Reasons that Hindered Political Unity in Africa

Factors (Reasons) that Hindered Political Unity in Africa

1. The effects of colonial legacy and influence of capitalist. African countries failed to build political unity because since before and after independence capitalist countries disunited and divided Africans to rule them easily; or capitalist countries divided African countries to rule them easily during colonial period and after independence.

2. Different political ideologies. Ideologies of African countries are not the same due to the effect of colonial rule for example some countries in Africa apply capitalist ideology including Kenya while others socialist ideology hence hinder political unity.

3. Different political priorities: African countries after independence to date do not have the same social, political or economic priorities because each country faced different challenges, for example Tanganyika's priority were fighting against poverty, ignorance, disease, bring development etc.

4. Timing of attainment of independence. African countries attained their independence differently. Most governments achieved their independence in 1960's, 1980's, as result fail to share one agenda of building political unity.

5. Poverty: Many African countries still experienced poor economy depended from external donors as result fail to unite.

6. Political instability: politically many Africans countries are not stable due to poor political systems, leaderships etc. hence hinder after political unity.

7. Civil wars. There were no peace and harmony to many African countries since government and civilians act toward one another hence failure of political unity.

8. Tribalism: tribalism in most of Africans countries was still a problem because Africans separated themselves basing on tribal differences.

9. Religious conflict. In some of African countries there were religious conflicts between Muslims against Christians hence hindered political unity

10. Dictatorship of leaders in government. Since African leaders and government do not exercise democracy, do corrupt, and do not observe rule of law and good governance hence hinder political unity for e.g. Liberia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Somalia etc.

11. Poor communication and infrastructure. Many Africans countries had no good link and interaction of communication due to poor infrastructures such food road, railways, ports harbor etc. hence hinder political unity.

12. Borders conflicts. This appeared in Africa e.g. Tanzania and Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea.