Godfrey Mwakikagile
Encyclopedia
Godfrey Mwakikagile is a prominent Tanzania
n scholar, writer and specialist in African studies
.
in western Tanzania - what was then Tanganyika
- on 4 October 1949 and was baptised Godfrey about two months later on Christmas
day, 25 December 1949, as a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) among whose supporters was Scottish
explorer and missionary-doctor, Dr. David Livingstone
of the London Missionary Society
. Dr. Livingstone campaigned against slavery
and the slave trade but also helped pave the way for the colonisation of Africa.
As Godfrey Mwakikagile states in one of his books Africa and America in The Sixties which is partly autobiographical and - among other subjects - also covers members of the baby boomer
generation including himself born after the end of World War II
, he was, according to his birth certificate, baptised by Reverend Frank McGorlick (from Victoria, Australia), a Scottish minister of the CMS Church in Kigoma his parents belonged to. But he was brought up as a member of the Moravian Church in Rungwe
District in what was then the Southern Highlands Province in colonial Tanganyika.
He moved to Rungwe District with his parents when he was 5 years old after living in different parts of Tanganyika - Kigoma, Ujiji
, Kilosa
, Morogoro
, and Mbeya
- where his father worked as a medical assistant for the British
colonial government. According to his autobiography, his father also worked at the Amani
Research Institute in Amani, in Muheza
, Handeni
, and Tanga
before moving to Kigoma four months before Godfrey Mwakikagile was born. Rungwe was his parents' home district. Both were born and brought up in Rungwe District and were members of a tribe indigenous to that part of Tanzania.
Rungwe District, ringed by misty blue mountains, is close to the border with Malawi
and is located in the Great Rift Valley
north of Lake Nyasa.
Godfrey Mwakikagile went to school in Tanzania
and in the United States
1.
Tanganyika united with Zanzibar
in 1964 to form Tanzania.
and middle school (up to Standard 8) at Mpuguso in Rungwe District in Mbeya Region
in the Southern Highlands, secondary school (up to Standard 12 or Form IV) at Songea
in Ruvuma Region
, and high school (up to Standard 14 or Form VI) at Tambaza in Dar es Salaam
.
He once worked as a news reporter at the Standard, which was later renamed Daily News, and as an information officer at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam before going to school in the United States in November 1972.
He first joined the editorial staff of the Standard as a junior reporter when he was still in high school, in Form V, in 1969.
Coincidentally, his editor at the Daily News, Benjamin Mkapa
, who also helped him to go to school in the United States, years later became president of Tanzania (1995–2005).
The president of Tanzania during that period, Julius Nyerere
who led the country from 1961 to 1985, was the editor-in-chief of the Daily News. But his role was only ceremonial rather than functional.
Godfrey Mwakikagile graduated from Wayne State University
in Detroit in the state of Michigan
, USA, in 1975.
He also attended Aquinas College
, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1976. One of his professors of economics at Aquinas College was Kenneth Marin who once worked in Tanzania.
It was just a coincidence that he went to Aquinas College where he ended up being taught by someone who had worked in Tanzania years before. He did not know anything about Professor Marin before then and met him at that school for the first time.
Professor Marin once worked as an economist for the government of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam in the late sixties and early seventies. He went to Tanzania in 1968 and served as an adviser to the government on capital mobilisation and utilisation. Before then, he worked as an economist for the United States federal government. He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson
to serve on Wage and Price Control during the mid-sixties. President Johnson appointed Professor Kenneth Marin as a member of the White House Consumer Advisory Council.
In 1966, Professor Marin was a member of a U.S. State Department evaluation team that was assigned to review various performances in the economic and political arena in six South American countries.
Years later, one of his students, Godfrey Mwakikagile, also ended up writing about economics, among other subjects, mostly about Africa. And coincidentally, Mwakikagile's first book was also about economics.
not long after the former Tanzanian president died.
He is considered by many people, including those who have reviewed his books about President Nyerere in different newspapers, magazines and academic journals in a number of countries, to be an authority on Nyerere and one of his most prominent biographers.
One scholar who has cited Godfrey Mwakikagile as an authoritative source on President Nyerere is Professor David Simon who teaches development studies at the University of London
and who is Director of the Centre for Development Areas Research at Royal Holloway College at the university. Professor Simon has published excerpts from Godfrey Mwakikagile's book on Nyerere in his compiled study, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development, published in 2005.
Professor David Simon is also editor of the scholarly Journal of Southern African Studies and is on the editorial staff of another academic publication, the Review of African Political Economy.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's works have been getting serious attention among many people including academics in many countries who have also reviewed some of his books in scholarly journals.
His first book, Economic Development in Africa, was published in 1999 and he has maintained a steady pace since then, writing books, as demonstrated by the number of titles he has on the market. He is one of Tanzania's most well-known authors and one of Africa's most prolific.
He has written more than 30 books (since 1999) mostly about Africa during the post-colonial period, and has been described as a political scientist although his works defy classification. He has written about history, politics, economics, as well as contemporary and international affairs from an African and Third World perspective and is known for such works as Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, and Africa and the West.
Both have been favourably reviewed in a number of publications including the highly influential West Africa magazine (founded in 1917 and based in London
) which reviewed two of his books in the same year; a rare accomplishment in such a major publication.
The books were reviewed by West Africa magazine editor Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, a Ghanaian who also once was a visiting lecturer and scholar-in-residence at the University of Botswana
. They were excellent reviews.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, his magnum opus and probably his most well-known title, was reviewed by West Africa magazine in 2002 three years after Nyerere died of leukemia in October 1999 at the age of 772.
It was also reviewed by the Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in October 2002 and is seen as a comprehensive work, in scope and depth, on Nyerere3.
Others who have reviewed the book include Professor A.B. Assensoh, a Ghanaian teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. He reviewed the first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era in the African Studies Review, an academic journal of the African Studies Association, in 2003.
The same book was also reviewed by Professor Roger Southall of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), formerly of Rhodes University, South Africa, in the bi-annual interdisciplinary publication, the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Taylor & Francis Group), 22, No. 3, in 2004. Professor Southall is also editor of the journal.
The first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era was published in November 2002, and the second, an expanded edition, in January 2005. The third edition, also an expanded version, was published in November 2006. And the fourth edition, also expanded, was published in December 2008.
The book has also been cited by a number of African leaders including South African Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
in one of her speeches about African leadership and development in which she quotes the author4.
She was the main speaker at a conference of African leaders, diplomats and scholars at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa in September 2006 when she gave her speech.
Although his books have been able to get the attention of some African leaders, it is impossible to know if they have had any influence on any of them. But the mere fact that they are cited by them shows that he is taken seriously as an author, not only in Tanzania but also in other African countries and elsewhere.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's other book, Africa and the West, which is a sweeping survey of the continent before the advent of colonial rule and during the colonial era as well as after independence, was also reviewed by West Africa magazine in its edition of 21–27 January 2002.5.
The book, which was published in 2000, has been described as an appeal to Africans to respect their cultures, values and traditions and take a firm stand against alien ideas which pollute African minds and undermine Africa
. It is also a philosophical text used in a number of colleges and universities in the study of African identity, philosophy and history. It is also a strong condemnation of the conquest of Africa by the imperial powers.
West Africa magazine, in its January 2002 edition, also described Godfrey Mwakikagile as an author who articulates the position of African Renaissance
thinkers.
And one American journalist who interviewed him described him as an independent scholar who was also a widely read and highly regarded author.
Godfrey Mwakikagile responded by saying that he was just an ordinary African, like tens of millions of others, deeply concerned about the plight of his continent.
But there is no question that he is a serious writer whose writings are widely read even if he considers himself to be just an ordinary African like millions of his brethren across the continent and elsewhere.
He has also been invited to give lectures at different universities because of the books he has written. And his role as a public intellectual has been demonstrated in other ways. For example, he has been sought for interviews by BBC
, PBS (America's public television network), and by Voice of America
(VOA), among other media outlets. This is documented in the interview he had with the American journalist.
The interview, which focused on Julius Nyerere as a leader and on other subjects about Africa, is reprinted in its entirety in one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
Although he has been exposed to Western cultures, was educated in the Western intellectual tradition and even lived in the United States for many years, his perspectives and philosophical conceptions have undoubtedly been shaped by his African upbringing and are deeply rooted in African cultures and traditions. And he rejects the notion that Africa was a blank slate until Europeans came to write on it.
He passionately argues that the history written about Africa by Europeans when they first went to Africa and even during colonial rule as well as after independence is not African history but the history of Europeans in Africa and how they see Africa and Africans from their European perspective or perspectives.
He also contends that traditional Africa has produced philosophers and other original thinkers whose knowledge and ideas - including ideas at a high level of abstraction - can match and even surpass the best in the West and elsewhere in the world. He forcefully articulates that position in his book, Africa and The West6.
And although he sees Africa as an indivisible whole, he also argues that all nations, include those in Africa, have different national characters. He looks at the concept of national character in the African context in one of his books, Kenya: Identity of A Nation, and makes a compelling case for this idea which is sometimes highly controversial. The work is, among other subjects, a study of comparative analysis in which the author looks at the national characters of Kenya and Tanzania, thus demonstrating that nations do indeed have different national characters and have been that way throughout history.
He undoubtedly has strong convictions but does not neatly fit into any ideological category. He expresses strong Pan-Africanist views in his writings and sees Africa as a collective entity and one organic body and has strongly been influenced by staunch Pan-Africanist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah
, Julius Nyerere
, Sekou Toure and Patrice Lumumba
whom he also strongly admires7.
He says Africa does not have those kind of leaders anymore.
He also strongly admires Thomas Sankara as a man of the people like Nyerere and contends that among the new breed of African leaders, Sankara - who has been described as the African Che Guevara - showed great promise but was eliminated by some of his so-called compatriots working for France and other Western powers before he could realise his full potential the same way Lumumba was, eliminated by the United States and Belgium. Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about Thomas Sankara in his book Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in African Countries among other works.
But some of his critics contend that he overlooks or glosses over the shortcomings of these leaders precisely because they are liberation icons and played a leading role in the struggle for independence and against white minority rule in Southern Africa
8.
He also seems to be "trapped" in the past, in liberation days, especially in the seventies when the struggle against white minority rule was most intense. But that may be for understandable reasons9.
He was a part of that generation when the liberation struggle was going on and some of his views have unquestionably been shaped by what happened during those days as his admiration for Robert Mugabe
, for example, as a liberation icon clearly shows; although he also admits in his book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe
could have been implemented in an orderly fashion and in a peaceful way and without disrupting the economy.
But his admiration for Mugabe
as a true African nationalist and Pan-Africanist remains intact; a position that does not sit well with some of his critics although he does not condone despotic rule as he clearly states in his writings.
He admires Mugabe mostly as a freedom fighter and liberation hero who freed his people from colonial rule and racial oppression and exploitation, and as a strong leader who has taken a firm and an uncompromising stand against Western domination of Africa.
And by remarkable contrast, his contempt for African leaders whom he sees as whites with a black skin also remains intact. He mentions Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda as a typical example of those leaders10.
He has written about Dr. Banda and other African leaders, among other subjects, in his book, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood.
Godfrey Mwakikagile also contends that only a few African leaders - Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Nasser, Ben Bella and Modibo Keita - strove to achieve genuine independence for their countries and for Africa as a whole and exercised a remarkable degree of independence in their dealings with world powers. And Mugabe is the only African leader today who fits this category, in spite of his shortcomings.
According to Ben Bella, the six leaders - Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Nasser, Modibo Keita and Ben Bella himself - constituted what came to be known as "The Group of Six" within the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In an interview in Switzerland in 1995 with Jorge G. Castañeda, the author of Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, Ben Bella said the six leaders worked together secretly within the OAU on a number of issues including the Congo and African liberation, excluding other African leaders. It is a subject Godfrey Mwakikagile has also addressed in his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's background as a Tanzanian has played a major role in his assessment of many African leaders because of the central role his country played in the liberation struggle in the countries of Southern Africa, and not just in South Africa
- the bastion of white minority rule on the continent.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is one of the African leaders who have had strong ties to Tanzania, Godfrey Mwakikagile's home country, since liberation days. Others with strong ties to Tanzania include Thabo Mbeki
, former president of South Africa; Joaquim Chissano
, former president of Mozambique
; and Sam Nujoma
, former president of Namibia
.
They included Joaquim Chissano who was the head of the FRELIMO office in Dar es Salaam and who later became the minister of foreign affairs and then president of Mozambique when his country won independence after 500 years of Portuguese
colonial rule.
Many other freedom fighters who were based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, also went on to become national leaders in their respective countries after the end of white minority rule in Southern Africa. And they all still have strong ties to Tanzania even today.
In his seminal work, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written extensively about the liberation struggle, and the liberation movements, in Southern Africa in what is probably one of the best accounts of that critical phase in the history of Africa. He has also, in the same book, written an excellent analysis of the Congo Crisis
during the turbulent sixties.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has also written a book about the struggle against apartheid and the end of white minority rule in South Africa and on the prospects and challenges the country faces in the post-apartheid era. The work is entitled, South Africa in Contemporary Times.
The years he spent on the editorial staff at the Standard and the Daily News were critical to his future career as a writer. Those were his formative years, and had he not become a news reporter, his life, and his career as an author, might have taken a different turn.
As he states in Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, he was first hired by renowned British journalist David Martin who was the deputy managing and news editor of the Tanganyika Standard. The managing editor was Brendon Grimshaw also British who, in the seventies, bought Moyenne Island in the Seychelles and became its only permanent inhabitant. Brendon Grimshaw also played a major role in recruiting Godfrey Mwakikagile as a member of the editorial staff at the Standard.
It was a turning point in Godfrey Mwakikagile's life.
That was in June 1969 when he was a student at Tambaza High School in Dar es Salaam. He was 19 years old and probably the youngest reporter on the editorial staff at the Standard during that time.
The Standard which was renamed Daily News in 1970 was the largest English newspaper in Tanzania and one of the largest and most influential in East Africa. And it served Godfrey Mwakikagile well, not only in terms of providing him with an opportunity to sharpen his writing skills but also - after it became the Daily News - in helping him to go to school in the United States where he became an author many years after he graduated from college.
David Martin, when he worked at the Tanganyika Standard and at the Daily News, and thereafter, was the most prominent foreign journalist in Eastern and Southern Africa in the sixties and seventies. And he wrote extensively about the liberation struggle in the region for the London
Observer and for BBC
.
He went to the combat zone with FRELIMO guerrilla fighters in Mozambique many times and also covered the Angolan civil war
for BBC and for CBC
(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
He knew and worked closely with all the leaders of the liberation movements including Robert Mugabe, Dr. Eduardo Mondlane
, president of FRELIMO, who was assassinated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in February 1969; and Mondlane's successor Samora Machel
who died in a mysterious plane crash in 1986 when he was president of Mozambique.
The plane crashed on the South African side of the border with Mozambique and the apartheid regime was suspected of having caused the "accident." He was succeeded by Mozambique's foreign affairs minister, Joaquim Chissano, as president.
David Martin was also very close to many Tanzanian leaders including President Julius Nyerere, and President Benjamin Mkapa who was also his close friend for many years since the sixties when they worked together in the media.
He also interviewed President Kenneth Kaunda
of Zambia
many times during the liberation struggle when many freedom fighters were based in that country and used it as an operational base as they did Tanzania.
He wrote more than 20 books. He died at his home in Harare
, Zimbabwe
, in August 2007, where he went to live after Zimbabwe won independence in April 1980.
President Mugabe delivered an official condolence message and David Martin was accorded a state-assisted funeral in recognition of his works exposing apartheid South Africa's destabalisation campaign in neighbouring countries, racial brutalities and injustices under white minority regimes throughout Southern Africa and for his outstanding role as a champion of racial equality.
The report of his death which included President Robert Mugabe's long message of condolence on behalf of the government and the ruling party ZANU-PF was published in the Zimbabwean government-owned newspaper, The Herald, 22 August 2007, and was headlined, "President Mourns David Martin."
Another report on David Martin's contributions as a journalist when he reported extensively on the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, and on his support for regional integration
of the countries in that part of the continent after the end of white minority rule, was published in the same paper on August 24 and headlined, "Martin - Man of Many Talents."
He was buried in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Mozambican President Armando Guebuza
and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa were some of the African leaders who sent condolence messages.
Zimbabwean government leaders including cabinet members, Tanzanian officials, war veterans who fought for Zimbabwe's independence during the liberation struggle in the sixties and seventies, and diplomats, attended the funeral, according to The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 August 2007, in a report headlined, "Martin Laid to Rest."
David Martin often said he credited his education to the 10 years he spent working as a journalist in Tanzania and was inspired by President Nyerere and by the liberation leaders and movements based there. He interviewed many of those leaders many times during the liberation struggle and thereafter.
In his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about David Martin and the role he played as a journalist during the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. But David Martin was also instrumental in opening the door for Godfrey Mwakikagile into the world of journalism, writing everyday, after which both became successful writers.
As Godfrey Mwakikagile himself has stated in his books including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Africa after Independence: Realities of Nationhood, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in Africa is in A Mess and others, his background as a news reporter which included meeting deadlines when writing news articles prepared him for the rigorous task of writing books.
, a legendary figure, liberation icon and staunch Pan-Africanist and one of the most influential and most respected leaders Africa has ever produced, whose socialist policies he has also defended in his writings because of the egalitarian ideals they instilled in the people of Tanzania enabling them to form a peaceful, cohesive nation in which they saw themselves as one people and equal in terms of rights and dignity as fellow human beings in spite of the poverty they endured under ujamaa
, Nyerere's African version of socialism
.
Yet, in spite of his admiration for liberation icons, he also is highly critical of African leaders from the same generation who led their countries to independence, contending that most of them did not care about the well-being of their people; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings11.
He sometimes seems to be a contradictory character, or simply difficult to understand, but he is actually torn between two worlds because of the generation to which he belongs, having been born before independence and partly brought up under colonial rule. He even wrote a book, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, about those years.
One of his critics has described him as a shrewd intellectual in defence of liberation icons and accuses him of not being intellectually honest about leaders such as Nyerere and Nkrumah for not criticising them harshly for their failures12.
In a way, some people may see him as a complex character not always easy to understand, although he articulates his position clearly and forcefully.
Some of the confusion among his readers about his position on African leaders of the independence generation has to do with his own background since he was an integral part of that generation in the sense that he witnessed the end of colonial rule and the emergence of the newly independent African states although he was not old enough to have participated in the independence struggle himself13.
He admires the leaders who led their countries to independence, yet he is highly critical of them in most cases for their failures during the post-colonial period. He admires many aspects of Nyerere's socialist policies in Tanzania, yet concedes the policies were also a failure in many cases. And he strongly favours fundamental change in African countries, yet he is nostalgic about the past14.
His advocacy for fundamental change is articulated in many of his writings including The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, which was published in 2001 and which is also one of his most well-known books.
In his review of the book, Ronald Taylor-Lewis, [born of a Sierra Leonean father] and editor of Mano Vision magazine, London
, described it as a masterpiece of fact and analysis15.
The book has also been reviewed in other publications. Tana Worku Anglana reviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile's Modern African State: Quest for Transformation in Articolo and described it as unbiased literature16.
Other people have also cited the book in their different analyses of the African condition. They include Dr. Elavie Ndura, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, who used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, among other works, in supporting her central thesis in her study, "Transcending The Majority Rights and Minority Protection Dichotomy Through Multicultural Reflective Citizenship in The African Great Lakes Region," in Intercultural Education, Vol. 17, No. 2, published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, in May 2006.
Professor Elavie Ndura, a Hutu from Burundi
where her family experienced genocide, has taught for many years at a number of schools in the United States, including the University of Nevada-Reno and George Mason University.
Ethnic conflicts in Rwanda
and Burundi between the Hutu
and the Tutsi
is one of the subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed extensively in his book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation.
In many of his writings, Godfrey Mwakikagile focuses on internal factors - including corruption, tribalism
and tyranny by African leaders - as the main cause of Africa's predicament, but not to the total exclusion of external forces.
And the position he articulates in his writings on many issues is cited by other people to support their arguments in their works. One of the works in which Godfrey Mwakikagile is cited and quoted is a compiled study by Professor Robert H. Bates, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa: Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in February 2008.
Godfrey Mwakikagile is also quoted by Professors Robert Elgie and Sophie Moestrup in their book, Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe: A Comparative Study - Routledge Research in Comparative Politics, Routledge, 2007; Mueni wa Muiu and Guy Martin in A New Paradigm of the African State: Fundi wa Afrika, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Minabere Ibelema, The African Press, Civic Cynicism, and Democracy - The PalgraveMacmillan Series in International Political Communication, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; James Crawford and Vaughan Lowe in British Yearbook of International Law 2005: Volume 76, Oxford University Press, 2007, and in other works.
Others who have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile and his works include Professor Robert I. Rotberg of Harvard University who once taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He used Godfrey Mwakikagle's book Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, among other works, to document his study, Crafting The New Nigeria: Confronting The Challenges, a book that was published in 2004.
Other researchers and scholars who have cited and quoted Godfrey Mwakikagile in their works include Gabi Hesselbein, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, and James Putzel
, in their study, "Economic and Political Foundations of State-making in Africa: Understanding State Reconstruction", Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2006; E.M. Poff, "Liberal Democracy and Multiethnic States: A Case Study of Ethnic Politics in Kenya," Ohio University, 2008; PJ McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," Armed Forces and Society, Sage Publications, 2006; Christopher Richard Kilford, in his doctoral dissertation, "The Other Cold War," Queens University, Canada, 2009; Martin P. Mathews, in his book, Nigeria: Current Issues and Historical Background, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2002; Michael Kweku Addison, "Preventing Military Intervention in West Africa: A Case Study of Ghana," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA, 2002; Isidore Okpewho and N Nzegwu, in their book, The New African Diaspora, Indiana University Press, 2009; C.M. Brown, S. Reader and G. Lober, "US National Security Interests in Africa and The Future Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA, 2005.
Others who also have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile in their studies in different analytical contexts include Rajend Methrie, "South Africa: The Rocky Road to National Building," in a book, Andrew Simpson, Language and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2008; Valéria Cristina Salles, "Social Representations Informing Discourse of Young Leaders: A Case Study of Tanzania," University of Cape Town, 2005; L.B. Inniss, "A Domestic Right of Return? Race, Rights, and Residency in New Orleans in the Aftermath of Katrina," in the Boston College Third World Law Journal, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2007; Eric M. Edi, in his book, Globalization and Politics in the Economic Community of West African States (Carolina Academic Press Studies on Globalization and Society), Carolina Academic Press, 2007; James John Chikago, in his book, Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Analysis and Solutions to Poverty Reduction, 2003; James Kwesi Anquandah, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, and Michel R. Doortmont, in their book, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Landmarks, Legacies, Expectations, Sub-Saharan Publishers, Accra, Ghana, 2007; Luciana Ricciutelli, Angela Rose Miles, Margaret McFadden in their book, Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges, Zed Books, London, 2005; Emmanuel Ike Udogu, in his book, African Renaissance in the Millennium: The Political, Social, and Economic Discourses on the Way Forward, Lexington Books, New York, 2007; and others.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books have been used by many other scholars in different analytical contexts in a number of countries in the Third World
and in industrialised nations.
And his diagnosis of - and prescription for - Africa's ailments has also been cited by scholars and other people for its relevance in other parts of the Third World. As Dr. Hengene Payani, a political scientist at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby
, Papua New Guinea
, stated in his review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Africa is in A Mess on amazon.com, the book is excellent, honest and thought-provoking and is relevant even in the context of Papua New Guinea, a country which has been ruined by greedy politicians. He also contacted Godfrey Mwakikagile to congratulate him for his work.
Although he has written mostly about Africa, and as a political scientist or as a political analyst, his works cover a wide range of scholarship including American studies.
One of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Black Conservatives in The United States, has been cited by Christopher Alan Bracey, a professor of law and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, in support of his research when he also wrote a book about black conservatives entitled Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice, published in February 2008.
But there are limitations to the role played by people like Godfrey Mwakikagile in their quest for fundamental change in African countries. Their contribution is limited in one fundamental respect: They are not actively involved with the masses at the grassroots level precisely because of what they are. They belong to an elite class, and the concepts they expound as well as the solutions they propose are discussed mainly by fellow elites but rarely implemented.
This should not be misconstrued as unwarranted criticism of Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings or the role he plays in the quest for fundamental change in Africa. It is mere acknowledgement of the limitations he faces in his attempt to accomplish this task in conjunction with his brethren across the continent.
Still, there is no question that in many cases, only a few members of the African elite have played and continue to play the role of intellectual activists like Dr. Walter Rodney
who wrote his best-selling book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in the early 1970s when he was teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; coincidentally during the same period when Godfrey Mwakikagile was a member of the editorial staff at the Daily News in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam.
Before he went to Tanzania, Dr. Walter Rodney was actively involved with the masses when he taught at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, in Jamaica
in the late sixties. He was also expelled from Jamaica by the government because of his political and intellectual activism and went to Tanzania in 1968 to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam in a country where his views and his role as an activist intellectual found acceptance under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere who was a superb intellectual himself and who was acknowledged as one even by some of his critics such as Kenyan Professor Ali Mazrui
.
In his book On Heroes and Uhuru-Worship: Essays on Independent Africa and in his other writings, Professor Mazrui has described Nyerere as the most original thinker among all the leaders in Anglophone Africa, and Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor
in Francophone Africa. Mazrui has also described Nyerere as the most intellectual of the East African presidents, an attribute which enabled Walter Rodney to thrive in Tanzania as an intellectual activist.
And in an interview with The Gambia Echo in February 2008, Professor Mazrui said:
"Intellectually, I admired Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania higher than most politicians anywhere in the world. Nyerere and I also met more often over the years from 1967 to 1997 approximately. I am also a great fan of Nelson Mandela. By ethical standards Mandela is greater than Nyerere; but by intellectual standards Nyerere is greater than Mandela."
Professor Ali Mazrui also paid glowing tribute to Nyerere when Nyerere died in October 1999. In his article "Nyerere and I," Ali Mazrui had this to say about Nyerere: "He was one of the giants of the 20th century....He did bestride this narrow world like an African colossus."
Professor Walter Rodney himself was a great admirer of Nyerere as a leader and as an intellectual even before he went to Tanzania to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam.
After Rodney left Tanzania in 1974 and returned to Guyana
, he continued to be actively involved with the workers at the grassroots level until he was assassinated in June 1980 by a government agent when Guyana was under the leadership of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham
.
Most African intellectuals don't do that. They don't work with the masses at the grassroots level. And that severely limits their role as agents of dynamic and fundamental change in Africa.
African writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other intellectuals are also severely compromised in their mission because most African leaders don't want to change. Therefore they don't listen to them—in many cases the entire state apparatus needs to be dismantled to bring about meaningful change.
But, in spite of their limitations and the obstacles they face, many African writers and other intellectuals still play a very important role in articulating a clear vision for the future of Africa. And Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings definitely fit this category because of his analysis of the African condition and the solutions he proposes, although he is not a political activist like other African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o
in neighbouring Kenya
or Wole Soyinka
in Nigeria
.
But even they - had to flee their homelands, at different times, for their own safety, in spite of the courage they had to contend with the political establishment in their home countries, and sought sanctuary overseas although that has not been the case with Godfrey Mwakikagile and many other Africans who once lived, have lived or continue to live in other countries or outside Africa for different reasons.
Writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other members of the African elite have a major role to play in the development of Africa. They do have an impact on constructive dialogue involving national issues. But it is not the kind of impact that reverberates across the spectrum all the way down to the grassroots level precisely because they are not an integral part of the masses, and also because they are not actively involved with the masses to transform society.
So, while they generate ideas, they have not been able to effectively transmit those ideas to the masses without whose involvement fundamental change in Africa is impossible, except at the top, recycling the elite. And while they identify with the masses in terms of suffering and as fellow Africans, many of them - not all but many of them - have not and still don't make enough sacrifices in their quest for social and political transformation of African countries. And Godfrey Mwakikagile is fully aware of these shortcomings, and apparent contradictions, in the role played by the African elite. He's one himself.
Yet, he has not explicitly stated so in his writings concerning this problem of African intellectuals; a dilemma similar to the one faced by the black intelligentsia in the United States and which was addressed by Harold Cruse
, an internationally renowned black American professor who taught at the University of Michigan
for many years, in his monumental study, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual. The book was first published in 1967 at the peak of the civil rights movement
, five years before Godfrey Mwakikagile went to the United States for the first time as a student.
But that does not really explain why Godfrey Mwakikagile has not fully addressed the subject, the dilemma African intellectuals face in their quest for fundamental change, especially in his books - The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Done, and Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood - which are almost exclusively devoted to such transformation in Africa in the post-colonial era.
African leaders have failed Africa. But African intellectuals themselves have not done enough to help transform Africa into a better society.
Still, Godfrey Mwakikagile belongs to a group of African writers and the African elite who believe that the primary responsibility of transforming Africa lies in the hands of the Africans themselves, and not foreigners, and that acknowledgement of mistakes by African leaders is one of the first steps towards bringing about much-needed change in African countries; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings. For example, Political Science Professor Claude E. Welch at the State University of New York-Buffalo, in his review of one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books - Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties - published in the African Studies Review (Vol. 45, No. 3, December 2002) described the author as being merciless in his condemnation of African tyrants.
The same book was also cited by James C. Owens of the University of Virginia in his article, "Government failure
in Sub-Saharan Africa: The International Community's Response," in the Virginia Journal of International Law, 2002. He used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, among other works, to document the failure of leadership in many African countries in the post-colonial era.
And that is valid criticism of African leadership in post-colonial Africa by Godfrey Mwakikagile. Corrupt and despotic rulers don't deserve mercy. They don't deserve sympathy. They are not entitled to it. They have destroyed Africa.
Unfortunately, because of its vitriolic condemnation of most African leaders during the post-colonial era, the book has been cited by some people, who obviously have not read it well if at all, as a clarion call for the re-colonisation of Africa (because things are so bad, colonial rule was better) although the author says exactly the opposite in his work17.
One of the people he has quoted in his book articulating a similar position is Moeletsi Mbeki, the younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who said in September 2004 that Africans were better off under colonial rule than they are today under African leadership in the post-colonial period.
Mbeki also said African leaders and bureaucrats are busy stealing money and keeping it in foreign countries while colonial rulers built and maintained the infrastructure and ran their African colonies efficiently. He was quoted by BBC Africa in a report, on what he said, entitled "Better Colonial Times" published on 22 September 2004.
Yet in spite of all that, Godfrey Mwakikagile unequivocally states in his book, Africa is in A Mess, that he does not support any attempt or scheme, by anybody, to recolonise Africa, but also bluntly states that African countries have lost their sovereignty to donor nations and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) dominated by Western powers including those who once colonised Africa and are therefore virtual colonies already.
He also contends that African countries have really never been free in spite of the instruments of sovereignty they are supposed to have. And in one of his books, Investment Opportunities and Private Sector Growth in Africa, he warns about the dangers of the Second Scramble for Africa by the industrialised nations which are busy exploiting Africa's resources for their own benefit and contends that globalisation is in many ways a new form of imperialism.
Yet he has wrongly been portrayed, along with some prominent African and European scholars including Professor Ali Mazrui
, Christoph Blocher
, Mahmood Mamdani
, Peter Niggli, and R. W. Johnson as someone who advocates the recolonisation of Africa18.
Godfrey Mwakikagile says exactly the opposite in his book Africa is in A Mess.
In fact, the title, although not the sub-title, comes from President Julius Nyerere who said exactly the same words in 1985: "Africa is in a mess."
Godfrey Mwakikagile explicitly states that in his book, saying he got the title from Nyerere's statement and felt it was appropriate for his work, although the tone and content might be disturbing to some people. He is brutally frank about the continent's deplorable condition.
But the book echoes the sentiments of tens of millions of Africans across the continent who live in misery and those who are frustrated by lack of fundamental change in African leadership notorious for corruption and other vices including tribalism and tyranny as Godfrey Mwakikagile bluntly states in his work.
His fellow Africans who have reviewed the book on amazon.com
and elsewhere in different publications and on the Internet strongly support the author and share his concerns about Africa's plight and the misguided leadership the continent has had to endure for decades since independence19.
One African reviewer, Mona Kabba, a member of Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabba's family, also contacted the author to congratulate him for writing such an honest book, as she stated in her review of the book on amazon.com. And she provided an additional perspective, as an insider, that shed more light on Africa's predicament in her review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Africa is in A Mess, and said she was going to work with him on a joint project about Africa.
And in the same book, Africa is in A Mess, Godfrey Mwakikagile is also highly critical of Western powers for ruthlessly exploiting Africa even today in collusion with many African leaders.
His other books have also been reviewed in the African Studies Review and in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. They include Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation which were reviewed in the African Studies Review; and Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era which was also reviewed in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.
See also an analysis of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, in A. Simpson and B. Akintunde Oyetade, "Nigeria: Ethno-linguistic Competition in the Giant of Africa," published in Language and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 172 – 198; and Godfrey Mwakikagile's Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties in P.J. McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," in Armed Forces & Society, Sage Publications, in 2006.
For more reviews of his books, see also Expo Times, Sierra Leone; The Mirror, Zimbabwe, and other publications including those featured on the Internet21.
He has also written about race relations in the United States and relations between continental Africans and people of African descent in the diaspora. His titles in these areas include Black Conservatives in The United States; Relations Between Africans and African Americans; and Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books are found in public and university libraries around the world and have been adopted for class use at many colleges and universities in the United States
and other countries. Most college and university libraries in the United States have his books.
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
n scholar, writer and specialist in African studies
African studies
African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and societies of Africa .The field includes the study of:Culture of Africa, History of Africa , Anthropology of Africa , Politics of Africa, Economy of Africa African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and...
.
Childhood
He was born in the town of KigomaKigoma
Kigoma is a town and lake port in western Tanzania, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika and close to the border with Burundi. It serves as the capital for the surrounding Kigoma Region and has a population of 135,234 and an elevation of 775 m.The historic trading town of Ujiji is 6 km...
in western Tanzania - what was then Tanganyika
Tanganyika
Tanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...
- on 4 October 1949 and was baptised Godfrey about two months later on Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
day, 25 December 1949, as a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) among whose supporters was Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
explorer and missionary-doctor, Dr. David Livingstone
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
of the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
. Dr. Livingstone campaigned against slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
and the slave trade but also helped pave the way for the colonisation of Africa.
As Godfrey Mwakikagile states in one of his books Africa and America in The Sixties which is partly autobiographical and - among other subjects - also covers members of the baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
generation including himself born after the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was, according to his birth certificate, baptised by Reverend Frank McGorlick (from Victoria, Australia), a Scottish minister of the CMS Church in Kigoma his parents belonged to. But he was brought up as a member of the Moravian Church in Rungwe
Rungwe
Rungwe is one of the 8 districts of the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Mbeya Rural District, to the East by the Iringa Region, to the Southeast by the Kyela District, to the Southwest by the Ileje District and to the West by the Mbeya Urban District.According to the...
District in what was then the Southern Highlands Province in colonial Tanganyika.
He moved to Rungwe District with his parents when he was 5 years old after living in different parts of Tanganyika - Kigoma, Ujiji
Ujiji
Ujiji is the oldest town in western Tanzania, located about 6 miles south of Kigoma. In 1900, the population was estimated at 10,000 and in 1967 about 4,100. Part of the Kigoma/Ujiji urban area, the regional population was about 50,000 in 1978....
, Kilosa
Kilosa
Kilosa is one of the 6 districts of the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Tanga Region, to the East by the Mvomero District, to the South by the Kilombero District and to the West and Southwest by the Iringa Region....
, Morogoro
Morogoro
Morogoro is a city with an urban population of 206,868 in the southern highlands of Tanzania, 190 km west of Dar es Salaam. It is the capital of the Morogoro Region...
, and Mbeya
Mbeya
Mbeya is a city located in southwest Tanzania, Africa. Mbeya's urban population was 280,000 in 2005. Mbeya is the capital of the surrounding rural Mbeya region ....
- where his father worked as a medical assistant for the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colonial government. According to his autobiography, his father also worked at the Amani
Amani
Amani may refer to:Places*Amani, Greece, a municipality on the island of Chios*Amani Nature Reserve, in Tanzania*Amani High School, in Kabul, AfghanistanPeople*Amani , a singer from Kenya*Amani Toomer, an American football playerOther...
Research Institute in Amani, in Muheza
Muheza
Muheza is one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Kenya, to the east by the Tanga and the Indian Ocean, to the south by the Pangani District, and to the west by the Lushoto and Korogwe Districts....
, Handeni
Handeni
Handeni is one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania. It is bordered to the west by the Kilindi District, to the north by the Korogwe District, to the east by the Pangani District, and to the south by the Pwani Region...
, and Tanga
Tanga, Tanzania
Tanga is both the name of the most northerly seaport city of Tanzania, and the surrounding Tanga Region. It is the Regional Headquarters of the region.With a population of 243,580 in 2002, Tanga is one of the largest cities in the country...
before moving to Kigoma four months before Godfrey Mwakikagile was born. Rungwe was his parents' home district. Both were born and brought up in Rungwe District and were members of a tribe indigenous to that part of Tanzania.
Rungwe District, ringed by misty blue mountains, is close to the border with Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
and is located in the Great Rift Valley
Great Rift Valley
The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...
north of Lake Nyasa.
Godfrey Mwakikagile went to school in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
1.
Tanganyika united with Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
in 1964 to form Tanzania.
Early years
He attended primary school (up to Standard 4) at Kyimbila near the town of TukuyuTukuyu
Tukuyu is a small, of 50,000 inhabitants, hillside town that lies about south of the city of Mbeya, at an elevation of around in the highland Rungwe District of southern Tanzania, East Africa. The local language is colloquial Nyakyusa together with the national language Swahili. Secondary and...
and middle school (up to Standard 8) at Mpuguso in Rungwe District in Mbeya Region
Mbeya Region
Mbeya is one of Tanzania's 26 administrative regions. The regional capital is Mbeya. It is bordered to the northwest by Tabora Region, to the northeast by Singida Region, to the East by Iringa Region, to the South by Zambia and Malawi and to the West by Rukwa Region...
in the Southern Highlands, secondary school (up to Standard 12 or Form IV) at Songea
Songea
Songea is the capital of the Ruvuma Region in southeastern Tanzania. It is located along the A19 road. The city has a population of approximately 130,000, and is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Songea. Between 1905 and 1907 the city was a centre of African resistance during the Maji...
in Ruvuma Region
Ruvuma Region
Ruvuma is a region in Tanzania. It is named after the Ruvuma River which forms most of its southern boundary with Mozambique. It is also bordered to the North by the Morogoro Region, to the Northeast by the Lindi Region, to the East by the Mtwara Region and to the Northwest by the Iringa Region. ...
, and high school (up to Standard 14 or Form VI) at Tambaza in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
.
He once worked as a news reporter at the Standard, which was later renamed Daily News, and as an information officer at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam before going to school in the United States in November 1972.
He first joined the editorial staff of the Standard as a junior reporter when he was still in high school, in Form V, in 1969.
Coincidentally, his editor at the Daily News, Benjamin Mkapa
Benjamin Mkapa
Benjamin William Mkapa was the third President of the United Republic of Tanzania and former Chairman for the Revolutionary State Party .-Biography:...
, who also helped him to go to school in the United States, years later became president of Tanzania (1995–2005).
The president of Tanzania during that period, Julius Nyerere
Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
who led the country from 1961 to 1985, was the editor-in-chief of the Daily News. But his role was only ceremonial rather than functional.
Godfrey Mwakikagile graduated from Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
in Detroit in the state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, USA, in 1975.
He also attended Aquinas College
Aquinas College (Michigan)
Aquinas College is a small Catholic college that aims to provide a liberal arts education located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Aquinas is considered one of the best liberal arts colleges in the Midwest region by U.S. News and World Report ....
, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1976. One of his professors of economics at Aquinas College was Kenneth Marin who once worked in Tanzania.
It was just a coincidence that he went to Aquinas College where he ended up being taught by someone who had worked in Tanzania years before. He did not know anything about Professor Marin before then and met him at that school for the first time.
Professor Marin once worked as an economist for the government of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam in the late sixties and early seventies. He went to Tanzania in 1968 and served as an adviser to the government on capital mobilisation and utilisation. Before then, he worked as an economist for the United States federal government. He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
to serve on Wage and Price Control during the mid-sixties. President Johnson appointed Professor Kenneth Marin as a member of the White House Consumer Advisory Council.
In 1966, Professor Marin was a member of a U.S. State Department evaluation team that was assigned to review various performances in the economic and political arena in six South American countries.
Years later, one of his students, Godfrey Mwakikagile, also ended up writing about economics, among other subjects, mostly about Africa. And coincidentally, Mwakikagile's first book was also about economics.
Writings
Godfrey Mwakikagile came into prominence in Tanzania and elsewhere after he wrote a major book about Julius NyerereJulius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
not long after the former Tanzanian president died.
He is considered by many people, including those who have reviewed his books about President Nyerere in different newspapers, magazines and academic journals in a number of countries, to be an authority on Nyerere and one of his most prominent biographers.
One scholar who has cited Godfrey Mwakikagile as an authoritative source on President Nyerere is Professor David Simon who teaches development studies at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
and who is Director of the Centre for Development Areas Research at Royal Holloway College at the university. Professor Simon has published excerpts from Godfrey Mwakikagile's book on Nyerere in his compiled study, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development, published in 2005.
Professor David Simon is also editor of the scholarly Journal of Southern African Studies and is on the editorial staff of another academic publication, the Review of African Political Economy.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's works have been getting serious attention among many people including academics in many countries who have also reviewed some of his books in scholarly journals.
His first book, Economic Development in Africa, was published in 1999 and he has maintained a steady pace since then, writing books, as demonstrated by the number of titles he has on the market. He is one of Tanzania's most well-known authors and one of Africa's most prolific.
He has written more than 30 books (since 1999) mostly about Africa during the post-colonial period, and has been described as a political scientist although his works defy classification. He has written about history, politics, economics, as well as contemporary and international affairs from an African and Third World perspective and is known for such works as Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, and Africa and the West.
Both have been favourably reviewed in a number of publications including the highly influential West Africa magazine (founded in 1917 and based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) which reviewed two of his books in the same year; a rare accomplishment in such a major publication.
The books were reviewed by West Africa magazine editor Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, a Ghanaian who also once was a visiting lecturer and scholar-in-residence at the University of Botswana
University of Botswana
The University of Botswana, or UB was established in 1982 as the first institution of higher education in Botswana. The university has four campuses: two in the capital city Gaborone, one in Francistown, and another in Maun. The university is divided into six faculties: Business, Education,...
. They were excellent reviews.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, his magnum opus and probably his most well-known title, was reviewed by West Africa magazine in 2002 three years after Nyerere died of leukemia in October 1999 at the age of 772.
It was also reviewed by the Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in October 2002 and is seen as a comprehensive work, in scope and depth, on Nyerere3.
Others who have reviewed the book include Professor A.B. Assensoh, a Ghanaian teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. He reviewed the first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era in the African Studies Review, an academic journal of the African Studies Association, in 2003.
The same book was also reviewed by Professor Roger Southall of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), formerly of Rhodes University, South Africa, in the bi-annual interdisciplinary publication, the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Taylor & Francis Group), 22, No. 3, in 2004. Professor Southall is also editor of the journal.
The first edition of Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era was published in November 2002, and the second, an expanded edition, in January 2005. The third edition, also an expanded version, was published in November 2006. And the fourth edition, also expanded, was published in December 2008.
The book has also been cited by a number of African leaders including South African Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is a South African politician who was Deputy President of South Africa from 2005 to 2008. She was the first woman to hold the position and was the highest ranking woman in the history of South Africa...
in one of her speeches about African leadership and development in which she quotes the author4.
She was the main speaker at a conference of African leaders, diplomats and scholars at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa in September 2006 when she gave her speech.
Although his books have been able to get the attention of some African leaders, it is impossible to know if they have had any influence on any of them. But the mere fact that they are cited by them shows that he is taken seriously as an author, not only in Tanzania but also in other African countries and elsewhere.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's other book, Africa and the West, which is a sweeping survey of the continent before the advent of colonial rule and during the colonial era as well as after independence, was also reviewed by West Africa magazine in its edition of 21–27 January 2002.5.
The book, which was published in 2000, has been described as an appeal to Africans to respect their cultures, values and traditions and take a firm stand against alien ideas which pollute African minds and undermine Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. It is also a philosophical text used in a number of colleges and universities in the study of African identity, philosophy and history. It is also a strong condemnation of the conquest of Africa by the imperial powers.
West Africa magazine, in its January 2002 edition, also described Godfrey Mwakikagile as an author who articulates the position of African Renaissance
African Renaissance
The African Renaissance is the concept that African people and nations overcome the current challenges confronting the continent and achieve cultural, scientific, economic, etc. renewal. This concept has been popularized by South African President Thabo Mbeki during his term of office...
thinkers.
And one American journalist who interviewed him described him as an independent scholar who was also a widely read and highly regarded author.
Godfrey Mwakikagile responded by saying that he was just an ordinary African, like tens of millions of others, deeply concerned about the plight of his continent.
But there is no question that he is a serious writer whose writings are widely read even if he considers himself to be just an ordinary African like millions of his brethren across the continent and elsewhere.
He has also been invited to give lectures at different universities because of the books he has written. And his role as a public intellectual has been demonstrated in other ways. For example, he has been sought for interviews by BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, PBS (America's public television network), and by Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
(VOA), among other media outlets. This is documented in the interview he had with the American journalist.
The interview, which focused on Julius Nyerere as a leader and on other subjects about Africa, is reprinted in its entirety in one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
Although he has been exposed to Western cultures, was educated in the Western intellectual tradition and even lived in the United States for many years, his perspectives and philosophical conceptions have undoubtedly been shaped by his African upbringing and are deeply rooted in African cultures and traditions. And he rejects the notion that Africa was a blank slate until Europeans came to write on it.
He passionately argues that the history written about Africa by Europeans when they first went to Africa and even during colonial rule as well as after independence is not African history but the history of Europeans in Africa and how they see Africa and Africans from their European perspective or perspectives.
He also contends that traditional Africa has produced philosophers and other original thinkers whose knowledge and ideas - including ideas at a high level of abstraction - can match and even surpass the best in the West and elsewhere in the world. He forcefully articulates that position in his book, Africa and The West6.
And although he sees Africa as an indivisible whole, he also argues that all nations, include those in Africa, have different national characters. He looks at the concept of national character in the African context in one of his books, Kenya: Identity of A Nation, and makes a compelling case for this idea which is sometimes highly controversial. The work is, among other subjects, a study of comparative analysis in which the author looks at the national characters of Kenya and Tanzania, thus demonstrating that nations do indeed have different national characters and have been that way throughout history.
He undoubtedly has strong convictions but does not neatly fit into any ideological category. He expresses strong Pan-Africanist views in his writings and sees Africa as a collective entity and one organic body and has strongly been influenced by staunch Pan-Africanist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
, Julius Nyerere
Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
, Sekou Toure and Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis...
whom he also strongly admires7.
He says Africa does not have those kind of leaders anymore.
He also strongly admires Thomas Sankara as a man of the people like Nyerere and contends that among the new breed of African leaders, Sankara - who has been described as the African Che Guevara - showed great promise but was eliminated by some of his so-called compatriots working for France and other Western powers before he could realise his full potential the same way Lumumba was, eliminated by the United States and Belgium. Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about Thomas Sankara in his book Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in African Countries among other works.
But some of his critics contend that he overlooks or glosses over the shortcomings of these leaders precisely because they are liberation icons and played a leading role in the struggle for independence and against white minority rule in Southern Africa
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
8.
He also seems to be "trapped" in the past, in liberation days, especially in the seventies when the struggle against white minority rule was most intense. But that may be for understandable reasons9.
He was a part of that generation when the liberation struggle was going on and some of his views have unquestionably been shaped by what happened during those days as his admiration for Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
, for example, as a liberation icon clearly shows; although he also admits in his book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
could have been implemented in an orderly fashion and in a peaceful way and without disrupting the economy.
But his admiration for Mugabe
Mugabe
Mugabe can refer to:*Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe.*Sally Mugabe, first wife of Robert Mugabe.*Grace Mugabe, second wife of Robert Mugabe.*Omugabe , a title given to kings of Ankole of Uganda.*Mugabe Were, a Kenyan politician....
as a true African nationalist and Pan-Africanist remains intact; a position that does not sit well with some of his critics although he does not condone despotic rule as he clearly states in his writings.
He admires Mugabe mostly as a freedom fighter and liberation hero who freed his people from colonial rule and racial oppression and exploitation, and as a strong leader who has taken a firm and an uncompromising stand against Western domination of Africa.
And by remarkable contrast, his contempt for African leaders whom he sees as whites with a black skin also remains intact. He mentions Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda as a typical example of those leaders10.
He has written about Dr. Banda and other African leaders, among other subjects, in his book, Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood.
Godfrey Mwakikagile also contends that only a few African leaders - Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Nasser, Ben Bella and Modibo Keita - strove to achieve genuine independence for their countries and for Africa as a whole and exercised a remarkable degree of independence in their dealings with world powers. And Mugabe is the only African leader today who fits this category, in spite of his shortcomings.
According to Ben Bella, the six leaders - Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Nasser, Modibo Keita and Ben Bella himself - constituted what came to be known as "The Group of Six" within the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In an interview in Switzerland in 1995 with Jorge G. Castañeda, the author of Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, Ben Bella said the six leaders worked together secretly within the OAU on a number of issues including the Congo and African liberation, excluding other African leaders. It is a subject Godfrey Mwakikagile has also addressed in his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's background as a Tanzanian has played a major role in his assessment of many African leaders because of the central role his country played in the liberation struggle in the countries of Southern Africa, and not just in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
- the bastion of white minority rule on the continent.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is one of the African leaders who have had strong ties to Tanzania, Godfrey Mwakikagile's home country, since liberation days. Others with strong ties to Tanzania include Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
, former president of South Africa; Joaquim Chissano
Joaquim Chissano
Joaquim Alberto Chissano served as the second President of Mozambique for nineteen years from 6 November 1986 until 2 February 2005. Since stepping down as president, Chissano has become an elder statesman and is called upon by international bodies, such as the United Nations, to be an envoy or...
, former president of Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
; and Sam Nujoma
Sam Nujoma
Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma is a Namibian politician who was the first President of Namibia from 1990 to 2005. He led the South-West Africa People's Organisation in its long struggle against South African rule and took office as President when Namibia obtained independence on 21 March 1990...
, former president of Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
.
Newspaper background
In those days, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was the headquarters of all the African liberation movements, under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere, and Godfrey Mwakikagile got the chance to know many of the freedom fighters who were based there when he worked as a young news reporter in the nation's capital.They included Joaquim Chissano who was the head of the FRELIMO office in Dar es Salaam and who later became the minister of foreign affairs and then president of Mozambique when his country won independence after 500 years of Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
colonial rule.
Many other freedom fighters who were based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, also went on to become national leaders in their respective countries after the end of white minority rule in Southern Africa. And they all still have strong ties to Tanzania even today.
In his seminal work, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written extensively about the liberation struggle, and the liberation movements, in Southern Africa in what is probably one of the best accounts of that critical phase in the history of Africa. He has also, in the same book, written an excellent analysis of the Congo Crisis
Congo Crisis
The Congo Crisis was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu...
during the turbulent sixties.
Godfrey Mwakikagile has also written a book about the struggle against apartheid and the end of white minority rule in South Africa and on the prospects and challenges the country faces in the post-apartheid era. The work is entitled, South Africa in Contemporary Times.
The years he spent on the editorial staff at the Standard and the Daily News were critical to his future career as a writer. Those were his formative years, and had he not become a news reporter, his life, and his career as an author, might have taken a different turn.
As he states in Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, he was first hired by renowned British journalist David Martin who was the deputy managing and news editor of the Tanganyika Standard. The managing editor was Brendon Grimshaw also British who, in the seventies, bought Moyenne Island in the Seychelles and became its only permanent inhabitant. Brendon Grimshaw also played a major role in recruiting Godfrey Mwakikagile as a member of the editorial staff at the Standard.
It was a turning point in Godfrey Mwakikagile's life.
That was in June 1969 when he was a student at Tambaza High School in Dar es Salaam. He was 19 years old and probably the youngest reporter on the editorial staff at the Standard during that time.
The Standard which was renamed Daily News in 1970 was the largest English newspaper in Tanzania and one of the largest and most influential in East Africa. And it served Godfrey Mwakikagile well, not only in terms of providing him with an opportunity to sharpen his writing skills but also - after it became the Daily News - in helping him to go to school in the United States where he became an author many years after he graduated from college.
David Martin, when he worked at the Tanganyika Standard and at the Daily News, and thereafter, was the most prominent foreign journalist in Eastern and Southern Africa in the sixties and seventies. And he wrote extensively about the liberation struggle in the region for the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Observer and for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
He went to the combat zone with FRELIMO guerrilla fighters in Mozambique many times and also covered the Angolan civil war
Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War was a major civil conflict in the Southern African state of Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken...
for BBC and for CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
He knew and worked closely with all the leaders of the liberation movements including Robert Mugabe, Dr. Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane served as President of the Mozambican Liberation Front from 1962, the year that FRELIMO was founded in Tanzania, until his assassination in 1969.-Early life:...
, president of FRELIMO, who was assassinated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in February 1969; and Mondlane's successor Samora Machel
Samora Machel
Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique...
who died in a mysterious plane crash in 1986 when he was president of Mozambique.
The plane crashed on the South African side of the border with Mozambique and the apartheid regime was suspected of having caused the "accident." He was succeeded by Mozambique's foreign affairs minister, Joaquim Chissano, as president.
David Martin was also very close to many Tanzanian leaders including President Julius Nyerere, and President Benjamin Mkapa who was also his close friend for many years since the sixties when they worked together in the media.
He also interviewed President Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth David Kaunda, known as KK, served as the first President of Zambia, from 1964 to 1991.-Early life:Kaunda was the youngest of eight children. He was born at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali, Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia...
of Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
many times during the liberation struggle when many freedom fighters were based in that country and used it as an operational base as they did Tanzania.
He wrote more than 20 books. He died at his home in Harare
Harare
Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, in August 2007, where he went to live after Zimbabwe won independence in April 1980.
President Mugabe delivered an official condolence message and David Martin was accorded a state-assisted funeral in recognition of his works exposing apartheid South Africa's destabalisation campaign in neighbouring countries, racial brutalities and injustices under white minority regimes throughout Southern Africa and for his outstanding role as a champion of racial equality.
The report of his death which included President Robert Mugabe's long message of condolence on behalf of the government and the ruling party ZANU-PF was published in the Zimbabwean government-owned newspaper, The Herald, 22 August 2007, and was headlined, "President Mourns David Martin."
Another report on David Martin's contributions as a journalist when he reported extensively on the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, and on his support for regional integration
Regional integration
Regional integration is a process in which states enter into a regional agreement in order to enhance regional cooperation through regional institutions and rules...
of the countries in that part of the continent after the end of white minority rule, was published in the same paper on August 24 and headlined, "Martin - Man of Many Talents."
He was buried in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Mozambican President Armando Guebuza
Armando Guebuza
Armando Emílio Guebuza is a Mozambican politician and the President of Mozambique since 2005.- Career :Armando Emílio Guebuza was born in 20 January 1943 in Portuguese East Africa...
and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa were some of the African leaders who sent condolence messages.
Zimbabwean government leaders including cabinet members, Tanzanian officials, war veterans who fought for Zimbabwe's independence during the liberation struggle in the sixties and seventies, and diplomats, attended the funeral, according to The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 August 2007, in a report headlined, "Martin Laid to Rest."
David Martin often said he credited his education to the 10 years he spent working as a journalist in Tanzania and was inspired by President Nyerere and by the liberation leaders and movements based there. He interviewed many of those leaders many times during the liberation struggle and thereafter.
In his book Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Godfrey Mwakikagile has written about David Martin and the role he played as a journalist during the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. But David Martin was also instrumental in opening the door for Godfrey Mwakikagile into the world of journalism, writing everyday, after which both became successful writers.
As Godfrey Mwakikagile himself has stated in his books including Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Africa after Independence: Realities of Nationhood, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties and in Africa is in A Mess and others, his background as a news reporter which included meeting deadlines when writing news articles prepared him for the rigorous task of writing books.
Criticism of post-colonial Africa
Godfrey Mwakikagile lived and grew up under the leadership of Tanzanian President Julius NyerereJulius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
, a legendary figure, liberation icon and staunch Pan-Africanist and one of the most influential and most respected leaders Africa has ever produced, whose socialist policies he has also defended in his writings because of the egalitarian ideals they instilled in the people of Tanzania enabling them to form a peaceful, cohesive nation in which they saw themselves as one people and equal in terms of rights and dignity as fellow human beings in spite of the poverty they endured under ujamaa
Ujamaa
Ujamaa was the concept that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania just after it gained independence from Britain in 1961...
, Nyerere's African version of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
.
Yet, in spite of his admiration for liberation icons, he also is highly critical of African leaders from the same generation who led their countries to independence, contending that most of them did not care about the well-being of their people; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings11.
He sometimes seems to be a contradictory character, or simply difficult to understand, but he is actually torn between two worlds because of the generation to which he belongs, having been born before independence and partly brought up under colonial rule. He even wrote a book, Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties, about those years.
One of his critics has described him as a shrewd intellectual in defence of liberation icons and accuses him of not being intellectually honest about leaders such as Nyerere and Nkrumah for not criticising them harshly for their failures12.
In a way, some people may see him as a complex character not always easy to understand, although he articulates his position clearly and forcefully.
Some of the confusion among his readers about his position on African leaders of the independence generation has to do with his own background since he was an integral part of that generation in the sense that he witnessed the end of colonial rule and the emergence of the newly independent African states although he was not old enough to have participated in the independence struggle himself13.
He admires the leaders who led their countries to independence, yet he is highly critical of them in most cases for their failures during the post-colonial period. He admires many aspects of Nyerere's socialist policies in Tanzania, yet concedes the policies were also a failure in many cases. And he strongly favours fundamental change in African countries, yet he is nostalgic about the past14.
His advocacy for fundamental change is articulated in many of his writings including The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, which was published in 2001 and which is also one of his most well-known books.
In his review of the book, Ronald Taylor-Lewis, [born of a Sierra Leonean father] and editor of Mano Vision magazine, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, described it as a masterpiece of fact and analysis15.
The book has also been reviewed in other publications. Tana Worku Anglana reviewed Godfrey Mwakikagile's Modern African State: Quest for Transformation in Articolo and described it as unbiased literature16.
Other people have also cited the book in their different analyses of the African condition. They include Dr. Elavie Ndura, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, who used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, among other works, in supporting her central thesis in her study, "Transcending The Majority Rights and Minority Protection Dichotomy Through Multicultural Reflective Citizenship in The African Great Lakes Region," in Intercultural Education, Vol. 17, No. 2, published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, in May 2006.
Professor Elavie Ndura, a Hutu from Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
where her family experienced genocide, has taught for many years at a number of schools in the United States, including the University of Nevada-Reno and George Mason University.
Ethnic conflicts in Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
and Burundi between the Hutu
Hutu
The Hutu , or Abahutu, are a Central African people, living mainly in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern DR Congo.-Population statistics:The Hutu are the largest of the three peoples in Burundi and Rwanda; according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians...
and the Tutsi
Tutsi
The Tutsi , or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group in Central Africa. Historically they were often referred to as the Watussi or Watusi. They are the second largest caste in Rwanda and Burundi, the other two being the Hutu and the Twa ....
is one of the subjects Godfrey Mwakikagile has addressed extensively in his book, The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation.
In many of his writings, Godfrey Mwakikagile focuses on internal factors - including corruption, tribalism
Tribalism
The social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, but, due to the small size of tribes, it is always a relatively simple role structure, with few significant social distinctions between individuals....
and tyranny by African leaders - as the main cause of Africa's predicament, but not to the total exclusion of external forces.
And the position he articulates in his writings on many issues is cited by other people to support their arguments in their works. One of the works in which Godfrey Mwakikagile is cited and quoted is a compiled study by Professor Robert H. Bates, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa: Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in February 2008.
Godfrey Mwakikagile is also quoted by Professors Robert Elgie and Sophie Moestrup in their book, Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe: A Comparative Study - Routledge Research in Comparative Politics, Routledge, 2007; Mueni wa Muiu and Guy Martin in A New Paradigm of the African State: Fundi wa Afrika, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Minabere Ibelema, The African Press, Civic Cynicism, and Democracy - The PalgraveMacmillan Series in International Political Communication, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; James Crawford and Vaughan Lowe in British Yearbook of International Law 2005: Volume 76, Oxford University Press, 2007, and in other works.
Others who have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile and his works include Professor Robert I. Rotberg of Harvard University who once taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He used Godfrey Mwakikagle's book Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, among other works, to document his study, Crafting The New Nigeria: Confronting The Challenges, a book that was published in 2004.
Other researchers and scholars who have cited and quoted Godfrey Mwakikagile in their works include Gabi Hesselbein, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, and James Putzel
James Putzel
James Putzel is a Professor of Development Studies and Director of the Crisis States Research Centre at the LSE. He was educated at McGill and Oxford universities...
, in their study, "Economic and Political Foundations of State-making in Africa: Understanding State Reconstruction", Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2006; E.M. Poff, "Liberal Democracy and Multiethnic States: A Case Study of Ethnic Politics in Kenya," Ohio University, 2008; PJ McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," Armed Forces and Society, Sage Publications, 2006; Christopher Richard Kilford, in his doctoral dissertation, "The Other Cold War," Queens University, Canada, 2009; Martin P. Mathews, in his book, Nigeria: Current Issues and Historical Background, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2002; Michael Kweku Addison, "Preventing Military Intervention in West Africa: A Case Study of Ghana," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA, 2002; Isidore Okpewho and N Nzegwu, in their book, The New African Diaspora, Indiana University Press, 2009; C.M. Brown, S. Reader and G. Lober, "US National Security Interests in Africa and The Future Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA, 2005.
Others who also have cited Godfrey Mwakikagile in their studies in different analytical contexts include Rajend Methrie, "South Africa: The Rocky Road to National Building," in a book, Andrew Simpson, Language and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2008; Valéria Cristina Salles, "Social Representations Informing Discourse of Young Leaders: A Case Study of Tanzania," University of Cape Town, 2005; L.B. Inniss, "A Domestic Right of Return? Race, Rights, and Residency in New Orleans in the Aftermath of Katrina," in the Boston College Third World Law Journal, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2007; Eric M. Edi, in his book, Globalization and Politics in the Economic Community of West African States (Carolina Academic Press Studies on Globalization and Society), Carolina Academic Press, 2007; James John Chikago, in his book, Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Analysis and Solutions to Poverty Reduction, 2003; James Kwesi Anquandah, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, and Michel R. Doortmont, in their book, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Landmarks, Legacies, Expectations, Sub-Saharan Publishers, Accra, Ghana, 2007; Luciana Ricciutelli, Angela Rose Miles, Margaret McFadden in their book, Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges, Zed Books, London, 2005; Emmanuel Ike Udogu, in his book, African Renaissance in the Millennium: The Political, Social, and Economic Discourses on the Way Forward, Lexington Books, New York, 2007; and others.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books have been used by many other scholars in different analytical contexts in a number of countries in the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
and in industrialised nations.
And his diagnosis of - and prescription for - Africa's ailments has also been cited by scholars and other people for its relevance in other parts of the Third World. As Dr. Hengene Payani, a political scientist at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby
Port Moresby
Port Moresby , or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea . It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, which made it a prime objective for conquest by the Imperial Japanese forces during 1942–43...
, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, stated in his review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book Africa is in A Mess on amazon.com, the book is excellent, honest and thought-provoking and is relevant even in the context of Papua New Guinea, a country which has been ruined by greedy politicians. He also contacted Godfrey Mwakikagile to congratulate him for his work.
Although he has written mostly about Africa, and as a political scientist or as a political analyst, his works cover a wide range of scholarship including American studies.
One of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books, Black Conservatives in The United States, has been cited by Christopher Alan Bracey, a professor of law and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, in support of his research when he also wrote a book about black conservatives entitled Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice, published in February 2008.
But there are limitations to the role played by people like Godfrey Mwakikagile in their quest for fundamental change in African countries. Their contribution is limited in one fundamental respect: They are not actively involved with the masses at the grassroots level precisely because of what they are. They belong to an elite class, and the concepts they expound as well as the solutions they propose are discussed mainly by fellow elites but rarely implemented.
This should not be misconstrued as unwarranted criticism of Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings or the role he plays in the quest for fundamental change in Africa. It is mere acknowledgement of the limitations he faces in his attempt to accomplish this task in conjunction with his brethren across the continent.
Still, there is no question that in many cases, only a few members of the African elite have played and continue to play the role of intellectual activists like Dr. Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian and political activist, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.-Career:...
who wrote his best-selling book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in the early 1970s when he was teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; coincidentally during the same period when Godfrey Mwakikagile was a member of the editorial staff at the Daily News in Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam.
Before he went to Tanzania, Dr. Walter Rodney was actively involved with the masses when he taught at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
in the late sixties. He was also expelled from Jamaica by the government because of his political and intellectual activism and went to Tanzania in 1968 to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam in a country where his views and his role as an activist intellectual found acceptance under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere who was a superb intellectual himself and who was acknowledged as one even by some of his critics such as Kenyan Professor Ali Mazrui
Ali Mazrui
Ali Al'amin Mazrui is an academic and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He is an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.-Education:Mazrui...
.
In his book On Heroes and Uhuru-Worship: Essays on Independent Africa and in his other writings, Professor Mazrui has described Nyerere as the most original thinker among all the leaders in Anglophone Africa, and Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who for two decades served as the first president of Senegal . Senghor was the first African elected as a member of the Académie française. Before independence, he founded the political party called the Senegalese...
in Francophone Africa. Mazrui has also described Nyerere as the most intellectual of the East African presidents, an attribute which enabled Walter Rodney to thrive in Tanzania as an intellectual activist.
And in an interview with The Gambia Echo in February 2008, Professor Mazrui said:
"Intellectually, I admired Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania higher than most politicians anywhere in the world. Nyerere and I also met more often over the years from 1967 to 1997 approximately. I am also a great fan of Nelson Mandela. By ethical standards Mandela is greater than Nyerere; but by intellectual standards Nyerere is greater than Mandela."
Professor Ali Mazrui also paid glowing tribute to Nyerere when Nyerere died in October 1999. In his article "Nyerere and I," Ali Mazrui had this to say about Nyerere: "He was one of the giants of the 20th century....He did bestride this narrow world like an African colossus."
Professor Walter Rodney himself was a great admirer of Nyerere as a leader and as an intellectual even before he went to Tanzania to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam.
After Rodney left Tanzania in 1974 and returned to Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
, he continued to be actively involved with the workers at the grassroots level until he was assassinated in June 1980 by a government agent when Guyana was under the leadership of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham
Forbes Burnham
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was the leader of Guyana from 1964 until his death, first as Premier from 1964 to 1966, then as the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1980 and finally as President from 1980 to 1985....
.
Most African intellectuals don't do that. They don't work with the masses at the grassroots level. And that severely limits their role as agents of dynamic and fundamental change in Africa.
African writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other intellectuals are also severely compromised in their mission because most African leaders don't want to change. Therefore they don't listen to them—in many cases the entire state apparatus needs to be dismantled to bring about meaningful change.
But, in spite of their limitations and the obstacles they face, many African writers and other intellectuals still play a very important role in articulating a clear vision for the future of Africa. And Godfrey Mwakikagile's writings definitely fit this category because of his analysis of the African condition and the solutions he proposes, although he is not a political activist like other African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a Kenyan author, formerly working in English and now working in Gĩkũyũ. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature...
in neighbouring Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
or Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
.
But even they - had to flee their homelands, at different times, for their own safety, in spite of the courage they had to contend with the political establishment in their home countries, and sought sanctuary overseas although that has not been the case with Godfrey Mwakikagile and many other Africans who once lived, have lived or continue to live in other countries or outside Africa for different reasons.
Writers like Godfrey Mwakikagile and other members of the African elite have a major role to play in the development of Africa. They do have an impact on constructive dialogue involving national issues. But it is not the kind of impact that reverberates across the spectrum all the way down to the grassroots level precisely because they are not an integral part of the masses, and also because they are not actively involved with the masses to transform society.
So, while they generate ideas, they have not been able to effectively transmit those ideas to the masses without whose involvement fundamental change in Africa is impossible, except at the top, recycling the elite. And while they identify with the masses in terms of suffering and as fellow Africans, many of them - not all but many of them - have not and still don't make enough sacrifices in their quest for social and political transformation of African countries. And Godfrey Mwakikagile is fully aware of these shortcomings, and apparent contradictions, in the role played by the African elite. He's one himself.
Yet, he has not explicitly stated so in his writings concerning this problem of African intellectuals; a dilemma similar to the one faced by the black intelligentsia in the United States and which was addressed by Harold Cruse
Harold Cruse
Harold Wright Cruse was an American academic who was an outspoken social critic and teacher of African-American studies at the University of Michigan until the mid-1980s. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual is his best-known book....
, an internationally renowned black American professor who taught at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
for many years, in his monumental study, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual. The book was first published in 1967 at the peak of the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, five years before Godfrey Mwakikagile went to the United States for the first time as a student.
But that does not really explain why Godfrey Mwakikagile has not fully addressed the subject, the dilemma African intellectuals face in their quest for fundamental change, especially in his books - The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Done, and Africa After Independence: Realities of Nationhood - which are almost exclusively devoted to such transformation in Africa in the post-colonial era.
African leaders have failed Africa. But African intellectuals themselves have not done enough to help transform Africa into a better society.
Still, Godfrey Mwakikagile belongs to a group of African writers and the African elite who believe that the primary responsibility of transforming Africa lies in the hands of the Africans themselves, and not foreigners, and that acknowledgement of mistakes by African leaders is one of the first steps towards bringing about much-needed change in African countries; a position he forcefully articulates in his writings. For example, Political Science Professor Claude E. Welch at the State University of New York-Buffalo, in his review of one of Godfrey Mwakikagile's books - Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties - published in the African Studies Review (Vol. 45, No. 3, December 2002) described the author as being merciless in his condemnation of African tyrants.
The same book was also cited by James C. Owens of the University of Virginia in his article, "Government failure
Government failure
Government failure is the public sector analogy to market failure and occurs when a government intervention causes a more inefficient allocation of goods and resources than would occur without that intervention...
in Sub-Saharan Africa: The International Community's Response," in the Virginia Journal of International Law, 2002. He used Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties, among other works, to document the failure of leadership in many African countries in the post-colonial era.
And that is valid criticism of African leadership in post-colonial Africa by Godfrey Mwakikagile. Corrupt and despotic rulers don't deserve mercy. They don't deserve sympathy. They are not entitled to it. They have destroyed Africa.
Controversy
In what is probably his most controversial book, Africa is in A Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done, he strongly criticises most of the leaders of post-colonial Africa for tyranny and corruption, and for practising tribalism, a common theme in the works of many African writers and other people including well-known ones and many African scholars in and outside Africa. But Godfrey Mwakikagile's book stands out as one of the most blunt ever written about Africa's rotten leadership.Unfortunately, because of its vitriolic condemnation of most African leaders during the post-colonial era, the book has been cited by some people, who obviously have not read it well if at all, as a clarion call for the re-colonisation of Africa (because things are so bad, colonial rule was better) although the author says exactly the opposite in his work17.
One of the people he has quoted in his book articulating a similar position is Moeletsi Mbeki, the younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who said in September 2004 that Africans were better off under colonial rule than they are today under African leadership in the post-colonial period.
Mbeki also said African leaders and bureaucrats are busy stealing money and keeping it in foreign countries while colonial rulers built and maintained the infrastructure and ran their African colonies efficiently. He was quoted by BBC Africa in a report, on what he said, entitled "Better Colonial Times" published on 22 September 2004.
Yet in spite of all that, Godfrey Mwakikagile unequivocally states in his book, Africa is in A Mess, that he does not support any attempt or scheme, by anybody, to recolonise Africa, but also bluntly states that African countries have lost their sovereignty to donor nations and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
and the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
(IMF) dominated by Western powers including those who once colonised Africa and are therefore virtual colonies already.
He also contends that African countries have really never been free in spite of the instruments of sovereignty they are supposed to have. And in one of his books, Investment Opportunities and Private Sector Growth in Africa, he warns about the dangers of the Second Scramble for Africa by the industrialised nations which are busy exploiting Africa's resources for their own benefit and contends that globalisation is in many ways a new form of imperialism.
Yet he has wrongly been portrayed, along with some prominent African and European scholars including Professor Ali Mazrui
Ali Mazrui
Ali Al'amin Mazrui is an academic and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He is an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.-Education:Mazrui...
, Christoph Blocher
Christoph Blocher
Christoph Blocher is a Swiss politician, industrialist, and former member of the Swiss Federal Council heading the Federal Department of Justice and Police . Currently he is serving as Vice President of the Swiss People's Party...
, Mahmood Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani is an academic, author and political commentator. He is a Professor and Director of the at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, New York. He grew up in Uganda and acquired his B.A from the University of...
, Peter Niggli, and R. W. Johnson as someone who advocates the recolonisation of Africa18.
Godfrey Mwakikagile says exactly the opposite in his book Africa is in A Mess.
In fact, the title, although not the sub-title, comes from President Julius Nyerere who said exactly the same words in 1985: "Africa is in a mess."
Godfrey Mwakikagile explicitly states that in his book, saying he got the title from Nyerere's statement and felt it was appropriate for his work, although the tone and content might be disturbing to some people. He is brutally frank about the continent's deplorable condition.
But the book echoes the sentiments of tens of millions of Africans across the continent who live in misery and those who are frustrated by lack of fundamental change in African leadership notorious for corruption and other vices including tribalism and tyranny as Godfrey Mwakikagile bluntly states in his work.
His fellow Africans who have reviewed the book on amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
and elsewhere in different publications and on the Internet strongly support the author and share his concerns about Africa's plight and the misguided leadership the continent has had to endure for decades since independence19.
One African reviewer, Mona Kabba, a member of Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabba's family, also contacted the author to congratulate him for writing such an honest book, as she stated in her review of the book on amazon.com. And she provided an additional perspective, as an insider, that shed more light on Africa's predicament in her review of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Africa is in A Mess, and said she was going to work with him on a joint project about Africa.
And in the same book, Africa is in A Mess, Godfrey Mwakikagile is also highly critical of Western powers for ruthlessly exploiting Africa even today in collusion with many African leaders.
Academic reviews
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books have also been reviewed in a number of academic publications, including the highly prestigious academic journal, African Studies Review, by leading scholars in their fields. They include Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties which was reviewed in that journal by Professor Claude E. Welch of the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York, Buffalo; and Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria reviewed by Nigerian Professor Khadijat K. Rashid of Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.20.His other books have also been reviewed in the African Studies Review and in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. They include Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era and The Modern African State: Quest for Transformation which were reviewed in the African Studies Review; and Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era which was also reviewed in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.
See also an analysis of Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria, in A. Simpson and B. Akintunde Oyetade, "Nigeria: Ethno-linguistic Competition in the Giant of Africa," published in Language and National Identity in Africa, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 172 – 198; and Godfrey Mwakikagile's Military Coups in West Africa Since The Sixties in P.J. McGowan, "Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955 - 2004: Part II, Empirical Findings," in Armed Forces & Society, Sage Publications, in 2006.
For more reviews of his books, see also Expo Times, Sierra Leone; The Mirror, Zimbabwe, and other publications including those featured on the Internet21.
He has also written about race relations in the United States and relations between continental Africans and people of African descent in the diaspora. His titles in these areas include Black Conservatives in The United States; Relations Between Africans and African Americans; and Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.
Godfrey Mwakikagile's books are found in public and university libraries around the world and have been adopted for class use at many colleges and universities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and other countries. Most college and university libraries in the United States have his books.