I'm guessing that OP is referring to the publicly owned $1trn oil fund that the government has only recently dipped into.
They're actually now claiming they're going to minimise withdrawals due to an increase in revenue (1).
Wish my own government here in Australia had the brains and chutzpah to do this a few years back. We've never been much cop when it comes to visionary economics (apart from, arguably, rum being our first legal currency).
African nations have had a history of being pillaged from without and within, a comparison would be fairer among countries with similar governments and economic structures.
Nearly all nations have a history of being pillaged or similar.
Half of Europe was bombed, butchered or destroyed 75 years ago, the other half was enslaved or otherwise ruled by dictators for a generation.
China was tortured by several of the colonial powers, the Japanese, and then Mao. It's the world's #2 economy today.
Japan was flattened and nuked. It's the world's #3 economy today.
Germany was destroyed, split in half, and impoverished on one half for two generations. It's the world's #4 economy today.
South Korea survived a horrific civil war and Japanese occupation. Starting from intense poverty just 50 years ago - $150 per capita GDP - it now has the world's #11 economy.
Of those non-African nations you mentioned, it is absolutely astounding that South Korea not only escaped the abject poverty but has joined the top 10 or 15 in a lot of metrics used to measure a nation. In 64 years.
After the end of the Korean War 1950 - 53, South Korea was the absolute last on the planet in terms of GDP. Poorer than most of the poorer nations.
And remember the trauma of having gone through a conventional warfare that went up and down the peninsula about 4 time. Not some guerrilla warfare where a neighborhood here and there goes up in smoke but a good old WW1 style warfare of massive artillery barrages.
And before the Korean War, Korea was largely a place stuck in the 19th century, with no modern education or institutions to speak of.
In 64 years, they educated the population, built up basic economy, and than kept on advancing.
You are severely distorting reality. Japan has only become powerful again after WW2 because of massive investments in the Japanese economy by the US when they were fighting the Korean war and then the Vietnam War. The Japanese economy grew tremendously ONLY because of that. And every Japanese is very well aware of that.
Same story in Western Germany; massive investments from the West to prevent them from turning to the Soviet block.
