African special envoy for infrastructural development Raila Odinga has echoed Rwanda President Paul Kagame's remarks that African needs to write its own story and encourage more trade with each other.
Speaking in Kigali Rwanda during the Kusi Ideas Festival in Kigali Rwanda, Raila began by thanking Rwanda's president Paul Kagame for the inspirational role he was playing in Africa as well as challenging.
He specifically mentioned a comment the Rwanda President made that Africans should own their problems and write their own stories.
"I want to congratulate you President Paul Kagame for the inspirational role you are playing in this continent. As the saying goes, until the lion learns to write, the story of the hunt will always favour the hunter. So the African lion needs to write its own story." said Raila.
He went ahead to point out the realization that Africa was doing very little to trade with itself, a narrative he said had to change.
"It is here in Kigali that African leaders came as a result of realization that Africa was really trading very little with itself and there is need to break some of these barriers and facilitate more Intra African trade," said Raila.
"How does Africa trade with itself? One of the impediments is the lack of proper infrastructure," added Raila.
Raila gave an example of how Kenya has no access route to the Central Africa Republic and East Africa and how it is a challenge to supply Kenya tea and coffee to African countries.
He also highlighted that another challenge is the lack of power and high cost of power in some countries such as Liberia said that it is the reason the conversation on power is there in Africa.
"How do you construct a high-speed power line without power, energy?" posed Raila.
He added that when people have access to power and its cost is low and it will enable Africa to add value to its raw materials so that instead of exporting raw materials such as copper, it exports finished products such as copper cables.
Below is a video of the proceedings during the Kusi ideas Festival.