It became evident at a point that political liberation was essential and, in fact, the key factor in solving the African problem. Consequently, the quest for political liberation was adumbrated by the African liberation struggle which translated into and became ensconced as revolutions and nationalists movements
that would crystalise in constitutional de-colonisation. This led to a liberationist approach to the African problem spearheaded by notable figures like Kwame Nkrumah, Senghor, Sekou Toure, Nnamdi Azikiwe, etc.
The quest for political liberation incited in the Africans an expectation of “a new era of basic rights and freedom long denied under foreign or settler rule.”38 Thus, Kwame Nkrumah, for example, was convinced that Africans should first seek the political kingdom as a precondition for every other desire. Nkrumah avers that “the whole solution to this problem…lay in political freedom for our people, for it is only when people are politically free that other races can give them the respect that is due to them.”39 With such conceptions, the need for the independence of African nations became paramount and this occasioned African nationalism or nationalist struggle which primary goal was African liberation from the clutches of the colonial masters.
The quest for African liberation and the activities of the African nationalists in this direction led to the Pan-African movement which, George Padmore, a prime mover of Pan-Africanism, has described as “a dynamic political philosophy and guide to action for Africans in Africa who were laying the foundations of national liberation organizations.”40 Thus, Pan-Africanism was applied as a vision of hope and liberation as well as a philosophy of social action for the black man or the African.
Having realized the long-sought political liberation with the emergent independence that caught across the entire Africa, the African problem still persists. Thus, Africa sinks into disillusionment, disappointment and utter despair.
Since independence, Africans have taken as their own task, that of building a great continent out of their colonial experience. But unfortunately, efforts to achieve this goal in most countries have failed. Africans have been unable to rise up to their responsibilities. Tsenay Serequeberhan expresses the disappointment of the pursuit of political liberation as a key to development thus: “When the future looks back on…our immediate post-colonial past it will register a rather harsh disillusionment and disappointment regarding the promise and the actuality of the immediate post-colonial African situation.”41He traces the origin of this situation to the exercise of the first act of freedom that the Africans engaged in by attempting to violently disrupt the ‘normality’ which European colonial society presupposes.42 Consequently, Africa, since independence, has been preoccupied with being confused rather than charting the course for development.
For Samir Amin, the situation of Africa even after the political liberation is one of disillusionment as there is clearly a crisis of development: “If the 1960s were characterized by the great hope of seeing an irreversible process of development launched throughout what came to be called the Third World, and in Africa particularly, the present age is one of disillusionment. Development has
broken down, its theory is in crisis, its ideology the subject of doubt.”43It becomes obvious, from the foregoing, that political liberation alone cannot solve the African crisis of development since many African countries have been long independent yet they remain underdeveloped. Indeed, the African crisis of development requires more than political liberation. It equally requires economic, socio-cultural as well as moral liberations.44
Some scholars, like Julius Nyerere, believe that African independence was a compromised one and so the end of colonialism “was no liberation for Africa.”45 This is because although most of Africa is now free from colonial rule, all independent African states are still desperately poor and underdeveloped. Thus, Nyerere states that “independence has brought no change in economic conditions and very little–if any– social change.”46
Olusegun Oladipo stated that the African developmental challenge is composed of a myriad of interlocking elements but emphasized the relevance of economic growth in African development stating that the fact that African independence is compromised is an unfortunate reality which is reflected more in the economic sphere. Describing the African economic sphere, Oladipo states thus:
the pattern of relationship with the industrialized countries of the West remains basically the same as it was in colonial times. This is a pattern of unequal exchange, largely arising from Africa’s lack of capacity for self-directed action in economic matters. This has bred a culture of dependency, which has denied African countries one of the key ingredients of genuine
liberation – namely, the right “to be treated as equals”, to be allowed to function as nations that are in no way inferior to others.47
Oladipo further insists that the African condition of lack of economic freedom has not only fostered a culture of dependency, which limits her capacity for conscious, self-directed change, but also has some socio-cultural implications which include the denial of Africa of the material basis for cultural renewal, a situation of general intellectual and scientific dependence of Africa on the industrialized countries of Europe and America, among others.48