Building empty cities or otherwise making investments on the basis of personal feelings, paying off crony's or other, non market factors simply leads to waste, fraud, declining economic performance and eventually social and political turmoil. Sure, you can keep a lid on things, much like using a pressure cooker, or accept long term underperformance (ever wonder why Quebec, with an abundance of natural resources, educated population and diverse economy, is alway the caboose of Confederation rather than Canada's richest province?). F.A Hayek provides some good insights into why this is so.
At any rate, as both the earlier example upthread of a US support and UAV base in Niger and the more recent declaration of the Chinese becoming heavily involved in operations in Africa demonstrate, any reasons we may have had to go to Africa seem to be rapidly being overtaken by events. We run the risk of either being stranded (like the "Bungle in the Jungle", the government of that day was looking for a mission, but allies were not interested in either Africa or providing needed logistical support for the proposed Canadian mission), sidelined or being placed in a situation where the senior partners (be it France, the US or China) deem us to be useful, but in no way advancing any Canadian interest in the region.
Once again this comes down to not being able to articulate the "why" of this decision. Fighting ISIS and opposing Russian aggression in Europe have clear goals and support existing Canadian interests. It is possible to make arguments both "for" and "against" with clear premises and metrics to support your side of the argument. UN missions in Africa? Not so much.....