The post-colonial state had all the structural and functional attributes of a state, as anywhere else. It had clearly demarcated territories, state sovereignty and an institutional structure of governance. All of which had been bequeathed by colonial powers. Most governments of the newly independent countries with a few exceptions accepted generally the boundaries inherited to the colonial state even while they had been arbitrarily drawn and cut across and divided various ethnic and social groups. 

 The exceptions were the large and disparate states-Sudan, Nigeria and Congo and Zaire-wherein dissatisfied ethnic groups threatened territorial integrity and experienced long years of civil war. While Sudan suffered continuous civil war from 1964 onwards, except during the period 1972-83, in Nigeria the secession of Britain sparked off a civil war between 1967 and 1970. African leaderships, however, soon realised that the colonially delineated boundaries were mare a source of support than a threat to them or their governments and they made all efforts to abide by them. Only four states-Morocco, Somalia, Ghana and Togo-challenged their inherited colonial boundaries. King of Morocco had claim to Mauritania and Algerian territory derived from the pre-colonial Moroccan kingdom; the Somalis support armies or the ethnic Somalis disbursed through Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. Ghana challenged and called for renewal of all colonial boundaries and the establishment of a continental African Union and Togo campaigned for the restoration to the status of the former German colony divided in 1919 between France and Britain and to bring together the split ethnic Ewe community. While Ghana and Togo abandoned their claim, Morocco and Somalia continue their struggle against the colonial divisions. Other states like Rwanda and Burundi in Central Africa and Lesotho and Swaziland in Southern Africa abandoned their claims for rectification of colonial boundaries and felt it more prudent not to challenge their more powerful neighbors. In another instance, the people who were being transferred, abandoned the proposed transfer of South African territory, inhabited by the Swazi, to Swaziland in the face of opposition. Similarly, both Ethiopia and Sudan retained their inherited state boundaries despite serious claims of secession by the Amharic Christians and the Arabic speaking Muslims of the Nile Valley.