Carlos Osei is 32. For three years, he worked as a company driver for a mid-sized logistics firm. Every week, he filled up the company vehicle with a corporate fuel card — and quietly took back cash from the fuel attendants. What started as “small-small” slowly became a routine. By the time management finally audited the accounts, the losses had crossed hundreds of thousands of cedis.
Carlos didn’t see it as theft.
He saw it as “everybody does it.”
He didn’t realise he was sabotaging the very company that paid his salary.
And this is the mindset problem Africa is battling.
If one driver, one fuel attendant, one small habit can drain a company for years, imagine what this mentality has done to our ports, refineries, hospitals, revenue agencies and state institutions for decades. Devakumar Edwin of the Dangote Group recently revealed 22 attempted acts of sabotage by refinery workers. If a world-class private refinery faces this, imagine the scale of damage in public institutions across Africa.
But here’s the real truth:
The same people who sabotage systems in Africa suddenly become disciplined, punctual and law-abiding the moment they step into Europe or the US.
This isn’t a capacity problem.
It’s a mindset problem — a poverty mindset shaped by years of “the system doesn’t care, so why should I?” In a different environment, we immediately change. We even become punctual.
Yet history is full of nations that deliberately changed this mindset — and transformed their destiny.
Rwanda changed laws on cleanliness and community service (Umuganda), turning Kigali into Africa’s cleanest city.
South Korea enforced industrial discipline laws during its rebuilding era, creating citizens who saw national progress as personal responsibility.
Mauritius created transparency-driven public service reforms that improved efficiency, tourism and investor confidence.
These countries did not wait for citizens to “naturally improve.”
They changed laws, enforced standards, rewired mindsets and aligned national behaviour with national ambition.
The New African must think differently.
We must raise children who see integrity as strength.
We must build schools that teach responsibility alongside mathematics.
We must reward discipline, not shortcuts.
We must treat public property as personal responsibility.
We must show up at work with pride, not survival.
Imagine an Africa where sabotage disappears because citizens protect national assets like their own.
Imagine an Africa where laws shape behaviour, and behaviour shapes prosperity.
Imagine an Africa where AfCFTA is driven by honesty, excellence and shared ambition.
The New African is not born — the New African is shaped. And when we fix the mindset, we fix the continent.
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