African Indpendence

Source # 1 - Video about the difficulty African nations had in creating independent countries - click here

Case Study - Ghana

The history of the modern nation of Ghana provides a good example of many of the problems that plagued African nations since independence. In the case of Ghana, its modern history is especially tragic since at independence it was one of the wealthiest and best educated of any African colony. The British had ruled Ghana, called the colony of the Gold Coast, through local chiefs and had slowly prepared it for independence with the cooperation of the local African elites, the educated and wealthy urban Africans. The independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah educated in the United States and was a popular figure in Ghana who had built a reputation challenging British rule and being imprisoned for his efforts. When the Gold Coast became independent in 1957, Nkrumah became its president and chose the name Ghana from the medieval African kingdom of Central West Africa. At the time of independence, it was expected that Ghana would rapidly proceed toward economic development. In fact, my people in the United States, England and Africa, expected Ghana to be a model for other African nations to follow. Nkrumah planned to economically develop Ghana by transforming it into an industrial nation. He noted this when he said, “The circle of poverty can only be broken by a massively planned industrial undertaking”. Nkrumah wanted to use the wealth of Ghana’s agriculture to fund the development of industry in the country. However, this upset the farmers in rural Ghana because the government did not pay them the full worth of their crops. Nkrumah’s ignored farmers’ protests because he considered them to be poor uneducated peasants. As a result, many farmers began to smuggle their crops to neighboring countries to sell and refused to make improvements to their farms, which, over time, caused Ghanaian agriculture to become poorer

Nkrumah spent the government’s money on massive projects to build schools, hospitals and factories. Unfortunately, these projects did not work out well. The schools and hospitals were not properly funded and the factories were not profitable. In addition, many of these projects were badly mismanaged and sources of corruption. On average, about 10% of funds used to pay for every government project were paid in bribes to government officials and their family members. Nkrumah said, “Socialism does not mean that if you have made a lot of money, you can’t keep it.” The total accumulation of Nkrumah’s projects left Ghana bankrupt in 1965 and saddled with large debts. Like many African nations, Ghana has struggled since then with paying off the debts from misspent money, leaving less money to run schools, hospitals and build roads.

The longer Nkrumah ruled and the worse the Ghanaian economy became the more he became a dictator. He enacted the Preventative Detention Act in 1958 to silence the people critical of his rule by imprisoning them for up to five years without trial. He justified his actions by saying that, “Even a system based on social justice may need backing by emergency measures of a totalitarian kind”. As the economy continued to worsen under his rule, he developed a cult of personality, established the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute to propagate his ideas and took titles such as Osagyefo, meaning “redeemer”. In 1966, the Ghanaian military decided Nkrumah had gone too far and overthrew his government while he was visiting China. Unfortunately for Ghana, the military did not have either the ability to successfully govern the country or return it to a stable civilian government, and Ghana, like many African nations, became a politically unstable country ruled either by corrupt civilians or incompetent military leaders.

Case Study - Tanzania

The country of Tanzania, created from uniting the colonies of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, is one of the largest and poorest of the East African nations. Tanzania is made up of 140 ethnic groups and is united by the East African language of Swahili. When it became independent in 1961, it became a single party state led by Julius Nyerere. Nyerere ruled the nation as dictator for 28 years before retiring in 1985. He was not a corrupt (he lived on his official salary of $8000 a year) and sincerely tried to improve the quality of life for his people. Nyerere describe his ideas for developing Tanzania as “African democratic socialism”. Nyerere believed that African culture was based a village culture that was inherently socialistic, and that Africans had nothing to learn from the European economies. He considered himself to be a “teacher” to the people of Tanzania (he had actually been a school teacher earlier in his life), and wrote out his ideas of African socialism in the 1967 Arusha Declaration. The Arusha Declaration describes how Nyerere sought to make Tanzania prosperous by focusing on agricultural development, rejecting foreign aid and turning to the self-reliance of Tanzanian farmers. Nyerere put his ideas of African socialism into practice with a program called "ujamma", meaning “familyhood” or “self-help”. The idea of this plan was that poor rural villages could grow more food if they could to work together on large collective farms. In this plan, 13 million peasants (about 70% of the population) were forced to give up their private lands and form collective farming villages. This program had problems because many government workers stole from the program and farmers did not want to give up their land. Farmers who did not want to give up their lands and join the farming villages would have their houses burned down by the security forces. In response, the farmers produced only enough to feed themselves and the amount of food produced on these farming villages was half that of private farms. This plan failed to develop Tanzanian agriculture and was abandoned. It actually hurt Tanzania which went from being a food exporter to becoming dependent on food imports to prevent the starvation of its population.

Despite being against foreign aid in the original Arusha Declaration, under Nyerere Tanzania became one of the largest aid recipients in the world. Unfortunately, much of this aid money was misspent. A good example of this is the Morogoro Shoe Factory which was built with World Bank money that was intended to be the largest shoe maker in Africa with a goal of producing 4 million shoes a year (85% to be exported). However, the project was badly planned and executed – Tanzania could not produce enough quality leather hides to supply the factory, workers were badly trained, and the factory building fell apart due to poor construction. As a result, the factory only ever worked at 10% of capacity, which meant that its production was never enough to pay for its cost. Before it was shut down in the 1990’s, the factory lost $500,000 a year and never produced a single pair of shoes for export (because the quality was so poor).

Unlike many African leaders, Nyerere gave an honest in assessment of his leadership in developing Tanzania as he stepped down from power in 1985 when he said, “I failed”. Yet, he did not change his view on socialism as the best choice for Africa, which he noted when he said, "although socialism has failed in Tanzania, I will remain a socialist because I believe socialism is the best policy for poor countries like Tanzania".

Case Study - Botswana

It is a mistake to think that African countries are all disasters or that they are prone to poverty and problems. Botswana is a good example of how poor countries can develop the right mixture of good government and wise use of resources. When Botswana became independent it was a very poor underdeveloped country, even by African standards. The country had only 22 college graduates and 12 miles of paved roads. Up to 70% of the country is covered by the Kalahari Desert. One British official described it as “a useless piece of territory”. Unknown to the British, Botswana is located on valuable diamond fields, which were discovered shortly after independence. Botswana’s succeeded because, unlike many other countries, it had good governance that managed the diamond resources well and not sink into corruption. The country's first president, Seretse Khama did not take all power for himself. Instead, he allowed for many political parties and regular elections. Khama was able to rule over the country because his party represented many different parts of society. In addition, Khama did not use his government powers to enrich his family or tribe. The country is considered the least corrupt country in Africa. Botswana has done well because it has worked with international mining companies to mine Botswana’s diamonds – this was important because the diamonds are buried deep can only be mined with modern mining equipment. This investment has made Botswana the world’s largest diamond producer, which accounts for 30% of the country’s economy. The money the government gains through diamond mines is put into a national investment fund that is used to infrastructure (like roads and water systems) and education based on “national priority” – the government’s commitment to doing this was shown by choosing not to pave roads in front of the presidential palace until other projects had been completed. The government has also managed its finances well and has typically run budget surpluses. The frugality of the government has been also been shown by the former president, Festus Mogae who has been seen doing his own shopping.

The success of Botswana also points out the terrible destruction AIDS is having on Africa. It is estimated that nearly 40% of sexually active adults in the country are infected with HIV and that there are five new HIV infections per hour with 75 deaths a day from AIDS related illnesses. Because of AIDS, the life expectancy in Botswana has dropped from 65 to 38. In the face of the AIDS epidemic, the government has funded and supported widespread information campaign to educate people about HIV/AIDS. President Festus Mogae considers the issue so important that he has put the topic in nearly all of his speeches. He has said that the epidemic threatens all of the advancements the country has made since independence and that if something is not done than the future of Botswana will be “blank extinction”. In addition, the government has worked with both international aid groups and drug companies to get inexpensive and free anti-retro-viral drugs to help the people suffering from HIV. Currently, some 35,000 Botswanans are being kept alive by these drugs. Still the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS will be devastating for the country. It is estimated that within 25 years, the country’s economy will be 31% smaller than if it had not been so afflicted with the disease.

Case Study Kenya

The country of Kenya is and example of how tribal divisions hurt modern African nations. One reason the country has tribal divisions is because the British ruled Kenya by working with the tribal chiefs to manage the colony. Kenya is a nation made up of several tribes, but no tribe represents a majority of the population. The largest tribe is the Kikuyu, who lost their tribal lands to British colonial farmers. Jomo Kenyatta became an independence leader by organizing the Kikuyu into a political organization to fight for their lands. Kenya was the only British colony in Africa that had a violent uprising before the county won its independence. In 1952, a radial Kikuyu group staged an uprising called the Mau Mau Revolt. About 25,000 Kikuyu joined in the Mau Mau Revolt to win "Land and Freedom" They carried out hit and run attacks on white British farms and attacked Africans who worked with the British colonial government. The colonial government responded by declaring a State of Emergency and using military power to suppress anyone associated with the Mau Mau Revolt. The colonial government killed about 11,000 rebels and arrested about 100,000 people who were held in detention camps. Even though he had nothing to do with the conflict, Jomo Kenyatta was arrested and held in prison until 1961. Just 32 white settlers were killed in the eight year conflict. While the Mau Mau Revolt failed to defeat the British colonial government, it began the process of Kenya winning its independence. After the revolt, the British government decided that it no longer wanted to spend the money to keep Keya under military control and that independence was inevitable. In 1964, the British granted Kenya independence and Jomo Kenyatta became the country's president.

Jomo Kenyatta was a moderate leader who made peace with many of the white British farmers by letting them keep their lands. He had the new Kenyan government buy the farms of any British farmer who wanted to leave Kenya and gave the land to African farmers. However, most of these farms were given to members of the Kikuyu tribe. Kenyatta gave most government jobs to Kikuyu. Kenyatta was able to do this because he turned Kenya into a single party government. His Kikuyu dominated KANU party was the only party allowed. Kenyatta said he needed to do this to make Kenya a stable political country. Under Kenyatta's rule the country appear to be politically stable. However, in reality, his rule created conflicts between tribal groups that would become a lasting problem in Kenya.

When Jomo Kenyatta died in 1978, his vice-president, Daniel arap Moi became the new president. Moi was a member of the Kalenjin tribe. Moi ruled as an authoritarian leader and ran the government to benefit the Kalenjin people. Moi allowed other tribes to form political parties so that he could hold on to power by having them fight each other. Moi did this by using the police to arrests and torture his political enemies and by allowing tribes he favored to attack and to take their lands of the tribes he opposed . For example, Kalenjin attacks on Kikuyu in the early 1990’s resulted in thousands of dead and 300,000 refugees within Kenya.

In 2002, Moi planned to step down as president and he planned to hand power to Uhuru Kenyatta, Jomo Kenyatta’s son. However, there was so much anger at the amount of government corruption and misrule that a group of opposition parties were able to defeat Moi and Keynatta’s plans. This group of parties took power. However, the political conflict resulted in wide-spread violence between tribal groups in the 2007 elections that killed more than 1,300 people and caused more than 600,000 to flee their homes to escape the violence. Since then, the stability of the Kenyan government and political system has threatened by the risk of outbreaks of tribal violence. The problem for Kenya is that many groups view democracy as a “winner take all” system where the goal is to get power to get wealth. This is the reason many of the Kenyan political parties campaign with the slogan “Time to Eat”.