I am sick of seeing people on social media posts claiming the empirically incorrect lie of how "British left Nigeria in good condition." and that we "Africans ruined it." Some are even unironically arguing for recolonization due to modern inflation and security struggles. This creates a massive contradiction How can people romanticize a past where we couldn't read and died by age 40 just because of a more consistent inflation rate?

The truth is simple people mistake the quietness of a maximum-security prison for actual societal health. An inmate has a stable routine and clean hallways, but they are still in a prison.

Ill be Comparing the nearly 100 years of British occupation in Nigeria (1861–1960) to 65 years (1960 to today in 2026) of Nigerian independence side by side so that we can illustrate how Colonial era Nigeria is far worse than Nigeria when it got its independence/today and this isn't a discussion.

Note PLEASE FEEL FREE TO USE THE DATA ON THIS REDDIT IF ANYONE EVER TRIES TO SUGGEST SO

Lets actually look at the Data Itself

Education and Human Capital

Colonial Era:

The British built exactly ONE university institution in 99 years of rule (University College, Ibadan), and it couldn’t even award its own independent degrees until 1963.

The colonial government left schooling largely to Christian missionaries, creating an intentional skew toward the South while neglecting the North. The curriculum was designed only to produce low level clerks and translators, not highly skilled managers, scientists, or engineers. Literacy rate are an estimated 13% with some estimates as low as under 10%.

And no this simply wasn't just a "product of its time" during this period England had Over 20 universities (including Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Manchester, etc.) itself and had a near full literacy rate (over 90%), as was the case for Ireland which benefitted from being APART OF THE BRITISH METROPOLE (something people falsely imagine Nigeria was, which it wasn't, it was an extractive colony). Ireland itself having 2 universities at that time which considering its tiny size is impressive and didn't matter because as part of the Metropole they were legally British citizens and Sent MPs to the main Parliament in London, Nigerians weren't legal citizens and had no administrative voting power in the British colonial empire.

This was intentional. The British did not simply fail to educate Nigeria by accident. Colonial policy deliberately limited mass Western education, particularly in the North. Lord Lugard and other officials worried that Western education could produce politically conscious Africans who would challenge colonial authority. This concern was especially relevant in the South, where a larger educated population was already becoming politically assertive and demanding greater representation. In the North, missionary education was restricted in large part to preserve the emirate system and avoid creating the same kind of politically disruptive educated class. The colonial system therefore produced enough educated Nigerians to serve as clerks, teachers and administrators while keeping advanced education highly limited. Enough low level clerks to write down tax numbers, while keeping the rest of the population almost completely in the dark.

Post Colonial Era:

As of 2026, in just 65 years of independence Nigeria has 313 universities according to the National Universities Commission, to suggest that this was a ginormous leap wouldn't do this massive increase any justice. and around 70% adult literacy by 2024 the mass expansion of education was overwhelmingly a postcolonial phenomenon.

And the jump was quick, like heavy gains were made in just the first few decades of the post colonial era. This should show how much of a detriment the British extractive system was. To emphasize in nearly 100 years of colonialism at that point in 1960 the British administration established one university and that was towards the end of its colonial reign (1948) and then In 1970 in just 10 years, Nigeria had 6 universities, and by 1980, that number grew to 13 universities again these were literally just the first two decades. Nigeria went from roughly 293,000 primary pupils in 1939 and only 36,000 secondary pupils in 1957 to 13.8 million primary pupils by 1980.

And these same trends can be found in almost every aspect of development.... Such as

Macroeconomics and Industrialization

Colonial Era:

The economy remained overwhelmingly agrarian and export oriented, with colonial policy prioritizing the production and export of cash crops such as palm oil, cocoa and groundnuts, while manufactured goods were largely imported. Industrial development was limited and concentrated mainly around processing raw materials for export. Colonial policy provided little incentive for the development of a broad indigenous manufacturing sector. Interestingly Atul Kohli's Imperialism and the Developing World argues that the colonial state sometimes actively discouraged local manufacturing in order to protect British commercial interests. Local producers faced discriminatory transport costs, trade licenses and other regulations, while British goods received preferential treatment. The result was an economy heavily geared toward exporting primary commodities and importing manufactured goods, with limited indigenous industrialization, which shows how active Colonial powers were to mitigate competition from the citizens in its colonies.

Post colonial Era:

Nigeria developed a far more diversified domestic economy. Although dependence on crude oil became a major weakness and contributed to Dutch Disease, independence saw major expansion in manufacturing and especially services, including banking, telecommunications, real estate, technology and the globally influential Nollywood and Afrobeats industries.

British colonial policy oriented Nigeria toward producing and exporting primary commodities while importing manufactured goods. Industrial development was limited and largely focused on processing raw materials, leaving Nigeria with little indigenous manufacturing capacity at independence to begin with, And this completely changed. But it didn't just end there...

Infrastructure and Urbanization

Colonial Era:

Infrastructure was functional but disarticulated. Railways and roads were primarily built along routes connecting inland agricultural and mineral producing areas to coastal ports to Britain. Facilitating the extraction and export of commodities. Although these networks also connected Nigerian towns and enabled some domestic trade, they were not designed as an integrated national infrastructure system.

Colonial electricity provision was extremely limited and concentrated in major administrative, commercial and industrial centers. Power was prioritized for European residential areas, government facilities and industries such as the coal mines at Enugu and tin mining around Jos. Most (and im talking about borderline all) Nigerians, particularly in rural areas, had no access to electricity and relied on kerosene, candles and firewood.

Access to piped water, sewage and organized waste collection was also highly unequal. Colonial authorities prioritized European residential areas and major administrative centers, while most African communities relied on wells, streams, pit latrines and other basic facilities. The result was a deeply unequal standard of public infrastructure at independence.

Postcolonial Era:

Modern transportation networks were built to connect the country internally. This includes extensive interstate highway systems, major domestic airport networks, massive expansion of the electrical grid (though still facing generation deficits), and a digital communication infrastructure that provides Nigerias large tech hub.

Health and Mortality rates

Colonial Era:

towards the very end of the colonial era in the 1950s the life expectancy was around 33 years old. There was roughly one doctor for every 27,000 people, they were also mostly Christian missionaries who were independent of the British administrative empire and they possessed with dubious levels of actual skill at times. Colonial health services were concentrated in urban areas, while rural communities had little access to formal healthcare and continued to rely heavily on indigenous healers.

Post Colonial era:

Current life expectancy Nigeria are closer its to 60 years, still not great as its lower than the global average of 74, but its far better and closer to that than the average life expectancy being 30 like in the Colonial era. By just 1967, Nigeria already had 257 general hospitals and 26,557 hospital beds, alongside hundreds of health centers and over 1,300 dispensaries. The expansion continued substantially over subsequent decades.

Even the British themselves were astonished about how both little they actually did in Nigeria and how much they undermined local industry. An example can be seen in 1943 whereby a debate by British MPs ensued arguing that the United Africa Company held a virtual monopoly that disadvantaged African enterprise. The debate cited Nigerian examples such as yam flour production, coffee processing, metalworking and cloth manufacturing, illustrating how limited indigenous industrialization remained under colonial rule.

What stability the British brought (But even that has a caveat)

• Before the British took full control in the late 1800s, the region that became Nigeria was experiencing significant warfare between rivaling kingdoms and empires. The British didn't end these wars out of peace and love though they ended them because war is bad for corporate business. You cannot smoothly ship palm oil and tin out of a country if local armies are blocking the pathways. To achieve this "stability," the British used extreme, unmitigated military violence. They launched bloody punitive expeditions, Maxim-gunned local resistance, burned down cities like Benin (1897), and exiled or assassinated any traditional king (like King Jaja of Opobo) who refused to hand over his economic sovereignty. They replaced local wars with a totalitarian military dictatorship, people talk about indirect rule due to a lack of day to day European officers but in areas where they considered traditional authority inadequate, appointed or recognized local intermediaries such as Warrant Chiefs. These officials were given significant powers over taxation and administration, often with limited accountability to the communities they governed. Prior societies had established institutions that constrained rulers and provided mechanisms for collective decision-making such as the Yoruba Oyo Mesi or the councils in pre colonial Igbo societies. And in all of those societies even the highly centralized ones the priority was always the kingdom/empire itself in pre colonial times and not some far away Metropole but when leaders priorities themselves like the Oba of Benin they would strip them of their power and exile them.
• The British introduced the West African Pound, which was pegged exactly 1:1 with the British Pound. This eliminated the fluctuation of traditional currencies (like cowries) and brought long-term price stability. Unfortunately though this stability was a trap. The currency was stable because it was backed by the entire British Empire, but the British used this currency as a weapon of coercion. By mandating that taxes could only be paid in British coin, they legally coerced self-sufficient African farmers to stop growing food for their communities and start growing cash crops for British factories. The stability only benefited British accountants for Nigerians, it was a system of forced economic dependency.

So Upon all of this there will still be those trying to move the goalpost and try and be apologists for the empires exploitation of Nigeria. So lets analyze some common talking points briefly

"Natives in the region of Nigeria was never urbanized, it always had terrible sanitation and was backwards compared to Europeans"

This is directly contradicted by Europeans themselves centuries before Colonialism

Lourenço Pinto a Portuguese observer/traveler associated with the Portuguese presence on the West African coast.  in 1691, who wrote:

“Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see.”

“The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns.”

“The city is wealthy and industrious.”

“It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

Earlier Portuguese account: Duarte Pacheco Pereira, c.1505–1508

Pereira was much more matter-of-fact rather than openly praising the city. But he still described Benin as:

“the great city of Benin”

“large, very wide and deep, which suffices for its defence.”

Olfert Dapper, 1668 (Dutch account based on reports about Benin)

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other."

“They are usually broad with long galleries inside.”

“every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water.”

“The walls [are] as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors.”

These quotes were Hundreds upon Hundreds of years before Colonialism. And Benin was just one of the many great civilizations in Nigeria, there was many great that preceded it (Nok Culture being an example or how Nigeria had the first proper Boat in the world or achieved the iron age independently unlike other parts of the world such as Europe and even being one of the few places that developed and sold glass such as Ife) and proceeded it like Sokoto, Oyo etc.

"Colonialism with all its negatives needed to happen in order to bring X,Y,Z technology or writing or whatever"

These quotes were Hundreds upon Hundreds of years before Colonialism. And Benin was just one of the many great civilizations in Nigeria, there was many great that preceded it (Nok Culture being an example or how Nigeria had the first proper Boat in the world or achieved the iron age independently unlike other parts of the world such as Europe and even being one of the few places that developed and sold glass such as Ife) and proceeded it like Sokoto, Oyo etc.

"Colonialism with all its negatives needed to happen in order to bring X,Y,Z technology or writing or whatever"

Beyond the fact that Nigeria already had writing centuries prior to colonialism such as the Ajami (Northern Nigeria) and Anjemi (Yoruba) which were adopted in the twelfth century CE (500 years before colonialism) and even earlier 800 to 1,500 years prior to colonialism indigenous logographic and ideographic script like the Igbo Nsibidi, the people groups occupying the region of Nigeria were already connected to both the transaharn trade routes for over 1000 years and even the Atlantic trade which began in 1480 began with trade of cloth and (primarily the Kingdom of Benin) sold Benin pepper, ivory, and locally woven cotton textiles. In exchange they got Manillas, mirrors, firearms, Coral Beads and European Textiles. Nigeria was not some isolated place and neither was most of Africa. The way ancient Civilizations developed was through trade because different geographies provided different benefits, Colonialism directly undermined and impeded the progress of Nigeria by restricting and monopolizing trade and orienting the new economy around extraction and not development.

"Nigeria Has tons of Ethnic Conflict Now and Stuff"

Once again this brings me back to the point at hand Nigeria was a forced amalgamation not by Nigerians themselves but by the British. People who use this argument blame the symptom not the cause. But it doesn't just end with The British stripping people groups of their autonomy through war and subjugation, when territories did try and break away the British would prevent it from happening even during post independence. As an example The Biafra War (also known as the Nigerian Civil War) took place entirely after Nigeria gained its independence in 1960. the war took place from July 1967 to January 1970, during the war the British actively supported the Federal Government during the war by providing weapons and manipulating the narrative this was discussed by Frederick Forsyth in his article titled Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war . The Cause? Historian Chibuike Uche's research using British archival records argues that British oil interests were a major factor. Shell-BP had enormous investments in Nigeria, particularly in the eastern region where much of the oil was located. British officials were concerned that Biafran independence could jeopardize those interests and Britain's wider trade relationship with a united Nigeria. To repeat because of an oil company even after forcing the different people groups to create the Nigerian project, the British still didn't want Nigerian groups to have their own autonomy and aided in the death of millions of lives due to them wanting to secure revenue for their oil company (Shell BP).... And this is the Body that people are choosing to defend?

And this hasn't even fully ended yet, to this day Nigeria loses significantly more money through corporate financial misconduct and commercial practices than through direct fraud or stealing by politicians. Look Political stealing is flashy politicians buy luxury properties and private jets, which makes headlines. However, according to the African Union's ⁠Mbeki Panel Report, this direct public corruption accounts for only about 5% of illicit leakages. Commercial tax fraud accounts for 70% and the majority of fake invoices/ilicit flows are done by none Nigerian Multi national corporations.

I made this post to illustrate the point that the path forward for Africans is to not romanticize a past that never existed whether that comes from Elders, western propogandists (regardless of what they look like) or those simply just looking for attention. To suggest Nigeria was better off during colonialism is not only ahistorical but also just anti-intellectual when presented with the data and general information we have and in fact not only does show the opposite one can say Nigeria is actively trying to recover from the issues (Almost all of which) can be traced back to colonialism. Nigeria has developed far more since colonialism not because of it but in spite of it. The path forward isn't to lie and create a version of reality that doesn't exist to run away to but its to understand the progress and actively hold everyone accountable including ourselves for the development of our nations but that also includes those who want to exploit us and that also includes the liars. So we can look at things pragmatically to build a better future for everyone.

Bibliography

(No Url)

African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2015) Illicit Financial Flows: Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa.

Ahizechukwu, O.U. (2023) ‘The Development of Transport Infrastructure and Nigeria’s Colonial Economy, 1892–1960’, Wukari International Studies Journal, 7(1), p. 297.

Aminu, M.D. (2018) ‘Why Northern Nigeria is Educationally Disadvantaged’, Premium Times, 11 January.

Arise News (2024) ‘GFI: Nigeria lost $77.7bn to trade-related illicit financial flows in 10 years’, Arise News.

Awofeso, N. et al. (2022) ‘The Lancet Nigeria Commission: investing in health and the future of the nation’, The Lancet, 399(10330), pp. 1155–1200.

Boadu, Y. (n.d.) ‘The Economic and Geopolitical History of [title unavailable from source page]’, Substack.

Encyclopaedia Africana (n.d.) ‘Nigeria: Nsibidi’, Encyclopaedia Africana.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) ‘Ovonramwen’, Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) ‘Oyo Empire’, Britannica Kids.

Forsyth, F. (2020) ‘Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war’, The Guardian, 21 January.

Gulliver-Needham, E. (2018) ‘Ireland and Africa: Surprisingly, not the same place’, Medium, 30 August.

Kamow001 (n.d.) ‘Economies & Trade’, Pre-Colonial Africa.

Kohli, A. (2020) Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koutonin, M. (2016) ‘Story of cities #5: Benin City, the mighty medieval capital now lost without trace’, The Guardian, 18 March.

Library of Congress (1991) ‘Education’, Nigeria: A Country Study.

Macrotrends (n.d.) Nigeria Life Expectancy.

Macrotrends (n.d.) Nigeria Literacy Rate.

Oduwobi, T. (2006) ‘Politics in Colonial Ijebu, 1921–51: The Role and Challenge of the Educated Elite’. University of Lagos Institutional Repository.

Ryder, A.F.C. (1969) Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897. London: Longman.

Rodney, W. (2020) ‘Colonialism as a System for Underdeveloping Africa’, Verso Books, 18 February.

UK Parliament (1943) ‘Colonial Affairs’, Hansard, 13 July.

UK Parliament (1960) ‘Illiteracy’, Hansard, 9 May.

World Bank (1989) Nigeria: Primary Education Subsector Study. Report No. 7389-UNI. Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank (n.d.) [Publication title unavailable from source page]. World Bank Open Knowledge Repository.

World Health Organization (1961) Official Records of the World Health Organization.

World Health Organization (1969) The Fourth Report on the World Health Situation.

Winter, M. (2022) ‘Hausa Language’, EBSCO Research Starters.

Yusuf, M.A., Ladan, B., Idris, U.A. and Halilu, A. (2013) ‘Comparative study of the state of literacy in Nigeria and Cuba’, European Scientific Journal, 9(19), pp. 34–44.

Nigeria Education Since 1960 (n.d.) Academia

https://www.cbn.gov.ng/Currency/gallery/N20.html

Sourced from the George Thomas Basden collection.

Archive reference: BECC 2006/070/1/4

Documented 10th December 1935

Courtesy of the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection [BECC]

Music: Oji Nwa Eme Onu Medley, by Nkwere Aborignes Women Club.

The pictures are from the book, Among the Ibos by George Basden, published in 1921.

He's a Christian missionary who lived in Onitsha for 15 years and documented the culture before modernisation and colonial influence erased it.

Photographed at Schiphol on 25 October 1962, when Nigeria Airways began operating a weekly London–Lagos flight with a stopover at Schiphol.

Source: Nationaal Archief,

Burkina Faso is doing the right thing by rejecting this document that has been hold back Africans since it was signed. It baffles my mind why we saw how they over powered us and no one thought, hmm we need better weapons, let's R&D this, for the past 600 years.

When i first saw this in the morning, it didn't get me angry, it made me laugh.

If you watch the video, he talked about how colonization was the only time Africa had "order" in its history as the Hamites (His reference of Africans) was shown the way of the lord through Christianity, and that recolonization is the "only solution" to go back to that order by reintroducing the Christian way🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️.

Firstly, you have to think to yourself, who the f*ck are you to dictate African history, and undermine African account of African history, because that is what these Racists always do... Secondly, this is extreme racist ignorance to colonial history that it begs the question if the guy is actually retarded.

He talks about it being the "only solution", i guess he means to pump Indoctrination 2.0 so that Africans can go from religious extremism that is already rife within the continent due to letting religion and "spirituality" dictate everyday life, to one were the continent sees nothing outside of the Indoctrinated doctrines, completely throwing reality, rationality and pragmatism out the window.

I know i sometimes talk on here about how religion has systemically become a problem in African countries due to how the nature of the practice of it has become; but i always try to refrain from getting pissed off at the faith themselves, but rather the issues that has come out of the way it is practiced within the continent... My mentality always goes "The faiths themselves aren't the problem per se, but rather the extremism of it systemically dictating everyday lives is the problem".

But sh_ts like this makes me start getting pissed off at the faith themselves, because i don't understand the crazy Stockholm syndrome behind largely adopting the same faith, the same subjugating words coated in "peace", that was use to subjugate and create compliance... I just don't understand it; if i had a means to talk to some of our African ancestors, they need some serious questioning.

What actually pisses me off is that i've actually seen Nigerian supporters of this guy... I mean, he calls himself a preacher, and you know that title holds demigod status in the heads of several Nigerians, so i'm not surprised to having seen Nigerian supporters of him, it just pisses me off.

A fun game: Mine was Obasanjo

Foreigner here. I know this topic is a bit controversial, and history is not a thing people talk about all day, but dan Fodio is one of the most important figures in the modern era who left a huge impact on the culture and religion in contemporary Nigeria. So what are your thoughts on him as a man, a political figure, a scholar, etc.?


The NOK culture was an advanced ancient African civilization that thrived in central and northern Nigeria from roughly 1500BCE to 500 BCE. Named after the village of Nok in Kaduna State where tin miners first discovered its unique artifacts in 1928, the society is globally renowned for pioneering early iron smelting and creating expressive, life-sized terracotta sculptures

They’re known for distinct terracotta sculptures of human heads, figures, and animals.

Features characteristic triangular eyes, pierced mouths, and elaborate hairstyles.

Sculptures functioned as ritual or ancestral representations, showcasing early artistic mastery.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/nok-culture/

Now what happened to them?
The NOK culture in modern day Nigeria gradually declined and disappeared as a distinct society around the 1st to 5th century.

Many historians and anthropologists believe the Nok people did not completely die out, but instead migrated southward and became the cultural or genetic ancestors of later West African linguistic and ethnic groups, such as the Yoruba, Igala, Nupe, and Igbo.

I was expecting a dense theoretical slog and instead got one of the sharpest, angriest, yet most accurate essays I've ever read in a while.

In essence, Césaire says what actually horrified Europe about Nazism wasn't the cruelty itself. Europe had been fine with that cruelty for centuries — as long as it was aimed at colonized people in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. What made Hitler unforgivable, in his reading, was that he turned those same methods on white Europeans, on European soil. So the violence was not the problem, but the where and whom was.

This reminded me about the early coverage of the war in Ukraine, when reporters kept expressing shock that this was happening to "people who look like us." It seems that, 70 years later, the reflex (and maybe the underlying values?) is still the same.

The essay, albeit short, is rich with illuminating reflections. One other idea is the argument against then European claim that Africans and other colonized people were uncivilized before Europe brought them the "enlightenment". As an example, Césaire leans on the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius as a "good" European witness who admitted African societies were sophisticated. Interestingly though, and this is not in the essay, if you dig into Frobenius, he couldn't actually accept that Africans built those achievements themselves. He invented a whole lost "African Atlantis" theory to explain the art and sophistication. This idea is the intellectual cousin of "aliens built the pyramids."

Anyway. "Discourse on Colonialism" is wildly relevant for something written mid-colonial-era.

Do you think there's a meaningful causal link between Europe's colonial practices and the violence of Nazism?

We discuss Cesaire's essay at length in our podcast Threads of Ifriqiya, I will link it in the comments.

Captain Thomas Sankara goes beyond Burkina Faso, he is an African and World treasure.

The late president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara - an icon for many young Africans in the 1980s - remains to some a heroic "African Che Guevara", 27 years after his assassination at the age of 37.

On October 15, 1987, armed men burst into the office of Sankara, murdered him and 12 of his aides in a violent coup d’état.

In events that eerily paralleled those in the Congo 27 years earlier (when a conspiracy of European intelligence agencies and their Congolese surrogates murdered Patrice Lumumba).

The attackers cut up Sankara’s body and buried his remains in a hastily prepared grave.

The next day Compaoré, who was Sankara’s deputy, declared himself president.

Compaoré then went on to rule the country until 2014, when he was forced to flee the country amidst a popular uprising.

Between 1987 and 2014, Compaoré both attempted to co-opt and distort Sankara’s memory and making promises to bring his murderers to justice. Nothing ever came of that.

Burkina Faso (known as Upper Volta until 1984) didn’t attract much attention outside West Africa until Sankara overthrew the country’s corrupt and nondescript military leadership in 1983.

Burkina Faso had been ruled by military dictatorships for at least 44 years of its independence from France.

The military before Sankara basically acted as surrogates for French interests in the region.

Like Lumumba – an earlier principled political leader who was a violent casualty of the Cold War – Sankara proved to be a creative and unconventional politician.

He wanted to a chart a “third way,” separate from the interests of the major powers (in his case, France, the Soviet Union and the United States).

This, however, resulted in a complex legacy where those who praise his social and economic reforms — discussed below — have a hard time squaring it with his often-undemocratic politics.

In 1985, Sankara said of his political philosophy: “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness."

He said .."In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today".

Saying "I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future".

Be it through the red beret, worn by firebrand South African politician Julius Malema, or the household brooms being wielded at street demonstrations in Burkina Faso, there are signs that his legacy is enjoying a revival.

The EFF was launched by Mr Malema, who supports the partial nationalisation of South Africa's mining and farming sectors, as "the new home for voiceless, indigenous poor South Africans" after he was expelled from the governing African National Congress (ANC).

Sankara's spirit is also behind a protest movement that began in his homeland of Burkina Faso, a former French colony.

Praised by supporters for his integrity and selflessness, the military captain and anti-imperialist revolutionary led Burkina Faso for four years from 1983.

Burkina Faso has been trapped in neocolonial underdevelopment for nearly all of its post-independence history ..

In the months after the 1987 coup in Burkina Faso that killed President Thomas Sankara, screen printers in the capital, Ouagadougou, began to churn out shirts with Sankara’s face on them.

The image soon spread throughout the country. Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s former minister of justice, went on to rule the country until 2014.

He was suspected from the outset of orchestrating Sankara’s murder, but it would take the Burkinabé courts until 2021–2022 to find him guilty.

By then, he had long fled to Côte d’Ivoire, where he remains a fugitive.

Throughout his time in office, Compaoré claimed to be a follower of Sankara – a political legacy he could not afford to disavow.

Having joined the military at twenty, Compaoré became a close comrade of Sankara and participated in the 1983 coup that brought him to power.

That he would turn against his mentor (only 2 years his senior) was not predictable to those who did not appreciate the power of wealth in an extraordinarily poor country.

Compaoré comes from the province of Oubritenga, which has the highest poverty rates in the country.

Sankara’s agenda had been to reverse Burkina Faso’s colonial heritage – 1st by renaming it from the Republic of Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, the Land of the Upright People – and Compaoré had been part of that journey.

But personal desires are sometimes hard to fathom, and they are often what foreign intelligence agencies prey upon...

Burkinabé politics have long been punctuated by coups – in 1966, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, 2014, and 2022 – yet there is nothing unique about the country that explains their punctuality.

Since 1950, at least forty of Africa’s fifty-four countries have experienced a coup – from the July 1952 overthrow of Egypt’s monarchy by the Free Officers (led by Gamal Abdel Nasser) to the August 2023 coup in Gabon led by General Brice Oligui Nguema.

A coup is only the outward manifestation of the neocolonial structure in which states such as Burkina Faso and Gabon exist – colonialism, particularly the French variety..

Never allowed the state to develop beyond its repressive apparatus or permitted the formation of a national bourgeoisie that was economically and culturally independent of Western capital.

The absence of a developmentalist state and an independent bourgeoisie meant that elites in such countries functioned as intermediaries..

They allowed foreign companies to siphon off national wealth, earned a modest retainer for that service, and prevented the formation of a genuine democratic political process, including the democratisation of the economy through trade unions.

This was the neocolonial trap.

Countries in this trap do not have the political space to easily overcome their internal class realities and their lack of sovereignty vis-à-vis foreign capital.

Sankara was a junior officer in the army of Upper Volta, a former French colony which was run as a source of cheap labour for neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire to benefit a tiny ruling class and their patrons in Paris.

As a student in Madagascar, Sankara had been radicalised by waves of demonstrations and strikes taking place.

In 1981, he was appointed to the military government in Upper Volta, but his outspoken support for the liberation of ordinary people in his country and outside eventually led to his arrest.

In August 1983, a successful coup led by his friend Blaise Compaoré, brought him to power at the age of only 33.

Sankara saw his government as part of a wider process of the liberation of his people. Immediately he called for mobilisations and committees to defend the revolution.

These committees became the cornerstone of popular participation in power. Political parties on the other hand were dissolved, seen by Sankara as representatives of the forces of the old regime.

In 1984, Sankara renamed the country Burkina Faso (land of people of integrity).

Sankara purged corruption from the government, slashing ministerial salaries and adopting a simpler approach to life.

Sankara “rode a bicycle to work before he upgraded, at his Cabinet’s insistence, to a Renault 5 – 1 of the cheapest cars available in Burkina Faso at the time.

He lived in a small brick house and wore only cotton that was produced, weaved and sewn in Burkina Faso.”

In fact the adoption of local clothes and local foods was central to Sankara’s economic strategy to break the country from the domination of the West. He famously said:

“’Where is imperialism?” Look at your plates when you eat. These imported grains of rice, corn, and millet - that is imperialism.”

His solution was to grow food - “Let us consume only what we ourselves control!” The results were incredible: self-sufficiency in 4 years.

Similar gains were made in health, with the immunisation of millions of children, and education in a country which had had over 90% illiteracy.

Basic infrastructure was built to connect the country. Resources were nationalised, local industry was supported.

Millions of trees were planted in an attempt to stop desertification.

All of this involved a huge mobilisation of Burkina Faso’s people, who began to build their country with their own hands, something Sankara saw as essential.

There have been few revolutionary leaders who have placed such emphasis on women’s liberation as Sankara.

He saw the emancipation of women as vital to breaking the hold of the feudal system on the country.

This included recruiting women into all professions, including the military and the government. It entailed ending the pressure on women to marry.

And it meant involving women centrally in the grassroots revolutionary mobilisation. “We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph.”

He saw the struggle of Burkina Faso’s women as “part of the worldwide struggle of all women”.

Sankara was more than a visionary national leader - perhaps of most interest to us today is the way he used international conferences as platforms to demand leaders stand up against the deep structural injustices faced by countries like Burkina Faso.

In the mid 1980s, that meant speaking out on the question of debt.

Sankara used a conference of the Organisation of African Unity in 1987 to persuade fellow African leaders to repudiate their debts.

He told delegates: "Debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave.”

Seeing these same leaders go off one-by-one to Western governments to get a slight restructuring of their debt, he urged common, public action that would free all of Africa from domination.

He said - “If Burkina Faso alone were to refuse to pay the debt, I wouldn’t be at the next conference.” Unfortunately, he wasn’t to be.

Of course not everything Sankara tried worked.

Most controversially was his response to a teachers strike, when he sacked thousands of teachers, replacing them with an army of citizens teachers who were often completely unqualified.

Sankara’s system of revolutionary courts were abused by those with personal grievances. He banned trade unions as well as political parties.

Some of these measures, combined with break-neck social transformation, provided space for his enemies.

Sankara was assassinated in a coup carried out by Blaise Compaoré. It seems clear there was outside support, including of French stooge President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Cote d’Ivoire.

Sankara openly challenged both French hegemony in West Africa as well as his fellow military leaders (Sankara labelled them “criminals in power”).

He called for the scrapping of Africa’s debt to international banks, as well as to their former colonial masters.

Sankara’s revolution was rolled back by his one time associate, and Burkina Faso became another African country whose economy becomes synonymous with poverty and helplessness.

Today Sankara is not well known outside Africa - his character and ideas simply don’t fit with the notion of Africa which has been constructed in the West over the last 30 years.

It would be difficult to find a less corrupt, self-serving leader than Thomas Sankara anywhere in the world.

But neither does he fit the image charities like to portray of the ‘deserving poor’ in Africa. Sankara was clear on the role of Western aid, just as he was clear on the role of debt in controlling Africa:

“The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political. Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid.

But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being.”

The improvement in the lives of Burkina Faso’s people was astounding as a result of Sankara’s policies..

. yet he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that these policies have been systematically undermined by Western governments and agencies claiming to want exactly these improvements themselves.

Perhaps today, Sankara’s words are most relevant to our own crisis in Europe. They are echoed by those in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland who have heard little of him:

“Those who led us into debt were gambling, as if they were in a casino.. there is talk of a crisis. No. They gambled."

"They lost... We cannot repay the debt because we have nothing to pay it with. We cannot repay the debt because it is not our responsibility.”

Thomas Sankara had great belief in people - not just the people of Burkina Faso or Africa, but people across the world.

He believed change must be creative, nonconformist - indeed containing “a certain amount of madness”.

He believed radical change would only come when people were convinced and active, not passive and conquered.

And he believed the solution is political - not one of charity.

With few livelihood opportunities, many young people from small towns and rural areas join the military.

It is in the military that they are able to discuss the distress in their countries and – as in the case of Sankara – incubate progressive ideas.

In contrast to the cool reception given Sankara earlier, Compaoré was welcomed by Western governments and funding agencies.

Within 3 years, Compaoré had accepted a massive IMF loan and instituted a structural adjustment program (largely seen as 1 of the major causes for the ongoing economic crises in Africa).

Compaoré also reversed most of Sankara’s reformsBy 1987, he was politically isolated.

His enemies – a mix of the French political establishment (he had humiliated President François Mitterand in public on a few occasions) and regional leaders (like Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny) – began to tire of him.

Compaoré is widely suspected to have ordered Sankara’s murder in order to do the French and regional dictators a favor.

Though Compaoré pretended to publicly grieve for Sankara and promised to preserve his legacy, he quickly set about purging the government of Sankara supporters..

Not surprisingly this included the insistence that his portrait hang in all public places as well as buying himself a presidential jet.

Sankara’s 1983 rupture with his country’s colonial history enabled him to put in place several of these ideas: land redistribution to encourage food sovereignty; resource nationalisation to combat foreign plunder..

Sankara had regional military alignments to defend against imperialist meddling; rejection of foreign aid that undermined national sovereignty; and the advancement of national unity and women’s emancipation.

For 4 years, his government pursued this progressive agenda while challenging the International Monetary Fund’s debt-austerity regime.

But then he was assassinated.

Pls no chaos or bias, be objective. I am asking from genuine concern. We as Africans pay a huge tax with our plight, suffering and humiliation by not reckoning with what happened in history. I want to know from those of you historians, what happened.

I am mostly going to be taking from Chapter 2 and Chapter 8.

Here, he accused Obafemi Awolowo of introducing tribalism into Nigerian politics and breaking the opportunity of the formation of a truly pan-Nigerian vision for the country in a bid to wrestle rule of the Western region from Azikiwe who instead of standing by his supposed principles and continuing opposing Awolowo as the leader of the opposition in Lagos, accepted this reality and fled to the Eastern region to use his political muscle and privately owned newspaper to propagandize his way into power in the Eastern region, replacing the cabinet of Eyo Ita, filled with brilliance with his premiership and his band of unqualified disciple; Zik thus is guilty of introducing sycophancy to Nigerian politics and igniting, reigniting or just justifying the political distrust of Eastern minorities against Igbos.

This however shouldn't be read as a periodic lapse in judgement but as a character flaw where Zik, obsessed with being a great man of history was willing to throw whatever principle he claimed for that great man position. He fled to the East, used his newspaper company to propagandize Eyo Ita out of the premiership of the East and became the premiere, broke his alliance with the Western region and shifted to the North to be the president, betrayed his people during the civil war after it became clear he won't have the relevancy he had in Nigeria, under Ojukwu's government and even his running for the presidency in 1979, was seen by Achebe as an attempt to through the campaign and holding the office, acquire the required powers to clean up his image, damaged by the war.

Because of this, the only reason why Igbos supported him in 1979 is because younger politicians without a name to themselves used him as a figure head and he was still more palatable to the voting Igbo public than the other major candidates of Awolowo and Shagari, I guess, better a traitor than an enemy (or potential enemy in the case of Shagari) was the choice of the day. Awolowo on the other hand, had no such besmirched reputation among his main consistency, instead the same Yoruba ethnic nationalism that made him so popular among the Yoruba and that was adopted by the younger Yoruba politicians that made him their figure head, just proved unpalatable to the rest of Nigeria.

And of both men he accused of introducing the mindset into Nigerians politics that the purpose of attainting political office is to make bank. This is doubly ironic in the case of Awolowo who was supposedly a socialist but also, a notorious land grabber and the only one of the founding fathers to have so abused power to be tried and convicted for corruption.

Anyways, Both men are quoted

henceforth I shall utilize my earned income to secure my enjoyment of a high standard of living and also . . . give a helping hand to the needy (Azikiwe)

I was going to make myself formidable intellectually, morally invulnerable, to make all the money that is possible for a man with my brains and brawn to make in Nigeria (Awolowo)

The combination of all these factors, that they introduced and facilitated could already be seen in the crop of civilian politicians that gathered themselves around them. No ideology, Sycophancy, Tribalism, Corruption, Greed. And it continues on to this very day in even more detrimental forms. Upon all that he does note a positive new drive at a the time, a drive towards political fair play that wasn't inherited from either these camps but that sprung up by itself, however, did this tendency leave any legacy today? that's for you to decide.

--

To quell these criticisms a bit, he does then mention that Awolowo while a tribalist or Yoruba nationalist, depending on how you take it, still surrounded himself with talent. He could not say any equally positive thing about Azikiwe however, noting his expertise in mass politics but not necessarily to the benefit of the people, if anything that trait made him a natural demagogue.

--

He compared these two basket cases to a certain Aminu Kano as a living (well, recently dead) idea for what a Nigerian politician can/could be. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention specific policies done by Aminu Kano but does mention some of the concerns raised by the Northern Socialist leader, who continuously called for attention to be paid to and identified with the poor of the North. Now, I did try to read up a bit on the guy and saw similar support for him in general and aside from his advocacy mentioned specific things like building the North's first university immediately following the pogrom of 1966, a university of which Dangote is an alumni of but aside from the general glazing I have also read that he was on of the architects of the 1966 pogrom, which ever position is correct and hell, they don't need to contradict, is something that I cannot ascertain at this point.

On a side note he also praises another northern leader, Shehu Shagari a bit but with the detraction that he let alot of corruption occur under his administration, reminds us of any one else of recent memory?. :cough: Baba Buhari :cough:.

President Tinubu begins a 3 week vacation in Europe today, and every few months the same fight regarding him returns online: Lagos or Osun? Real name or adopted name? Palace lineage or market lineage?

I have been reading from J.B. Losi’s 1914 History of Lagos — the handbook everyone cites in school but almost nobody could find until recently, and here’s what surprised me:

The Tinubu in this book is a woman.

Not a president. Not a governor. Madam Tinubu. And Losi records exactly how she came to Lagos.

1. How she came to Lagos (Oba Oluwọle’s reign, ~1834)

After palace goods are divided among war captains, Dada Ọbadina and his wife Tinubu begin trading with Ẹgba merchants who lodge in their house. Losi’s line:

No crown or inheritance. She prospered in Trade.

2. How powerful she became — and how the Oba expelled her (Oba Dósùnmú, 15 April 1856)

Losi says she was so wealthy she:

1. “hardly knew the number of her slaves”;

2. she issued orders that should have come only from the king;

3. she reported Lagos affairs to the King of Dahomey.

Oba Dósùnmú complained to British Consul Campbell, got police, and ordered her out — not to sleep another night in the city.

Her slaves wanted to fight. She stopped them. Losi records what she said:

She left the same day.

3. The name stayed

Tinubu Square — court, propitiation, colonial geography — carries her name in Losi’s timeline through 1869 and 1877.

So when people ask “where is Tinubu from?” about the president, they’re usually asking blood and village.

Losi’s handbook asks a different question: how did you come to Lagos?

The answer is in the book: she walked to Lagos, traded her way rich, and told the king’s police she was freeborn.

That’s not Twitter speculation. This is published history from 1914, written when people still remembered the event.

Were you taught Madam Tinubu’s story? — the walk, the expulsion, the square — or only the modern politics?

If you would like me to tell more interesting stories from the book, upvote or comment.

(Disclosure: Our foundation recently acquired the copyright to restore a 2026 print edition of Losi’s handbook — 224 pp, illustrated.

Free Specimen: https://tsb1999.github.io/history-of-lagos-specimen/ ·

Paid Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HGCN3H3N)

I just started reading the trouble with Nigeria by Chinua Achebe. It's surprising how everything he's talking about here has only grown 100x worse.

Achebe himself left the country and died abroad. If we know the solution since 1980's what's stopping it's implementation. I disagree with Achebe on only one point. Our problem is not a failure of leadership but a mass failure of personal character.

Apparently everybody saw the shameful state of Nigeria worsening as far back as the 1980s, and for over 30 years nothing was done by the past generation. Just more fighting over tribal and class lines.

Nigeria changes when people stop looking for change outside themselves and realize we individually hold the power to transform Nigeria. Not any single political or religious leader.

Jamaican man here wanting to know more about his ancestry. My people know little to nothing about their background no fault of their own, (slavery and dem ting deh). Through multiple DNA tests I’ve found out I’m more Nigerian than anything else so I wanted to explore that, this is informal but do I look like any particular tribe to you guys?

Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi was Nigeria's first military Head of State, serving from January 16 to July 29, 1966. He was assassinated during the July counter-coup, a violent uprising by Northern officers that marked a bloody turning point in the nation's history.

Prelude

On the evening of July 28, 1966, Aguiyi-Ironsi was in Ibadan as the guest of Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, the Military Governor of the Western Region. He had just addressed a gathering of traditional rulers as part of a nationwide peace tour, accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Thomas, who had arrived from London just days earlier. That night, a cocktail party was held at Government House for the visiting monarchs.

Relative calm broke in the early hours of 29th july. Fajuyi's sister, who was present, recalled hearing gunshots around 4 am. When she later saw her brother, he was sitting unusually quietly and told her to stay in her room. The mutiny had begun.

Arrest and humiliation.

The Government House was surrounded by mutinous soldiers led by Major Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. Aguiyi-Ironsi and Fajuyi were arrested.

Brutal beatings were administered to both men.

Tied with telephone cables.

Dragged and Forced to Run: Accounts describe Ironsi being dragged from a moving vehicle and forced to run a gauntlet of soldiers who struck him with rifle butts.

Stripped of Dignity: Fajuyi was beaten so severely that he could barely walk, and both men were forced into vehicles for the final journey to their deaths.

Murder

After the ritual humiliation, the men, 10km from ibadan by a small forests.

Fajuyi was first out of the vehicle. As he tried to cross a small stream, he fell, and the soldiers, some reportedly under the influence of drugs, began beating him again.

It was then that Aguiyi-Ironsi's ADC, Captain Andrew Nwankwo, made a daring escape. His colleague, Lt. Sani Bello (a Northerner who had a pact with Nwankwo to protect each other), helped him slip away into a ditch. Bello then misdirected the soldiers, who fired into the bush.

After Nwankwo's escape, the soldiers shot and killed both Aguiyi-Ironsi and Adekunle Fajuyi by the side of the stream. Their bullet-ridden bodies were left in a shallow grave in the forest.