African Conflicts

By

John Moono
Trained Diplomat

Africa has long been beseeched by conflicts and labelled as a continent with the most number of conflicts. However one thing of note about these conflicts is that they are traced to the period of Colonial Rule.
This is due to the fact that Colonial Rule never raised the issued of good governance. The only issues were Power and Violence, and that remains the tradition of politics that African leaders took to independence in their respective countries. These Africans leaders have not only retained the politics of power and violence, but many of them have also continue to reinforce the tradition
This situation was very verifiable in the recent past as in many African countries there have been situations where leadership has been clinging on to power for twenty, thirty, and forty years like previously in Chad with Idris Derby, Cameroon with Paul Biya , Equatorial Guinea with Tedoro Obiang Nguemo in the Central of the continent, Burkina Faso with Blaise Campoare in the West, Uganda with Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Rwanda with Paul Kagame and Sudan with Omar Al Bashir in the East, Angola with Eduardo Do Santos, Zimbabwe with Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Zambia during the reign of Kenneth Kaunda this in the South as well as Libya during the reign of Muammar Gaddaffi and Egypt during the reign of Hosni Mubarak in the North. This clinging on to power by many African leaders has been termed as Authoritarianism a form of Dictatorship.
Critically looking at this, it dates back to the Colonial legacy where Political repression was the legacy that Africans inherited. The Colonial masters on granting Independence should have emphasized on Good Governance and respect for Human Rights. Doing so now has been the source of conflict in many African countries.
The early examples of Leadership that the Africans were subjected to by the colonial masters are now bearing fruit on the conflict with the constantly engaging in confrontation kind of politics.
Africa in itself has retrogressed due to the kind of Colonial Legacy that the African leaders took to independence and now the continent remains in the state of limbo on how to silence the guns that are threatening to rob the continent of future and bright leaders who are going to digress from retrogressive kind of politics.
There is no denying that the African conflict situation is a legacy of the Colonial Legacy passed on by the Colonial Masters to African leaders at independence. The Colonial Masters built their governance structure on the African continent on the lack of trust and many African leaders carried that legacy of lack of trust and it spilled over to relations between and among African countries which in less Diplomatic Engagements post independence.

The best solution to the African conflict situation is for African to build capacity in the Diplomats from the continent and empower them to find the solutions. This is because African problems require African solutions. Conflict and Instability can have African driven solutions through the enhancement of diplomatic relations among African countries. Increased Diplomatic Relations among African countries should also lead to increased economic activities among African countries.

Africa has to #SilencetheGuns because instability and conflict are recipes for continued and heightened Poverty Levels on the continent

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