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Saul Gwakuba
l Continued from last Saturday
Tanzania comprises two countries, former Tanganyika which was a British mandated territory and became independent on December 9, 1961, and the Indian Ocean island originally called Zanzibar, formerly administered by Britain until December 10, 1963, when it became a sovereign state.

On January12, 1964, revolutionary forces overthrew the sultan, and union with Tanganyika was effected on April 26, 1964, when Tanganyika’s then Prime Minister Julius Nyerere and Zanzibar’s new President, Sheikh Karume signed an Act of Union.

Tanzania’s policy on the unification of independent African states differed slightly from Nkrumah’s in that Nyerere preferred the regional co-operation approach which would eventually lead to continental unity.

He expressed his government’s position on this very strongly at the 1964 Cairo organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit’s plenary session.

Tanzania was at that time an East African Community (EAC) member. The other members were Uganda and Kenya.
There was some wish and hope at that time that Rwanda and Burundi would sooner or later join the community and that Zambia would also become an EAC member sooner or later following its attainment of independence on October 24, 1964.

The EAC became defunct after General Idi Amin of Uganda seized power and replaced President Milton Obote on January 25, 1971. Attempts to revive it in 1981 failed.

Tanzania, a former slave trade theatre involving the Arabs (especially those of Oman), the Germans and the British, will go down in the annals of African history as having shared its modest resources with the people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, South Africa and those of several Indian Ocean islands to help them free themselves from colonial and racial oppression. It trades with the UK, the US, China, Kenya, Uganda.

Another African country that is not heavily endowed with mineral wealth is Togo. Located in West Africa, the 33,920 sq km former German colony became a League of Nations French and British mandated territory after the First World War. It became independent after the British Togo area had voted in a referendum on May 9, 1956, to join Ghana.

The French-administered part of the country became independent on April 27, 1960. Togo’s minerals are phosphates, marble and limestone.

Its first President was Sylvanus Olympio, an avowed opponent of Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana. He was later assassinated by a group of soldiers led by Lt-Col Etienne Eyadema who  shortly thereafter became Togo’s head of state. He was also hostile towards Nkrumah’s proposal.
Togo’s trading partners are the Ivory Coast, Japan, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and generally the

Ecowas states. The Togolese government played a big role together with General Gowon’s Nigeria in the creation of the Ecowas in 1975.
The Republic of Tunisia is one of the Maghreb states. Its eastern neighbour is Libya. Algeria lies to its western frontier.
To the south, Algerian territory meets that of Libya, making Tunisia look like a wedge with the Mediterranean Sea on its northern coast. Its minerals are lead, zinc and iron.

It became independent on March 20, 1960, after nationalists led by Habib Bourguiba had violently organised the workers and the masses since the early 1950s. Bourguiba was opposed to Nkrumah’s pan-africanist ideology, unlike Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Algeria’s founding President Ben Bella whose policy was that their respective countries were first and foremost “African,” and second Arabic.

Bourguiba was a publicly pronounced pro-western, rather pro-French, to such an extent that he was generally publicly referred to as a stooge of France, Tunisia’s former colonial master.

He became rather isolated ideologically after Libya’s Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi seized power and deposed King Idris on September1, 1969. Col Gaddafi was an avowed promoter of African unitification.

Tunisia trades mainly with Germany, France, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Libya, Britain and the Sahelian regional countries.
Uganda is an East African nation whose western region consists of Lakes Edward, Kivu and one or two others. Its 236,040sq km surface area is sitting on phosphates, copper, mica, cobalt, tungsten, tin and silver.

Established as a colony by Britain between 1894 and 1919, Uganda became independent on October 9, 1962, with Milton Obote as President.

Obote strongly supported Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist dream. He was overthrown by General Idi Amini on January 25,  1971. Amin  was a murderous tyrant whose bloody regime was overwhelmed by a Tanzanian military campaign following Amin’s attempt to invade Tanzania’s territory at the Karega sector in January 1979.

Attempts by Obote to get back into power were unsuccessful and he eventually left the country and died in exile in Zambia years later. Meanwhile Yoweri Museveni’s government in Kampala is strictly nationalistic and does not show any signs of either macro-nationalism or pan-Africanism.

Uganda’s foreign trade is with the DRC its western neighbour, Sudan and South Sudan its northern neighbours, Kenya, its eastern   neighbour, Tanzania, its southern neighbour, the US, Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Rwanda is on its south-western frontier.
One of Africa’s minerally rich countries is Zambia whose copper carried the British and their allies through the second World War.
Situated in south-central Africa, the 752,610 sq km country is bounded in the north by Tanzania, on the east by Malawi, on the south-east by Mozambique, on the south (across the Zambezi River) by Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the west by Angola , with the DRC lying more or less on its north-west-north frontier.

The country’s mineral wealth is predominantly copper but it also has large cobalt deposits, zinc, uranium, lead, silver and manganese.
Zambia was a British protectorate from 1924 up to October 24, 1964, when it became independent and assumed the name “Zambia.” Its first President was Kenneth David Kaunda, a staunch pan-Africanist whose government was selflessly committed to the liberation of the entire African continent.

It supported Nkrumah’s proposal, and in 1979 said that had an African military high command been in existence at the time Tanzania was threatened by Amin, it could have taken him on as a continent rather than leave the burden to Tanzania alone.
Zambia’s international trading partners are Germany, Britain, South Africa, the US, Botswana, the DRC, Zimbabwe, China, Tanzania and some Sadc member-states such as Malawi.

Zimbabwe is yet another minerally rich country. Its minerals range from aluminum to zinc. The others being asbestos, coal, copper, chromium, gold, diamonds, mica, aquamane, beryl and several other types of precious stones.

Zimbabwe’s minerals tend to occur generally in all areas of the country although the largest concentration is found along what is called “The Great Norite Dyke.”

The Zimbabwean government has passed a law compelling foreign mining companies to surrender 51 percent of their share holding to the respective communities in which they operate.

Zimbabwe became a formal British colony on 12 September 1923 when the white minority settlers proclaimed the country a self-governing British colony. It achieved independence on April 18, 1980 after a bitter armed struggle waged by two nationalistic guerrillas; the Zimbabwe  African National Liberation Army (Zanla) of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) of Dr Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu).

The first President of Zimbabwe (formerly known as Southern Rhodesia) was Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He is still the head of the 390 580sq km state whose neighbours are Mozambique on the east, Zambia on the North, Botswana on the west and South Africa on the south.
The country’s trading partners are South Africa, Britain, China, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, the US, Malaysia and Namibia. Zimbabwe also trades with other Sadc countries such as Swaziland.

This survey of Africa’s mineral wealth enables students of African history to understand why some powerful European leaders gathered in Berlin in 1884 to plot how to carve up the African continent among their respective countries.

Their eyes were on these fabulous riches. Much of these minerals have been exported outside Africa for the industrial development of the importing nations with the African continent acting as a supplier rather than as a user of its resources.

In addition to this well known observation, the 56 African nations should ask themselves about where and what they will be a century hence. Is it not advisable to lay solid foundations now for a truly unified Africa by drafting a suitable constitution for a, say, federal Africa?