Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
The score is not the story
The final score matters far less than what unfolded on the pitch.
As if by coincidence, on the occasion of the birthday of Patrice Lumumba, born on the 2nd of July 1925, we witnessed Africa standing tall before one of its former colonizers.
Some will dismiss this interpretation as overly political. Yet anyone familiar with the history of our continent understands that, for Africans, sport is rarely just about sport.
At pivotal moments, it becomes a mirror reflecting our collective memory, our identity, and our enduring struggle for dignity and recognition.
For ninety minutes, DR Congo represented far more than a national football team. It embodied a people whose history has been shaped by resistance.
It stood for millions of Africans who endured slavery, colonialism, the plunder of their natural wealth, and, more recently, new forms of economic dependence and geopolitical competition.
It was as though Patrice Lumumba himself and our ancestors were present on the field.
Every tackle, every sprint, and every moment of determination carried the memory of those forced across the Atlantic in slave ships, those who fought for independence, and those who continue to defend Africa’s dignity in a world that too often values our resources more than our people.
But this article is not about football therefore football is simply the spark for a much deeper conversation.
The Congolese paradox is Africa’s paradox
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is among the richest countries on Earth in natural resources. Beneath its soil lie cobalt, coltan, copper, gold, diamonds, and many of the strategic minerals powering the digital economy, artificial intelligence, aerospace industries, and the global energy transition.
Yet millions of Congolese continue to live in poverty while the country struggles with armed conflict, institutional fragility, forced displacement, and decades of external interference.
This contradiction did not emerge by accident.
For centuries, Africa was integrated into the global economy first as a supplier of enslaved labor and later as a supplier of raw materials. Empires changed. Political systems changed. Global powers changed.
But one principle often remained the same: extract Africa’s wealth without allowing that wealth to generate lasting prosperity for Africans themselves.
No country illustrates this contradiction more clearly than the Congo.
Patrice Lumumba’s unfinished dream
It is here that Patrice Lumumba’s legacy becomes profoundly relevant.
When Congo achieved independence, Lumumba argued that the country’s extraordinary wealth should first serve its own people. Political independence, he believed, would be incomplete without economic sovereignty.
That vision cost him his life, Lumumba was assassinated, but the ideals he defended survived him. His struggle was never simply about removing colonial rule.
It was about ensuring that Africans controlled their own resources, shaped their own institutions, and determined their own future.
More than six decades later, the world still depends heavily on Congolese minerals.
The question remains painfully simple:
Why does the world benefit so greatly from Congo’s wealth while so many Congolese remain excluded from its rewards?
Africa must also look inward
It would be easy to blame only colonial history and foreign powers.
It would also be incomplete.
History explains many of Africa’s challenges, but it cannot permanently excuse them.
Africa will not become truly free only when others stop exploiting it. Africa will become truly free when Africans refuse to participate in the exploitation of their own people.
Corruption, weak governance, institutional fragility, political patronage, and conflicts sustained by domestic elites have also delayed the continent’s progress.
True African liberation demands the courage to confront both external injustice and internal failure.
There can be no economic sovereignty without strong institutions.
No political independence without justice.
No sustainable development without education.
No prosperity without industrialization.
And no genuine African unity while nations continue exporting raw materials instead of creating value together through manufacturing, innovation, and knowledge.
Africa is not a mine
This is perhaps the most important message.
Africa cannot continue to be viewed merely as a warehouse of oil, cobalt, lithium, diamonds, gold, and rare earth minerals.
Africa is not an inventory of strategic commodities feeding other nations’ industrial revolutions.
Africa is a civilization and it is home to more than a billion people, thousands of cultures and languages, world class universities, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, and the youngest population of any continent.
Africa’s greatest resource has never been buried beneath its soil.
It has always been the African people themselves.
As long as the world measures Africa primarily by what can be extracted from its land, it merely reproduces colonial thinking in modern language.
Our greatest wealth lies in the intelligence of our youth, the creativity of our entrepreneurs, the resilience of our communities, and our capacity to transform natural resources into shared prosperity.
The real match begins now
The football match between Congo and England ended with the final whistle.
Africa’s defining match is only beginning.
May this game be remembered not only for what happened on the field, but for the conversation it inspires.
May it awaken a generation that stops asking what the world will do for Africa and begins asking what Africa will do for itself.
A generation that understands independence does not end when a flag is raised.
It is fulfilled when natural resources build schools instead of conflicts, hospitals instead of dependency, industries instead of exports of raw materials, research centers instead of permanent technological dependence, and opportunities instead of migration born from despair.
Patrice Lumumba believed in an Africa that would own its destiny.
That vision remains unfinished.
Our generation carries the responsibility of completing it.
Because no one will simply hand Africa the place it deserves.
That place must be earned through knowledge, integrity, good governance, productive economies, innovation, and continental cooperation.
Africa says: enough.
Enough of being treated only as a supplier of raw materials.
Enough of unequal international relationships.
Enough of exporting wealth while importing poverty.
But also enough of allowing our own failures to prevent our progress.
The true transformation of Africa will begin when we stop calling ourselves “the continent of the future” and recognize that we must become protagonists of the present.
We can.
We can industrialize our economies.
We can strengthen our institutions.
We can invest in science, education, and innovation.
We can build an integrated Africa driven by production rather than extraction.
We can honor Patrice Lumumba not merely through speeches, but through action.
Africa’s most strategic resource is neither cobalt, oil, nor diamonds.
It is its people.
And when Africans fully believe in their own capacity to transform their continent, no economic empire, foreign power, or colonial legacy will be stronger than an Africa that is conscious, united, and determined to write the next chapter of its own history.
Because we can. In memory of Patrice Lumumba, the time to prove it is now.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They represent our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
