Did African leaders fight colonialism to create personal kingdoms?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

When African liberation movements waged bitter, bloody struggles against European colonial powers in the mid-twentieth century, the promise made to millions was unequivocal.

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Self-determination, constitutional democracy, and an end to ruler-and-subject tyranny.

Men and women marched into the bush under the banner of sovereign republics, where power would belong to the electorate, not a ruling dynasty.

Decades later, a bitter historical irony confronts the continent.

Did the founding fathers and their successors sacrifice so much to end European imperial rule only to build private family fiefdoms on its ashes?

Across the continent, constitutional democracy is increasingly treated as a inconvenient formality.

In nation after nation, long-serving presidents have stripped away term limits, hollowed out judiciaries, and converted state security organs into family guards.

Equatorial Guinea remains under the iron grip of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has groomed his son, Teodorin, to inherit the state apparatus alongside its immense oil wealth.

In Togo, Faure Gnassingbé inherited power directly after his father’s 38-year rule, proving that the hereditary transmission of power can be successfully operationalized in a nominal republic.

Where political office is not handed over outright, the military is deployed to enforce bloodline continuity.

In Chad, the sudden death of Idriss Déby saw constitutional succession discarded instantly so his son, General Mahamat Déby, could seize the helm.

In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, openly uses his military authority to post campaign manifestos on social media, positioning himself as heir apparent while the regime suppresses opposition figures.

From Congo-Brazzaville to Gabon—where the Bongo dynasty ruled for over five decades before a palace coup finally disrupted the sequence—republican institutions have been systematically transformed into ancestral properties.

This toxic feudal drift is no longer confined to overt dictatorships; it is creeping into nations with rich histories of constitutional struggle.

In Zimbabwe, where liberation fighters defeated colonial rule under the promise of one person, one vote, alarming rhetoric has surfaced from political sycophants and party ideologues.

Proposals are openly floated suggesting the country shed its republican constitutional framework in favor of an “indigenous consultative democracy”—a thinly veiled euphemism for establishing a formal monarchy.

Sycophantic quarters have actively championed declaring President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the modern “Munhumutapa,” seeking to wrap personal lifetime tenure in the sacred mythology of the ancient pre-colonial empire.

The official gazetting of the sitting president’s birthday as ‘Munhumutapa Day’ into law, alongside the sweeping constitutional amendments enacted to extend presidential tenure, signals a dangerous ideological shift.

By dressing up personalized rule in the robes of pre-colonial royal heritage, regime apologists attempt to dismiss constitutional democracy as an imported Western imposition.

Yet, this feudal revisionism fundamentally betrays the liberation struggle itself.

The brave men and women who died fighting colonial rule did not shed their blood so that one ruling family or faction could claim divine right over the republic’s wealth and laws.

The motivation behind this surge in hereditary governance is simple: fear and greed.

Having spent decades entrenching state capture, looting national resources, and neutralizing democratic checks, autocratic elites fear life after office.

Relinquishing power to an independent successor carries the terrifying risk of prosecution, asset forfeiture, or exile.

Handing the keys of the treasury and the armed forces to a son, daughter, or designated proxy is viewed as the ultimate life insurance policy for an incumbent regime.

Africa’s struggle for independence was an anti-feudal, anti-authoritarian moral crusade.

The transformation of sovereign republics into hereditary monarchies under the guise of Pan-Africanism or traditional preservation is a profound desecration of that legacy.

A true republic is built around the dignity and sovereignty of the citizen; a kingdom is built around the appetite of the ruler.

Until citizens reject the myth that tyrannical rule becomes acceptable under the guise of political patronage, the true promises of the liberation struggle cannot be realized.

Only when political accountability takes precedence over blind loyalty will sovereign republics finally belong to their people.

• *Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or *

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