Togo - West Africa - page 856

Then reality set in. Without exception, the newly minted countries of West Africa were
ill-equipped for independence. Colonialism had created fragile economies based on cash
crops that were prone to huge price fluctuations, while artificial boundaries and divide-
and-rule policies that had favoured some ethnic groups over others quickly created ten-
sions. Education for Africans had never been a priority for the colonial administrators and
few members of the new ruling class and bureaucrats had the necessary training or experi-
ence to tackle the massive challenges faced by the new states. The catch cry of Sekou
Touré - who would prove to be a particularly nasty dictator - of preferring 'freedom in
poverty to prosperity in chains' soon became horribly true. Poor governance, coups d'état
and massive economic problems increasingly became the norm, with civil wars, border
disputes and dictatorship often thrown in for good measure. When Côte d'Ivoire - for so
long an exception and a byword for West Africa's post-independence progress and optim-
ism - descended into civil war after 2000, it was a massive blow to the region's self-im-
age.
In the 8th century AD, Jenné-Jeno was a fortified town with walls 3.7m thick, home to 15,000 inhabitants
and covering 33 hectares (just under half the size of modern Djenné), but around 1300 it was abandoned.
The end of the Cold War led to dramatic changes throughout West Africa, as the popu-
lar demand for democracy gathered strength and multiparty elections were held in several
countries. But even as democracy spread, West Africa's hopes of a new dawn were
tempered by the scale of the challenges it faced, not least among them environmental de-
gradation on a massive scale, widespread and worsening poverty across the region, and
the ailing economic health of the two regional powerhouses, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire.
And the fact remains that many West Africans have as little control over their own desti-
nies and economic well being as they did at independence.
TIMELINE
200,000 BC
Homo erectus, the predecessor of Homo sapiens , occupies much of West Africa, as suggested by the tools
and other artefacts found in Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and elsewhere.
From 5000 BC
The Sahara begins to become a desert. Most of West Africa's peoples forsake transient life and settle
around water holes, begin to rely on agriculture, and start to move south.