Capital flight from Africa and particularly Nigeria has been recently put at the forefront of the development policy debate.
The African Economic activist, Charles N Lambert, who strongly condemns Capital Flight in episode 11 of The Black Wall Street’s Economic War show, says it is a major problem facing Africans. He says it is the single worse, most disastrous thing that keeps happening to Africa.
According to him, it is the reason why Africa has unemployment, no good hospitals, no business development because billions are taken away from Africa yearly and this happens daily too.
In recent years, considerable interest has arisen in the extent to which capital flight has a detrimental impact on economic development.
The sluggish economic growth and persistent balance of payment deficits in most developing countries have been attributed to capital flight. Indeed, the high levels of capital flight pose serious challenges for domestic resource mobilization in support of investment and growth in Africa
According to Ndikumana and Boyce (2001), many poor countries are losing more resources via capital flight than through debt servicing. Scholars have expressed concern over the magnitude, causes and consequences of these net flows.
Investors from developed countries are seen as responding to investment opportunities while investors from developing countries are said to be escaping the high risks they perceive at home.
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Thus, according to Schneider, Capital flight involves the outflows of resident capital which is motivated by economic and political uncertainties in the home country.
The Black Wall Street, a group of people led by Charles N Lambert to win the Economic War for Africa, understands that Africans are poor primarily because of the capital flight of $203 Billion dollars which leave the continent every year to other countries developing them while our citizens and our governments have no money to do anything.
The International Monetary Fund IMF (1996) reveals that Nigeria suffered a loss of $7,573million between 1972 and 1989 to capital flight. Out of this total, the sum of US$7,362 million was lost between 1972 and 1978 against a capital inflow of $270 million within the same period.
International Financial Corporation (1998) observed that Nigeria was among many African economies that have achieved significant lower investment levels as a result of capital flight.
Such low-level investment brought about by high rate of capital flight in Africa also has multiplier consequences on other aspects of the economy, including the alarming rate of unemployment.
In spite of Africa’s rich agricultural, mineral resource endowments; there has been a gradual
decline in these resources contributions to the continent’s economy.
However, the good news today is that we will no longer wait anymore for the government to use these resources to develop Africa, we will no longer wait to export our products, our resources to the Westerners and then import the finished products from them.
The Black Wall Street in the cause of fighting the Economic War has provided a platform for average Africans to profit from investments which are the vaccine for poverty through the revenues of funded corporations listed on its platform.
