Franck Zanu on Why Africa Hasn’t Developed

Why haven’t more African countries developed the way Japan or South Korea did? Franck Zanu has built a following of more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers by giving an answer many people find uncomfortable: the biggest obstacles are now internal, in mindset and institutions, rather than colonialism alone. In this 91-minute conversation with a guest named Sam, he makes that case at length. We’re presenting it as one side of a live debate, not as our view.

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What it is

Zanu, born Franck Adjisegbe in Benin, is a US-based speaker and former journalist who reported for the New York Tribune and the Washington Times (Zanu Project). The episode was posted on 6 August 2026. Its chapters run from colonial schooling and language systems, through what Africa can learn from Japan, tribal identity and Nigeria’s history, to Nigeria’s young protesters, its tech startups and the idea of building within the systems that already exist.

Why it’s on our list

This argument has moved from academic journals to YouTube, where Zanu’s videos draw tens of thousands of viewers and fierce comment sections. Whether you agree with him or not, the debate is shaping how a generation of Africans and people across the diaspora talk about the continent’s future.

Our take

The strongest case on the other side is still Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). The Guyanese historian wrote it while teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam. Rodney argued that Africa’s position was produced by centuries of extraction and that its effects outlive formal independence. The episode touches that point in its chapter on independence that kept colonial systems in place.

The most useful way to watch is with both arguments in mind: history explains how the present was shaped, and the question Zanu keeps pressing is what Africans can change now. Tell us below which argument you find more convincing, and why.