Africa - Still a continent in drift in the 21st century?

Abstract

The political developments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya under the burner of Arab spring, the birth of South Sudan as the fifty fourth African state and the recent political problems witnessed in Mali, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea Bissau are a stark reminder that Africa is still a continent on drift. This makes it difficult to predict the direction of the drift and likely socio-economic and political consequences for the continent. Paradoxically political developments in all the affected countries have the same underpinning factors namely, a political culture natured by negative ethnicity; elite focus on capital acclamation and protection of the same by patronage; the western government and corporate world collusion with the ruling elite for geopolitical and strategic interests and resource exploitation, and continued failure of attitude change in Africa for communities to accept each other within the current artificial nation-state constructs.