial imbalances in his country a priority. A country in debt to the tune of some US$ 35 trillion, was still providing funding and financing to so many countries, across the globe and especially Africa, when African leaders were pocketing most of those funds and not providing much of the services that the funds were originally designated for.

Indeed, it is often said that some 10% to 20% of all aid funds only reach the destination of the funds while the balance stays within the donor parties and/or NGOs and UN organizations and never reach the ultimate poor African for whom the funds were intended.

It is a shame that African leaders fail their people and rely on others for serving their countries and their people when they, through multiple corruption processes, siphon away to distant countries all the funds from others and taxes paid by the local citizens.

President Trump is not wrong to curtail the funds. He needs them for his own country. Why do African countries cry wolf, when they do not carry out the responsibilities for which they were elected? The President nearly froze most international funds, much of it going to African countries, which are failed by their leaders, all expecting the United States and others to bail them out, as if this was a natural thing to expect.

The action of the President shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Agency, it is reported, distributes on average some US$ 50 billion worldwide. USAID funds in Africa are allocated to finance economic development, health care and humanitarian needs.

Any developmental funds and funds for other services, should have been raised by the countries from their rich natural resources, which the leaders waste, pocketing a fistful of them while enriching other continents, like China, Europe and others, who take the resources of the continent almost for free, while indebting them to the hilt.

This is a wake-up call for African leadership. Dambisa Moyo, the Zambian economist warned African leaders long ago, in her book “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa,” where she asserted that international aid, including the USAID, only impoverishes the continent. Europe should also follow President Trump in curtailing aid to the continent.

This will certainly cause difficulties in Africa, but continuing on the hypocrisy of international aid, will never change the continent and will never make the African leadership responsible or accountable. It is good time that Africa turned to its resources and held its leaders accountable for their continuing corruption, replacing them, if and when necessary.

Economist Moyo believes that over the past seven decades, billions of development aid is reported to have been delivered to the continent from rich countries, but there is nothing to show for this in terms of development in the continent. Only continually rising high debts and more poverty is observed.

Most of international aid money is used, so it is reported, for famine and drought relief, healthcare and medical emergencies and other basic needs. While this is good, international aid merely treats the symptoms but not the real cause of the droughts, medical emergencies and other basic requirements. Nothing much is done on economic development, including infrastructure development such as ports, roads or railways and even entrepreneurship.

Those who pocket most incomes of the continent do not start businesses that could employ the bulging youthful population of the continent. They siphon them off to bank accounts outside the continent or in other countries anyway. There are many African leaders who never return to the countries they ruled once, as they enjoy the funds they stole in other parts of the world. No wonder many Africans migrate out of Africa all the time, further impoverishing it, as the skilled labor departs to seek better lives elsewhere.

Most of external aid is said to serve only to preserve authoritarian regimes in power, which entrenches corruption in the continent. It is why international aid will never solve the real needs of the continent and President Trump is not wrong in curbing the flow of these funds out of his country as they do not really serve the original purpose for which they were intended, anyway.

The continent including the Horn of Africa States region is vast. The world knows how poor the region is, supplying refugees to the world and violence remaining its main marker. Yet the world also knows that region enjoys vast natural resources, including its geostrategic location overlooking one of the main waterways of the world, where about 25, 000 ships carrying over 12 per cent of global trade, are reported to ply annually.

The region is reported to own large reserves of oil and gas both onshore and offshore, vast quantities of uranium (over 30% of global reserves), and the longest coast of Africa of some 4,700 km presenting beautiful beaches that are year-round usable and enjoyable. It is why, perhaps, humankind first started there! It has over a million square kilometers of maritime Exclusive Economic Zone full of fish and other resources, and the region is still hungry, poor, and underdeveloped!

No nation can develop without entrepreneurship and certainly no nation can develop with external aid. It is why the action of President Trump is not all doom as many report. It is telling Africans and African leaderships and especially the Horn of Africa States countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, to address their development on their own.

It is especially more so for the Horn of Africa States which needs to stop the continuing civil wars, pass the torch to those who can develop the countries of the region and ensure that the countries work together instead of against each other as seems to be the case today.

Internal civil strives are the direct result of those who are not qualified to govern nations and millions of people. They should peacefully all resign and pass the torches to those, the people of each country believe can help bring forth sustainable development without unduly relying on foreign aid of whatever source.