Were the Colonialists Better Than the Thugs and Monsters Ruling Africa Today?

Colonial rule across Africa was never designed to build nations; it was a machinery of extraction.

Europeans arrived with guns, flags, and maps—not goodwill. Yet, decades after independence, many

Africans now compare the era of foreign rule to the current rule by local elites. The question grows

sharper with each scandal, each looted fund, each failed public hospital. Were the colonialists better

than the rulers we have now?

Colonial governments built infrastructure for profit, not people. Roads led from mines to ports. Railways

connected plantations to ships, not schools to villages. The goal was access to raw materials and labor.

Yet, within this system, order existed. Trains ran on time. Teachers were paid. Medical records were kept.

The colonial state, though oppressive, functioned.