British West Africa

on the World Today

IN BRITISH WEST AFRICA a bold experiment is approaching its climax. The Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia are on the road to self-government. If all goes according to plan the Gold Coast, politically the most advanced of the African countries, will achieve complete independence early in 1957, closely followed by Nigeria.

The success or failure of Nigeria and the Gold Coast will have a far-reaching effect on developments in the rest of the continent. If the new governments succeed in standing on their own feet, holding their countries on a stable and progressive course, nationalist movements all over Africa will be strengthened and encouraged. If they fail in good government, if inefficiency and corruption take hold, if through maladministration and disorder the already low standard of living of their people falls still further, then the prophecies of the Cassandras who think Africans are not yet fit for self-government will be seen to be true.

Geographic and climatic conditions account for West Africa’s isolation until very recently from the civilizations of Europe and the Far East. They also account for the fact that in British West Africa all land belongs to the Africans—no nonAfrican owns land outright. Mangrove swamps, muddy creeks, and the tropical forests of the rain belt formed a barrier of disease and death which confined white men to the coasts. They came as traders and not as settlers, and left the fabric of the Negro life in the interior undisturbed.

Lords of the soil

Even at the height of the scramble of the rich slave trade, rent was paid regularly to the owners of the land on which forts and stores were built; and in the mid-eighteenth century the British Company of Merchants, who by that time had won from other European countries the sole right to carry slaves to the Spanish American colonies, declared, “We recognize the Sovereignty of the natives as lords of the soil.” Since then the British Crown has held the land in trust for the African natives.

This fundamental fact has colored the whole trend of race relations and made possible the present pattern of development. The fears and hatreds which have their roots in rivalry for the possession of land, and which in Kenya have given birth to the Mau Mau, do not exist in British West Africa. Constitutional development is taking its course free from the bedevilment of a multiracial society.

Nationalism is not new in West Africa. West Africans never willingly accepted the loss of their independence, and since the mid-nineteenth century nationalist organizations have existed; but it was not until after World War II that the present revolutionary changes really began. Inspiration came from countries like India and Indonesia, and the growth of the nationalist movement was also stimulated by the great increase after the war in the number of educated Africans. The political parties which now lead these countries were formed during or immediately after the war.

The British government met their demands more than halfway. In 1950 and 1951 new constitutions were put into operation in the Gold Coast and Nigeria; and subject to certain powers reserved to the Governor, responsibility for internal affairs is already in the hands of elected parliaments with allAfrican Cabinets or Councils of Ministers. The British Colonial Secretary has promised that both countries can have complete self-government as soon as they themselves can agree by a “reasonable” majority in their parliaments on the form which they want it to take. This is where they find themselves snarled up by tribal rivalries.

Both Nigeria and the Gold Coast include within their boundaries many tribes and ancient Negro kingdoms, differing widely in language, religion, and social and political habit. They resemble modern Towers of Babel, each tribe speaking its own tongue and unable to talk with its neighbors except in pidgin English, which has become a lingua franca.

Thle Gold Coast has a population of just under 5 million. Within its borders are two major tribes, Fanti and Ashanti, who for centuries have fought unending wars. The peoples of the Gold Coast’s Northern Territories differ widely from the people of the rain forests and tend to find their cultural roots among the Berber and Arab peoples of the Western Sahara.

The present Gold Coast constitution provides a unitary form of government, and the Prime Minister, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, came to power when the Convention People’s Party won the first general election, held in 1954. The Ashanti, who form the principal opposition, reject a form of government which lays them open to rule by their age-old enemies, and demand a federation which would leave them free to manage their own internal affairs. In June, 1956, after long and fruitless efforts to negotiate with the Ashanti, Nkrumah held a general election, and his party once more gained a majority over the whole country. But he still failed to get the support of the Ashanti people.

The motion asking Great Britain for independence was passed by the Legislative Assembly in the absence of the opposition, who boycotted the Assembly because the motion was introduced before agreement had been reached on a constitution. Nkrumah can claim that the Colonial Secretary’s terms have been fulfilled — but it is difficult to see how the country can prosper unless the Ashanti agree to coöperate in the government.

Diverse religions

The indigenous religious beliefs of West Africa are even more diverse than the people themselves, varying from village to village, and even within families. Until the end of the nineteenth century, when the British put a stop to it, human sacrifice was common. To this day juju has great power, with its belief in evil spirits and the gods of natural forces; and deaths for which there is no medical explanation still occur when a man has a juju put on him by his enemies. But along with primitive practices the native religions carried powerful disciplines to guide a man in his daily life. Industrialization sweeps away these guides, often without adequate spiritual substitutes.

Muslims, and later Christians, made many converts in West Africa. There are large numbers of Mohammedans in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, and Northern and Western Nigeria are basically Muslim. Christianity also is widespread.

From these diverse religious, cultural, and political elements the newly fledged politicians must create internal unity and discover a will and ability among Africans themselves to think and act as one people if the British West African colonies are to survive as self-governing nations.

The parliamentary game

The legislatures in West Africa are based on the British House of Commons. West Africans are natural orators and have taken to the parliamentary game like ducks to water. Many of the new legislators, in the two years since they were elected, have developed a sense of the responsibilities underlying parliamentary government, and much practical and well-conceived legislation has been passed by all the parliaments. But too many seem to have grasped the shadow rather than the substance of parliamentary government, and there is a tendency in debate to lose touch with reality.

A sense of national and racial pride demands that these newborn countries should exhibit the power and wealth of older and richer nations; members seem to think that words alone can conjure up fine navies and armies and air forces, complete with aircraft carriers and jet bombers; television networks; roads and railways; and industrial equipment. Often tribal feeling breaks through the flow of serious debate, and some politicians have to learn that, in the recent words of a Nigerian journalist, “it is not every time that one must seek to bring to utter ruin those who choose to disagree with one.”

Men of different tribes and different religions are in fact learning to work together and to think of their country as a whole, not only of their own particular corner of it. There is wisdom among them, and humor. One, congratulated on being in the Cabinet in his twenties, said, “Nothing very remarkable in that. After all, there was Pitt!" But the trouble is that many Ministers are fonder of, and better skilled in, stumping the country after votes than they are of running their departments, the business of which is still largely in the hands of expatriate British officials.

There is a good deal of corruption in West Africa today. The press and radio campaign against it, but it goes on. In countries where by tradition the humble have paid tribute to the rich and powerful in return for protection, certain practices are difficult to judge by Western standards. At its lowest level it must fill the observer with horror. The desperately ill, and probably penniless, patient may, in spite of efforts to stamp out the system, be unable to get proper attention in the hospital without giving money to nurses and attendants. The worker who for years has had to pay a percentage of his meager wages to the foreman or senior clerk whose “influence” got him his job sees no escape from the toils.

On the political level at this eleventh hour before freedom, both Dr. Nkrumah and his Gold Coast government, and Dr. Nmandi Azikiwi, Prime Minister of Eastern Nigeria, have become involved in inquiries alleging the misuse of public money. Hope for the future lies in the fact that the Africans themselves are acutely aware of the danger.

New methods, new money

The economic structure of all four territories is fundamentally the same, resting chiefly on a primitive agriculture with a very low level of productivity. Development plans include revision of the system of land tenure — a thorny subject touching tribal and family rights and prejudices; encouragement in forming larger, more economic units; training in modern agricultural methods; and the provision of better seeds, fertilizers, and implements. But if these and the multitudinous schemes for starting new industries, improving communications, developing export commodities— minerals, cocoa, ground nuts, palm oil, cotton, timber, hides, and skins — and for increasing social and welfare services are to succeed, conditions must be created which attract foreign investment.

In 1954 Nkrumah said, “My Government has accepted the fact that it will be many years before the Gold Coast will be in a position to find from its own resources people who can combine capital with the experience required in the development and management of new industries. It is, therefore, apparent that the Government must rely to a large extent on foreign enterprise, and the Government is anxious to give it every encouragement.”

Since that date the estimated cost of the Gold Coast Volta River hydroelectric project has more than doubled — at least $865 million is now needed if the project is to be carried through to its final stage. The world markets must be convinced that stability can be maintained and that agreements made with foreign investors will be honored by future governments.

The fight against illiteracy

Should education or economic development come first? This is difficult to answer. To the African, education is a magic word which can spell freedom, riches, and opportunity. Education is at its most basic in the fight against illiteracy — only 2 per cent of the 19 million inhabitants of Northern Nigeria are literate. Thousands of administrators, research workers, engineers, and technicians are needed urgently. And at the base of this whole pyramid is the crying need for teachers. The missionaries laid a remarkable foundation of schools. The majority of adult educated Africans began their education in a mission school, and even today 85 per cent of schools are controlled by religious organizations.

Many political parties are introducing free primary education, and new schools are springing up everywhere. But the shortage of fully trained teachers is desperate — too often the “headmaster” of a primary school is a boy of thirteen or fourteen whose own educational standard is very modest.

At the root of the problem is money. West Africa simply has not got the necessary money to carry through urgent educational needs to enable its people to advance into a different life. Great Britain gives large sums annually from Colonial Welfare Development funds, and every year hundreds of West African students go to England on government scholarships. But this is not enough. Can economic development be pushed on to provide the money so badly needed for education?

Or is this a vicious circle in which education waits on money from an industrial expansion which, in its turn, is held back by lack of schools and colleges to produce the technicians without which industry cannot prosper?