I did a blog about why Africans need to focus on Africa & not so much on extraterrestrial activities before but it came from a very isolationist view & didn't assume Africa would ever really participate in global activities but the world is overly connected & globalised. Maybe too interconnected & globalised to the extent that you're in truth more connected to someone on another continent than someone in your neighborhood. We may need an extraterrestrial colony simply for more room in a cramped world & continent apart from other threats.
Africa isn't new to extraterrestrial "missions", some African goods have been taken outside this planet. Even though space travel isn't exactly cheap, there are some cheaper spacecraft models we could copy to send a self-sustaining & self-sufficient eco-system to Mars with some of Africa's more resilient plant species. A self-sufficient & self-sustaining ecosystem is easier & quicker than attempting to terraform any part of the Martian planet. Artificial sun, water, soil, temperature regulating mechanisms & artificial gravity by diamagnetism (for manned missions) would all need to be from Earth for this African extraterrestrial ecosystem. An African space colony may not even be for show off purposes but just a matter of our future survival with global warming, asteroids & nuclear war as dangers that could be the extinction of our race. We could do this collective African space mission as a tribute to Mandla Maseko who was set to be the first black African in space & the ambitious Mr. Edward Makuka Nkoloso who was ridiculed for his vision of a Zambian in space.
UPDATE:
Alright, maybe Mars is a bad place for an African biosphere for various reasons & Africa may need technology that's far more advanced than we do have now to set up a base on Mars but perhaps a manned African crew or unmanned automated mission could put farms on the moon should the need ever come.