text: Young Positivist writes: Ethnicity as a weapong of destruction in Africa - The Ghana Guardian News
  Young Positivist writes: Ethnicity as a weapong of destruction in Africa
  Africa is a very beautiful continent endowed with rich resources both human and material wise. It is the second-largest continent in the world and the second-most populous continent, after Asia. Almost every natural resource that one can think of is existent on this very continent at the expense of other continents not having up to one-third of the resources that Africa has. The question that rolls in the minds of right-thinking members of society is that why is it that after all these numerous natural resources, Africa is considered as the poorest continent in the world? What could be the prime issue impoverishing the continent and leaving it in a long dark period? The problems could be many but I have chosen to talk about ethnicity, a delicate subject used as a weapon of destruction in Africa and how it has left the continent in its dark shade leading to the loss of millions of African lives and properties worth millions destroyed
  I begin with the Democratic Republic of Congo, also known as DR Congo or the DRC and formerly known as Zaire which is amongst the richest country in Africa and the world at large in terms of natural resources. Almost all the essential natural resources necessary for a country to develop can be found there but what we see today is not a true reflection and there is no correlation between their resources and development. Why is it so? Does this affirm what Professor Ali Mazrui said that "Africa is the richest continent yet the poorest?" After gaining independence from Belgium on 30th June 1960, led by their nationalist Patrice Lumumba, things started to fall apart. The ethnic conflict started to draw them back as both Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and their president Joseph Kasa-Vubu had difficulties in working together. Joseph Kasa-Vubu belongs to the largest ethnic group the Kongo, while Patrice Lumumba belongs to the Tetele ethnic group. Things did not work out as the two could not put their ethnicity aside and work together in the best interest of their country. The issue escalated and later led to the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Even after Lumumba's demise, the issues have not died off as these recurrent conflicts have claimed and destroyed thousands of people and millions wealth of properties. One expected that as a country which had suffered from slave trade and colonialism would have ironed out their differences and put their country first, but this was not so and had made Congo poorer than before independence. "In 2016, the United Nations (UN) Human Development Index (HDI) ranked the DRC as the 176th least-developed country out of 188 countries with an HDI of 0.435." "Despite being the second-largest country in Africa, with an approximate area of 2.3 million square kilometres, and being endowed with rich natural resources, the DRC is the second-poorest country in the world" (Gregson Jonathan, Poorest Countries in the World Global Finance; June 2018). What an irony!
  You may be aware of the civil war which occurred in Rwanda in 1994, which claimed nearly a million lives. What was the cause of this outbreak of war? Ethnic differences between the Tutsis and the Hutus led to this. But even before what was generally regarded as a genocide in 1994, in 1959, there was some ethnic conflict which claimed the lives of about 20,000 Tutsis and many others fled to Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. One would say what happened in 1959 should have been the last ethnic violence to have happened in Rwanda but this was not so. In 1994, within the space of 100 days (April to June), more than 800,000 Rwandans were massacred. Can you see the carnage and havoc this ethnic conflict caused? Not even in the history of World War 1 and World War 2 were these numbers recorded within the space of these few days. But this has happened to a country which at the time could barely provide 3 square meal to its citizens. Rwanda has never been the same after the war. I admit that under Paul Kagame, a lot of things have changed, and some are even surprised at the faster rate of development at which the country is experiencing after the genocide. But this could have been better if the war had not broken out. Loosing over 800,000 people in just a matter of 100 days is appalling, devastating and reprehensible. We have not spoken about the destruction of properties.
  Anytime I think of the Biafra war in Nigeria, I cringe! I do so because Nigeria would have been better by now had they not engaged in that horrendous war battle. I cannot still fathom why this ethnic conflict broke out into war. I have asked myself, why can a government be so callous and very insensitive to its people and satisfy the demands of his ethnic group? The eminent writer Chinua Achebe has spoken at length about the outbreak of the civil war in his book "There was a country" "A Personal History of Biafra". It has been reported that after General Yakubu Gowon a Northerner successfully overthrew Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi an Easterner and an Igbo man, the northern people thought they had got some form of independence. Reading from some of the literature and from "There was a Country" which is a personal history of Biafra, the Igbos before and after independence were seen occupying most of the prominent positions in Nigeria. In academia, in politics, in their military, business and many other areas. These the Southerners the Yorubas, and the Northerners mainly the Hausa Fulanis saw as a torn in their flesh. So, this coup to them was a relief.
  It will be unfair not to discuss the ethnic violence which has happened in Ghana. Even though the number of people which have lost their lives as a result of this conflict cannot in any way be compared with what happened in Rwanda and Nigeria but at least we have lost over one thousand people because of these barbaric and uncultured battles. In 1994, the conflict that broke out between the Konkombas and the Nanumbas claimed about 2,000 lives and displaced over 100,000 people. What makes Ghana's situation not darker like what happened in Nigeria and Rwanda was that Ghana's issue happened in the northern territory but with the swift response from the Rawlings government made the issue not escalate. There is no call for jubilation since Ghana's case is not like the other countries. Even one person's life is valuable and talking of thousands! We should be ashamed of ourselves as a continent for letting such minute differences destroy our pride and future.