THE reported acquisition of Nissan’s South African plant by Chinese automaker Chery is not a routine corporate manoeuvre; it is a seismic tremor in Africa’s industrial trajectory.
To treat it as a neutral business transaction is to miss its deeper significance. On the surface, the deal offers comforting optics: continuity of production, jobs preserved, assembly lines humming and the illusion of industrial renewal, yet beneath this veneer lies a far more unsettling reality.
The question is not whether factories will remain open, but whether Africa is once again surrendering its industrial destiny to external powers.
This moment demands interrogation. Is Chery’s takeover a genuine step towards Africa’s industrial emancipation or merely another chapter in the continent’s long history of dependency, where sovereignty is traded for short-term relief?
Africa has been here before, its resources extracted, its labour exploited, its markets captured, all under the guise of partnership and progress. The symbolism of a factory without an African flag is stark: production may occur on African soil, but the strategic direction, the patents, the profits and ultimately the power flow outwards. What appears as renewal risks becoming tenancy, with Africa reduced to landlord of its own future, renting out sovereignty for wages and promises.
This acquisition is, therefore, not just about cars or jobs; it is about agency, about whether Africa will continue to be a subcontractor in the global economy or finally seize the tools of industrial sovereignty. To ignore this deeper question is to mistake motion for progress, noise for renewal, and dependency for development.
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Jobs today, dependency tomorrow
Foreign acquisitions seduce because they promise immediate relief. Workers keep their jobs, communities stave off collapse and governments parade “investment” as evidence of progress, yet this short-term dividend is a mirage, masking a long-term deficit that corrodes sovereignty.
Africa’s industrial future is outsourced, its destiny subcontracted to foreign boardrooms. Strategic decisions are drafted in Beijing or Detroit, not in Pretoria or Lagos. Designs, patents and profits flow outwards, while Africa is reduced to the role of assembler, an industrial tenant in its own house, producing wealth for others while inheriting dependency for itself.
This is not renewal; it is captivity disguised as partnership. Factories without African flags are not monuments to progress but monuments to tenancy, reminders that Africa is permitted to host production but denied the power to own, innovate or control it. The continent becomes the workshop of someone else’s imagination, its labour commodified, its sovereignty hollowed out. What appears as salvation is in fact surrender, a bargain where Africa trades agency for wages and calls it development.
The mirage of industrialisation
Africa’s leaders too often confuse the inflow of foreign capital with genuine industrialisation, mistaking the presence of factories for the substance of sovereignty, but true industrialisation is not about hosting production lines owned by outsiders; it is about commanding them, innovating within them and directing their future in service of African development.
Industrialisation is ownership, not tenancy; it is invention, not imitation. Without binding requirements for technology transfer, without genuine local ownership, without deliberate skills development, acquisitions such as Chery’s takeover of Nissan’s South African plant risk hollowing out African agency rather than strengthening it.
What emerges is a dangerous illusion: Africa appears industrialised, yet remains a subcontractor in the global economy, perpetually dependent on external capital and external vision.
The continent becomes the workshop of others, producing wealth that flows outwards while its own people inherit only wages and dependency.
This is not emancipation, but captivity disguised as progress, a cycle in which Africa is permitted to host industry but denied the power to define it. Unless leaders abandon this shallow equation of foreign investment with industrialisation, Africa will remain trapped in a future where sovereignty is outsourced, and destiny is dictated from abroad.
Sovereignty at stake
This is not simply about cars or jobs; it is about sovereignty, the very right of Africa to command its own destiny. Economic sovereignty demands more than the presence of factories on African soil, it requires that those factories serve African futures, not merely the profit margins of foreign capitals. Sovereignty means policies that are uncompromising: policies that insist on technology transfer, that enforce genuine local ownership and that embed resilience into industrial strategy so that Africa is not merely a host but a master of its own production.
Without such safeguards, Africa’s industrial landscape will become a graveyard of false promises, factories that hum with activity yet generate wealth that flows outwards, leaving Africans trapped in cycles of dependency and disillusion. What appears as progress will in fact be captivity, a future where Africa produces but does not own, labours but does not innovate and hosts industry without ever commanding it.
Sovereignty is not a luxury; it is the condition of survival. To surrender it is to accept perpetual tenancy in the global economy, a continent rich in resources yet condemned to poverty because its leaders mistake foreign profit for national progress.
The Chinese grip and the new colonialism
Chery’s move is not an isolated transaction; it is part of a sweeping tide of Chinese acquisitions that now stretch across Africa’s economic landscape, from mines in Zambia to banks in South Africa, from ports in Kenya to factories in the heart of the continent. What is unfolding is not merely investment but entrenchment. China’s grip tightens not only through the familiar instruments of loans and infrastructure projects but through direct ownership of the very sites of production, the arteries of Africa’s industrial and commercial life.
The danger lies not in foreign capital itself, Africa needs investment to fuel growth, but in foreign control without accountability, in ownership that extracts value while leaving sovereignty hollow. This is the new colonialism: not the old spectacle of flags planted and armies marching, but the quieter conquest of contracts, boardrooms and balance sheets. It is colonialism by spreadsheet, where decisions are made in Beijing while consequences are borne in Lusaka, Nairobi and Johannesburg. Africa risks becoming a tenant in its own house, hosting industries it does not command, producing wealth it does not retain and surrendering agency in exchange for capital that comes with invisible chains.
Renewal or captivity?
The unfinished revolution of African independence was never about flags fluttering in the wind or anthems echoing in stadiums; it was about the uncompromising right to command destiny. Sovereignty was meant to be substance, not spectacle, yet if Chery’s acquisition of Nissan’s South African plant becomes merely another chapter in dependency, Africa’s industrial future will remain hostage to external capital, its factories reduced to monuments of tenancy rather than engines of liberation.
This moment is, therefore, not trivial, it is a crucible. Africa must seize it with clarity and courage.
To do so requires more than welcoming foreign investors; it demands binding policies that insist on technology transfer, enforce genuine local ownership and embed sovereignty into every layer of industrial strategy.
Without these safeguards, Africa will continue to produce wealth for others while its own citizens inherit only wages and dependency, but with them, the continent can transform factories without flags into factories of freedom, sites where African innovation, African labour and African vision converge to build futures defined by Africans themselves.
The choice is stark: surrender or sovereignty, tenancy or ownership, dependency or destiny.
Africa cannot afford another illusion of progress that masks captivity. It must reclaim the revolution, complete the unfinished work of independence and ensure that industrialisation becomes not another chapter of exploitation but the foundation of true freedom. Anything less is betrayal.
Wellington Muzengeza is an independent journalist, political risk analyst and urban strategist offering incisive insight on urban planning, infrastructure, leadership succession and governance reform across Africa’s evolving post-liberation and urban landscapes.