Causes Of Good Governance In Africa

Two futures for Africa are possible-one with a democratic and stable Nigeria, and one with a Nigeria stricken by autocratic rule, corruption, and intermittent coups. An entire continent awaits the result of the Nigerian experiment with democracy. Nigeria has the resources and can provide leadership to foster greater regional and international cooperation, leadership that many of Nigeria's neighbors need. A successful Nigerian democracy would provide hope for many of Africa's other burgeoning democracies.

Between the period from 1880 to 1914, European powers went after overseas empires in Africa. The governments and political leaders of the European powers believed that this colonization of the African empires was necessary to maintain their global influence. A second group of people supposed that African colonization was the result of the greedy Capitalists who \only cared for new resources and markets. The third group of people claimed it to be their job to enlighten and educate the uncivilized people of Africa. Although the political leaders of European powers encouraged colonization of African empires to advance their nation’s global influence, others argued that it was only for the profiteering of the Capitalists who sought new

Europe and Africa have been linked together in evaluating the state formation process. Both regions have similarities, strengths, weaknesses, and room for improvement. To this day both regions are far from perfect. Some light can be shed on this subject, by evaluating Europe and Africa’s state formation process, evaluating what party benefits, and briefly explaining two economic consequences of European colonialism in Africa.

Imperialism, when one country dominates another for its own benefit, is an expansion policy that has reigned for centuries. Over time, imperialism has drastically changed in its magnitude and severity. At the turn of the nineteenth century, a “new,” more aggressive and competitive form of imperialism emerged and completely dismantled the domestic institutions of various developing countries. Africa in the nineteenth century is a prime example of the “new” imperialism in effect. How was Africa affected by imperialism? Who imperialized Africa? What caused African imperialism? How did the international environment affect the domestic institutions of Africa?

In the second half of the twentieth-century, African countries were able to gain their independence and strive to create unified countries. However, many countries were plagued with civil wars and the issues left behind the colonial era. The adversities faced by these new African nations are at the hands of their old colonial powers and the neo-colonialism that has taken place. These new independent countries were left to unify their people of different backgrounds, create a strong government and economy, and leave the post-colonial legacy behind.

In some parts of Africa the Europeans rule which means they ruled through government officials in the area. Some Europeans, however, abused that power. In an article by The Golden Coast Leader they define indirect ruling as a “System by which the political officer can drive the wedge of divide-and-rule through any tendency on the part of the people to come together to develop political ideas” (Document 10). Here, The Golden Coast Leader is showing how the indirect ruling system is not a great idea because it leads to Africans being unstable in running their own government. After having the Europeans run their country for so long the Africans of that nation most likely would not know how to do it for themselves. The Africans have only watched others rule, so they have no experience for themselves. Africans have no freedom in their own home, Nnamdi Azikiwe a young leader in Nigeria's fight for independence, who later became the first president of Nigeria stated, “We demand the right to be free to make mistakes and learn from our experience” (Document 8). Africans wanted to be able to make decisions for themselves and even if they do not make the best choice it’s okay because they can learn from that. Imperialism took that away from them, Africans never got to decide s for themselves. Learning from mistakes would make them grow as a nation, but the Europeans did it

Africa’s persistent poverty interrogates the continent’s past through institutions, government, demography, economics, colonialism, and the impact of the trading. The colonial era affected the variety of Africa’s historical development for it was quite the game changer since it put a halt to the continuous drain of scarce labor and paved the way for the expansion of land concentrated forms of agriculture, and engaging smallholders, estates, and communal farms. The establishment of the colonial rule over the African interior reinforced African commodity growth in export. The colonial control facilitated the construction induced significant inflows of European

In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.

The Republic of Niger, a poor, landlocked country, located in the heart of Sub-Saharan West Africa. Niger has seen its fair share of change throughout the decades; moving away from the control of the French Parliament in 1960, Niger formally declared its independence. Despite this bold act of independence, Niger would not see its first steps towards democracy until the early 1990’s, when they held their first open election as a free state. However, even with the empowerment of the people in a democratic government, Niger has seen itself nearly torn apart as a result constant coups, that have occurred as recently as 2010. Such instability has led to incredulous amounts of corruption and poverty, within the Niger government. This lack of stability and constant turnover in government, has been a driving factor behind the lack of resources available for education in Niger.

Beginning in 1880, there was a growing desire for European countries to expand and control their rule. The only continent at that time that was left uncontrolled and, in the European's eyes uncivilized, was Africa. This was the start of Western Imperialism. All European countries wanted their piece of Africa and to get it, they would let nothing stand in their way. They would change the entire government, religion, market, and behavior of most of the African nation and affect almost every person living there. An account of the impact of Imperialism is given in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. This book shows the changes that occurred in Africa during Imperialism and its affect on the community and the people

Modern African states have several problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis on African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many aspects. In the first section, I will consider the problems with African states from the level of the state. That is, the nature of the states' inceptions and the underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. Next I examine the development of, or lack of, civil

How should an empire assert their claim to territory and how should they govern it? This question is important because there are a number of methods an empire could employ presiding over a colony. For example the French empire employed a system call direct rule. The French rulers wanted to assimilate or incorporate the peoples of West Africa . The British however preferred a system called indirect rule and it was applied to many of their West African colonies including Nigeria and Ghana. It has proven to be detrimental to problems in Africa and can be linked to the political past of the British colonial government. The goal of this paper is to expose the reasons for indirect rule in British colonies and the negative impact of post colonial development in West Africa.

Corruption can be defined as the use of entrusted power to accumulate public wealthy for personal benefit. Corruption is not peculiar to any country, continent or state; it is sure a global issue which is an endemic to all government all over the world. However, corruption is prevalent in the Niger delta region of Nigeria; public officers in this oil producing state of Nigeria are corrupt. Consequently, it has defied the Niger delta from developing politically and economically which has left the states reputation in a mess. Radicalization of youths, abject poverty and -political instability are the three leading effects of corruption in the Niger delta region of Nigeria.

If there is one thing that African political scholars can agree on is that the nature of African democracy is without a doubt a complex subject to explain and conceptualize, primarily due to the fact that the continent is made up of fifty-four independent countries, each unique in their societies, people, cultures, language, leaders and governing processes. However despite this difference in African states there is a shared fundamental understanding for the need for democracy in order to establish peace and stability within these societies. Another shared sentiment in the African continent is the role of national elections in the process of democratization. Although elections are not always free and fair and at times create an environment for violence and instability, through elections, African nations and their citizens have been able to establish more democracies today. For the African people elections symbolize a period in which they can actively participate in this process and see to establishing democracies through engaging in political pluralism. However, It’s no secret that elitism is homogenous to African societies, elites represent key figures in the democratic process and are deep influencers of policies that bring about inequalities that often result in conflicts with different groups. Furthermore, for many ‘Big Men’ in Africa, elections have become merely a symbolic spectacle for democracy, exercised as a means by which to gain legitimacy and international

This paired with poor law enforcement yields an impossibly hard to get rid of corruption. In Kenya, political corruption has grown rampant. People, who are supposed to be representing the interests of their constituency, instead take money from the constituents to keep their representative positions.