ORIGINS AND PROBLEMS OF AFRICAN POLITICS

INTRODUCTION

In Unit 1 we discussed the nature and character of African politics. Another way of looking at the issues raised in this unit is to look at them as problems confronting African politics. Certainly these problems were created by certain historical forces, though external in nature, but were re-in forced by other factors, internal to the continent. This unit will also discuss the origins and problems of African politics.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

• know that in some ways, African politics has benefited from its colonial origins 
• understand the ways colonialism has created problems for African politics 
• conclude whether we can still lay the blame of the problems facing African politics today to their origin.

MAIN CONTENT

Benefits Derived from the Colonial Origins of African Politics

The title of this section is not intended to convey the impression that there was no politics in pre-colonial Africa. This mistaken view, believed in some quarters, will form the subject of a latter unit. Rather we are interested here with politics in post-colonial Africa, the origins and its associated problems. It is tempting to say there was nothing of value in colonialism; even if those benefits were not originally intended by the authors of the colonial script. This will be uncharitable and will amount to an incomplete history of colonial rule in Africa.

i.Creation of Nation-State

First, foreign rule created modern nation-states, with defined boundaries and capitals. Before colonial rule there were hundreds of clans, lineages, city-states, kingdom and empires, with “shifting and indeterminate frontiers”. Reader (1998:604) argues that “whatever the iniquities of colonial boundaries, they also contributed to peace in the continent”. His contention is that virtually all the wars in Africa since the colonial period have been intra-state, and not interstate. It should be noted, however, that most of the wars have been attributed to the indiscriminate and arbitrary boundaries bequeathed to the continent at independence of these states.

ii.Western Education

Africans were introduced to Western education which ironically equipped them with tools of resistance. As it is well known education stimulates people to want what they do not have. British colonial administration established Achimota College in Gold Coast, Yaba Higher College in Nigeria, Fourah Bay in Sierraleone and Makerere in Uganda. The French established William Party School in Dakar. In Nyasaland, present-day Malawi, Africans were educated at Lovedale. The curriculum was though foreign. Instead of dividing seasons into rain and hamattan, that would have been appropriate for the tropics, Africans were introduced into temperate classification into spring, summer, autumn, and winter. This foreign content, not withstanding, colonial education produced many Africans who later became leaders in their countries.

iii.The Mandate system

The League of Nations mandates under which former German colonies were assigned to victorious European nations stipulated that they should be governed as “a sacred trust of civilization”’ until they could stand on their own feet. This injunction was implemented in various ways. In her colonies Britain substituted the idea of paramount chiefs/kings with the familiar institution of constitutional Monarchy. When France discovered that kinship was no longer compatible with her republican tradition, it was abolished.

iv.Economic Activity

Relative peace and security also stimulated economic activity. The overriding priority of colonial administration was to make the colonies self-supporting. This was the purpose of the amalgamation then in Nigeria in 1914. Western education emptied the villages, populated the cities, increased mobility and urbanization. If urbanization forced Africans to mix, even if they failed to congeal, it created an awareness of their similarities, as well as their distinctiveness from others. Ali Mazrui argues that colonialism made Africans realize they are one: “a sentiment was created on the African continent-a sentiment of oneness’ (Mazrui 1978:38).