West Africa in streams of muddle; why is that? — Jacob Menkah

The West African Sub-region has been in a reverse motioning mode since the various African states found in the jurisdiction after fighting with their last blood to secure total liberation from the hands of their colonial masters have experienced various forms of neo-colonialism which has further degraded the Western part of the African continent.

In the Sub-region, various states are endowed with majority of the natural resources the African continent posseses. In that vein, it can be proud of natural resources such as the gold, diamond, manganese, water bodies, arable lands, copper, crude oil, timber and many other resources.

Therefore, the question now pops-up, why is the West African Sub-region in a muddle? The nature of politics in West Africa has contributed immensely to the underwhelming development of the Sub-region and it includes Neo-colonialism, Military interventions (Coup d’etat), Civil wars, Boundary dispute and Bad leadership.

Among the various political problems which have been enlisted above, neo-colonialism stands tall as one of the major factors burying the Western African Sub-region in a very disgusting manner before the day of accountability arrives.

Neo-colonialism can be explained in simple terms as, new form of colonial governance. Further, it is a means being adopted by the western powers to enroll their imperialist activities through indirect ruling of their former colonies.

Under this well orchestrated system of western powers for administering their former colonies, African nations succumb to their former master through different methods under military, political and economic assistance to attain their main goal of selfishly and greedily exploiting Africa’s resources in order to provide all forms of development to their continent.

Without any evidence, it is a fact that European powers after washing their hands away from the day-to-day administration of their respective former West African colonies have resorted to practicing economic neo-colonialism in order for them to continue to exercise some amount or total control over their former colony’s economic policies to their benefits.

Neo-colonialism is posing severe economic challenges to the Sub-region which is gradually deteriorating the West African Sub-region. Regardless of the rich natural resources the Western part of Africa is blessed with, the continent has failed to be counted as part of the rich booming economies in the world. More so, in the year 1954, Africa was reported to have produced six-five percent of the world’s cocoa, twenty-six percent of groundnut, thirty-four percent of copper, six-five percent of the world’s palm oil and many other raw materials.

It is sad to note that, the main cause of the under-development of the Sub-region is a result of the over exploitative relationship which involves the African continent and the western developed countries of the world. These over reliance of the western powers on the African Sub-region for their source of raw materials has been through capital investment, trade and in some cases, through the use of force to promote policies that allow the exploitation of the economic resources of the continent.

As a result, the European continent resorted to forming the European Economic Community (EEC) immediately after they granted independence to their ex-colonies which enable them to seek greater freedom of trade within Europe, and to provide solutions to matters affecting trade and commerce in Africa with one voice.

In effect, it has aided the Europeans in determining the prices of natural resources such as gold, cocoa etc which is being exported from the African Sub-region into the European market all in favor of the Europeans.

The West African Sub-region can get back into it glory, if the political leaders cut ties with the Western powers; the political ecosystem in the Sub-region takes into account, sensitizing and sanitizing the geographical landscape of the Western part of Africa intensively.