Africans are blessed with a lot of minerals that if this resources are gainfully used for benefit of their citizens, this God given resources would add colours to Africans. Countries in Africans like Nigeria, Serial Leone, Ghana, kenya, south Africa and lots more you will a lot of natural resources either misused or abandon by government and even if they see need to use them, is either abused or mismanaged. Petrol in Nigeria till today is been refined outside country and still import back to Nigeria on a high price, lots of minerals like coals, salt, kerosene, gas, petroleum and so on but no appropriate handling of this resources, so even the citizens can not benefit from it. If Africa can make use of their resources well, they will be more independent, free from indebtedness and indirect colonial system of other countries.
I'm all for the development and prosperity of African countries, but it's not an easy road. First, there's corruption and violence, both of which need to significantly be tuned down for progress. Then there's the impact of colonialism which you've mentioned, and it's unfortunately hard to escape it because economic dependency is still strong. Finally, the world is starting to move away from the exploitation of natural resources toward more sustainable activities because of climate change, so I think that it's not a good time to start working on building economies around minerals and stuff.
Corruption has eaten African countries deeply to the point the military is now doing coups up and down and that scares me, and as much as there is a high level of stealing and theft in democracy, I don't like to be ruled by a military government, this madness is already spread within West African countries; I believe in democracy because it has worked for the west if its properly manage here with everyone following the rule, it will prosper in the Africa horizon as well, we should encourage impunity and discourage dictatorship, I don't pray to wake up one day and see a gun pointed on my head for violation that the court can penalize me for, that's gonna be hell for everyone.
Furthermore, colonialism has been a form of a parasitic relationship between African countries and the West, they benefit more from Africa than the way they benefit from us but let us not lie to ourselves, we need allies and friends to stay ahead of others, any African country that thinks they will hate the west because of their greed is doing so to hurt its people, we need each other to survive the heat periods, we need the west for development because they are ahead of Africans by innovations and creativities, and in return, they also need the resources around us but then it has to be a mutual relationship instead of the usual over dependency on each other.