Answers: Founding Leaders of Post-Colonial Africa

Namibia’s Sam Nujoma, the last of a generation across Africa who led their countries to independence from colonial or white minority rule died at the age of 95 on February 8. In March 1990 Namibia became independent from South Africa, a month after the apartheid government released Nelson Mandela. Nujoma served three terms as president from 1990 to 2005.

Sam Nujoma was the founding president of SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation) when it was set up as a liberation movement in 1960. That was the year seventeen colonies in Africa became independent and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan shocked apartheid-era MPs with his “Wind of Change” speech at South Africa’s parliament, saying, “The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.” In December 1960, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

While Nujoma campaigned in exile and spoke on behalf of SWAPO at the UN General Assembly, several others came to the limelight as leaders of their newly-independent nations. This quiz examines the complex and sometimes contentious legacies left behind by the founding leaders of post-colonial Africa.

Answers:

1) Amilcar Cabral founded the PAIGC party which carried out a guerrilla movement against Portugal. The PAIGC fought for the independence of two colonies, one on the West African mainland and the other, an archipelago. He was assassinated in 1973 before the two colonies became independent. Name the two countries.

Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and Guinea-Bissau.

2) Leopold Sedar Senghor was a Catholic who was initially enrolled in a seminary but decided to pursue higher education in France. In 1935 he became the first Black African to obtain the equivalent of a PhD in French grammar at the Sorbonne. He taught linguistics and grammar in schools in France and was a founder of the literary and intellectual Francophone movement known as Negritude, which took pride in Black identity and heritage. He achieved acclaim as a poet in French and was appointed chair of Negro-African languages and civilisation at the French school for colonial administrators. He was the first president of his newly-independent country in 1960 and served until he stepped down in 1980. Which West African country?

Senegal. More on Leopold Sedar Senghor here, here, here, here and here.

3) Felix Houphouet-Boigny became the first Black African to hold a cabinet rank in France in 1956. He led his country to independence in 1960 and remained president until his death in 1993. Houphouet-Boigny maintained close ties with France and focused on agriculture. By the early 1980s his country became the world’s top cocoa producer. It also became the third largest coffee producer. But commodity prices tumbled during his final years, straining the economy and his authority. A period of civil war followed a few years after his death. Which country?

Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). A U.S. perspective on Houphouet-Boigny here. My earlier quiz on France's Colonial Legacy here includes Francafrique, a term Houphouet-Boigny coined to describe the close political and economic ties between France and its soon-to-be former colonies. He had a new capital city and the world’s largest church built around his native village. You can read more about Yamoussoukro in my quiz on Changing Capital Cities below.

While Abidjan remained the economic hub, Yamoussoukro became known for empty eight-lane highways, a dubious feat surpassed in the 2000s by Myanmar’s new capital Naypyidaw with its deserted 20-lane highway.

The economic turmoil of the 1980s led Houphouet-Boigny to appoint U.S.-trained economist Alassane Ouattara, who had worked for the International Monetary Fund as finance minister and then prime minister in 1990. Ouattara remained PM until Houphouet-Boigny’s death in 1993. He lost out in the power struggles that followed but made it to the presidency in 2011 and has stayed in power ever since. More on Ouattara in my quiz here on central bank governors-turned leaders.

4) This West African country became the the first African colony of France to gain independence in 1958. That year, Ahmed Sekou Toure led a campaign inspiring voters to reject close ties with France in a referendum. Sekou Toure said his country preferred “poverty in freedom to wealth in slavery” and became the first president. He established a one-party state and remained in office until his death in 1984. Rights groups hold his government responsible for the death or disappearance of 50,000 people and the exile of hundreds of thousands of others. Which country?

Guinea. Sekou Toure’s reputation in Guinea has undergone a revival since the military coup in 2021. In December that year the main airport was renamed after him.

5) His country became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence from a European colonial power in 1957. He was prime minister and then president. In 1964 the country became a one-party state and he was made president for life. He was ousted in a coup in 1966 (corrected from initial version that said 1964). He was welcomed by Ahmed Sekou Toure and named honorary co-president. He lived in exile until his death in 1972. Who and which country?

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana.

Kwame Nkrumah was an inspirational figure for other African leaders ranging from Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. But his calls for a political union of African states, a ‘United States of Africa’ were rebuffed by leaders like Nyerere, who wanted a gradual approach.

Nkrumah was also a trail-blazing figure for Black intellectuals and civil rights activists from the United States and the Caribbean. Martin Luther King, Jr. attended Ghana’s independence ceremony in 1957 and drew similarities between the drive against colonialism in Africa and the civil rights movement in the U.S. W.E.B. Du Bois spent the last years of his life in Accra as a citizen of Ghana, while the Trinidad-born ‘black power’ ideologue Stokely Carmichael moved to Guinea in 1969 where Nkrumah was living in exile. He changed his name to Kwame Ture, after Nkrumah and Guinea’s Sekou Toure.

George Padmore from Trinidad moved to Ghana in 1957 for a short-lived role as Nkrumah’s adviser on African affairs, C.L.R. James wrote about Nkrumah’s socialist movement and W. Arthur Lewis from St Lucia had an acrimonious stint as an economic adviser. (more on Arthur Lewis here in my quiz on Nobel laureates in economics)

Nkrumah was ousted in a coup in 1966 while on a visit to China and found refuge in Guinea. The new Ghanaian government detained Guinea’s foreign minister who was transiting through the country, demanding Guinea should hand Nkrumah over. Guinea responded by putting American diplomats including the ambassador under house arrest, marking the first diplomatic hostage situation for Washington, 13 years before the Iran crisis. Both sides climbed down in a few days.

Ghana’s current president John Dramani Mahama published the memoir My First Coup d'Etat: And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa in 2012, the title referring to the coup that overthrew Nkrumah.

6) Seewoosagur Ramgoolam qualified as a medical doctor in Britain. He was the country’s first and only chief minister under colonial rule and led his country to independence from Britain in 1968. He was prime minister until 1982, when his party was defeated in a landslide. He became the first leader of an African state to hand over power after an electoral defeat. His son, also a doctor is now the prime minister. Which country?

Mauritius. As chief minister in 1965, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam agreed to detach the Chagos Islands from colonial Mauritius (the International Court of Justice ruled in 2019 that Mauritius was effectively coerced by Britain into ceding Chagos). The Chagos archipelago including the joint U.S.-UK military base in Diego Garcia became known as ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’ when Mauritius became independent in 1968 and the inhabitants of the islands were forced out.

The opposition campaigned hard in 1982, promising to seek the return of Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Islands. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam’s National Alliance Party failed to win a single seat. More here. Rhetoric translated to concrete action only in recent years, following the ICJ ruling in 2019 and the October 2024 deal between Mauritius and Britain for the handover of the Chagos Islands except for Diego Garcia.

Seewoosagur Ramgoolam was replaced by Anerood Jugnauth as prime minister in 1982. A Ramgoolam or a Jugnauth has been prime minister of Mauritius since independence in 1968 except for two years and the two families are featured in my quiz here on political dynasties. Elections in November 2025 saw a sweeping win for the opposition alliance led by Seewoosagur’s son Navin Ramgoolam. The Ramgoolam-led government says it has renegotiated the deal, which is awaiting the Trump administration’s approval.

April 1 update: The UK says the Trump administration has approved the deal.

7) Milton Margai qualified as a doctor in Britain. In 1927 he opened a village dispensary back home. He served as a doctor for the next two decades, guiding efforts to improve child care and adult literacy. He wrote a primer on midwifery in the Mende language. In the 1950s he took to politics and became health minister and the first chief minister in the final years of colonial rule. He was the first prime minister as the country became independent in 1961. He died three years later and was succeeded by his half-brother Albert Margai. Which country?

Sierra Leone.

8) In his inaugural speech as president after independence from Portugal in 1975, Samora Machel pledged to create the “first truly Marxist state in Africa.” He established a one-party state only to be mired in civil war with rebels backed by apartheid South Africa. Machel was killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1986. Which country?

Mozambique. I have mentioned Samora Machel in my earlier post here on leaders killed in plane crashes.

Samora Machel’s wife Graca Machel was Mozambique’s education minister from 1975 to 1989. South Africa’s first post-apartheid president Nelson Mandela married her in 1998 on his 80th birthday. Graca Machel is the only person to be first lady in two different countries. More here and here. Her long stint as Mozambique’s education minister and advocacy for children’s rights led to the United Nations appointing her to prepare a report on the impact of armed conflict on children. You can read the report here.

9) Agostinho Neto was a doctor and poet. He was jailed in Portugal for trying to mobilise students from the colonies against Portuguese rule. After returning home, he became the clandestine head of a pro-independence movement. He was detained and exiled. He returned in 1975 and led his country to independence as the first president. Neto espoused Marxism and was backed by Cuban troops in his efforts to put down rival movements backed by apartheid South Africa and the U.S. He died in in a Moscow hospital in 1979. Which country?

Angola

10) Hastings Banda worked in the mines in South Africa and went on to get sponsorship for medical education in the U.S. He had further training in Britain and set up his practice in an impoverished area of Liverpool, followed by London. He returned to his country in 1958 and led it to independence from Britain in 1964. He established a one-party state and was made president-for-life in 1971. Pressure from Catholic bishops and donor countries forced him to hold a referendum in 1993. Voters rejected the one-party state and the next year, Banda was defeated in the presidential election. Which southern African country?

Malawi. Under Banda, Malawi was the only country in Africa not bordered by South Africa to maintain close economic and diplomatic ties with the apartheid government. South Africa’s prime minister John Vorster visited Malawi in 1970, the first visit by a South African leader to an independent African state in the apartheid era. Hastings Banda returned the favour by visiting South Africa in 1971.

11) He was a student of social anthropology at the London School of Economics and his anthropological study of his tribe was published in 1938. In 1952 he was arrested and charged with masterminding an anti-colonial uprising. He was released in 1961 as Britain prepared to hand over power. He was prime minister as the country became independent in December 1963. In a year he remained in charge as the country moved to a presidential system. The main opposition party merged with his party, effectively making the country a one-party state. He cultivated close ties with western powers and remained president until his death in 1978. Who and which country? (his son was later elected president)

Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya. Kenyatta engineered the merger of the main rival party with his outfit, making his Kenya African National Union the sole political entity. Rival leader Daniel Arap Moi became the home minister and then vice president from 1967 until Kenyatta’s death in 1978. Moi was president from 1978 to 2002. His succession plan endorsing Jomo Kenyatta’s son Uhuru backfired, with the Kenyatta scion losing the presidential election to Mwai Kibaki, whose victory ended four decades of one-party rule. Uhuru Kenyatta finally made it to the presidency in 2013 and was re-elected in controversial circumstances in 2017.

12) He was president of his country from independence in 1964 until 1991, when he became the first president in the African mainland to step aside after electoral defeat. Earlier in 1972 he had established a one-party state. He allowed Namibia’s SWAPO and South Africa’s African National Congress to set up their headquarters in his country and opposed apartheid South Africa and white-minority rule in Rhodesia. But the collapse of copper prices in the 1970s undermined his domestic appeal and the country has struggled to tackle high levels of debt ever since. He was eventually forced to hold multi-party elections and lost. Who and which country?

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia. He was one of the first African leaders to acknowledge the threat of AIDS back in 1987, after his son died from the virus. He publicly advocated for HIV treatment in his post-presidency years and cut a music album titled We Shall Fight HIV/AIDS. He was also known for his love of football and Zambia’s team was known as KK11 during his presidency. In 2012 the 87-year-old Kaunda was in Gabon to cheer the Zambian team that won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time. He died at the age of 97 in 2021.

13) He was the first from his country to study at a British university and graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He led his country to independence in 1961. Three years later, he was presiding over an expanded country with a new name, after the controversial addition of an island chain. He set up a one-party state and espoused ‘African socialism’, emphasising communal ownership of land and citizens’ mutual obligation towards each other. In 1985, he became a rare African leader of a one-party state to step down voluntarily. Who and which country?

Julius Nyerere, Tanzania. A devout Catholic, he is known as Mwalimu (teacher) in Tanzania. The Roman Catholic Church has been exploring whether Nyerere should be conferred sainthood. Nyerere became the first prime minister of independent Tanganyika in 1961. He went on to become president. In 1964 he presided over the merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, creating Tanzania. While he is widely revered in the mainland, Nyerere remains a controversial figure in Zanzibar.

Julius Nyerere was the first recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize instituted by the Indian government in 1995. He was influenced by Gandhi’s approach of non-violence in charting his country’s path to independence.

14) Milton Obote was prime minister when this country became independent from Britain in 1962. He suspended the constitution and took over as president in 1966. In 1971 he was overthrown by a one-time protege in a coup. Obote was hosted by the president in the previous question, who saw him as a fellow advocate of socialism. War broke out between the two countries in 1978 and Obote returned to power in 1980. He was again overthrown in a military coup in 1985. Which country?

Uganda. Obote was ousted in 1971 in a coup led by Major General Idi Amin. He took refuge in neighbouring Tanzania. The next year a Tanzania-backed force led by Obote failed to topple Idi Amin. Border disputes and strained ties between Amin and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere culminated in Amin’s military invading Tanzania in 1978. Tanzanian troops pushed back hard in a rare conflict in post-colonial Africa without a Cold War context, beating back Ugandan forces and their Libyan allies. In April 1979 Tanzanian forces entered Uganda’s capital Kampala, ending Idi Amin’s brutal rule. It was the first time in the post-colonial era that soldiers from one African state seized the capital of another.

Milton Obote returned to Uganda in 1980 and emerged the winner of a disputed election. One of his electoral opponents, Yoweri Museveni, became the leader of a rebel movement. While the rebels were gaining ground, Obote was overthrown in a coup for a second time in 1985. The new military government was overrun by Museveni’s fighters within months. Museveni was sworn in as president in January 1986 and he has remained in power ever since. He is featured in my quiz on Forever Leaders here.

15) The 2016 film A United Kingdom was based on the inter-racial couple Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, whose marriage angered British colonial authorities, apartheid South Africa and the Church of England. It was also opposed by his uncle, who was serving as the regent of his tribe (his late father had been the chief of the tribe). He was banned for a time from his tribal territory. He returned after disclaiming the chieftainship. He set up a political party and led his country to independence as the first president. Which country?

Botswana. I first read about Seretse Khama in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, in which he is referred to with reverence. Botswana is the oldest uninterrupted multi-party democracy in Africa.

16) He qualified as a teacher and went to work in Ghana in 1958. Inspired by the speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, he returned home and was jailed. He went on to lead a guerrilla movement. He became his newly-independent country’s first prime minister in 1980. He later became president and held on to power until 2017, when mass protests and a military coup forced him out. Who and which country?

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe.