Imperialism and the Democratization Process in Africa

It is in the context above that we can understand the rent-seeking, fractionalized, and repressive character of the African military. This was largely a structure set up by the exploitative and non-accountable colonial state and bourgeoisie to exploit the colony. It employed violence without restraint or moral censure. It designed patterns of exploitation in the primary interest of the metropole. African officers like Idi Amin Dada and Jeane Bedel Bokassa were rewarded for deposing traditional rulers, wiping out villages, subverting African institutions and traditions, and containing popular pressures. That post-colonial armies continued in these traditions manifested in coups and counter-coups and have little regard for constitutions and civil society should then be clearly understood. As well, colonial armies were largely recruited from minority and marginalized communities; people who had some scores to settle. Thus ethnic, regional, class, religious and other primordial differences were clearly part of the colonial politics of divide-and-rule. That African armies today exhibit these traits and coups and counter-coups have been executed in support of narrow clannish interests can then be understood as no transformation of the nature, role, and structure of the armies took place following political independence.
To accuse the African state of being interventionist, bloated, over-extended, overdeveloped, and so on tells us very little. In fact, to try and link the backwardness of African economies to the institutions and policies of the state without considering its custodians, structures, and type is ahistorical and superficial. The postcolonial state is a merely repackaged colonial state. The colonial state was undemocratic, violent, non-accountable, exploitative, dishonest, and relied on the manipulation of primordial loyalties to facilitate the interests of the metropolitan bourgeoisie. Political independence did not witness a transformation or reconstruction of the structures, policies, and institutions of the colonial state. The new African elite simply inherited the state and embarked on using it to depoliticize the people and promote private accumulation given its own marginalization in the local economy and its underdevelopment in relation to foreign capital. Thus, without some reasonable excursion into the historical origins and inheritances of the neo-colonial state, prescriptions which address is contemporary visible behavior cannot seriously affect or change the African condition. Though post-colonial alignment and realignment of political forces have redefined state interests and led to the creation of new institutions, social relations, legal forms, and structures of violence and control, the state remains non-hegemonic, inefficient, ineffective, and incapable of promoting discipline within the ranks of the dominant classes.
Finally, it is easy, as evident in the literature to complain bitterly about the unproductive nature of the African elite, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy, and the vulnerability of the economy. The real question is whether African nations have ever had the opportunity to build viable, productive, self-reliant and autonomous economies since the advent of political independence three or more decades ago. It is well known and generally agreed in the literature that political independence was not accompanied by economic, social and cultural independence. The colonial state had ensured the marginalization of Africans in their own economies and consolidated the position of foreign capital. The new elite had no choice but to use the state for accumulation. At independence, all that the African elite had to rely on was the state and its institutions. They had no choice but to use it to exploit the people, forge unequal exchange relations with imperialism, and defend themselves in power. The state became the greatest employer, contractor, importer, and exporter. Ironically, in as long as this satisfied the needs of the West, no one complained about the so-called over-extended or bloated state in Africa. It exploited the peasants and workers and made it easy for foreign investors to accumulate capital without restraint. The state was then okay. Suddenly, it was no longer useful to the West. The Cold War ended and the state which had so very well served the super and great powers was now seen as enemy and ideological positions were generated to confine it to the dust bin of history: restructure the state, roll back the state, the state is useless, it is corrupt, it is inefficient, it is incapable of promoting accumulation, the state cannot move Africa out of its predicaments.