The Disadvantaged

By Cephas Sallem Kan Tardzer

Focused on Africa's inscrutable development paradox and its checkered history begun with the seventh century Muslim invasion, the author has listed in one or two of the above publications and has traced the story of the conquest of the North and parts of East Africa by the Islamic Jihadists. These publications also narrated the story of the 400-year period during which the young men and women of Africa were usually captured and sold to slave traders as marketable species mostly suitable for hard labor in the homes and on farms of the wealthy in North America and the Middle East.

These publications further attempt to establish that as soon as the atrocities of chattel slavery had been outlawed, a number of European nations in 1884 sent their representatives to a conference in Berlin, Germany, to discuss what next to do with the African nations and citizens recently freed from the burden of enslavement. The unanimous decision at this conference was to divide up the African continent into zones of control renamed as colonies by European powers where European legal infrastructure would regulate everyday order of governance and social life. What happened next was the partition of Africa into new nations and the introduction of colonization which lasted until the late nineteen seventies. As independent nations today, it is incumbent upon African leaders as well as citizens to face their own countries' realities, to design and execute their development plans, and to care for their citizens' general wellbeing. This remains the only way out by which most of their citizens will no longer be counted among the disadvantaged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664135437

Cephas Sallem Kan Tardzer

n/a

Book preview

THE

DISADVANTAGED

CEPHAS SALLEM KAN TARDZER

Copyright © 2020 by Cephas Sallem Kan Tardzer.

ISBN:      Hardcover       978-1-6641-3545-1

                 Softcover        978-1-6641-3544-4

                 eBook             978-1-6641-3543-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/20/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

820964

To my

dad, Bho’on Tar ou Dzer Assuah Tackurucku; my mom, Shijah Bueh Wan-Adule, and my sister, Hannah Ahungul Tar ou Dzer Ibi whose lives of humility, honesty and hard work continually remind me that there’s more to life when we share our God-given talents and resources in service to one another.

CONTENTS

Prologue

PART I

RELIGION, COLONIZATION, POLITICS, AND IMPERIALISM

1    Religion And Politics

Egypt

Somalia

Syria

Afghanistan

2    The Spread Of Islam To Africa

3    Colonization And Imperialism

4    Africa’s Inhibitory Conflicts

5    A Botched Currency Rollout

PART II

CENTRAL AFRICA

6    European Legacy In Central Africa

7    Central African Republic (Car)

8    Congo Brazzaville (Republique Du Congo)

9    Democratic Republic Of Congo (Drc)

PART III

EAST AFRICA

10    Colonization Of East Africa

11    Ethiopia

12    Kenya

13    Mozambique

14    Somalia

15    Zimbabwe

PART IV

NORTH AFRICA

16    Islam & European Influence In North Africa

17    Egypt

18    Libya

19    South Sudan

20    Republic Of Sudan

21    Western Sahara

PART V

SOUTHERN AFRICA

22    Southern Africa And Apartheid

23    Namibia

24    Republic Of South Africa

PART VI

WEST AFRICA

25    Colonial Legacy In West Africa

26    Cote D’ivoire

27    Ghana

28    Nigeria

Northern Nigeria

Western Nigeria

Benin Empire

Eko (Lagos) Enclave

Eastern Nigeria

Niger Delta

Arthur Richard’s Constitution

Coup D’etats And Civil Wars

Sharia Law In Northern Nigeria

The Buhari Presidency

29    Senegal

Author’s Note

Glossary

Bibliography

Other Books By The Author

PROLOGUE

A mong the continents of the globe, Africa is the second largest in landmass as well as in population behind Asia. With an area covering around 6 percent of the earth’s surface, it is home to 54 independent nations currently recognized by United Nations Organization, while two of its component nations, Somaliland and Western Sahara, are yet to be universally recognized. The Mediterranean Sea on its northern border has separated this continent from Europe, and, as confirmed by anthropological findings, this continent has been inhabited by humans for over seven million years.

Despite Africa’s size and historic accolades, many of its component nations are populated by citizens who mostly seem to be unhappy about their socioeconomic wellbeing. This is due in part to the arrant misuse of political power by some elected leaders. The feeling of hopelessness by the citizenry thus seems to have stifled creativity and progress on all fronts.

In some African nations today, political leaders have regarded their terms of office as lifetime opportunities and have repeatedly won sham elections and even reelections. Moreover, there is also a partiality in the distribution of limited national resources. While the task to lift the poor out of poverty has been stagnated by limited resources, in the nations with natural resources, the pipeline to wealth seems to have been monopolized by greedy and the powerful few.

As someone with roots in Africa, I am often asked by friends why European businessmen and religious leaders had supported Africa’s colonization towards the beginning of 1900 but suddenly decided to leave seventy years later while there was still a lot to do to rebuild the economies of their erstwhile colonies.

Despite the fact that my usual response to this expressed concern has often been deflective, it is apparent that nations are like babies; fragile at birth, spoon-fed and nurtured until the age of maturity when they are left to fend for themselves. Similarly, it takes planning and hard work to nurture and equip a nation with an economy that is capable of providing social services and a safety net to its citizens.

Although the continent’s fortunes may have fluctuated from time to time, Africans need to wake up and learn from history. In order to become self-reliant rather than continuing to be viewed as consumers for mass-produced products of Europe’s industrialization, it is important for African leaders to lead by force of example and to demand that some industrial products consumed by their citizens should be locally produced.

By relying on lifestyles and forms of Western democratic norms not suited to the instinctual framework baked into the African DNA, it may take a long time before the concept of selfless leadership becomes reality in Africa. As was evident in the pre-colonial governments of some territories, one may argue that equality and justice were not adopted as a governing principle but to stabilize consumer markets for Europe’s industrial products.

The Disadvantaged is a narrative about Africa and its arbitrary colonization, restructuring, and subsequent independence and what went awry after its self-governing attainment. For post-independent Africa to become truly self-reliant therefore, its leadership must realize that ex-colonial powers have departed and will never return to rescue their former colonies from the current economic paralysis.

We also cannot call upon each nation’s military forces to step in and solve socioeconomic problems for which they are ill-equipped to handle. Although that approach was tried in several nations, the outcome was abysmal as it resulted in those nations being plunged into deeper depths of misrule and corruption.

While reflecting on the current situation with a friend during one of the author’s trips to Africa, the friend enumerated a number of roadblocks that have created the status quo including a lingering lack of resources and the mistrust by Western investors who apparently seemed to prefer investing in China rather than Africa. The friend concluded that although it had taken less than a decade for use of cellular phones to proliferate throughout the continent, he did not understand why Africa was not being looked upon as a profitable market for large scale investments.

Although I complimented my friend on his foresight, I drew his attention to the absence of reliable infrastructure and enabling laws that would protect potential investors from losses. Because of restricted property ownership laws in most African nations, foreign investors are discouraged to invest in long term investment projects which require extended incubation periods. Furthermore, the absence of reliable electric power, and trustworthy manpower in some African nations, also acts as disincentive to major projects of the type envisaged to be successfully executed.

The author further commented on the negative effects of long-standing ethnic distrust of one another as well as the prevalence of religious and interfaith wars, and the arbitrariness of political leaders as part of the negative issues which might probably have had adverse effects on foreign investment inflows.

Continuing, the author wondered whether any lesson had been learned from Nigeria’s civil war and its huge toll on human and material resources. Although millions had needlessly died in that civil war, yet Africa’s intermittent ethno-religious disturbances have not ended. To this day, a large swath of northern Nigeria’s territory has been seized and remains under the control of fundamentalist Islamic forces.

It is puzzling why the federal government of Nigeria, charged with the duty to maintain the country’s integrity, casually capitulated to pressure and allowed 12 northern states to create a separate legal system based on the Sharia Code. Yet the concession by the federal government does not seem to appease the rebels to lay down arms or to negotiate peace.

Although it took Nigeria’s military forces more than 30 years of meddling into politics, they voluntarily returned the country’s governance to civil rule. It still seems the lesson has not been learned by these Islamist insurgency groups.

The blueprint for peace, stability and growth outlined herein supports the viewpoint that peace, stability and prosperity are possible when there is tolerance and willingness on the part of citizens to persevere and outgrow their nations’ developing pains. Yet when political leaders do not abandon the culture of thievery, distorted priorities, and mistrust one another, peace and stability may not be easy to prevail. To equitably share the national cake, political leaders need to be guided by personal integrity and a sense of fairness.

Economic growth is possible where there is an awareness and effort to welcome investors from all parts of the world willing to operate businesses in compliance with national laws that recognize private property rights. The immediate benefit for encouraging private enterprises is the benefit that these entities employ local labor which in turn benefits the economy.

This basic understanding seemed to be ignored at the time Nigeria’s indigenization decree was promulgated in the 1970s, which substantially disrupted the national economy. Business entities caught up as casualties of this decree included Kingsway Department Stores, KC Chellaram & Sons, J. Allen Motors, Mandilas Motors, Leventis Motors, SCOA Motors and other established foreign businesses including commercial banks such as Barclays Bank and Bank of West Africa which had to close down and move out of the country leaving behind thousands of employees.

For refusing to comply with the requirements of this decree, all foreign owned business entities opted to discontinue operations in the country leaving behind thousands of displaced employees who had suddenly lost their jobs without compensation to support themselves and their families for several months.

Despite the declining socioeconomic indices in many African nations to date, this publication has focused on drawing attention to economic disparities believing that the most effective antidote against malfeasance is when people of goodwill do not just stand by in neutrality, but actively respond. If we are to prevent a recurrence of the past, and to map out the path to move forward, it is important to first understand the underlying forces working to improve lives against those that would rather keep alive the idea of Africa as a place for The Disadvantaged.

In telling this story of Africa within the planned context, we have subdivided the continent into five regions namely, Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western regions and have thus selected a few countries within each region for a more detailed review of their past unique circumstances.

The source of information for this publication is derived from numerous sources including Wikipedia as well as other sources listed in the bibliography.

In conclusion, I would like to apologize to anyone whose feelings may have been hurt for being mentioned by name in this publication.

PART I

RELIGION, COLONIZATION,

POLITICS, AND IMPERIALISM

1

RELIGION AND POLITICS

I T IS OFTEN stated that religion and politics combine together to shape beliefs and the attitudes of human beings across the globe. However, it seems that the majority of the world’s population identifies with a religion because they also care about what will affect their lives in the after-life. Religion thus plays a role in defining and differentiating a set of beliefs and attitudes that guide individuals and groups of people in the way they live and worship God as the superhuman and divine controller of all power in the universe now and in the life to come.

To perform the worship of God therefore, human beings have, from time immemorial, devised various rituals and procedures to guide orderly worship. It is also conclusive that religion thus plays a significant role in molding a believer’s identity, culture, and daily interface with his surroundings.

Christianity is today ranked as the world’s largest religion, based on the number of followers who profess or accept the teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Yet, there are other classical religions with membership spread all over the world. These religious groups include Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Judaists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Jains, Confucians, Shintoists, Taoists, and Parsi.

In Africa, Islam and Christian religions have larger followership. In many respects, these faith doctrines have shaped numerous customs and cultural norms of Africans. While Islam requires its faithful to pray five times each day, Christians regard Sunday as a special day for rest and worship. When someone converts to Christianity, it is expected that he or she would abandon lifestyles or traditions that violate Christian principles such as polygamy and patronage of witch doctors. Yet it is common to find among African churchgoers those who co-mingle certain rituals for witchcraft and voodoo worship against the Biblical dictate which states that:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man, who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

- James 1:23–24

At the time Christianity was first introduced by Portuguese Catholic priests in the non-Islamic regions of Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, its influence remained minimal until 1850 when Thomas Bowen of Baptist Convention arrived in West Africa. Later joined by other missionaries, they worked hard to expand their Christianizing enterprise in West Africa with the help of local converts.

As Christian missionaries made converts out of Africa’s idol worshippers, the fervor of these new converts was to go to church on Sundays, and even to mimic speaking in foreign tongues during worship services. With the rapid growth in the membership of Churches, it seems the leaders of these churches have chosen to realign their sermons to emphasize the return of God’s blessings on the poor’ worshippers who generously place in the offering plate a lot of money. The prosperity-gospel doctrine" has thus become as controversial among Christians and church members to date as ever; yet, it has continued as a reliable source to enrich church leaders.

Apart from the greed that appears to have accompanied