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Why I Write on Decolonization, By Toyin Falola
https://toyinfalolanetwork.org/why-i-write-on-decolonization/

Adebayo Ajadi

Assistant Brand Manager,

Toyin Falola Network

- Pan-African University Press

- The Toyin Falola Interviews

- Toyin Falola Center for the Study of Africa

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A Friendly Response from Oohay.

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

On Sunday, May 3, 2026, 10:45 AM, Dr. Oohay <oohay2x@yahoo.com> wrote:

I FULLy agree with your anti-imperialism position of any form (whether of northern or southern hemispheric variety or of the “DEEP STATE” kind.
Perhaps, we need political “game theory” (or what my sub discipline calls “mereology” or what in my own own lingo I call “mereotics.” The logic of set theory can supplement binary logic. Globalism has to go. The Global center or Davos cannot hold. No sovereign nation the same as any other. Any government closest to facing the fundamental problems of the people can best serve the people me. We need “republican” sovereign nations (aka REpresentative governments). Arguably, we have no democracy anywhere; instead we have demoCRAZIES. However, if you find any practically efficient and just democracy anywhere in the known world, please contact me.

Oohay

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

On Sunday, May 3, 2026, 8:20 AM, Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:

Africans Must Wake Up: Imperialism is a Paper Tiger

Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 1st May 2026

We live in interesting times when leading imperialist countries have

stopped pretending about the international rules based international

order. They are now engaging in imperialist action without ideological

cover, shame or constraint to continue their control over world

resources and engage in 19th century style gunboat diplomacy. This is

what we see in the abduction of the sitting President of Venezuela and

his wife and takeover of the country’s vast petroleum resources, the

murders of the Libyan and Iraqi presidents and takeover of their

petroleum resources, the Syrian debacle and now the battle to take

over Iran’s resources. While the façade was the protection of the

international rules-based system, the reality has been that MIGHT IS

RIGHT. From the Korean war, to Vietnam, Afghanistan etc external

aggression has led to over 40 million people killed since the end of

the Second World War under American hegemony. Extractivism has always

been the guiding principle. Nonetheless, Comrade Mao tells us that

American imperialism is a paper tiger.

US imperialism is a paper tiger

“Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality, it isn't. It

is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the

people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In

appearance it is very powerful but in reality, it is nothing to be

afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of

paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United

States is nothing but a paper tiger.”

Chairman Mao Zedong

Imperialism has been effective in controlling Africa because from the

outset of colonization it adopted a policy of divide and rule to

prevent the colonized from uniting against their oppressor. It

categorized Africans as tribes defined by the limitation of their

communal horizons and perspectives that could not collaborate with the

others. They were not even ethnic groups, not to speak of Nations and

therefore could not lay claims to the colonial state domain which is a

civic space beyond their comprehension. As Professor Okwudiba Nnoli,

showed in his work, the colonial project limited Africa to the

communal space that was small, narrow and kin based.

The second phase of the colonial project was to create and or promote

differences between the African people. To separate groups from their

neighbours and to produce collaborators for the colonial regime.

Binary divisions were created between indigenes/settlers,

Muslims/animists, herders/farmers, leader/follower groups and so on.

These divisions were then fanned by modes of inclusion/exclusion to

create rupture between them. In Nigeria for example, the Fulani

Emirate aristocracy were presented as natural rulers while the others

were naturally fit to be ruled. In the neighbouring Niger Republic,

the French colonisers looked at Nigeria and decided the Fulani Emirate

rulers on their side of the border were not fit to rule, in case they

sided with their brethren on the Nigerian side. The Zarma were chosen

as the group with leadership qualities and were massively recruited

into the civil service and army while the Fulani aristocracy was

marginalized.

In Burundi and Rwanda, the Tutsi were defined as a royal society with

regal leadership abilities while the Hutu were only capable of being

led and directed by their superior Tutsi brethren. The fact that they

spoke the same language, lived together and had the same culture was

de-emphasised and their differences promoted. The expected result was

repeated incidents of violence between the two groups in 1969 1072,

1988 and 1990. In 1994, the Hutu organised genocide in which about

800,000 Tutsi were massacred. Since then, the Rwanda regime has been

able to sustain these divisions by promoting the development of Tutsi

ethnic militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to raid and

kill as a tactic to steal the country’s natural resources in

conjunction with the Americans. This was symbolically conveyed to the

whole world in an Oval Office meeting where President Trump spoke

proudly about an accord to exploit the Congo’s resources with the

selected African presidents clapping enthusiastically at their support

for the foreign exploitation of their resources.

Africa is rich in natural resources with vast deposits of oil, gas,

uranium, rare earths, lithium, gold and other strategic minerals. The

continent also has a lot of arable land and water resources for

agricultural development. These resources have been subjected to

rapacious exploitation by mainly external actors for two centuries.

Through this process of extractivism, Africans have been denied the

right to enjoy and benefit from their resources. Imperial countries

have used their powers to physically kill or remove from power

postcolonial leaders who have attempted to correct the imbalance and

use African resources to benefit the African people. Across many parts

of the continent, these same resources have become focal points of

violent contestation rather than engines of inclusive growth.

The sad reality is that this natural resource abundance has resulted

in very poor governance, sustained manipulation and promotion of

violent conflicts by imperialist forces. In so many African countries,

small arms and light weapons have been deliberately distributed to

promote civil strife by religious bigots and ethnic militia. Research

shows that the presence of valuable natural resources, especially oil

and minerals, is associated with a higher likelihood of civil conflict

and organised violence, particularly where state capacity is weak and

resource revenues are unevenly distributed. Jihadi groups and ethnic

militias emerge not only as instruments of economic predation but also

as actors claiming to defend communal rights to land, oil fields,

grazing areas, or mineral deposits. The intersection of resource

competition and ethno-religious identity thus transforms distributive

disputes into organised armed confrontation.

At a recent conference by Trust Africa in Abuja, a former United

Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN

Economic Commission for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, said Africa needs to

quickly strategize to confront current challenges generated by global

conflicts that have led to a breakdown of the international order and

have direct political and economic consequences for African countries

that are not direct parties to such wars. He added that war is a

destruction of rules and regulations. We live in a world in which one

country will wake up one morning and decide that it will completely

destroy another. Even the African countries that are not directly

affected by on-going promoted conflicts continue to bear economic

consequences of distant conflicts, particularly through inflation and

shortages of grains, fertilizers, fuel and so on.

Another participant, Professor Marwa El Darly of the American

University in Cairo stressed the importance of collective action and

civic engagement in addressing insecurity across the continent. She

drew attention to the current crisis precipitated by the attack on

Iran by the United States and Israel which is currently raising

fundamental questions in Egypt on the Sunni-Shiite war in the Muslim

world where people are finally realizing that the real problem is

American imperialism in liaison with Israel rather than Iranian

Shiism. She concluded that “We are currently living in a world of

insecurity. The solution to the issues in Africa is unity, and unity

is power.”

Africa must produce more and must trade within itself and priorities

the activation of the Free Trade Agreement. The African Union must put

in place mechanisms to trade among ourselves, which can help minimise

the impact of the war.

For too long, we accepted the lie that the West is out to promote the

forces of democracy, rule of law and liberalism. President Donald

Trump has one virtue. He has thrown out the veneer that presented the

West as the good guys. He is upfront in delivering the narrative that

their prosperity depends on their seizing our resources. With that

message resounding clearly, let us brush up our little red book and

confidently declare that imperialism is a paper tiger and fight them

so that we can use our resources for the development of our own

people.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

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