Introduction
Africa today is one the most undeveloped continents with numerous issues plaguing it. This paper shall be examining Africa’s past and history in general in an attempt to understand how it arrived in such a situation. The primary focus of this paper shall be the reasons that as explained previously led to these failures. Europeans colonized all of Africa with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia 19th and 20th century. The numerous guiding factors behind colonization included search for raw materials and settlement for surplus population among other reasons. The Africans prior to the colonization had their established systems of governance and even political systems. Despite the informality of such modes of governance, the forms of political governance seemed to have worked well for them. However, the colonization arrived with new forms of governance that the Europeans applied in their respective countries. The democratic systems of governance were construed during the independence struggle and the consequent granting of independence to African countries. The systems were designed with the aid of the colonizing European powers. The constitutions, laws, rules and regulations were supposed to provide a sufficient framework for the decorating governance of the African countries.
However, once the colonial masters were gone, the structures that were intended to provide for and ensure democratic governance succeeded soon broke down after the independence was provided. The result was a mess of civil disorder, military coups and entrenched authoritarian rule. Presently, there are numerous major issue that afflict Africa that this essay shall briefly examine to clarify further on the issue One of the main problems and challenges facing Africa is the abject poverty that affects African countries.
The poverty afflicts both the countries and some if not most of their citizens. The African countries owe the developed countries and international organizations such as IMF billions that have accumulated in debt. The citizens themselves also face abject poverty in their lives. African countries such as Zimbabwe have more than half of the population living below the poverty line. The constant conflicts arising in Africa are politically, ethnically motivated or even motivated by religion. The conflicts have led to massive loss of life and slowed the economic growth of their countries leading to stagnation of their economies and even the complete collapse of the currency such as the situation in Zimbabwe. In the previous decade, an ethnically motivated civil war rocked Rwanda resulting in a genocide that killed millions of the warring tribes.
Also, the corruption crisis in the continent is just staggering. Most of the governments in power in Africa today and in the past encourage and reward corruption. With the odds of the arrest and charge for corruption being lower than one in a thousand in a country like Ghana, corruption is even completely widespread. The corruption crisis practice has had a widespread and constant practice in some African countries that it no longer raises eyebrows and may have become the mainstream way of doing things. The African leadership is also extraordinarily corrupt amassing huge amounts of wealth during the time they are in power. The corruption prevents the funds from being used in development projects because they simply vanish, stalling and killing those projects.
Brief Historical Overview
The African situation today leads us to ask the question; how and why did it get this bad? The answer to the question lies in studying and analyzing the history of African governance and political systems in contrast to democratic systems that seem to be falling apart. Africans had various forms of political systems that varied from community to community. Some systems were large Kingdoms having centralized governments with a King, emperor or their equivalent at the helm. Such kingdoms included the Mali, Songhai, and the Asante among others. Despite existence of such kingdoms, most African communities had a decentralized government with a chief acting as their leader.
The scramble, partition of Africa and the resulting colonization of Africa by Europeans led to the introduction of western modes of governance in Africa. For the European methods of governance to work or be effective in the least the colonizers had to actively discourage the African systems of governance or assimilate them into their system using their leaders as puppets. The colonization process comprised of a war of conquest by the colonizing powers and brutal suppression of any resistance. As such, over the period of colonization systematic elimination and destruction by the colonialists of many forms of traditional governments that had existed in Africa previously was widespread. The few governing systems that escaped destruction did so only because the Colonizers wanted to avoid the inconvenience of subjugating their communities. To avoid the trouble of the aforementioned subjugation of the communities the colonial masters simply turned the leaders into their puppets.
Later around the 1950s, 1960s and the 1970s, the colonized nations began seeking and demanding independence from their colonial masters. However, by this stage the colonial masters had already successively eliminated all forms of traditional leaderships in their colonies. The colonialist had successfully replaced the indigenous governance methods with a formalized, organized and more rigid system of governance. The countries seeking independence, therefore, had the western version of governance in their minds. The democratic systems of government in the colonized countries seeking independence constituted of their independence constitutions. The drafting of constitutions and laws took place with the colonizing powers assistance who sought to leave behind stable democratic nations when they granted them their independence. Constitutions such as the Kenyan and Ghanaian independence constitution are prime examples of this process. Kenya held constitutional conferences in London in 1963 and 1963 in for the drafting of their independence constitution. The colonial masters provided the framework and bequeathed their former colonies constitutionally defined and democratic systems of governments.
The systems that the newly independent African countries inherited from their colonial masters included features such as the multi-party political system that was to prevent dictatorships. The systems of governance also included having a democratically elected government that was to serve a specific term before another national election. The first few years of the newly independent African states can be regarded as a democratic experiment or even more aptly the early African democratic experiment. In the next part, having laid out the background this paper shall now move onto the primary focus of this paper. The reasons why the experiment failed within a few years of independence in most African Countries resulting in military coups, entrenched authoritarian rule, and civil disorder.
Leadership
The main issue with the African leadership is what is referred to as a personal rule in Africa. The personal rule is where leadership and politics do not follow or conform to the institutionalized system with the rules and regulations. Rather, the contenders acquire the control or the influence of the government through a factional or personal “fight”. The nature of the acquisition for power in such a situation obviously leads to an increase in political instability and the fight spilling over to the streets in coups or riots. The most successful African leaders in the personal rule arena form a striking resemblance to Machiavelli’s prince in all his amoral glory. However, it is important to note that the personal rule is not limited to the African continent but has also been present in other nations all over the world.
In Africa, the view of politics as a source of power and fortune is prominent. The comparison of politics in Africa to a corporation in America is most suitable; this means that other areas such as business provide lesser opportunities and rewards in comparison to politics. The view of politics as a source of capital has led to ambitious individuals joining the politics seeking power for the attainment of the power and fortune it offers.
African independence from the colonial masters resulted in a drastic and radical political significance. Previously the governance of the country was mainly in the hands of administrators who managed the countries for the colonizing power. For the British colonies, the power was in the hand of the governor in the country who was answerable to the queen. However, once independence was granted the individual in power was answerable to no higher power as before. The lack of answerability may have led to the rise of non-institutional rule where rulers and leaders take precedence over rules. Without the oversight and answerability, the government becomes a government of men rather than the government of the people. The formal rules such as the constitution seem to exist only in abstract considering they do not govern the conduct of the leaders.
Ideological Issues
The ideology that a country (or their leader) decided to pursue immediately after independence also contributed massively to the possible failures of their democratic institutions or their possible success. In 1957, the leaders, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Huophouet-Boigny on Ivory Coast made a wager compare the results of their different policies in a decade. Ghana had chosen to follow the ideology of full African Nationalism with a socialist undertone while Ivory Coast had opted for a capitalist approach coupled with a fraternal association with its former colonial master, France. The results of their policies turned out crystal clear with Ghana stagnating while Ivory Coast experienced an amazing growth rate.
As far as Africa is concerned, three main ideologies were prominent in the post-independence eras. The ideologies were capitalism, socialism and Marxist-Leninist ideologies. Countries such as Kenya, Ivory Coast and Nigeria were prominently capitalistic nations. However, the distinction between the socialist and the Marxist-Leninist countries is much harder to ascertain. A country like Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah are classified as socialist despite the fact that Ghana for a while paid only lip service to socialist ideals only instituting them and basing the countries policy on them later. Countries in Africa having Marxist-Leninist ideologies guiding their policies included the countries under military rule such as Somalia, Benin, Ethiopia, and Madagascar in the post-independence years.
The countries in Africa that adopted Marxist-Leninist ideals did not experience the rapid and forced growth that was typical of Stalinist policies in Russia and China. The reason explaining the slow growth could be the absence of the imposition of rigorous discipline and ruthless means that were characteristic of Stalinist governments. A thorough analysis of the effect of ideologies on the countries per capita growth rate has the capitalist nations such as Kenya, Ivory Coast and Nigeria experiencing high growth rate. Following in a distant second are the populist socialist countries such as Algeria, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, or Guinean. The Marxist-Leninist ideology was simply the most destructive ideology in the African countries with the countries that ascribed to it experiencing little growth rate. The countries include Somalia, Congo, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Benin, Sao Tome and Mozambique. Most of the Marxist-Leninist countries in the post-independence era had military governments. The consequence of the ideology becomes even more apparent once you consider that Angola and Mozambique later became embroiled in civil wars.
In summary of this section, it is important to note that the economic rise is not the only measure that is used to regard a country. Economies of some countries have had a drastic rise while lagging behind numerous other aspects such as human dignity. South Africa experienced growth rates that are phenomenal among African states; however, the growth rate accompanied policies such as the Apartheid policy that violated numerous rights of the blacks in the country. As such, the other factors that play a role in the growth of the country must also be considered.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is one of the hardest to understand or comprehend aspect of the African countries. It is undeniable that the ethnicity played a key role in determining the economic development of the country and the conflicts that might have arisen. The effect of ethnicity is both fascinating and occasionally horrifying. African countries are an amalgamation of numerous communities or tribes that have to share the countries’ resources and coexist harmoniously for economic and general progress of the country.
Ethnicity is Africa especially during the fight for independence was used as a rallying cry and as ground for mobilization of support against the colonial masters. However, the same ethnicity has been responsible for numerous conflicts that have occurred in the conflicts such as the Rwandan Genocide. In an attempt to comprehend ethnicity, this paper will explore the reasons that could precipitate ethnic conflict or even unhealthy competition among the tribes.
The main cause of conflict between the communities is the competition for land. Most communities in Africa are agricultural with their countries relying on agricultural exports as the main income earner. It is also important to note that colonial powers may have deliberately cultivated hostility between various ethnic communities as a tool for domination. The policy of divide and rule may have played an important role in the post-independence era. The competition of control over land demonstrated by the tussle by the Kikuyu and Masai communities in Kenya in their struggle for white highlands in Kenya demonstrates this point. Rivalry between tribes can also arise from competition over markets. The intense rivalry between the Yoruba and Hausa is attributable to the control of trading routes into the southern Nigeria. Finally, in the post-independence and during the phase of modernization of Africa competition between ethnic turned into a competition over jobs. The rivalry of Baganda and Luo for employment in the post-independence Kampala in Uganda is a perfect example of such rivalry.
However, for the conflicts that recurred including the civil wars, ethnic clashes and even coups that had their support on an ethnic basis the main cause of such was the politicization of the issues. The leaders discussed previously have on numerous occasions directly encouraged the conflicts between various tribes as a means of staying in power. In addition, the leaders also used their ethnic community as a support to attempt to seize power or even hold it. Members of his community that he had appointed into power sustained Id Amin’s reign. Here the leaders used the communities as tools or weapons in their power games.
Lack of Effective Legitimate Authoritative Governments
Regardless of the government that is in power in any country, the government should perform various functions as a part of its operations. The functions include maintaining peace and security of its citizenry. The legitimacy of the government forms its basis on numerous issues including how it came into power, how the government holds its power and most importantly its acceptance or popularity among its citizens. The “mandate of heaven” is a more popular term of describing the legitimacy of the government.
In the post-independence Africa, some of the governments got into power through coups such as Ghana, Burundi, Angola Benin, Mozambique, and Chad among numerous others. The governments haves also held power against the will of a majority of their citizens, holding the power only on with the support of their militaries. The government such as Id Amin’s government maintained their despotic and atrocious rule and were only removed by intervention of Tanzania, a foreign nation. African countries were faced by numerous issues including constant farming and ethnic clashes for which their governments did little to nothing to assist sometimes even implicitly encouraging the problems. Furthermore, the international community often sanctions the illegitimate governments seriously affecting their economies adversely. The government loses its “mandate of heaven” when it cannot fulfil the tasks and duties that are expected of it.
The lack of legitimate governments in Africa has impeded numerous development activities in the continent. In Id Amin’s reign is reputed to have had no development projects at all; Not a single road, school, hospital was constructed. Other leaders have used their power to impoverish the economies and enriched themselves. With a citizenly that considers its government illegitimate there will be a stagnation of growth considering that they are never certain whether their business or property will be taken away at any time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there were numerous reasons that influenced and led to the collapse of the democratic structures that the African nations inherited from their colonial masters. The collapse paved way for the past and the current crisis in Africa. The early African democratic system failed in numerous countries in Africa, but a few such as Kenya have managed to survive the post-independence era without a collapse of their structures. The countries however are not limited by their early stumbles and can turn things around as demonstrated by countries such as Mozambique.
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