This book has approached the question of natural resources in Africa from a different perspective. It makes the argument that natural resources in Africa can be utilised to reclaim Africa's economic sovereignty which is central to the economic development and industrialisation of the continent. In making this argument, the book acknowledges that African countries have political control (de jure sovereignty) over natural resources in their respective territories, but most countries have little control over what happens to these resources once an extractive license is issued. This is evident in the fact that the bulk of primary commodities in Africa are shipped out of the continent in raw or semiprocessed form, with most African states having no say over what happens to these natural resources once they are extracted. The inability to influence what happens to natural resources extracted from the continent is an indication of weak economic sovereignty. Although the primary commodity companies that operate across the continent obtain licenses and pay royalties and other taxes levied for extracting natural resources, African states have no say after primary commodities are extracted partly because the bulk of primary resources extracted leave the continent and get processed into final and intermediate goods elsewhere. As long as the processes of adding value to primary commodities take place outside of the continent, African countries have no control or role to play in the process of adding value. This is the source of economic sovereignty weakness because the most powerful process (transforming natural resources into final and intermediate goods and services) occurs outside and beyond the continent's reach. As the book illustrates, it is the capacity to transform primary resources into goods and services needed in society that strengthens a country's economy and influence.

As the book argues, allowing the process of turning natural resources into final and intermediate goods and services outside of the continent is effectively an act of ceding power and agency to countries that transform natural resources into goods and services. The cumulative effect of allowing this process is that it weakens a country or continent's economic sovereignty, both in terms of the diminished ability to build productive capabilities needed to add value to natural resources, as well as the compromised capacity to exercise financial and monetary sovereignty.