Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
By Baba Galleh Jallow
Perhaps the single most visible legacy of colonial rule in Africa is the nation-state. The end of the slave trade in the early to mid-1800s gave way to the rise of legitimate trade, the trade in goods and commodities Europeans needed for the growth and success of the Industrial Revolution. From being commodities of trade themselves, Africans became producers of commodities for sale to European traders. The more industries developed in Europe, the more Europe sought out sources of raw materials for their factories. And the more goods the factories produced, the more Europeans saw the need for stable overseas markets to which they would export their finished products. A combination of these factors initiated a search for both sources of raw materials and markets for finished products in Africa.
As the 1800s drew to a close, Europeans grew increasingly frantic in their search for raw materials and markets in Africa, which led to the beginnings of a barely concealed rush for territories on the continent. What has become known as the scramble for Africa was greatly accelerated after France’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Germans during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. In order to salvage her battered dignity, France turned to the development of an overseas empire by annexing territories in Africa and elsewhere. Soon afterwards, France’s traditional rival Britain joined the scramble for Empire, followed by Italy, Germany and Belgium. So frantic did the grab for African colonies grow that the European countries were close to all-out war over parts of Africa by 1883. Seeing a chance to both manage the crisis and play a leading role in international politics, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of Germany convened the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885 at which the contending European powers laid down ways and means of partitioning and colonizing the continent without coming to blows among themselves. The conference lasted from November 1884 to January 1885, when the assembled European countries signed the Berlin Act laying down rules and procedures for the orderly partitioning and colonization of Africa.
The Berlin Act set out four major rules for the partitioning of Africa. One, any European country making claim to an African territory must inform the others to see if there was a counter claim. In case of a counter claim, the matter was to be settled peacefully. Two, once a European country claims a territory, it must proceed to effectively occupy that territory. Three, all European countries were free to extend their territory as much as they could without encroaching on another European country’s territory. And four, the Congo and Niger rivers, which were hotly contested in the early stages of the scramble, were open to free navigation by all European countries. European countries proceeded to either forcefully annex African territories or sign “treaties of protection” with African rulers as a way of laying claim to their territories. Those rulers that resisted encroachment were defeated or otherwise “pacified” through superior European fire power. While there were instances of fierce and protracted resistance by African rulers like Samori Toure, superior firepower meant that Europe was able to effectively subdue and colonize the entire African continent by the end of the first decade of the 20th century.
This meant that by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the political map of Africa had been transformed into a series of colonial territories that became the basis for the present day nation-state system on the continent. African colonies had most of the trappings of European nation states: they had clearly defined boundaries and institutions such as legislatures and judiciaries modeled on the European system. However, while the bare structure of the nation state system was in place, the substance of national sovereignty was clearly absent. The rights and freedoms enjoyed by European publics were not extended to the subject peoples of colonial Africa. Indeed, in a lot of cases, colonial administrators enforced laws in African colonies that had long been extinct in their countries back in Europe. Moreover, even as late as 1939 when the Second World War broke out, no European country was seriously contemplating the idea of independent African nation states. Indeed, it was only after the end of the Second World War in 1945 that countries like Britain and France started seriously thinking about preparing their African colonies for self-rule, a process they anticipated would take at least fifty years to complete.
As fate would have it, over 90% of African countries became independent by 1965, only twenty years after the end of the Second World War. The new African nation states had all the trappings of European nation states, from a national flag to a national anthem and legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. However, like the colonies they replaced, these new nation states lacked the substance of nation-statehood. Their beautifully written constitutions looked just like European constitutions, with the rights, duties and responsibilities of citizenship neatly laid out in black and white. It now fell to the new governments to flesh out these skeletal nation states with the substance they needed to function effectively. Sadly, almost all of them failed in this very important task and for this reason, the great majority of African countries remain mere political skeletons to this day. The rights and freedoms for which African independence was sought and attained remain elusive for the great majority of Africans as the new nation states remain mired in the aura of colonial authoritarianism. We will examine some of the reasons for this failure and its consequences in our next installment.