Has Africa achieved full independence?

Following the tough struggle of the people of Africa, several countries on the continent became independent after the end of the Second World War. The victory of the people’s revolution markedly undermined the imperialist colonial system and was supposed to lay groundwork for the development of independent national economies in Africa. The event of historic significance in politics however never left Africans with total independence, particularly in the economic perspective.Even though Africans’ political consciousness rose to new heights and revolutionary movements rushed forward, the demand for complete elimination of imperialist domination and influence was never. Africans by no means attained, in essence political and economic independence!Rwanda offers a typical case in point, when some Western countries stopped its financial aid accusing it of fuelling chaos by supporting the so called M23 rebels. The whole saga is not our interest, but only works to support our argument in this article.In other words the fact that the accusations are evidently, is not our concern though it is a typical example of how neo-colonialism works.The problem remains that the accusers feel they have control over Rwanda, and hence expects it to respect the Master-Servant relationship.That is why UN officials have the guts to present an unscientific research report, which is in any case accepted.The roots of Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) crisis are well known, to the extent that a small child living in the great lakes region can tell-the vast nation has been ruled by militia groups for quite. The central government seem to be out of touch with most of the country, so claiming that Rwanda is responsible for what is going in the jungles of DRC is total disrespect.But what do we do? The economic giants have been doing it all over the world, particularly the South of the Sahara and North of River Limpopo.Africa only attained formal political independence, but is still dependent on the imperialist countries economically and politically.It is on record that using their monopolistic position in economies; the imperialist countries have not hesitated to apply clandestine pressure to force African countries to comply with their will. Rwanda is thus not exceptional.We are far from achieving independence, what we had, was just formal political independence, which was supposed to be a first step towards total independence.After winning political independence, African countries needed to make full use of their political power to go on to win economic independence. But alas, they only continued to serve the interest of the former colonies indirectly and directly.It is only when Africa will be able to use its vast resources that it will rid itself of imperialist control, and neo-colonialist exploitation and attain full independence.Africa’s economyAfter achieving political independence many African countries made great efforts to develop their national economies and achieved many successes in this respect.However, in a number of countries, their economic lifelines and economic sovereignty are still in the hands of foreign monopoly capital. In many African countries, neo-colonialists still retain, in varying forms, various economic privileges e.g., the right to extract mineral resources. Up today, Western countries still control a great number of the mineral resources and extracting industries of the African countries, as well as the production of a substantial share of their agricultural exports.And through aid, impose on the recipient countries many unequal agreements which directly encroach upon their sovereign rights.Can Africa unchain itself? The answer is yes, but only if there is development of independent national economies and winning of full economic independence by African countries.It is lamentable that Africa has been exporting raw materials to Europe since the colonial times when the Europeans came to Africa. They have even today and enriched themselves with our resources, when leaving us as the poorest continent in the world.Without genuine economic independence, full political independence will remain dilemma in Africa.