The Scramble for Africa
That was how the scramble for Africa started. Seven European countries were at the forefront of the colonization of Africa, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution and the era of New Imperialism. In 1870, 10% of the continent was formally under European control. By 1914, this figure had risen to almost 90%. Only Liberia, Ethiopa and parts of Libya retained full sovereignty.
Initially, imperialists tried to justify colonialism by pretending it was for the purpose of humanitarianism, philanthropy, and spreading Christianity. In reality, it was all about economic exploitation, strategic interests, religious and cultural incursion, and national pride. By later years of the 19th century, the informal imperialism that they started had transitioned to direct rule – which meant direct misappropriation and exploitation of the human and natural resources and wealth of the African continent. Many missionaries were supportive of the colonization of Africa because they believed that European control would provide a political environment that would help missionary activity. They also used the idea of ‘christianising’ Africa to make colonialism look less malevolent.
The Disbanding of Indigenous Communities and Systems and the Invention of the Modern African State
By the 1880s, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal were already scrambling for Africa. To prevent a European war over Africa, the fourteen European governments and the United States arranged a meeting in Berlin, Germany, in 1884. At the meeting, the European leaders discussed Africa’s land and how it should be divided. Africans were not part of the meeting.
Going into the meeting, roughly 10% of Africa was under European colonial rule. By the end of the meeting, European powers had shared among themselves, and “owned” most of Africa and drew boundary lines that remained until 1914. Great Britain won the most land in Africa and was “given” Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and South Africa after defeating the Dutch Settlers and Zulu Nation.
Africa’s population was organized in a manner that would give them the most efficient workforce, ignoring the natives’ cultural groups or existing political leadership at the time of colonization. Some groups had never been united under the same government before. In other cases, they divided existing groups of people. The creation of these borders had a negative impact on Africa’s political and social structures by either dividing groups that wanted to be together or combining ethnic groups that were enemies.
Europeans took the best land by force, created their own administrative districts and forced the Africans to comply. Local chiefs were used to enforce their structures, thereby destroying the indigenous structures in place. They labeled indigenous cultures and practices as primitive, and forced Africans to rather to adopt European customs. African communities that tried to revolt or resist were suppressed. African farmers were forced to quit subsistence farming and grow cash crops like cocoa and coffee, working under terrible conditions in plantations, railways, logging etc. This led to poverty and disease. While the Europeans encouraged Africans to fight each other, the new arbitrary political boundaries also sparked a lot of conflict among groups.
By the mid-twentieth century, Africans were tired of the poor treatment and exploitation, and began to openly oppose European control. The quest for freedom had begun. They were aided by the weakening of European nations after the World Wars. They fought and gained freedom.
However, at the 1964 Organisation of African Unity conference, they decided to retain the colonial borders of the Berlin Conference, due to fears of civil wars and regional instability. This meant that the colonial borders and political systems would prevail over the pre-existing indigenous systems. Unfortunately, this has led to a lot of challenges and protracted conflict.
Neo-colonialism and the Colonial Legacy
The new African states continue to suffer from the vacuum left by the absence of their own African identity in the new disposition and a conflict of African indigenous values with the new political structures. These challenges are intensified by the economic and political grip that European colonial masters continue to have on the states, facilitated by those same systems, despite the apparent end of colonialism.
The colonial state was never meant to make African communities progress, but to serve the economic and political interests of the colonizer. Thus, the were built on values of violence, exploitation, alienation, and deculturisation. By maintaining the geopolitical status quo after independence, African leaders inadvertently perpetuated the ills of the colonial state. The new formation failed to go back to the African indigenous system and seek a true African identity. The new leaders tried to achieve political stability and social cohesion using a faulty system with a malevolent foundation. Arguably, the contradictions between the historical legacy of the African state and the basis for its local legitimacy (original indigenous systems and practices) have been at the origin of the various tensions that have plagued it since its creation5.
For example, traditional leaders played a key role as custodians of the community during the pre-colonial period of the African countries, and still continue to have legitimacy that precedes the colonial and current post – colonial state. D.I. Ray clarified that ‘legitimacy’ is not about the monopoly of force, but why people respect and obey authority. Such legitimacy of the state and traditional authorities will bring about cooperation with citizens and development in certain areas of the economy6. Traditional leaders can help bridge the gap between the state and the civil society in Africa. Traditional leaders can cooperate with locally elected government officials on land allocation, dispute settlement, social and cultural change, and bringing transition between the civic society and community based organizations so as to bring about development. And despite this being seen as an ‘anachronism’ in some instances, traditional authorities continue to play a crucial role in social, economic and cultural transformation at all levels7. Sadly, this is a resource that is not utilized due to the current formation of African political structures, which is rooted in the arbitrary and rushed output of the infamous Berlin Conference.
All of this has worked to the advantage of neo-colonialist European states, who have maintained a strong economic and political grip on the continent, despite their physical colonial absence. As such, they have supported puppet leaders who can maintain the current structures in return for their protection, while destabilizing and eliminating Africanists who proposed a complete separation from neo-colonial Eurocentric systems.
Neo-Colonial Grip in Africa
The neo-colonial grip on Africa is not just a result of nationalism – much like in the era of neo-imperialism, it is a means of survival for many European countries. And that is why they are desperate to ensure that African continues to use their systems. Former French President, François Mitterrand once warned that France would be irrelevant to twenty-first-century history unless it maintained its control of Africa. Its instrument for so doing is the CFA Franc — a colonial currency that remains a fixture of French colonialism in Francophone Africa more than fifty years after independence.
The CFA Franc’s origins date back to the aftermath of World War II. It was created on December 26 1945, and overvalued to be used across the French empire as a tool to bolster the French economy. Its overvaluation meant that France could sell its finished product in Africa at high prices, while importing raw materials at low prices (below world market prices). France could pay its imports from franc zone countries in its own currency, and save on foreign currency as well as keep up its own exchange rate France made its colonies sign ‘cooperation agreements’ as a precondition to granting them independence. These agreements covered issues from raw materials to foreign trade, currency, diplomacy, the armed forces, higher education, and civil aviation, with the primary aim of entrenching French sovereignty. One of the conditions was that they would keep the French Franc, with France having a direct power of veto in their central banks.
The two French African Central banks, BCEAO and BEAC, are compelled to deposit part of their exchange reserves with the French Treasury. In the wake of independence, the obligatory deposit quota stood at 100 percent, before it was reduced to 65 percent in 1973 and then 50 percent in 2005. Their exchange reserves are in the hands of the French Treasury, while the Banque de France holds 85 percent of the BCEAO’s monetary gold stock.
This all works to the benefit of France, which in addition, can pay its imports from the French zone in its own currency, and hence saving on foreign currency. This also protects and promotes French companies operating in Africa. Added to this, the French economy benefits from a trade surplus from the franc zone countries, which provides huge reserves that sometimes have been used to service France’s debts. French companies also have the guaranteed freedom to repatriate their revenue and capital without any foreign exchange risk, thanks to the free-transfer policy and the fact that France decides the zone’s exchange and monetary policy. Lastly, thanks to the CFA franc France enjoys a system of political control serving its own economic interests, all at no cost to France.
On the other hand, for corrupt African political leaders, the CFA franc provides a means to transfer ill-gotten financial resources, with the backing of France.
This has had grave effects on African economies. The Franc zone has experienced economic decline. Compared to other African zones the CFA zone seems to have stagnated. For example, For example, real GDP per capita in Eswatini, part of the Common Monetary Area in southern Africa, was at parity with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in the early 1960s but is now five times higher than theirs.
African leaders who tried to break free from this grip faced severe consequences. After independence in 1958, Guinea, under trade unionist Sekou Toure, exited the franc zone in 1960. In retaliation, French secret services flooded its economy with counterfeit banknotes. This sabotage disrupted the Guinean economy. Togo, under Sylvanus Olympio, also tried to escape the franc zone. On December 12, 1962, he created a national central bank. On January 13, 1963 he was killed by Togolese soldiers trained in France. Togo’s planned national currency was killed at conception.
Despite the fierce political repression imposed by the French government, Mali (1962–67), Madagascar (1972), and Mauritania (1972) did, however, quit the franc zone. Recently, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have also announced that they are leaving. On December 2, French President Emmanuel Macron was in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, alongside that country’s president Alassane Ouattara, who came to power in 2011 with the support of the French government. They announced three reforms to the West African CFA franc: the end of the French presence in the BCEAO; the end of its obligation to deposit half its exchange reserves at the French Treasury; and a change in the CFA franc’s name, to the eco. However, these announcements have been criticised as being merely cosmetic, as France still manages to have a hold on the eco, and could rather bring Nigeria, the largest economy on the zone within its radar, if currency integration goes ahead.
Whatever the case, it seems clear that France is not prepared to give up its domination-by-currency — its last remaining instrument for protecting its economic interests, apart from outright military intervention. The economic decline of countries in the Franc zone is synonymous with the prejudice suffered by African states that have willingly or unwillingly failed to apply their own indigenous systems and practices, in favour of the diabolical systems set us by the former colonisers.
Creation of chieftaincies loyal to governments
If the Franc zone exemplifies the financial wreckage of African indigenous financial management systems in favour of complex Western-controlled systems that keep Africa in bondage, Africa’s indigenous political systems that were steeped in ethnic practice and identity were equally vilified in a bid to maintain western political supremacy under the guardianship of the new elite class.
Indeed, post-independence, the pro-colonial elite highlighted some negative aspects of ethnic identity, labelling them as "Political Tribalism", and blaming post-colonial violence, such as the genocide in Rwanda and electoral conflict in Kenya, on them.
This is another prejudice that resulted from the unbalanced perception of African indigenous systems. Ethnicity must be understood as embodying positive as well as negative facets, and ethnicity as a dividing factor has rarely offered the "mortal threat" to national governments that might have been feared8.
Theoretically, there are three key schools of thought in the study of ethnic identity as it relates to modern governance in Africa: primordialism, instrumentalism and constructivism.
Primordialism is championed by Edward Shils and Clifford Geertz, who portray the power of ethnicity in newly post-colonial states by allusion to 'primordial attachments' such as common history, and ties of 'religion, blood, race, language, custom and region9. Primordialists believe that ethnicity draws power from group identity and social bonds from the past. Therefore, they posit that in Africa, the rapid socio-economic and political changes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century's encouraged Africans to seek 'psychological security' by reasserting these historical and cultural ties. When faced with the difficulty of comprehending and attaching the modern state structure.
The other groups of theorists are instrumentalists, who argue ethnic identity was determined by ‘we vs they’ a social paradigm that gave more respect to new boundaries than their perceived collective past. They believe that ethnic identity is therefore used as a rational tool by individuals to pursue their individual goals, making use of the new set of boundaries and structures, rather than resorting to past cultural and religious ties etc. For example, people, such as migrant workers, could remobilize in new urban settings to counter insecurity and seek political or social status10. This could also be exploited by the elite to build critical masses for their own support base.
The last theory is constructivism, which posits that modern expressions of ethnicity were "invented" by colonial authorities, missionaries, anthropologists and African intellectuals under colonial rule. Aidan Southall's article, 'The Illusion of Tribe' (1970) noted how colonialists created new identities or 'supertribes’11, which were fluid, dynamic societies in which individuals participated in numerous and often overlapping social networks. Where the authorities found stateless or more disparate societies, or where local authority did not correspond to a central chiefly ideal, the colonists encouraged the formation of hierarchical "tribal" units and conducted their administration of the colonies accordingly as ethnic conglomerates"12. Where the authorities found stateless or more disparate societies, or where local authority did not correspond to a central chiefly ideal, the colonists encouraged the formation of hierarchical "tribal" units and conducted their administration of the colonies accordingly as ethnic conglomerates.
Proponents of constructivism seem to capture the essence of some modern African political systems, which fail to respect the original ethnic identities of the people, in favour of more fluid or convenient inventions that served the political, economic and administrative interests of the colonialists and their new elite African puppets.
In Uganda, the series of constitutions and constitutional amendments before and since independence illustrates how the “modern” nation-state was essentially established at the expense of cultural entities and locally rooted value systems. In 1894 the British government declared Buganda a protectorate. The local chiefs sought to preserve Buganda’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, the other kingdoms saw their kings and their chiefs reduced to agents of the colonial administration while in the rest of Uganda a quasi-Buganda system of administration was introduced. These arrangements were put into effect by the 1900 Buganda Agreement and the 1902 order-in-Council ( which could be regarded as Uganda’s first Constitutional Order). By the 1962 Uganda Independence Constitution, Buganda and its other kingdoms gained a federated status, while the rest of the country was governed under a different arrangement. Soon, however, the 1966 crisis saw the abolishment of the Buganda kingdoms, the confiscation of their assets, and the forceful passing of a new constitution that has since been used by successive regimes to govern the country. This led to unrest due to the persisting legitimacy of the Buganda indigenous structure.
When President Museveni assumed power in 1986, Buganda demanded the restoration of its kingdom. In 1993, the President assented to the enthronement of its Kabaka, hence the passage of the Constitutional Amendment which restored the traditional cultural institutions as cultural entities, and an Act that restored their assets. Buganda was however, not satisfied with just having a figure-head King. Museveni then proposed a regional tier system to liaise between regional heads the central government. This did not sit well with many, including the people of Buganda, who saw it as a tool to increase the president’s power over them by use of the new appointees. To them, it posed the threat of emasculating their Kabaka, because it gave more control and funding to the central government.
Since 1993 a number of former and newly created ‘kingdoms’ and chiefdoms have taken pains to organize ostensible enthronement ceremonies for their cultural leaders for the purpose of mobilising people for cultural, social and economic development. Thirteen of them are recognised by the State and their benefit from perks, at taxpayers’ expense. According to Article 246 of the Constitution and the 2011 Act, a cultural leader however remains confined to ‘cultural’ issues and should not involve himself in partisan politics, although the National Land Policy empowers traditional leaders in determining land disputes, where customary tenure prevails. This brief timeline shows how contentious the issue of culture in governance has been since independence.
However, as of now, culture is usually just given lip service but is rarely reflected in the implementation of community plans and policies.
This habit of viewing cultural institutions as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘political’ creates tensions. For example, in 2009, Buganda riots were ignited when the government refused to allow the Katikkiro of Buganda to visit Kayunga.). The relationship between the central government and traditional and cultural leaders remains unclear.
Meanwhile, cultural leaders have used their considerable influence to involve themselves in development and moral issues. For example, the Buganda ekisaakaate spearheaded by the Queen of Buganda, works for the revival of moral values among the youth. Other leaders have variously promoted healthy lifestyles, tree growing, and education. This points to the fact that a pluralistic approach is needed, where governments look to the cultural structures, and not just the local kings and queens, to create impact.
In 1997 symposium sponsored by the Commonwealth Secretariat brought together traditional leaders, mayors and senior local and central government officials from across the African continent. This was held against the background of growing interest throughout Africa and the wider Commonwealth, including Canada and Australia, in the role traditional leaders could play in the modern, pluralistic state. Its conclusions foresaw an active role for traditional leadership in development and service delivery, social change, transformation and governance, as well as with regard to its better known functions in the areas of land and customary judicial administration. While conceding the need for traditional leadership to evolve and receive training, the symposium also concluded on the desirability of a “constitutional and administrative framework which ensured the partnership of all stakeholders in local governance and agreed that co-operation between traditional leaders and local development agencies would enhance the potential for the effective delivery of development services to local communities.”
In this regard, there are lessons to be learned from South Africa and Ghana. In South Africa, the 1996 Constitution and national legislation mandates a National House of Traditional Leaders to provide advice to the President. Legislation has transformed the composition of traditional councils at provincial and community levels to allow for elements of democracy: the law states that 40% of members must be elected, and that one-third of members must be women. Legislation has also opened up an opportunity for municipalities and traditional councils to achieve cooperative governance. Meanwhile, in Ghana, traditional authorities also share the political, social and cultural space with modern state structures. While at the time of independence some people viewed this as anachronistic, the institution of chieftaincy was enshrined in the 1992 Constitution. A Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture has been created to integrate issues of indigenous knowledge, practices and culture into modern governance and development. Chiefs are represented on the Council of State and on other state commissions.
Evidence in South Africa and Ghana suggests that the role played by traditional institutions is appreciated, particularly at the local level. This positive attitude can be attributed to cultural institutions being perceived as unifying forces; they are able to mobilise the population behind development initiatives, and offer, among others, alternative and accessible arbitration services. They enact local bye-laws, often act as representatives of local communities and play an important role in safeguarding and promoting local traditions. They co-operate with other government and non-government organisations; help to ensure conservation and environmental equilibrium; and finally, they articulate the needs and priorities of communities.
Traditional leadership is seen as having a sacred and ancestral dimension, which appeals to the African, unlike the rigid state structures, which are often mistrusted by local communities.
New State Structures and Ownership of Local Resources
Beyond governance issues, the management of local resources and the conflicts that have erupted therefrom in many parts of Africa are other expressions of the vacuum left by the non-recognition of the full role of indigenous systems in modern African governance. Ranging from low-intensity everyday tensions in the Zambian copper belt to large-scale insurgencies in the oil rich Niger Delta of Nigeria, the incentives to construct credible and sustainable governance processes for natural resources emerge from both locally specific circumstances as well as broader global governance agendas.
Africa’s natural resources have shaped the continent’s integration into the global economic and political system. Three waves of this integration process may be identified. The advent of trans-continental exploration by Europeans governed the first wave of natural resource extraction in Africa. The second phase of resource extraction was during the era of colonization when the regulations and laws governing access and exploitation were designed by colonial governments to serve their own interests. During this period, colonial powers such as France, Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium and Spain, designed systems that facilitated the extraction of natural resources for the benefit of their home governments. For instance, in Nigeria, the Mining Regulation (oil) Ordinance of 1907 made by the British colonial government granted exclusive rights to exploit oil to firms, syndicates or companies that were “British”. Section 15 of the Ordinance stated that: No license or lease shall be granted under the provisions of the Ordinance to any firm, syndicate, or company which is not British in its control and organization, and in the case of a company, all the directors shall be, and shall at all times continue to be, British subjects, and the company shall be registered in and subject to the laws of some country or place which is part of His Majesty’s dominions, or in which His Majesty has jurisdiction.
Notably, this principle was retained in the 1914, 1925, 1950 and 1958 amendments to the Mineral Oils Ordinance. In principle, until Nigeria was granted independence, its oil was only to be exploited by the British Colonial authority.
The end of colonialism and the emergence of post-colonial African states led to the initial phase of resource nationalism in which newly independent African countries pursued nationalistic policies which aimed to assert “independence” from their colonial heritages. They considered their new positions as an opportunity not only to get over the economic subjugation they suffered under colonialism but also to wrest control of their economies from former colonial authorities. The exercise of absolute ownership and control of natural resources by governments in newly independent African states was considered integral to, and evidence of, political independence. In quick successions, the new central governments vested in themselves the (same) absolute ownership and control of natural resources, attracted by the substantial revenues that would accrue to the state. None of the newly independent states at this stage seemed to consider that these laws were made by the colonial authorities to wade off or at least limit local participation in the decision-making processes regarding natural resource management. Such colonial regulations, for the most part, ignored the fact that local communities feel a sense of ownership of natural resources in their domains even if they lack the technical resources to exploit them. Consequently, a plural system of management of natural resources became the norm on the continent; one in which local perceptions guided by “ancestral heritage and identity as well as religious beliefs” competed with (and exists alongside) laws inherited from colonial authorities that did not change much in the post-independence era.
This has been a source of conflict on the continent. The divergence between indigenous traditional laws and state laws that define ownership of natural resources has led to contentious relations within several countries in Africa13. For instance, land is a vital natural resource in Africa and is appreciated for more than its economic value and benefits. But for indigenous communities, land, is more fundamentally considered as a source of familial and cultural identity; individual and communal, as well as the link between generations – past, present and future. Thus, for the majority of Africans - most of who inhabit the rural areas where most of the exploitation of natural resources occurs – the significance of land extends beyond the comprehension of post-colonial laws that tends to place value and considers ownership and access based on its economic value and benefits.
It is for this reason that national legal frameworks tend to grant the State the authority to appropriate “value-added” land, whether rich in forestry, oil, diamonds, or, as more recent events have revealed, arable. Regarding arable land, it is becoming a common phenomenon across the continent for the State to acquire vast estates of land from local inhabitants for the purpose of mechanized farming, usually by foreign interests. Such land-grab has occurred with resultant conflicts across the continent with a Rights and Resources Institute (2016) study concluding from a review of 37 case studies from West, East and Southern Africa that 70% of the disputes related to private sector land and natural resource investments on the continent began when communities were forced to leave their land, while 30% was related to compensation. When considered against the backdrop of the fact that about 70% of land grabbing occurs in Africa14, its potential for increasing the spate of conflicts on the continent cannot be ignored. This is more so that land grabbing has impacts on access to drinking water, a factor that also feeds into the conflict dynamics with regards to local inhabitants’ access to their natural resources.
This is a contentious issue in the Congo Basin, which is contesting the Amazon as the most important mainland carbon sink in the world. With its 200 million hectares of tropical forest, it spreads across Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – which has some 60 percent of the expansive jungle. The indegenes of the Congo Basin, known as Pygmies, are estimated to have lived in the tropical forest for as many as 50,000 years. Some 900,000 pygmies remain dependent on its resources to this day, for food, medicine and shelter. As deforestation in the Congo Basin accelerates, they are losing their habitat, their history and their culture. Improved access to forests over the past twenty years has hastened harmful trends in a region with historically low rates of deforestation. Roads have improved access to the villages, but they have also given access to people looking to farm and fell. An estimated 2 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year in the Congo Basin. In 2022 alone, the DRC lost more than half a million hectares, 13% of global deforestation. This spells danger for the indigenous peoples. They are completely dependent on the forest for their traditional medicines. Cutting down the forest means depriving people of their habitat, their unique cultural traditions and identities, their health and their food, thus threatening their very survival.
However, post-colonial laws emphasized state ownership with the intent that such resources would be used for the development of the country rather than limiting the benefits to the immediate region they are extracted. And while commitments are made for local development, some indigenous populations live in extreme poverty because logging companies don’t respect conditions in contracts that mandate building schools or water services. In addition, while embracing state ownership and control of natural resources is in itself not a bad thing, access to political power across the continent has become synonymous with gaining control of natural resource revenues, mostly for personal aggrandizement.
Angola’s Sonangol and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) are two examples of the state-led but quasi-commercial institutions given the responsibility to manage the natural resource sector– both as operators and regulators. Both institutions have been at the receiving ends of allegations ranging from revenues mismanaged, unaccounted for, embezzled, and/or misappropriated. In one instance, the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) reported that the NNPC failed to pay US$15 billion in oil revenues to the State coffers. Top officials of the Corporation and in the oil sector as well as their cronies are standing trial in various cases on charges related to fraud and money laundering. The loss of natural resource revenues to the national coffers; particularly in countries that rely heavily on natural resources, have been compounded by the global financial meltdown and declining global commodity prices.
State Adaptation of local institutions and practices
Languages
There are between 1,250 and 2,100 languages spoken in Africa, and some believe that there are up to 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, accounting for one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages. Yet, in Sub-Saharan Africa, most official languages at the national level tend to be colonial languages such as French, Portuguese, or English. This is despite the fact that there are around a hundred languages are widely used for interethnic communication as a second or non-first language, including Arabic, Swahili, Amharic, Oromo, Igbo, Hausa, Manding, Fulani and Yoruba, among others, which are spoken as a second (or non-first) language by millions of people. Although many African languages are used on the radio, in newspapers and in primary-school education, and some of the larger ones are considered national languages, only a few are used at the national level.
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former Indo-European colonial language, to be used in government and education. In this wave of adoption of official languages, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and English became the sole or main languages for formal public discourses. These official languages were imposed for almost every activity of socio-political communication, and protected for use in the public media, national radios, and newspapers. These official languages also became the main languages of instruction from kindergarten to university. This trend has continued unabated throughout the decades in colonial and post-colonial Africa.
One example of the consequences of such marginalisation is occurring in South Africa today, where teachers and pupils are unaccustomed to learning through their own home languages at school, except for code-switching occurrences which regularly take place in South African schools15. Prior to 1996, initial teacher education focused on preparing teachers to teach their subject disciplines through the mediums of either English or Afrikaans; and this marginalised the African indigenous languages as languages of instruction in the academic domain. Learners could only study African languages up to Grade 10 and not Grade 12. This has created serious challenges for the implementation of more recent multilingual language policies at the tertiary level in South Africa, with the newly enacted Language Policy Framework for Higher Education. Both teachers and learners have been accustomed to learning through English (or Afrikaans) so switching to their own linguistic repertoires, which include the African languages, is unfamiliar to them. This has serious implications for the future career, cognitive, and social development of young Africans, who face the threat of limited opportunities because they are forced to operate and compete in a language which is unfamiliar to them.
Advocates for the inclusion of African languages in the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) curriculum in South Africa include Nontokozo Mashiya16 and Thabile Mbatha17. Mashiya explored the teaching of Life Skills through the medium of isiZulu for post-graduate certificate in Education students and noted far deeper engagement by students when using their own language. Mbatha advocated using both isiZulu and English in a dual medium approach for teaching literacy in the Foundation Phase but found conceptual and pedagogical confusion by teachers and parents concerning the role of English. It is thus clear that investment in the African languages is crucial in teacher training programmes, whether for ITE or in continuing education programmes18. Ten years after the publication of these articles, South African government policy has finally laid the groundwork for greater use of the African languages in this public space.
Beyond just usage, it has become evident that the use of Africa languages is a more effective tool for communication and in public spaces, for financial services, telecommunications and public health announcements than colonial languages. Cognitive development at home and in communities is done with these languages. In Zambia for example, with the onset of a health crisis due to Covid-19, African languages are used almost exclusively to convey public health messages. This may herald a shift in the sociolinguistic functions of the African languages in Zambia, which has important implications for the future role and status of local African languages in education19.
Other African countries have now been considering removing their official former Indo-European colonial languages, like Mali and Burkina Faso, which removed French as an official language in 2024.
Senegalese linguist Seck Mamarame, who works at the linguistics laboratory at UCAD, the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, advocates for the promotion and development of national African languages. He posits that “ national languages, as long as they remain languages of communication within groups, cannot develop and be at the same level as the Western languages. There is this need to promote national languages and make them languages of education, and of commerce”.
He quotes the example of Mali, where Bamanakan is the main language of communication, spoken by 70% to 80% of the population. All those who speak Bamanakan are not necessarily native Bambaras, meaning it is not their mother tongue. But it’s because of its dynamism and usefulness as a lingua franca that many people speak this language.
In reality, the apparent hegemony of English worldwide and that of the ex-colonial languages on the African continent has led most modern African states to underestimate the future role that African languages will play in development on the continent and, by extension, in the diaspora. The low visibility and audibility of indigenous African languages in public spaces is therefore a consequence of coloniality and of the broader marginalisation of African languages on the continent20.
But other linguists warned that this kind of decision, with political motivations, could create exclusion between different populations in the same country because language contributes to social integration.
African Institutions and Government Systems
From way back in history, African traditional institutions have maintained legitimacy and resilience in steering the socio-cultural, economic and politics lives of Africans, particularly in rural areas. The post-colonial ‘modern’ African state however bears enormous authority in rule-making, application, adjudication, and enforcement. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the viability of the African government is reliant on the inculcation of indigenous social values and contexts, while adapting to changing realities.
Despite modest progress in some countries, the post-colonial State has been unable to establish rights-based political and economic systems of governance that would facilitate consolidation of state-building and promote economic development. To a large extent, this has been due to its detachment from the institutional and cultural values of its constituency. The prevailing state of poverty on the continent, the persistence of widespread ethnic and civil conflicts, and frequent electoral and post-electoral strife are some manifestations of the failure of the State. The persistence of traditional institutions as a parallel system of governance, which provides some level of refuge for the rural population, often alienated by the State, is also another indication of the failure of the post-colonial State. On the other hand, African traditional institutions are also not equipped to compensate adequately for such failure of the State. For instance, the State is unlikely to succeed in state-building and in mobilizing the cooperation of large segments of its citizens for socio-economic development without connecting itself to and harmonizing its political apparatus with the institutions, cultural values and interests of all its constituencies, including rural populations21.
The colonial State radically brought the different African political systems under centralized States, without consideration as to their compatibility.
In the case of Lesotho, for example, colonialism largely transformed the form and content of chieftaincy and, thus, the relations between chiefs and their communities22. The colonial State either demoted or eliminated African leaders who resisted colonization or rebelled after colonization. Leaders who submitted to colonial rule were mostly incorporated into the colonial governance structure of indirect rule, which was designed to provide the colonial State with a viable low-cost administrative structure to maintain order, mobilize labour, enforce production of cash crops, and collect taxes. Incorporation severely weakened both the formal and informal mechanisms of accountability of traditional leaders to the population by changing the power relations between chiefs and their communities. Under colonialism, chiefs could be removed from power only by the colonial administration. Chiefs were also given control of land, thereby curtailing the ability of ordinary people to shift their allegiance to other chiefs. It is often argued in the post-independence literature that colonialism transformed chiefs into mere civil servants of the colonial State. It is likely, however, that this view is often exaggerated. The roles of Hausa chiefs in Nigeria and Niger, for example, were affected differently by colonialism, with the power of those in Niger reduced more severely23. As intermediaries between the colonial State and local peoples, chiefs were expected to maintain peace and order within their communities. To be effective administrators, chiefs had to maintain their legitimacy with their communities. This required that they attempt to ease the burden of colonialism by interceding with colonial authorities on behalf of their people and by protecting the interests of their communities as much as possible. In some cases, chiefs also rebelled against colonialism when unable to persuade colonial administrators to modify some of their policies.
Decolonization represented another landmark in the transformation of African traditional institutions of governance, especially the institution of chieftaincy. Many of Africa’s nationalist, first-generation leaders, such as Houphouet Boigny, Sekou Toure, Leopold Senghor, and Kwame Nkrumah, saw chiefs as functionaries of the colonial State and chieftaincy as an outdated remnant of the old Africa that was ill-placed the post-colonial political landscape.
African nationalist leaders, therefore, often pursued policies to Africanize the bureaucracy without indigenizing the institutions of governance. The new elite, which increasingly grew self-serving and autocratic, also could not tolerate the existence of contending points of power. As they banned opposition parties, they also dispossessed chiefs of the bureaucratic positions they held within the indirect rule system of the colonial State. Burkina Faso, Guinea, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, attempted unsuccessfully to strip chiefs of most of their authority or even abolish chieftaincy altogether. In many other cases, in efforts to enhance its own legitimacy, the new elite, especially among the second generation of African leaders, attempted, with varying degrees of success, to co-opt traditional leaders. Despite these ambiguous efforts, chieftaincy has continued to operate with large numbers of adherents, especially in rural areas.
Thus, against all odds, chiefs continue to operate as legitimate custodians of customary law and communal assets, especially land. They dispense justice, resolve conflicts, and enforce contracts. They also serve as guardians and symbols of cultural values and practices. Unlike government-appointed administrators, lower-level chiefs and village leaders live in conditions largely similar to those of their communities. They share common interests and think like their people. As a result, they are better equipped to represent the interests of their communities than are government-appointed administrators, who are accountable only to the political élite. Partnership in development between local traditional leaders and government administrators is also likely to promote cooperative state-society relations that are sorely absent in Africa.
Unfortunately, chiefs operate largely in an informal setting without clear definitions of their authority. Some countries that have realized the resilience of the institution, such as South Africa and Uganda, are still grappling with how to incorporate chieftaincy and monarchy into their modern governance structure.
Indigenous law, customary law and the modern Judicial System in Africa
Constitutionalism in sub-Saharan Africa evolved from imperial European laws, which were imposed on Africa's agrarian political economies through legal transplants. During colonialism and in the post-colonial era, European laws with industrial backgrounds forcefully displaced indigenous laws with agrarian backgrounds and entrenched themselves as the dominant legal order. Significantly, state laws abolished, modified, and rigidly regulated the application of indigenous practices. By so doing, it coercively changed the normative behaviours of Africans, thereby birthing what we regard today as customary law. However, the creation of customary law occurred in the context of dissonance between indigenous laws and state laws. Nowhere is this dissonance more evident than in African Constitutions, which, as prime products of imposed European laws, are the normative faces of state laws24.
The legal transplant of European systems in Africa was not only part of a suppressive phenomenon which was accompanied by radical socioeconomic changes that irrevocably affected the education, philosophy, religion, work, food, and dressing of Africans – it also disregarded the free will of African peoples, who were on the receiving end of European laws and legal systems. Many early Constitutions in Africa were drafted by elites, who were either influenced by colonialists, or acquired political power through questionable ways. Colonial rule not only transformed indigenous laws into customary laws endowed with the rule-minded character of imperial law, it also contributed to the second-class status of customary laws in African Constitutions. On the other hand, indigenous law are remnants of pre-colonial norms which people observe in their ancient forms.
In the presentation of indigenous laws to colonial masters, it is likely that there were lots of misinterpretations, especially as they would have been presented in the form of, or during, disputes. Several factors such as lack of a common medium of communication, interpreters' abilities, relationships with litigants, pecuniary interests, and political considerations influenced the presentation of customs.
At the same time, indigenous laws are fluid and dynamic, even though the values that inspire them remain the same. Communal life and traditional institutions in contemporary Africa are vastly different from what they were in pre-colonial times. Constitutions should help people to cope with radical changes in social life, specifically the dissonance between modernity and customs with agrarian origins. They can do this by affirming people's right to culture and traditional institutions, and subjecting these rights to human dignity and non-discrimination. By so doing, people's adaptations of indigenous laws to socioeconomic changes will find support in the highest law of the land. In this context, countries like Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa strongly support indigenous institutions. However, the terms of application, with regard to the relationship between indigenous laws and the constitution, in most instances are vague. Only South Africa comes close in clarifying legal pluralism by mandating the courts to "apply customary law when that law is applicable, subject to the Constitution and any legislation that specifically deals with customary law.”
Conversely, the constitutions other countries such as Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania have very little recognition of customary law. They do not define its relationship with state laws, contain no matrimonial property rights, and have insignificant or no provisions on the right to culture, traditional institutions, and the status of chiefs, monarchs, and elders. Although article 201 of the Rwandan Constitution of 2003 appears to recognise that indigenous law transforms to customary law, it paints a condescending image of this transformation. It states: "Unwritten customary law remains applicable as long as it has not been replaced by written laws, is not inconsistent with the Constitution, laws and regulations, and does not violate human rights, prejudice public order or offend public decency and morals." Article 201's emphasis on orality demonstrates the influence of codification on the transformation of indigenous laws into customary law. Codification brings coercion, legal certainty, and judicial precedents. Unfortunately, these features of imperial law are incompatible with the dynamism of indigenous laws. They make it difficult for people to assert changing social conditions, and may pass off indigenous laws as unfair, rather than adapting them while conserving the values they represent25.
The inferior constitutional status of customary law has negative impacts on justice delivery, especially regarding the rights of marginalised groups such as women, female children, and younger males. Indigenous law is fluid and dynanamic, adapting to changing social contexts, and its interpretation should protect women’s rights even in today’s context. This is because women's marital property rights in the precolonial era flowed from the close-knit nature of social life, in which family income was jointly derived from farming, hunting, and fishing. This is no longer the case, and indigenous law, being dynamic should be fluid in adapting to that reality. For a start, the nature of family property has changed from huts, sleeping mats, farm implements, and fishing nets to sophisticated cars, refrigerators, televisions, and modern buildings. Similarly, the communal structure of the extended family is giving way to migrant labour and nuclear families with individualistic mannerisms. Furthermore, income is now earned independently, with women contributing directly to the acquisition of new forms of property. With this type of changed social settings, it is inhumane to continue with the current rigid form of application of indigenous law on matrimonial property, which subsumes a married woman's property rights in her husband. In the absence of a supportive legislative framework, divorcing women's only recourse is judicial creativity or activism. However, given the disproportionate gender balance in African judiciaries and the legal positivist training of judges, litigation does not offer much hope for meeting the justice needs of divorcing women.
Therefore, African constitutions should spearhead the integration of customary law with state law by adopting the foundational values of indigenous laws as constitutional principles. These easily ascertainable values include humaneness, family continuity, preservation of the ancestral home, the duty of care owed to family members by the family head, and the non-individual nature of marriage. The coercive nature of codification, while it brings predictability, lacks a certain level of legitimacy among the people and also fails to encapsulate these values that are central to the protection of the rights of the most vulnerable.
Change-wise, South Africa's Constitutional Court has noted that the foundational values of indigenous laws are more stable than indigenous laws because they motivate the ways people adapt their behaviour to socioeconomic changes26. The ultimate goal was "to bring about the development of 'a new, culturally sensitive jurisprudence which blends customary law and institutions with modern Western law and institutions in an appropriate mix27. In this context, it makes sense to use the foundational values of indigenous laws as constitutional principles, rather than codifying the laws and forcefully applying them in a completely different social context.
Traditional Medicine and Pharmacopoeia in Africa
The use of medicinal plants is a fundamental component of the African traditional healthcare system, and it is perhaps the oldest and the most assorted of all medical systems. In many parts of rural Africa, traditional healers prescribing medicinal plants are the most easily accessible and affordable health resource available to the local community, and at times they are the only option.
Traditional medicine is the sum total of knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures that are used to maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve, or treat physical and mental illnesses. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 80% of the emerging world’s population relies on traditional medicine for therapy. The extensive use of traditional medicine in Africa, composed mainly of medicinal plants, has been argued to be linked to cultural and economic reasons. It is likely that the profound knowledge of herbal remedies in traditional cultures, developed through trial and error over many centuries, along with the most important cures was carefully passed on verbally from one generation to another. Indeed, modern allopathic medicine has its roots in this ancient medicine, and it is likely that many important new remedies will be developed and commercialized in the future from the African biodiversity, as it has been till now, by following the leads provided by traditional knowledge and experiences.
The sustained interest in traditional medicine in the African healthcare system can be justified by two major reasons. The first one is inadequate access to allopathic medicines and western forms of treatments, whereby the majority of people in Africa cannot afford access to modern medical care either because it is too costly or because there are no medical service providers. Second, there is a lack of effective modern medical treatment for some ailments such as malaria and/or HIV/AIDS, which, although global in distribution, disproportionately affect Africa more than other areas in the world.
Indeed, Africa is blessed with enormous biodiversity resources and it is estimated to contain 40,000 - 45,000 species of plant with a potential for development out of which 5,000 species are used medicinally. This is not surprising since Africa is located within the tropical and subtropical climate and it is a known fact that plants accumulate important secondary metabolites through evolution as a natural means of surviving in a hostile environment28. Because of her tropical conditions, Africa has an unfair share of strong ultraviolet rays of the tropical sunlight and numerous pathogenic microbes, including several species of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, suggesting that African plants could accumulate chemo-preventive substances more than plants from the northern hemisphere.
Nonetheless, the documentation of medicinal uses of African plants and traditional systems is minimal. It is also becoming a pressing need because of the rapid loss of the natural habitats of some of these plants due to anthropogenic activities and also due to an erosion of valuable traditional knowledge. Africa has some 216 million hectares of forest, but the African continent is also notorious for having one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, with a calculated loss through deforestation of 1% per annum29. Interestingly, the continent also has the highest rate of endemism, with the Republic of Madagascar topping the list by 82%, and it is worth emphasizing that Africa already contributes nearly 25% of the world trade in biodiversity. Nonetheless, the paradox is that in spite of this huge potential and diversity, the African continent has only a few drugs commercialized globally.
Conclusion
African indigenous structures and knowledge systems have shown resilience and dynamism since the pre-colonial era, maintaining legitimacy among the peoples to date, even if they have often been sidelined by modern African state structures. From local institutions and leadership, knowledge and methods, traditional medicine, indigenous law to languages, it is increasingly clear that intentionally integrating the values and principles of African structures and systems in all aspects of the modern African state, is one sure way to reduce socio-economic and political challenges arising out the dichotomy between colonial-imposed structures and the reality of the local people.
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8 M. Crawford Young, 'Revisiting Nationalism and Ethnicity in Africa,' James S. Coleman Lecture Series, (UCLA International Institute, 2004).
9 Edward Shils, 'Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties: Some Particular Observations on the Relationships of Sociological Research and Theory,' British Journal of Sociology, 8 (1957) ,pp. 130-145
10 T. Spear, 'Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention,' p. 17; for an excellent discussion of studies detailing instrumental ethnicity in an urban context, or as mobilised by political elites see, Lentz, "'Tribalism" and Ethnicity in Africa,' pp. 308- 315.
11 Aidan W. Southall, 'The Illusion of Tribe,' The Passing of Tribal Man: International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropol
12 For the impact of indirect rule on "tribal" formation see also, M. Crawford Young, "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Africa: A Retrospective," Cahiers D'etudes Africaines, 26.103 (1986), pp. 421- 495; Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Af
13 Klaus, K., & Mitchell, M. I. (2015). Land grievances and the mobilization of electoral violence: Evidence from Côte d‟Ivoire and Kenya. Journal of Peace Research, 52(5), 622-635.
14 Deininger K., Byerlee, D., Lindsay, J., Norton, A., Selod, H. and Stickler, M. (2010). Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits? World Bank, September 7, 2010.
15 Probyn, M. 2015. “Pedagogical Translanguaging: Bridging Discourses in South African Science Classrooms.” Language and Education 29 (3): 218–234. doi:10.1080/09500782.2014.994525.
16 Mashiya, N. 2010. “Mother Tongue at the University of KwaZulu-Natal:Opportunities and Threats.” AlterNation 17 (1): 92–107.
17 Mbatha, T. 2010. “Putting the end Point at the Beginning: Teachers’ Understanding of Using a Dual Medium Approach for Teaching Literacy in Foundation Phase Classrooms.” AlterNation 17 (1): 49–71.
18 Pluddemann, P., V. Nomlomo, and N. Jabe. 2010. “Using African Languages for Teacher Education.” AlterNation 17 (1): 72–91
19 Costley, T., N. Kula, and L. Marten. 2022. “Translanguaging Spaces and Multilingual Public Writing in Zambia: Tracing Change in the Linguistic Landscape of Ndola on the Copperbelt.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, doi:10.1080/01434632.2022.2086985.
20 Adejunmobi, M. 2004. Vernacular Palaver. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
21 UNECA, 2004. Relevance of African Traditional Institutions of Governance
22 Coplan, David B. and Tim Quinlan. “A Chief by the People: Nation Versus State in Lesotho, Journal of the International African Institute, 67, No. 1, 1997: 27-60.
23 Miles, William. “Partitioned Royalty: The Evolution of Hausa Chiefs in Nigeria and Niger,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 25, No. 2 (June 1987): 233-258.
24 Morse & Woodman Indigenous law and the state (1988) 8
25 A C Diala, B. Kangwa. Rethinking the interface between customary law and constitutionalism in sub-Saharan Africa, De Jure (Pretoria) vol.52 n.1 Pretoria, 2019.
26 Cousins "Contextualising the controversies: dilemmas of communal tenure reform in post-apartheid South Africa" in Land, power & custom: controversies generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act (ed Claassens & Cousins) (2008) 25.
27 Aleck 1991 Queensland University of Technology LJ 139, citing Weisbrot 1988 Melanesian LJ 2.
28 Manach C., Scalbert A., Morand C., Rémésy C., and Jiménez L., Polyphenols: food sources and bioavailability, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (2004) 79, no. 5, 727–747, 2-s2.0-2442430353.
29 M.F. Mahomoodally. Traditional Medicines in Africa: An Appraisal of Ten Potent African Medicinal Plants, Wiley. (2013)
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