A dozen years ago African Angle was at the site of what would become a massive copper mine at Lumwana. In those days, Lumwana was just a dot on the geological map, with just a general dealer and refugee camp – for displaced Angolans – nearby.

The Equinox Minerals camp manager took African Angle around, spending the day explaining where the Malundwe and Chimiwungo pits would be, how rivers would be diverted and other visionary plans which, indeed, came to fruition through the work of the tenacious Australian exploration junior led by Craig Williams.

Late that afternoon, after a standard Zambian 3pm thundershower, the tour took us to the top of a hill from which there was an excellent overview of the entire Lumwana project area.

On top of this hill was a collection of mud and thatch homes occupied by subsistence farmers. The villagers, attracted to the site of the Equinox LandCruiser occupied by the two mzungus (white people), came over to greet us.

One toddler took a shine to us and while showing the 18-month old kid my camera, his mum approached. A rather bizarre conversation took place. Through a Bemba-English interpreter, it went something like this:

Mum: You from Australia? It is a very good country? It has good schools? People have nice houses?

AA: Yes to all of those!

Mum: Well then, I want you to take my child back to Australia with you so he can get a good education and live in a nice house!

AA: That would be difficult, and you cannot give up your son to strangers … you would miss him too much.

Mum: You look like a good man (laughter) and I only want what is best for my boy. It would give me great happiness to know that he had a future in a good country.

This sort of desperation is not limited to Zambians. Traditionally, it used to be just the countries affected by civil unrest and war from which its citizens wished to flee; today, there are probably not more than five African nations out of its 52 from which many inhabitants would wish to find refuge elsewhere in the world.

Even within southern Africa, there is illegal migration from the poorer countries to the richer ones. A good example is the exodus from Zimbabwe to South Africa, which has resulted in the horrific ongoing xenophobic attacks against Zimbabweans now living in the southern powerhouse. The South Africans claim the Zimbabweans take jobs from them – and, unfortunately, this is hardly surprising as Zimbabweans have a stereotypical reputation for being industrious and hard-working people.

A new exodus of Africans is now taking place in northern Africa as unrest in Libya and other Arabic-African nations continues without resolution in sight. Southern Europe, accustomed to a trickle of illegal immigrants, is now dealing with a flood.

What a sad picture from a continent so richly endowed with every natural resource imaginable.

It is not only the poor of the impoverished African nations that seek better lives elsewhere, but also the super-rich from the continent’s most developed nation, South Africa.

A recently released report from New World Health, prepared in conjunction with LIO Global pointed out that between 2000 and 2014, South Africa had lost 8000 of its richest people with a net worth of more than $US1 million, excluding their primary residence.

The research shows that South Africa, among the world’s top five mining jurisdictions, has one of the highest cases of high net worth individual outflows. They are moving to Australia, the UK, Cyprus, Mauritius, the US and Canada.

Reasons for migration from South Africa are attributed to the high rate of crime, the erosion of living standards and the untrustworthiness of the African National Congress government led by President Jacob Zuma.

And while South Africa’s loss is a both a financial and an intellectual gain for the recipients of these high net worth migrants, it is Africa which ultimately loses.

African futurologist Clem Sunter, way back in the mid-1980s when South Africa was experiencing a massive brain drain, expressed the view that for every good, decent, hard-working person who left the continent, it made the chance for ultimate success of the nation that much slimmer.

Sunter should know. Born in Britain during the Second World War, Sunter was based in Zambia for the Anglo American group from 1971, later moving up the corporations ranks to head of its gold division (before it hived off into AngloGold, and later AngloGold Ashanti). It was during those early 1970s years that the foolishness of then President Kenneth Kaunda’s policy of mining nationalisation was starting to bite.

The effects of nationalisation and all the social engineering involved in the “Zambianisation” of the industry, as it was called, are still part of the hangover of that misguided policy. While Zambia now openly encourages private ownership and foreign direct investment, the hurt it caused the nation lingers on.

Not content with shooting itself in foot once, Zambia changed the royalty rules again fairly recently, forcing Lumwana owners Barrick to pull the plug on the massive copper mine.

Had there been no tampering with an industry which had worked very well for decades without state intervention, everyone would have prospered – and the mother on the hill overlooking Lumwana would not have been looking for some random stranger to take her son to Australia for a better future.

African Angle cannot help but wonder what became of the lad, who today would be around 14 years of age …