Page 102 - Afrika Must Unite

C H A P T E R E LE V EN
T H E A D M I N I S T R A T I V E I N S T R U M E N T

A n e w s o c i a l structure does not automatically follow the
attainm ent of political freedom. That, like the battle for in­
dependence, has to be fought for and won by an army of stal­
warts as determined in purpose as those who waged the struggle
for freedom.
This second stage of the revolutionary process, when reviewed
soberly, appears if anything, harder than the first. M ore than
once, during the pre-independence days, I was assailed by doubts
whether we would have the forces to carry it through. There was
my party, the Convention People’s Party, and the overwhelming
mass support behind us. These, however, did not sit in the seat
of administration from where policies for achieving our second
im portant objective of raising ourselves out of our socio­
economic backwardness are put into action. They were, in
reality, an extra-administrative army, on whose co-operation
we could rely for the carrying out of our programmes at the more
intimate level of village, hamlet and township. But there would
have to be a fully m anned force at the central point of adminis­
tration capable of carrying through from top to bottom the
necessary directives for fulfilling the government’s policies.
For all the protestations of the British that the aim of their
colonial policy was to prepare the people of the subject territories
for self-government, it was only when the nationalist movements
took the reins that any real move was made to implement its
W hen we took over, our civil service was definitely and abso­
lutely British in substance and nature; it was certainly not
African. It was the realization of this fact that caused me, some­
times with dismay, to recognize that when we did take firmly
into our hands the reins of government, there would be the
danger of finding ourselves in possession of an administrative