In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective.

What Africa needs to do is to grow, to grow out of debt.

The richest persons in Africa are heads of state, governors and ministers. So every 'educated' African who wants to be rich - and there is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich - heads straight into government or politics.

The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.'

Across Africa there is what I call a colonialist mentality or orthodoxy. Orthodoxy in the sense that a lot of things have gone wrong in Africa in the post-colonial period. And time and time again, any time something went wrong, the leadership claims that it was never their fault.

Traditionally, Africans hate governments. They hate tyranny.

African history is filled with experiences of people shooting their way to power and then splintering into factions, like in Somalia and Liberia.