https://www.africanliberty.org/2019/03/14/how-socialism-destroyed-africa/
capitalism with colonialism, Africa’s nationalist leaders rejected it and adopted socialism in the 1960s. Foreign companies were nationalized, a string of state-owned enterprises was established and a plethora of state controls on rent, prices, imports, and foreign exchange were imposed to capture the commanding heights of the economy. But nowhere in Africa was the socialist experiment successful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRXjD7RXTPk

After independence, the first generation of African leaders launched a frontal assault on what they perceive to be Western institutions. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, for example, rejected democracy as an “imperialist dogma” while others dismissed it as “luxury Africa could not afford.” Capitalism was rejected as a Western colonial ideology in one monumental syllogistic error. Colonialism was evil and since the colonialists were capitalists, it too was evil. Socialism, the antithesis of capitalism, was adopted by nearly every African leader and was advocated as the only road to Africa’s prosperity. Nkrumah surmised that “socialist transformation would eradicate completely the colonial structure of our economy” (Nkrumah 1973; p.189). Additionally, Nkrumah believed “Capitalism is too complicated for a newly independent state; hence, the need for a socialist society” (Nkrumah,1957; p.9).

Africa leaders at independence were deceived by USSR/Russia that capitalism was evil.

A wave of socialist ideologies swept across the continent as almost all the new African leaders succumbed to the contagious ideology, copied from the East. The proliferation of socialist ideologies that emerged in Africa, ranged from the “Ujamaa” (familyhood or socialism in Swahili) of Julius Nyerere of Tanzania; the vague amalgam of Marxism, Christian socialism, humanitarianism and “Negritude” of Leopold Senghor of Senegal; humanism of Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia; scientific socialism of Marien N’Gouabi of Congo (Brazzaville); Arab Islamic socialism of Ghaddafi of Libya; “Nkrumaism” (consciencism) of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana; and “Mobutuism” of Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Only a few African countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Kenya were pragmatic enough to eschew doctrinaire socialism.

Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, generally regarded as the “father of African socialism,” was convinced that “only the socialist form of society can assure Ghana of a rapid rate of economic progress without destroying that social justice, that freedom and equality, which are a central feature of our traditional way of life” (Seven Year Development Plan. Accra: Government of Ghana, 1963; p.1).

Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, on the other hand, misread the communalism of African traditional society as readiness for socialism, which he was first exposed to during his schooling in Scotland. He castigated capitalism or the money economy, which in his view, “encourages individual acquisitiveness and economic competition.” The money economy was, in his purview, foreign to Africa and it “can be catastrophic as regards the African family social unit.” As an alternative to “the relentless pursuit of individual advancement”, Nyerere insisted that Tanzania be transformed into a nation of small scale communalists (“Ujamaa”) (Nyerere, 1962).


African philosophers at independence failed to develop system of government that befits African traditional society.

In 1967, Tanzania’s ruling party’s Arusha Declaration established a socialist state where the workers and peasants controlled and owned the means of production. The Arusha Declaration sought to encourage self-reliance primarily through an expansion of agricultural production for domestic consumption.

Banks, insurance companies, and foreign trading companies were nationalized. A “villagization” program was adopted to encourage the communal production, marketing, and distribution of farm crops. In 1973, Tanzania undertook massive resettlement programs under “Operation Dodoma”, “Operation Sogeza”, “Operation Kigoma” and many others. Peasants were loaded into trucks, often forcibly, and moved to new locations. Many lost their lives in the process and to prevent a return to their old habitats, abandoned buildings were destroyed by bulldozers. By 1976, some 13 million peasants had been forced into 8,000 cooperative villages and by the end of the 1970s, about 91 percent of the entire rural population had been moved into government villages (Zinsmeister, 1987). All crops were to be bought and distributed by the government. It was illegal for the peasants to sell their own produce.

Ethiopia adopted a similar program  forced resettlements on government farms. In Mozambique, the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) sought to establish a socialist state replete with collectivized agriculture, crop growing schemes and village political committees. According to Libby (1987):

The centerpiece of Frelimo’s rural social program for Mozambique was the collectivization of agriculture into communal villages and cooperative farms. Agricultural cooperatives were intended to provide an integrated production base for the communal villages. Hence, villagization was designed to increase food and cash crop production and to make available common facilities for farming as well as provide social services such as education and health comparable with Ujamaa villages in Tanzania (p.216).

In the rest of Africa, planned the socialist transformation of Africa meant the institution of a battery of legislative instruments and controls. All unoccupied land was appropriated by the government. Roadblocks, passbook systems were employed to control the movement of Africans. Marketing Boards and export regulations were tightened to fleece the cash crop producers. Price controls were imposed on peasant farmers and traders to render food cheap for the urban elites. Under Sekou Toure of Guinea’s program of “Marxism in African Clothes,”

“Unauthorized trading became a crime. Police roadblocks were set up around the country to control internal trade. The state set up a monopoly on foreign trade and smuggling became punishable by death. Currency trafficking was punishable by 15 to 20 years in prison. Many farms were collectivized.
Food prices were fixed at low levels. Private farmers were forced to deliver annual harvest quotas to `Local Revolutionary Powers.’ State Companies monopolized industrial production” (The New York Times, Dec 28, 1987; p.28).

In Francophone Africa, industries were nationalized, tariff barriers erected and the state assumed near-total control of the national economy (Africa Analysis, Oct 2000). Rather interestingly, the World Bank, US AID, the State Department and even development experts from Harvard University supported these policies and channeled much aid resources to African governments (Bandow, 1986).

In Guinea, a state dominated socialist economy was set up beginning with independence in 1958, in Congo Brazzaville, a similar decision was taken in 1967, and in Benin, a socialist state was proclaimed in 1975. Even in avowedly capitalist countries like Ivory Coast, Kenya and Nigeria, the result became the same: government ownership of most enterprises, and a distrust of private-sector initiative and foreign investment, state controls as well as increasing state intervention in the economy.

In Nigeria, the state, in April 1971, acquired 40 percent of the largest commercial banks, and the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC) was established, with the government keeping a majority participation. Four years later the government acquired 55 percent of the petroleum industry and 40 percent of National Insurance Company of Nigeria (NICON). The following year the acquisition was extended to other insurance companies when the government took 49 percent of their shares.

Nigeria’s Second Development Plan (1970 74) was unequivocal, declaring that:
The interests of foreign private investors in the Nigerian economy cannot be expected to coincide at all times and in every respect with national aspirations. A truly independent nation cannot allow its objectives and priorities to be distorted or frustrated by the manipulation of powerful foreign investors.


Cold war between USSR and western block made things worst for Africa. Western block successful destroyed ussr

Problems emerged soon after independence. State controls created artificial shortages and black markets. State-owned enterprises could not deliver, achieving very low rates of capacity utilization. Most of them were inefficiently run and unprofitable. At the time of the coup in Ghana in 1966, which overthrew Nkrumah, only 3 or 4 of the 64 state enterprises were paying their way (Garlick 1971; p.141). Consider the performance of these enterprises taken over by the state:

• In 1972, the government took over the African Timber and Plywood Company. Before the takeover, “production was 75 percent of installed capacity but this has fallen to a woeful 13 percent” (West Africa Oct 12, 1981; p.2422).

• In 1976, the government of Ghana took over R. T. Briscoe, a foreign company. “Before the takeover, the company was producing 241 buses in 1974. After the takeover, production was 12 buses in 1977 and only 6 buses in 1978” (Daily Graphic, Jan 18, 1979; p.1).

In 1982, the Kenyan Government estimated the annual average rate of return on the $1.4 billion (1981 dollars) invested in SOEs since independence, in 1963, to be 0.2 percent——a return greatly less than what could have been obtained by depositing the sum in an interest-bearing account (World Bank, 2005).

In Tunisia, the government ran the airline, the steel mill, the phosphate mines, and 150 factories, employing a third of Tunisian workers. After 1990, the government sold off 35 companies and,
Private businessman Afif Kilani bought one such company called Comfort, a featherbed for 1,200 workers who built 15,000 refrigerators a year. Mr. Kilani paid $3.3 million for the place in 1990. Five years later, he had whittled the workforce down to 600 workers who made 200,000 refrigerators a year. “Like all state companies, its point had been to support the maximum number of jobs”, he said. “It was social work. A sort of welfare”. (The Wall Street Journal June 22, 1995; p.A11).


Buhari is a socialist as well.

Many governments not only nationalized European companies, ostensibly to prevent “foreign exploitation”, but also vented their rage against the natives. In many other countries, the natives were squeezed out of industry, trade, and commerce, and the state emerged as the domineering, if not the only, player. Indigenous operators were not tolerated. Indeed, there was a time when the director of the Club du Sahel, Anne de Lattre, would begin her meetings with the frightening remark, “Well, there is one thing we all agree on: that private traders should be shot” (West Africa, Jan 26, 1987; p.154).

Unbelievable brutalities were heaped upon peasant farmers and traders under Ghana inane price controls (1982-1983). Ghanaian cocoa farmers in 1983 were paid less than 10 percent of the world market price for their produce. In Gambia, peanut producers received about 20 percent for their produce in the same year. According to West Africa (Feb 15, 1989):

“On the average, between 1964/65 and 1984/85, the peasants of Gambia were robbed of 60 percent of the international price of their groundnuts! For 20 years, the Jawara Government `officially’ took, free of charge, 3 out of every 5 bags, leaving the peasant with a gross of 2. With deductions for subsistence credit fertilizer, seeds, etc., the peasant would end up with a net one bag out of five … With these facts, it is simply wrong to say that the poverty of the peasant derives from the defects of nature drought, over population, laziness, and so on (p.250).

State-owned enterprises were acquired haphazardly with little planning, resulting in grotesque blunders and mismanagement. There is extensive evidence for these but suffice it here to give a few dramatic examples.
• In Ghana, two tomato canneries were built in different parts of the country. The capacity of either one of them would have met the total domestic demand (Killick 1978; p.229).

• It took six years to complete Ghana’s state footwear corporation factory and by the time it was ready to go into production much of its equipment was obsolete (Killick 1978; p.231).

• The Ghana government-owned sugar factory at Komenda, after completion, stood idle for more than a year because it lacked a water supply system (Killick 1978; p.231).

State controls created artificial shortages, providing rich opportunities for rent-seeking activities and illicit enrichment. Import and exchange controls were the most lucrative. Ministers demanded 10 percent commission before issuing an import license. Everyone was chasing scarce commodities to buy at government-controlled prices and resell on the black market to make a profit – a process known in Ghana as “kalabule.”

More perniciously, the ruling elites discovered that they could not only use state controls to enrich themselves but also to punish the political rivals. For example, they would deny import license to import newsprint to newspapers that were critical of them.

Socialism can never be justified upon the basis of African tradition. The basic economic and social unit in the West is the individual. The American says “I am because I am and I can do anything I want at any time.” The emphasis is on the “I,“ the individual. In Africa, a person says ”I am because we are.” The “we” connotes the extended family, group or community. Land, for example, is owned by the extended family, so the African would say that “the land belongs to us.” The early Europeans misinterpreted that to mean land belonging to every Tom Dick and Harry in the village, which gave rise to the myth of communal ownership. The extended family pools are resources together and may share them among its members but the extended family is a private entity, not the tribal government. Many of the leaders and scholars mistook these aspects of African cultural heritage – helping one another, community awareness, sharing of resources, and so on – as a justification for African socialism. They were wrong.

In traditional Africa, one does not have to line up before a chief‘s palace to seek permission to engage in trade or some occupation. There were free markets, free enterprise and free-trade in Africa before the colonialists arrived. Perhaps, this was the most singular reason why socialism failed miserably in Africa because it is an alien ideology.


Africa can only thrive with capitalism. Marxism destroyed Africa.

The socialist ideology has left two pernicious legacies that will hold Africa back for some time to come. The first is socialist mentality – the tendency to look up to the government or the belief that government must solve every problem. This can be discerned from the following instances:

• Ask them to trim their bloated bureaucracies and cut government spending and they will establish a “Ministry of Less Government Spending” (Mali).
• Ask them to establish a market-based economy and place more emphasis on the private sector and they will create a “Ministry of Private Enterprise,” as Ghana did in 2002.
• Ask them to establish good governance and they will set up a “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania). Don’t ask them to improve transparency!

Second, the state machinery and infrastructure that were erected in the 1960s to give effect to socialism were not dismantled. This has led to phenomenal growth in the public sector that is now packed with cronies, relatives and party hacks in a multiplicity of parallel institutions and ministries with overlapping functions. Ghana, for example, has Ministry of Aviation, Ministry of Roads and Highways, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Roads and Transport, Ministry of Ports and Railways. Why not just one Ministry of Transportation?

Seun worthy of fp...

Pls post more, I'm enjoying this article

That's why Africa is poor and looks like the former Soviet republic countries with the exception of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

opamoses1:
That's why Africa is poor and looks like the former Soviet republic countries with the exception of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Exactly. Baltic states you mentioned quickly aligned with west after collapse of USSR in 1991. They are doing well now.