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The 20th Century m'zuŋ u Scramble for Independent Africa

"Veni, Vidi, Vici ",Steti - ego adduxit inimici mei"

these East European spare parts. And so it came about that fairly quickly this white
elephant in the form of a small fleet of East European buses lay idle

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And the '20th century' m'zuŋ u scramble for influence (read control) over newly
independent Africa brought about one distinct change. Each newly independent African
country was being courted (and distorted and undermined) by many more countries than had

ever been the case when under the control of a single colonial power.
It was the height of the Cold War. It was the height of USA dominance, a time when

USA had 40% of the global GDP and so had immense leverage across the world. A leverage

which was exercised in the USA controlled World Bank and IMF, those institutions on which
the hopes for economic development of newly independent African states depended.

And of course the USA, spurred on by the hopes of commercial penetration of what were

previously markets that had been closed off by colonial powers, and seeing the much
wider array of competing nations equally determined to exploit the new Africa, were quick

to load Ghana and others with (debt) obligations.

Even I, as a pre-pubescent child, could see the impossibility of Ghana's predicament.
One day my mother took me to buy items ready for my return to my UK school. At the time,

Accra boasted two department stores. The privately owned Kingsway, and the government-
owned GNCT (Ghana National Trading Company - or such). GNTC was not really a full-fledged

department store as we know it. More like what used to be called a variety store.

That day we entered GNTC to be confronted with a whole ground floor completely devoid
of goods for sale except for one shelf on which there was a 12-18 inch wide display of

pencils. The Ghanaian government was so short of foreign currency that it would not issue

any import licences. What foreign currency was in the country was needed by the
government to settle its own bills.

On a separate occasion, my mother insisted on taking me personally to a government
run building where they were distributing 5lb bags of potatoes. The ration was ‘1 bag for 1

person’. My mother’s argument was that I, a mere 11-12-year-old, was a separate person

and so I was entitled to a bag of potatoes in addition to the one she was expecting for
herself. That day was a lesson to me, not just of 'shortages', but how, no matter how much

the African people thought of themselves and their country as being independent, the
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m'zuŋ u still expected colonial m'zuŋ u elitism to continue.