Thread by @cchukudebelu

My first consulting job took me to Kano. We were housed in a guest house. The senior manager was Brazilian, the big boss was Nigerian.

The senior manager was automatically housed in the best room, because he's "oyibo". The big boss was livid.

Mensah Otabil described Africa's "colonial legacy" is a deep inferiority complex. It still endures - even among the most educated/exposed segments of our society.

Like the Nigerian oil company guy who insisted "he be treated as an expatriate", not that locals be treated better.

You can't effectively colonize a people without proving, that somehow, you are "superior" to them. I.e. your culture is superior to theirs - and so is your technology.

Asians (Arabs, Chinese, Indians etc.) never fully accepted that Western culture was superior to theirs.

With the rise of Japan, it became increasingly difficult for European colonial power to prove to an Asian audience they were "all round superior" - even in technology.

George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" demonstrated those tensions before WW2.

Everything fell apart post WW2.

I recall Lee Kuan Yew's remarks about the British now living in Singapore, not as superiors, in secluded areas - but as equals, among Singaporeans. He appreciated the transition from colonialism.

In Africa, things are different. That transition is yet to occur.

In Anglophone Africa things are bad, but they are a lot worse in Francophone Africa. In Abidjan, Nigerians would be considered "assertive", by the French, who still dominate that city the same way they did in 1959.

(I am speaking from experience).