With some real debt relief thanks I'm asking a few open questions today: We have the figures for African Debts, where are the figures of African Assets? So that we and our friends...from Geldof to Bono, Blair to Brown, Bill Clinton to Bill Gates, Canada to Japan, to name a few, can truly proclaim how broke or bankrupt this continent is. So we can better square things up...once and for all. Fair, isn't it?

Assets here means financial, human and other resources, including real estate, of African holding and standing to the credit of Africans - dead or alive! Assets means both legal and illegal, open and coded, free or entangled possessions and entitlements. The world is doing it on drugs, human trafficking and lately on terrorism; let's please do it on corruption.

Those who see double or multiple standards when it comes to Africa and third world loots, have a point...don't they! You steal in the advanced countries and you pay for it, heavily. You mindlessly loot in other countries, including hallowed national treasuries, and there is a safe haven for the billions! Haba.

How useful is this Assets Analysis? Huge. It will reduce the present costs to debt-forgiving countries and bodies, and will then ensure resource husbandry in developing countries for the UN Millennium Development Goals. Surely, this must be morally and judicially attractive to all? Which is why an International Tribunal on Corruption is long overdue. It should operate under the most liberal and practical jurisprudence, including making locus standi a Common Licence. Let the world's resources be for the world's peoples. The UN must be robustly strengthened to help assure so.

Africa should be able to help in this costing crusade. There should be no hiding place for mindless looters anywhere. But the world owes us as much as we owe the world. Until we say "we are", why should they say "thou art"?