Africa is becoming ever more reliant on China. Due to the affordability of Chinese products especially technologies like mobile phones and network facilities, the vast majority of Africa's countries have turned eastward in their quest to meet their needs.

But as the ongoing US China trade war is to prove in no distant time, this dependence on China puts Africa in a compromising position. It's now clear that like the cold war had Africa restricted in choices, this ongoing trade war promises to do the same.

While a nonaligned position is once again a safe temporary position, I recommend Africa resolves to stop being mere bystanders and build the companies that can produce what it currently buys.

At the top levels of African policy making therefore, intellectuals must as a matter of urgency start laying the foundation for African industrial independence. I'm fully convinced that this responsibility can be shuddered by the African Union and the 54 Ministers of Economy in the participating member nations.

The role of the AU will be to start the ground work, to bring together top African entrepreneurs and to raise a massive capital war chest that can start the kind of companies I'm looking at.

This was exactly what Japan, South Korea, France and China did in times past. But instead of a single country in Africa taking on this huge task, all African nations should participate.

Instead of depending on others to help us, Africa must begin to help itself because at the end of the day the solutions to our problems are neither in the West nor in the East but right here in Africa.

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Ugonna Utulor is the author of Hackers Day and a Public Affairs Researcher.