George Ayittey writes:
...Africa’s brutal and endless civil wars or intra-state wars have little to do with colonial legacies, Western imperialism, artificial colonial borders, mineral wealth (mineral curse), nor tribalism but more to do with the struggle over POWER.. Somalia is ethnically homogenous, yet it imploded. None of Africa’s rebel leaders have sought or seek a redrawing of artificial colonial boundaries. Rebel leaders most often head straight to the city because that’s where POWER lies. Only two secessionist attempts succeeded: Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 and the creation of South Sudan in 2010. Other secessionist bids in Katanga (Congo in 1961), in Nigeria (Biafran War of 1967), in Cabinda in 1997, Madagascar in 2001, Casamance in Senegal and the Tuaregs in Mali (2012) all failed.
Image courtesy of Free Wheel Burning
The civil wars are simply struggles for political power. The wars invariably pit a corrupt, incompetent and autocratic “government” on one side against a rebel/opposition group on the other seeking to dislodge that government from power. Matters get complicated when the rebel group splinters (as was the case in Liberia, Somalia and Sudan) or, worse, the factions seek foreign patrons — as in the Congo and Ivorian conflicts. But the basic integrity of the struggle remains the same: The quest for power. It has been the fundamental cause of conflicts in post colonial Africa.
The chief culprit has been the unitary state system, which centralizes power and the decision-making process. That defective system is a relic of the colonial model or the European system of governance. Politically, a large polity can be organized along three main lines:
- A unitary system of government, where decision-making is centralized in the capital city. This is the European model, where decisions are taken London, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, etc.
- A federal system of government, where the constituent states retain some powers but the center is more powerful – as in the American and Canadian models.
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- A confederate system of government, where the center is weak and the constituent states can break away if they choose to. This was the characteristic feature of ancient “empires” and Switzerland today — a confederation of 26 cantons.