Microsoft Word - IGWEBUIKE JOURNAL VOL.1 NO. 1 IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 31 COLONIALISM, CHRISTIANITY AND THE NIGERIAN DEPENDENT ECONOMY By Nwadialor, Kanayo Louis, Ph.D Department of Religion and Human Relations Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Kl.nwadialor@unizik.edu.ng Abstract This paper has examined the developing nations and dependency syndrome using Africa as a case study and has pointed out the fact that through slavery and colonialism, the developing nations were integrated into the world capitalist system. This led to expansion of production as new opportunities were created for commodity production and exports. But the developing nations were integrated in such a way that served external interests more than internal ones. These changes disarticulated the economy, and inter-group commerce as well as the macro-economic equilibrium of the pre-colonial period. African continent was thus left in a state of socio-economic and political desperation; this was colonialism in its extreme form of violence. Now that the era of slavery and colonialism is over, the same white man has succeeded in finding some hideous and subtle ways and means of keeping us under his social, economic and political tutelage and this is neo-colonialism in its extreme form of violence. This paper therefore calls on Africans to do original thinking for a better and renascent Africa. The black man can make it but we need the hurricane of change known as revolution. Ours is a race against time. Time is running out. We black Africans have to rise up like every other race in cooperation with God to make our destiny. Nothing short of self-criticism, self- examination and mental revolution can save the developing nations from their present predicament. Keywords: Colonialism, Christianity, Nigerian, Dependent, Economy. Introduction From time immemorial, the business of exchange and production had engaged the attention of the various people in the world. Indeed economic activities were influenced by changing conditions and adoption of new technologies; hence people in different ecological zones specialized in production and distribution of goods to people in other ecological areas that were linked with trade routes. By leaps and bounds a high degree of science and technology developed in application to agricultural and industrial production in certain parts of the world IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 32 that were characterized by central political systems, and quite often, goods from these zones were predominantly displayed and exchanged on the global market. Thus there grew a glaring economic inequality between such countries and others whose products are not frequent in the global market. As this trend continued such countries with central political system and economic boom began to control the market forces in the global market and this widened the economic gap between them and other countries. This development combined with other features to give rise to differences in the description of countries into developed, and developing. The developed countries became those ones that have made their mark in the global market in terms of advanced technology and industrial products. Consequently, the developing countries one way or the other had to depend on the developed ones for their economic growth. This dependency syndrome among the developing nations and its effects in Nigerian/African economy is our focus in this paper. The term developing nations has been used in different ramifications to refer to non western industrialized nations. For William (1981), developing nations are the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America considered as an entity with common characteristics such as poverty, high birthrates and economic dependence on the advanced countries. This was likened to the third Estate by way of analogy. The third Estate was used in France around the medieval and early modern times to refer to the commoners during the French revolution as opposed to the priests and nobles who were referred to as the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, according to William (1981), the developing nations were regarded as nothing that wants to become something. This implied that the developing nations have been exploited as much as the third estate. Developing nations are also classified as the third world nations. The expression- third world- was first used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung- Indonesia. (Oddih, 1988). By the end of 1950, the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the under-developed countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America. The Concept of Dependency The world dependency simply means a state of being contingent or reliant on another person, bodies or phenomenon for survival and support. In political parlance, it implies a state of social, political, economic and cultural reliance of IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 33 one state on another. A dependent economy is a subordinate economy. However, Dependency in developing nations especially in Africa is not an independent variable. Rather it was occasioned and precipitated by certain forces and circumstances. We shall now trace the history of world trends that gave rise to dependency particularly in Africa’s and Nigeria’s socio-political and economic formations. Historical Genesis of Inequality and Dependency: The Nigerian Experience Studies in world and African history indicate that man originated and settled first around the Middle East and North of Africa around the Nile River. He was said to be an active participant in the struggle for the exploitation of the resources of nature for his existentiality. Thus, at a given point in time, Africa was said to have demonstrated the capacity to control her environment through developing her natural faculties as well as his productive forces. Indeed, Africa was said to be the focus of man’s developmental edifice in terms of economic, social and political activities and exhibited these traits of development in many magnificent ways. Ikoku (1977) made some sober and patriotic attempts to itemize certain common invaluable qualities and traits for which the African pre- colonial societies were known and reckoned with. These, according to him included: Norms, values and attitudes which amounted to basic equality, security, freedom, and solidarity. It was a humanistic society, their communal system blended economic and social security with a feeling of being somebody and of belonging. The principles of mutual respect, common wealth, and the obligation to work welded the entire family into a unit divorced from individual consciousness. The common wealth concept was inculcated by their mutual interest in maintaining stable community (Oddih, 1988). In effect, the basis of sustenance of their community was the equality among its free and self sufficient peasants, and their individual voluntary labour as the condition for the continued existence of their property. African societies abhorred and negated unbridled inequalities, individualism, isolationism and pronounced social differentiation. Political authority and leadership was rested on the head of the family who was the first among equals. Again the family head was expected to be generous and kind particularly in periods of economic stagnation arising from natural disaster like plant disease, drought or flood. People had equal rights to their shares of land and economic resources. There was no labour market as labour was not considered a commodity for sale. There was no single controller of the capital as IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 34 the peasants were the collective controllers of the work process. The acquisition of the means of production was not market oriented and the economic function of the market was very minimal and lacked the social imperative connected with market transactions. Labour and natural resources were not divorced from each other; social relationships and values, according to Oddih (1988) stood as the most important moving forces behind work organization. Distribution of production surpluses was part of the social demand as gifts; hence there was social cohesion and security of subsistence. Depression and technological unemployment did not threaten the continuity of income since there was no dependence on market sales. There was no capital accommodation and economic growth; hence it was rendered vulnerable to intrusions and even invasions from alien forces that had superior technological armaments with which it was conquered. With this technological superiority, African traditional communalism was changed via slave trade raids by the Europeans. Thus Oddih (1988: 143) maintained that: The first attack on the continent of Africa was the slave raid/trade which commenced in the 16th century and this brought to a halt the Africans well- knitted social structure and set the stage for the market economy and the integration of market relations between the Western nations and Africa, hence the genesis of integration and dependence. Slave trade was necessitated by the need to enhance effective agricultural productivity through employment of turgid and study manual labour which could be obtained greatly from Africa. Some of the consequences of slave trade included depletion of the population and loss of able bodied hands that could have contributed to development in Africa. It established a business link between Europe and Africa and created inter-community conflict as each community raided another in search of slaves to sell for profit reasons bringing about the interest in material acquisition and inequality and exploitation in Africa. Colonialism, Dependency and Underdevelopment in Nigeria Industrial revolution in Europe ended the need for slave trade. Chinweizu (1978) opines that colonialism which means economic and political domination of a country by a foreign state commenced from the 1880s to about 1960. Colonialism was caused primarily by the changes in mode of production in Europe and America which relegated manual labour in agricultural engagement as a result of the industrial revolution and the need for European wealth and national prestige among the Belgians, Portuguese, British and French colonial masters. According IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 35 to Ikime (1977), colonialism started with the passage of a law against slave trade in 1807. Britain got other countries to follow and comply with the abolition law. With the abolition of slave trade, the colonialists commenced business in palm oil, timber and other precious goods that were of use to the European industrial machineries. There was tense competition between rival colonialists like the French, Germans, Portuguese and other European traders who had the same business interest in the West African coastal areas. The important point here is that this oil business marked the integration of Nigeria’s pre-colonial societies into the European capitalist network. Furthermore, the goods which the Europeans used to exchange for oil, has the net effect of creating in traditional elites, a desire to consume more products of European industry. Around 1807 Taubman Goldie, in a bid to check incessant conflicts and to assert tighter control over the oil business amalgamated various British firms into what, by 1879, became the United African Company (UAC) which later became known as the National African Company in 1881. In 1886 Goldie obtained a royal charter for the (NAC), which then became the Royal Niger Company. The charter meant that the company was not just a trading company but also had conferred on it certain powers of government and law making, as well as powers to raise and maintain an armed force for the effective pursuit of its trade and for the maintenance of law and other. Ikime (1977) also rightly notes that the grant of a royal charter to the (RMC) was a deliberate act by which Britain sought to guarantee her interest on the Niger- Benue as well as part of the Delta. This was coupled with the fact that for years before the granting of the charter, consul Hewett had travelled across the length and breathes of the Niger Delta and signed treaties of protection with various traditional chiefs and rulers in these local areas. Worthy of note also is the fact that by the time that the British was penetrating into the interiors of Nigeria through trading activities, the British missionaries were also penetrating the psyche of the local people with their Christian religion. In this sense the missionaries were deeply involved in the colonization process. The advent of Christianity to Nigeria was so closely linked with colonialism that a very dubious alliance developed between Christianity and British colonization of Nigeria. From the start, missionary propaganda in Nigeria was not just a religious invasion. In effect it was associated with political invasion as well. Outhuzien (1968: 67) opines that “the Church itself in Africa lived on imperial IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 36 and political favours and the Christian missionaries were at times pioneers of the white man’s penetration. It has been argued that treaties signed between the colonial government and the different Nigerian ethnic nationalities before the formal establishment of colonial presence gave the missionaries a foothold in several places in Nigeria. The enthusiastic support which the colonial administration gave to the missionaries predisposed the latter to even greater involvement in their work of colonial administration. The British government saw no better ally than the missionaries in entrenching colonial rule. The missionaries evidently had a tremendous amount of influence on the people, their influence deriving not from stringent laws and prosecutions and the fears that these could generate in the colonized people but essentially from the submissive influence of the teaching of Christian principles and this the colonial government considered an advantage in fostering colonial rule. Tufuoh (1968: 385) adds that “the colonial government saw that for a system of government like this in which influence counted for everything, administrative actors would find no better ally than missionary enterprise. Once the missionaries laid this foundation, the occupation and pacification of Nigeria were carried out with comparatively little difficulty and with relatively little expense in arms, money and men. It must be emphasized however, that this collaboration was not born out of a conscious attempt to ensure the establishment of British imperialism as such, rather it was seen as a means to an end, for it was believed that in the chaotic situation of the 19th century, only a serene atmosphere could ensure a fruitful germination of Christian ideas, and that only British government could bring about this atmosphere. This is why Jowitt (2010: 231) submits that “missionaries in fact undoubtedly in general welcomed the coming of colonial rule, because it brought about the more peaceful conditions in which the missionaries could operate, and not least, afforded protection to the missionaries. This colonization process met with some fierce opposition by courageous and valiant rulers like King Jaja of Opobo and Nana of Itsekiri as well as Obi Aje of Aboh kingdom. However, in 1885 after the Berlin conference, Britain gave a declaration or proclamation that the southern part of Nigeria be called the British Protectorate of the oil Rivers. This, of course, was what has been called the era of Gun boat diplomacy or the British pacification of Nigeria. In the North, trade treaties were signed by Clapperton and Barth in 1821 and Mohammed Bellow of the Sokoto caliphate. In January 1, 1900, Northern Nigeria became a British Protectorate with the appointment of Lord Lugard as the High Commissioner. Before this, in 1861, Lagos had become the first part of Nigeria to become a IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 37 British colony and latter the Yoruba cities of Ibadan, Ile-Ife and Ijebu were conquered by the colonial masters. Thus, at this point, there were three Protectorates viz, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria or oil Rivers Niger Delta area established in 1893, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the crown colony of Lagos. In 1906, the colony of Lagos and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria were merged to become the colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and in 1914, the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria were amalgamated into one united modern and indivisible entity called Nigeria. An Overview of Nigerian Colonial Economy Within the first two decades of British rule, there were various forms of revolt, protest and organized resistance against the new political and economic structures that were introduced to integrate the whole territory of modern Nigeria into a capitalist world market. Having suppressed the hostile groups in the colony, the colonial administration prohibited the use of all traditional currencies, introduced the British pound sterling, new taxation and a tariff system. All these measures were to develop the export economy. The Atlantic slave trade and the palm oil trade otherwise known as the legitimate trade were the earnest bases or strings by which Nigeria was tied to the European capitalist network. With the establishment of a colonial government, the pre-capitalist formation of the pre-colonial Nigerian societies was further entrenched into the system forcefully as opposed to the pre-colonial era when the business links were more or less on voluntary basis. Colonial state carefully disrupted and destroyed in virtually all ramifications, the pre-existing economic and social structure of hitherto existing Nigerian societies, and replaced them with a new and alien administration and economic structures which linked it further to the Western capitalist mainstream in mandatory manner. For instance, land was the major means of production and was communally owned in the pre-existing social formation but colonialism created a disruption of this order. Again production was organized in communities in a self-contained or reliant manner, but colonialism created a different mode of production system quite alien to the traditional type. This time, production was aimed and geared towards market needs. It was divorced from the subsistence needs of the local population. The forces of production became greatly developed and elements of specialization became enormous contrary to what used to obtain in the pre-colonial societies. IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 38 Four basic tools or instruments were used by the colonialists in their bid and effort to integrate Nigeria into the international capitalist framework thereby leading to resource exploitation of labour and land; and trade promotions, and thus economic dependency of Nigerian nation on European capitalist economy. These tools are taxation, transport, education and agriculture. Taxation: Taxation was virtually unknown in Nigeria except in the northern part where a little fraction of the groups did pay such taxes to the Emir. The colonial government under Lord Lugard needed funds and taxation was quickly institutionalized and sternly enforced. With pockets of resistance notwithstanding, direct taxation was introduced in the Western Region in 1916 and in the Eastern region in 1928. The effects and implications of the introduction of taxation in the colonial states were many and varied, but most prominently and importantly were the facts that it led to the introduction of coin currency which invariably eliminated the pre-colonial trade by barter. Again taxation necessitated that the local population should work in the colonial enclave to earn some new coin currency to pay their tax and other necessities in the new social order. Thus, taxation via the introduction and usage of a new coin currency was a factor in attracting and coercing the pre-existing traditional local population into the new system through being press ganged into public works or service (Oddih, 1998). Transport: The Rivers Niger and Benue with their tributaries constituted the main transportation system in Nigeria during the early periods of exploration of Nigeria by the Europeans. In effect, they served as lines of access through which European influence reached many parts of the country. Later on the colonial period witnessed unprecedented growth and expansion in the production of export crops such as cocoa, rubber, palm oil and kernels, cotton and groundnuts. To promote the production of these crops the British embarked on the construction of railway lines and sea ports. According to Onyekpe (1997: 23). Railway lines were constructed in such a way that areas effectively involved in export agriculture were linked with the coast. Railway construction started in 1898 at Lagos and by 1930 the Western line had reached Nguru in northern Nigeria. The eastern line started from Port Harcourt in 1913 reaching Kaura Namoda also in northern Nigeria in 1929. Roads were also constructed to feed the railways. Of course transport development was for the purpose of facilitating the evacuation of agricultural produce to Britain. The new transportation system, nevertheless, changed and destroyed some pattern of trading activities in the pre-colonial scheme of affairs. For instance, some pre-colonial urban centres like Calabar and Aboh lost their growth momentum and began to stagnate due to the IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 39 new transportation network which cut off their areas; hence it changed, declined and altered the pattern and flow of their trade. In effect, and most importantly, the penetration into the hinter land of European trading companies resulted in a fuller incorporation of Nigeria into the international capitalist market system. Education: It is the view of some scholars that colonial education was the ideological apparatus of the colonial state. The colonial state initially was not interested in educational matters but was compelled to do so for many reasons. First, was that there were few educated European manpower to man colonial activities in the colonial enclaves. Second, was that the available African or Nigerian average worker was considered by the colonial administration as unreliable, lacking integrity, self-control and discipline, had no respect for authority of any kind and ill educated. For these reasons, Christian instruction was considered proper for training and personnel development. Coleman (1971) notes that from the very beginning, education was a virtual monopoly of the Christian missionary societies and until 1898; all education was under the direct control of missionaries. As late as 1942, 99 percent of the schools and 97 percent of the students in Nigeria were enrolled in mission schools. By 1945, only very few literate Nigerians had not received all or part of their education in mission schools. The missionary was exhorted to modify the curriculum to accommodate other needed courses that could facilitate state requirements like clerks, accountants, dispensers, dressers, sanitary inspectors, station masters, railway guards, interpreters, court messengers and labourers. This was to modify the mission’s mere educational objective of teaching converts how to read and interpret the Bible. To achieve their objectives, the colonial state had to grant land and financial subsidies for missionary educational activities. The important facts here are that products of the missionary and colonial schools latter became the bedrock of the colonial administration who were seriously integrated into western capitalist system by virtue of their training and job. Most importantly, it facilitated the emergence of a separate class who were endowed with the knowledge and skills, ambitions and aspirations that enabled them to challenge the Nigerian colonial government and ultimately to wrest control over the central political power from it and shape Nigeria’s post independence new social order in their interest. Agriculture: Nigeria being a British territory, all economic policies was geared towards the integration of the economy into that of the metropolitan area. Thus, emphasis was on the extractive sector of the Nigerian economy. For example, there was concentration on agricultural production. Agriculture is the mainstay IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 40 of any human society, particularly in the pre-colonial social formation of Nigeria prior to the arrival of the colonialist. The colonial government stimulated agricultural expansion through research and experimentation. This involved the establishment of a number of institutions. According to Onyekpe (1997: 230). The period 1912-16 saw the development of the Moor plantation at Ibadan as an agricultural experimentation station. Similar stations were established in 1923 in Zaria, Umuahia and Benin. The major functions of these institutions were the provision of agricultural research, training of agricultural personnel and improvement of the agricultural system and techniques through the dissemination of new ideas and through practical experimentation. However, it must be noted that expansion was stimulated by the need for export production. There were no efforts to develop food crop production. Another issue, according to Onyekpe (1997) was that the development of agriculture led to the privatization of land, especially in Southern Nigerian where the principal export crops were permanent crops such as cocoa, rubber and palm produce. Privatization destroyed the communal ownership of land through the progressive increase in private holdings. Another feature of the colonial economic system was that the import-export trade was dominated by the expatriate firms mostly owned by British merchants. The colonial state protected and promoted the interest of the expatriate firms by ensuring that domestic financial resources mobilized by the West African Currency Board and the Commercial Banks were placed exclusively at the disposal of the firms against indigenous business interests. Colonial commercial monopolist was especially consolidated during the second world war and after, with the creation of central buying agencies such as the Marketing Boards which created lots of discouraging and disincentive medium of purchasing farmer’s produce. Ekekwue (1986) remarks that by 1949, palm produce; groundnuts, cocoa and cotton had all come under control by the boards. The boards were established partly to help farmers to cope better with periods of falling world market prices. Profits from their operation were to be returned to the agricultural producers in times of price imbalances and fluctuations. This goal was not paid back to the right farmers at the due periods. The resultant effect was that while the local cultivators had been attracted into the capitalist system, the yields or profits of such integration were not satisfactory thereby engendering a form of marginalization of the local farmers. The effects of the new colonial order are issues which underlie many studies of IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 41 Nigeria’s underdevelopment along with its foreign policy. Ake (1982) maintains that the colonial economy created complementality between our local economies and western economies and structural dependence of the former on western capitalist system by promoting the spread furthermore, it created the emergence of small capitalist indigenous class who had common interest with the Western foreign interest. According to Onyekpe (1997:232). The most critical feature of the colonial economy was the absence of an industrial sector. In Nigeria, the metropolitan power and the colonial state were hostile to industrialization. To be sure, industrialization would have endangered the regularity of raw material export to British home industries. Moreover, industrialization in the colonial territory or “open economy” would have robbed Britain of the market in Nigeria as foods imported from the metropolis would have faced competition from the locally produced ones. Thus, the few industries established in the later colonial period were processing industries. They were to reduce the bulk of raw materials exported and thereby economize on shipping space. The implications of the absence of an industrial sector were that the country depended on the metropolis, first, for the purchase of its agricultural produce and, second, for the industrial products and manufactured goods domestically required. Third World Political Organizations and Dependency Issues Third World Political organizations which aimed at improving the lot of the developing nations started in 1955 with the Bandung conference. This conference was organized by China and India. The conference played a great role in exposing the underdevelopment problems of their member countries to their former colonial masters. Since then, developing nations have formed a series of organizations and conferences which were aimed at addressing the socio- economic imbalances between the western industrialized nations and the developing nations. Given the foregoing circumstances, some scholars believe that in current times, developing nations are characterized by excessive dependence on foreign aids and grants and high import contents of their local needs and foreign exchange earnings. Today the need and quest for rapid economic development and the desire to close the socio-economic gap between the North and the South, many political and economic organizations have been formed by the developing nations. Some of the organizations include the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM) which had its first summit at Belgrade in 1961 (Oddih, 1998). Currently, the non-aligned movement has been concerned with IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 42 the economic development of the developing nations as opposed to political or economic alignment with either Eastern socialist Bloc or the Western capitalist Bloc. Their achievements in the activities of the non-alignment have remained a high academic and political issue, as in some quarters their unity and prospects have been described as hypothetically expressed mainly from the platforms of international conferences. Another organization founded by prominently oil rich developing nations is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries which followed the 1960 Baghdad conference in Kuwait. Member countries of the (OPEC) include rich oil producing countries of the developing nations which include: Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Gabon, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. (OPEC’s) achievement could be better assessed in terms of huge profits made by member countries through increased sale of crude oil to the western countries. It was a big victory for the group in 1973 when it succeeded in securing a great increase in the price of crude oil for its members. In Nigeria this period was known as the oil boom era and lots of profits made from it were wastefully lavished on many white elephant projects and official embezzlement by the ruling political and bureaucratic authorities. Another organization formed by the developing nations was the Bauxite International Association (BIA) which was founded in 1974. It was a raw material producing cartel. Some members of the association included: Yugoslavia, Guyana, Guinea, Australia, Jamaica, Sierra Leone etc. In spite of all these efforts, most developing nations, particularly in Africa, still wallow in poverty and hunger. Living conditions have continued to deteriorate and the incidence of unemployment, corruption, over population, food crisis, debt and dependency crises are still prevalent in their respective countries. The most important of these problems are the religious and political crises which stem from greed and corrupt tendencies of the ruling class. Neo- Colonialism This is the form of exploitation which characterized most developing nations soon after the independence. It is a combination of Western capitalist forces in collaboration with the indigenous capitalist elements who, to a large extent, were colonial products in terms of their educational, cultural, political economic and social backgrounds. These people were bequeathed the power to rule in the IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 43 colonial ideology as soon as independence was granted to the post colonial or developing countries. For centuries now, Africans have blamed their backwardness on the so-called white man’s exploitation; the much orchestrated Rape of Africa. It was the white man who looted our natural resources and transported them to Europe; it was the white man who captured the cream of our African youths and led them into slavery in America, and so on. Fine, all that is history, we do not deny that it happened. What we are saying is that we Africans should stop crying over spilt milk and begin to raise our own cows. We should stop blaming the white man for the evils of the past and begin to face the facts of the evils of the present, which we, not the white man, have created for ourselves. Centuries ago, we lamented the evil of white colonialism of developing nations of Africa. Today, we are lamenting the neo colonialism of Africans by their brother Africans. Decades ago, many African countries rejoiced as they celebrated their independence from the white man. Today, we have come to realize that the freedom we were celebrating was no freedom at all but a mere exchange of slave masters. We drove away the white man only to be ruled by African dictators. We blamed the white man for looting our natural resources. Today, it is our own African Heads of state and their henchmen who carry our natural resources to the white man’ country, sell them to the white man at the white man’s own price, and deposit the money in the white man’s bank in a secret account to be inherited by the white man when they die. We blamed the white man for carrying away the cream of the African youths into slavery in Europe and America. Today, it is the African youths themselves who are begging the white man to smuggle them out in containers, cargo-vessels and under the guise of pilgrim planes to the white man’s country where they like the prodigal son, are quite ready to feed on pig’s food, clean the white man’s gutters and wash his plates in order to earn some dollars to send home to their parents. According to Odey (1996:8), Africa suffered under the colonial masters who came as innocuous seekers of fortune but proved to be harbingers of Africa’s doom. Today, the same Africa is going through the challenge and horror of leadership in the hands of Africans. People are suffering in almost every African nation as they never suffered in the colonial era. The entire continent has been reduced to a land of oppression, misery and despair by the arrant greed of African leaders. This was why Rodney (1981) foresees that the euphoria which greeted the emerging independence of African nations could be turned into a IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 44 charade by African leaders, the nationalist bourgeoisie, who would later do more harm to Africa than the whites. In the colonial days, the form of political subordination was obvious. Under neo- colonialism, the domination takes up a subtle form. Former colonial masters now set up black puppets who collaborate with them to exploit and destroy Africa. Our leaders now connive with Europe and America, suck their nations dry and dump the money in foreign banks for the benefit of those who already have everything they need while people die here in abject poverty, misery and want. If we Africans had any good reason in the past to lay the blame for our problems on the white man, today we no longer have any good reason to blame the white man for our self-inflicted misery. The strange thing about our race is that other races have, in the past, been similarly enslaved and colonized. But these other races broke the shackles of slavery and domination, reached great height and in many cases excelled their oppressors in contributing to civilization. The Jews, the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indians are but few eloquent testimonies of people who have gone through the horrors of history but are today among the markers of history. But Africa is still the underdog, crippled and beggarly-the refuse dump of the world. Odey (1996), having observed just a little of what the white man has done in Europe and America, began to ask, is the black man truly made of the same stuff as the white man? Is the black man equally created in the image of God, endowed with the faculty of reason to be used in conquering, transforming and recreating the world as the white man has been doing? Is the black man created merely as a complement-a product of an afterthought- after the Great creator must have retired from creation? If not what is the problem with the black man? By her inveterate and seemingly immutable backwardness, Africa has given the outside world an occasion to put on us the badge of inferiority and dependency. Africans must therefore honestly have the courage to face some realities if Africa will ever rise up to the challenges of the times. Every hope has not been lost in Africa. If a good number of African intellectuals can embark on a serious mental revolution and critical self-examination, the black race will eventually make its presence felt, no longer as a beggar, no longer as an under god, no longer as a refuse dump, no longer as a copy cat of Europe’s technological and scientific achievements, no longer as a miserable race: always asking for relief fund, but as an equal member of the human family. IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities. Vol. 1 No 1, June 2015. ISSN 2488-9210(Online) ISSN 2504 – 9038(Print) (A Publication of the Augustinian Institute in collaboration with AATREPSCHOLARS) 45 Conclusion We have examined the developing nations and dependency syndrome using Africa as a case study and we have pointed out the fact that through slavery and colonialism, the developing nations were integrated into the world capitalist system. This led to expansion of production as new opportunities were created for commodity production and exports. But the developing nations were integrated in such a way that served external interests more than internal ones. For-example, there was emphasis on an externally oriented primary production. Moreover, the crafts and cottage industries of the developing nations were ruined as the market was flooded with imported items. These changes disarticulated the economy, and inter-group commerce as well as the macro- economic equilibrium of the pre-colonial period (Onyeka, 1997). African continent was thus left in a state of socio-economic and political desperation; this was colonialism in its extreme form of violence. Now that the era of slavery and colonialism is over, the same white man has succeeded in finding some hideous and subtle ways and means of keeping us under his social, economic and political tutelage and this is neo-colonialism in its extreme form of violence. African leaders became wolves in sheep’s clothing, spoilt children of yesterday’s colonialism and of today’s neo- colonialism, who would organize the loot of whatever national resources that exist, as soon as the white man goes, to the white man’s country to deposit in the white man’s bank. These black wolves used today’s national distress to enrich themselves more and more until their nations are economically incapacitated. We also made a recommendation, calling on Africans to do original thinking for a better and renascent Africa. The black man can make it but we need the hurricane of change known as revolution. Ours is a race against time. Time is running out. We black Africans have to rise up like every other race in cooperation with God to make our destiny. Nothing short of self-criticism, self- examination and mental revolution can save the developing nations from their present predicament. References Ake, C. (1982). A political economy of Africa. Hong Kong: Wilture. 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