When will the West start to deal with Africa on its own terms?

Suddenly all the great powers are courting Africa. Like emissaries to the 14th-century Malian monarch Mansa Musa in his adobe Timbuktu palaces, foreign officials from West and East compete for attention in multi-country tours across the poorest continent.

Recent visitors include the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken leading caravans of Washington officials, Moscow’s Sergei Lavrov and Emmanuel Macron of France. Invitations arrive for trade summits; speeches plead forgiveness for past wrongs, pay tribute to Africa’s new influence and offer the return of artefacts looted by imperialists; while Beijing – well, the Chinese came to stay a long time ago.

For Africa’s leaders, now repeatedly dry-cleaning their red carpets for the first time since those halcyon Cold War days, bemusement has turned to complacency. When Lavrov arrived in Africa offering oil, guns, grain and nuclear power last month, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni quipped: ‘They asked me, “Are you pro-East or pro-West?” I said, “You must think I’m an idiot.”’