BY 2040, if Africa's leaders make the right decisions, the continent will be a significant and self-sufficient player on the world stage, according to Nigerian strategist Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu.

At present, there is a lot of hope around "Africa rising" amid signs of economic growth and turnaround. But there is no inevitable future, he says.

Africa's future depends on countries drawing upon their internal strengths, setting themselves a vision and using their educational systems, economies, diplomacy and nation-branding.

Moghalu, who is deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, is an expert on risk and strategy. He holds a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics, an MA from Tufts University and an LLB from the University of Nigeria. He has worked for the United Nations for 17 years in strategic planning in New York, Cambodia, Croatia, Tanzania and Switzerland.

Moghalu's latest book, Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy's 'Last Frontier' Can Prosper and Matter, is his third and it reflects his personal views, not the policies of any of the institutions for which he has worked. He analyses prevailing wisdom about Africa, both the Afro-optimist and the Afro-pessimist views, to show what has really held the continent back and how it can become and stay globally relevant.

What makes this book particularly relevant is that though Moghalu has spent many years outside Africa and personifies the diplomatic central banker, he is forthright about Africa's need to solve its own problems.

The economic system that suits the reality of most African states, he argues, is not pure socialism or free market capitalism, but a combination of entrepreneurial and oligarchic capitalism.

In a question-and-answer session with Investec Asset Management strategist Michael Power, Moghalu said international aid was one of the influences that had helped Africa to stay poor because it had robbed governments of the incentive to grow economies on their own strengths. Foreign aid served donor priorities, not Africa's greatest needs.

"You cannot talk about 'development aid', because aid does not result in development," he said.

In his book, he calls it "the cul-de-sac of foreign aid" and suggests how the model should be overhauled, since it is not going to disappear immediately.

Foreign aid has also put Africa in a defensive position on trade negotiations. Aid has a psychological effect on its recipients and always has strings attached.

Moghalu admits that the uneven terms of trade between Africa and the rest of the world are one of his "itches".

"World trade has not been good for Africa. African countries were made to liberalise trade relations without adequate preparation and that has caused the de-industrialisation of the continent. Russia negotiated for 19 years before it joined the World Trade Organisation, China negotiated for 15 years, but Africa joined as soon as the WTO opened for business in the 1990s, without thinking through the implications.

"Most of world trade is intra-regional, for example 52% of Europe's trade stays within Europe. For Africa, intra-regional trade is only 13%.

"Africa is not competitive enough yet to trade with developed countries because of quality issues and the tariffs and protective measures put in place by the very countries that advocate free trade. Europe spends huge amounts on subsidies, but Africa is told to remove them. Why should it be different for Africa?

"Africa is also at a disadvantage because it trades mainly in primary agricultural commodities but these are only 7% of world trade flows. About 55% of world trade is in manufactured goods."

He argues that many African countries are wrong in seeing foreign investment as their salvation. African countries need to build infrastructure and a skilled workforce before they can benefit from other forms of foreign investment.

Investment at the outset should be channelled into those two areas.

"The interest of foreign capital in any destination country is not the country's development," he says in his book.

"The real interest of global capital is to make a profit and to extract raw materials and other advantages ... It is the responsibility of the FDI destination country to ensure that investment flows serve its strategic national interest."

Moghalu acknowledges the importance of institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the UN. But, he argues, "the countries whose problems are the subject of decision making often do not have a strong voice in the decisions".

African countries often lack the capacity or the will to confront their internal challenges, allowing international institutions to project their power and advance their own economic interests. African countries do not always need external advice as much as they sometimes believe they do, "a belief that stems mainly from an ingrained aid mentality", Moghalu says.

He urges Africans to create their own world view based on an understanding that only Africans are responsible for the continent's future, and to cease blaming slavery, colonialism or geography for Africa's current condition.

"Only a transformation of the minds of Africans will lead to a world view that becomes the ever-constant motivation to transform the continent economically, politically and sociologically," he says.