The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010

4. The Road to Autocracy: Breakdown of the Decolonization Settlements

Fading Euphoria The moment of enthusiasm that accompanied the rituals of independence faded quickly. The first decade of African independence saw a rapid transformation of the political landscape, from governance under the fragile democratic constitutions required by the withdrawing imperial powers as a condition of independence to predominantly autocratic rule, whether under single party or military auspices. Three of the largest countries experienced debilitating civil wars—Nigeria, Sudan, and Congo-Kinshasa. Almost everywhere, by the end of the 1960s military intervention appeared the main alternative to singleparty monopolies. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the main trends of African politics during what chapter 1 suggested was the first cycle of hope and disappointment , largely situated in the 1960s. In my view, the crucial trends were the failure of most of the decolonization constitutional dispensations to endure, the disappearance of autonomous sites of dialogue and debate, the consolidation of single parties fused with the state, and the emergence of military coups as the primary form of regime change. The consequence of these changes was the rise of autocracy as mode of governance. These patterns at first found ideological justification by the rulers and theoretical support from academic observers. By the end of the 1960s, however, the credibility of the single party and military rule was challenged, and the first symptoms of what later became “Afropessimism” were apparent. Harbingers of what lay in store appeared in the form of three unwelcome developments by 1960, the miraculous year of African independence: the evident drift to autocracy in the two most widely heralded avatars of 122 4 The Road to Autocracy Breakdown of the Decolonization Settlements The Road to Autocracy 123 sovereignty, Ghana and Guinea and the instant postindependence crisis in Congo-Kinshasa. In the Ghana case, after the forceful confrontations of colonial authority in 1948 and 1951 by emergent nationalists, a mostly cooperative and well-crafted transition to independence followed. Though Ghana was not the first African state to gain sovereignty, its celebrated 1957 independence was the key landmark in the decolonization dynamic. But by 1960, a new constitution empowered President Kwame Nkrumah to rule by decree, preventive detention legislation had been adopted, and opposition leader J. B. Danquah was soon headed for prison. The huge stimulus to African nationalism attending Ghanaian independence was matched by that greeting the abrupt 1958 Guinea independence that followed the epic defiance of France by the radical nationalist leader Sékou Touré. His summons to a “no” vote on the de Gaulle constitutional proposals , offering only autonomy to the African territories, won overwhelming support. This spectacular audacity enjoyed wide admiration in Africa; the Guinea victimization by an immediate and punitive rupture by the colonizer, including withdrawal of all personnel and cessation of aid, evoked a reflex of solidarity. The dominant party, the Parti démocratique de Guinée, earned high esteem for its capacities for mass mobilization, persuasively chronicled by Ruth Schachter Morgenthau among others.1 But by 1960 there were clear signs that the political monopoly was hardening and that opposition was not being tolerated, and soon dissidents began flowing into exile. At the time of Ghana and Guinea independence the colonial hegemon in the Belgian Congo still appeared an impregnable fortress. Almost overnight , by the beginning of 1960, bula matari dissolved, surrendering its status as leviathan and turning itself into a supplicant to the fragmented Congolese nationalists in order to assure social peace in return for immediate independence : a further fillip to anticolonial enthusiasm and a spectacular warning to all remaining colonial occupants. But the shattering meltdown that began five days after independence eviscerated euphoria: the new state within a fortnight lost control of its mutinous army, its richest province and primary revenue source, Katanga, through secession, and its bureaucracy through the panic flight of most of the Belgian cadres still occupying its top ranks. The global crisis and multiple external interventions that ensued foregrounded new apprehensions about the stability of the new African states, and their vulnerability to outside forces. The durability of the decolonization settlements thus came into question . In a number of other significant cases, compromise formulas for the independence transition had unraveled by the mid-1960s, resulting in civil wars in Nigeria and Sudan and ugly impasse in Uganda, Burundi, CongoBrazzaville , and Benin. A clear trend to single-party rule was already evident; so also was a visible drop in mass enthusiasm for once popular independence leaders...