The New Scramble for Africa: Cobalt, Oil, and the $24 Trillion Extraction

The New Scramble for Africa: Cobalt, Oil, and the $24 Trillion Extraction

The colonizers went home. The extraction never stopped.

In 1884, European powers gathered in Berlin to carve up Africa. They drew borders, claimed territories, and divided the continent like a pie. That was the first Scramble for Africa.

Today, there's a new scramble. No armies, no flags, no treaties signed at gunpoint. Just contracts, mining licenses, and corporate subsidiaries.

The wealth still flows out. The poverty still deepens. The only difference is the paperwork.

The Phone in Your Pocket: Where Does Cobalt Come From?

Pick up your smartphone. Inside it is cobalt—a metal essential for lithium-ion batteries.

There's a 70% chance that cobalt came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

DRC: The Paradox of Poverty

By any rational measure, the DRC should be one of the richest countries on Earth.

How is this possible?

Because the minerals leave, but the money doesn't stay.

The Deal of the Century: $3 Billion for $93 Billion

In 2007, the DRC signed what was called "the deal of the century" with China—the Sicomines agreement.

The Terms:

Three billion for ninety-three billion. That's the deal.

The promised infrastructure? Much of it was never built, built poorly, or built primarily to serve the mines rather than the population.

Not Just a China Problem

This isn't unique to China. Western companies pioneered this model.

As Claude Kabemba, Executive Director of Southern Africa Resource Watch, puts it:

"There are no bad or good investors in Africa. We've monitored dozens of Western companies, dozens of Chinese companies, dozens of African companies. All of them behave the same. The poorest communities in Africa are mining communities."

How Modern Resource Extraction Works

The extraction machine operates through several mechanisms:

1. Opaque Contracts

Mining agreements are negotiated in secret between foreign companies and government officials. Terms are rarely disclosed. When they are, they typically show the host country receives a fraction of value extracted.

2. Transfer Pricing

Multinational corporations sell minerals from their African subsidiary to another subsidiary in a tax haven at artificially low prices. Profits are booked offshore.

Africa loses $38.4 billion per year through trade mispricing alone.

3. Illicit Financial Flows

Beyond legal tax avoidance, outright illegal transfers drain another $25 billion annually.

Total: Over $60 billion leaves Africa each year—more than the continent receives in foreign aid.

4. Infrastructure for Extraction

When companies build infrastructure, it typically connects mines to ports—not schools to hospitals, not villages to markets.

The roads, rails, and power lines are designed to move resources out, not to develop the country.

5. Environmental Destruction

Mining operations pollute water, destroy farmland, and displace communities.

The environmental costs are borne locally. The profits are enjoyed globally.

Child Labor in Cobalt Mines: The Numbers

In industrial mines, conditions are dangerous but regulated. In artisanal mines—small-scale operations where individuals dig by hand—conditions are something else entirely.

The Reality:

• 20% of DRC's cobalt comes from artisanal mining

• That's billions of dollars in minerals

• Dug by people—including children—using pickaxes and bare hands

• Unstable tunnels that collapse

• Toxic materials without protection

• Wages that can't feed families

The Supply Chain Problem

Artisanal cobalt feeds into formal supply chains through "cross-contamination"—laundered through legitimate-looking intermediaries, winding up in phones, laptops, and electric cars.

The Lawsuits

Lawsuits have named Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla in connection with child labor in Congolese cobalt mines.

The companies claim they're addressing the problem.

The children are still digging.

Blood Minerals: Conflict in Eastern Congo

The eastern DRC has been at war, on and off, for nearly three decades.

Death toll: More than any conflict since World War II.

The fighting has always centered on one thing: control of mineral-rich territory.

Conflict Minerals:

Coltan (used in electronic capacitors) became infamous as a "conflict mineral"—a resource whose extraction funds armed groups.

During the worst fighting:

• Rwandan and Ugandan forces occupied mineral-rich areas

• Exported coltan, gold, and diamonds to fund military operations

• A 2002 UN report noted Western mining companies were "deeply involved in the large-scale and systematic robbery of the DRC's mineral wealth"

Today: M23 and the Rubaya Mine

In 2024, the M23 rebel group (backed by Rwanda) captured major cities including Goma and Bukavu.

• Over 7,000 killed in the attack on Goma alone

• UN confirms a major motivation: control of valuable mineral resources

• A 2024 Global Witness report traced smuggled coltan from the Rubaya mine to the global supply chain

• Tesla was named as one company potentially profiting from the system

Nigeria: 50 Years of Oil and Poison

The Niger Delta is one of the most polluted places on Earth.

For over 50 years, Shell and other oil companies have extracted billions of dollars worth of crude from this region.

What the Niger Delta Got in Return:

The Spill Statistics:

• 1976-1996: 1.89 million barrels spilled into Niger Delta

• 1960-1997 estimates: 100+ million barrels total

• Comparison: EU had 10 oil spill incidents in 40 years; Nigeria had 9,343 cases in just 10 years

The UNEP Report on Ogoniland (2011)

The United Nations Environment Programme assessed Ogoniland:

• Benzene in drinking water: 900 times WHO guideline

• Contamination so severe: 25-30 years to reverse

• Result: An entire ecosystem poisoned

Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine

The people of Ogoniland organized. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, demanded:

• Environmental cleanup

• Fair revenue sharing

In 1993, 300,000 Ogoni gathered to protest Shell's operations.

Shell withdrew from Ogoniland. But that wasn't the end.

In 1995, Nigeria's military dictator Sani Abacha executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.

Internal documents later revealed by Amnesty International pointed to Shell's complicity—"thousands of pages" suggesting involvement in the Nigerian government's crackdown, including allegations of murder, rape, and torture.

The Promised Cleanup That Failed

In 2016, the Nigerian government launched a $1 billion remediation project.

By 2020, Amnesty International found:

• "Emergency measures" never properly implemented

• Mismanagement and lack of transparency

• Some cleanup efforts left areas more contaminated than before

In 2024, the Ogale community sued Shell again—this time in London, seeking £88 million.

They couldn't trust Nigerian courts to deliver justice.

The Pattern Across Africa

Angola

• Second-largest oil producer in Africa

• China's fifth-largest oil supplier

• Outstanding loans to China: $18 billion (40% of external debt)

• When oil prices collapsed, Angola nearly defaulted

• The oil kept flowing; the debt kept growing

Ghana

• Gold mining for centuries

• Illegal mining by foreign actors now "uncontrollable"

• Rivers poisoned, farmland destroyed, communities dispossessed

• The gold leaves; the pollution stays

Zambia

• Copper mines contaminated the Kafue River

• September 2025: Spill victims launched landmark lawsuit

• Still waiting for justice

Guinea

• Home to Simandou—one of world's largest untapped iron ore deposits

• Chinese consortium outbid Australian company by promising infrastructure

• Whether infrastructure materializes remains to be seen

The resources are African. The profits are not.

Who Benefits?

When African civil society organizations investigate mining operations, they find the same thing everywhere:

"Communities don't see benefit, all they see are costs from mining: environmental pollution, involuntary displacement, and resettlement without compensation."

The people living on these resources often don't have:

• Electricity

• Clean water

• Paved roads

• Functioning hospitals

They have mines that poison their wells and companies that promise development that never comes.

Meanwhile, we in the Global North enjoy:

• Cheap electronics

• Affordable electric vehicles

• The warm feeling of "clean energy" transition

The energy may be clean where we use it. It's not clean where it's extracted.

What Would Sovereignty Look Like?

Some African countries are pushing back:

• DRC: Renegotiating the Sicomines contract

• Zimbabwe: Banned export of raw lithium ore, forcing domestic processing

• African Union: Calling for continent-wide strategies to move up the value chain

The Challenges:

Processing requires:

• Electricity that many African countries lack

• Technical expertise deliberately kept outside the continent

• Infrastructure systematically underfunded for decades

When African countries try to capture more value, they're accused of "resource nationalism"—as if it's radical to suggest a country should benefit from its own minerals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where does cobalt come from?

Approximately 70% of global cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC has the world's largest cobalt reserves.

Is there child labor in cobalt mines?

Yes. An estimated 20% of DRC's cobalt comes from artisanal (informal) mining, where children work in dangerous conditions. Major tech companies have been named in lawsuits related to child labor in their supply chains.

What are conflict minerals?

Conflict minerals are natural resources extracted in conflict zones and sold to fund armed groups. In the DRC, minerals like coltan, tin, tungsten, and gold have funded decades of warfare.

How much oil has Shell spilled in Nigeria?

Estimates vary, but between 1960-1997, an estimated 100+ million barrels of oil spilled into the Niger Delta environment. The region remains one of the most polluted on Earth.

Why can't resource-rich African countries develop?

Colonial-era economic structures designed for extraction remain largely intact. Opaque contracts, transfer pricing, weak governance, and international pressure prevent countries from capturing value from their own resources.

The Choice

There are two ways this can go.

Option 1: Extraction continues as it has for 60 years, and colonial centuries before that. Africa remains the source of raw materials. The clean energy transition happens on the backs of Congolese children. The wealth flows ever outward.

Option 2: Africans take control of their resources. Not just mining rights—the whole value chain. Processing, refining, manufacturing. African lithium in African batteries. African cobalt in African electronics. African oil refined in African refineries.

This is what Lumumba wanted when he talked about Congo's wealth benefiting Congolese.

This is what Sankara meant when he insisted Burkina Faso should produce what it consumes and consume what it produces.

They were killed for saying it.

The question is whether a new generation will succeed where they failed.