'How can anyone claim Africa did not
have societies before the arrival of
colonialism? Political, economic and
social structures existed in African
society well before the 19th century.
Frederic Caillaurd, during his quest to
discover the source of the Nile,
marvelled at the structures of Egyptian
society. Massive empires existed in
Zimbabwe and Zululand (to name two)
and were crushed by the land grab of
the colonial empires in the 19th century.'
Robin Walker
What caused Africa’s underdevelopment is a
complex issue. Europe’s past (and present)
exploitation of Africa played a significant part.
Before the Europeans arrived in Africa, Africa
had vibrant economic, social and political
structures. These were severely disrupted by
Europeans to create wealth for themselves.
European dominance over most of Africa
through the transatlantic slave trade lasted 440
years, from 1444 to 1885.

Triangular trade
Starting from the arrival of Portuguese ships
on west African shores in 1444, the Europeans
set up an elaborate triangular trading system
to transport enslaved Africans, import
plantation produce, and export European
goods to both Africa and the Americas.
'Shipments were all by Europeans to
markets controlled by Europeans, and this
was in the interest of European capitalism
and nothing else.'
Walter Rodney
The transatlantic slave trade caused the forced
removal from Africa of millions of Africans.
This number included a large percentage of
skilled tradesmen and women from a range of
occupations and professions who were making
their contribution to African societies. Without
them, African societies themselves were
weakened.
Africa had trading systems which had
developed over hundreds of years – well
before Europeans ever arrived on their shores.
Europeans destroyed these systems in large
areas of Africa when they developed the trade
in enslaved Africans. Local systems were badly
affected and overwhelmed by the demands of
the new trade in enslaved Africans, a trade
imposed by the better developed guns and
ships of the Europeans.
Trade and domination
Slave trading undermined the ‘Gold Coast’
economy of west Africa. It destroyed the gold
trade. Slave raiding and kidnapping made it
unsafe to mine the land or to travel with gold.
The Europeans’ demand for slaves made raiding
for captives more profitable than gold mining.
The transatlantic slave trade encouraged
Africans to wage war against one another and
conduct raids, instead of building more
peaceful links.
Europeans used their superior shipping and
skills and military power (primarily their guns)
to dominate trade to and from Africa.
Europeans became the leading traders of Asian
and African consumer goods. This was
particularly striking in the early centuries of
trade. Europeans relied heavily on Indian
cloths for resale in Africa. They also purchased
cloths from several parts of the west African
coast for resale elsewhere. Morocco,
Mauritania, Senegambia, Ivory Coast, Benin,
Yorubaland and Loango were all exporters to
other parts of Africa – through European
middlemen.
By the time that Africa had escaped the
shackles of the slave trade and entered the
colonial era, its main export was raw cotton.
Yet its main import was manufactured cotton
cloth. This remarkable irony points not only to
technological advance in Europe but also, and
most importantly, to the stagnation of
technology in Africa owing to the trade with
Europe. Europeans did not want African states
to develop their own technology. They did not
want them to be able to make their own
manufactured goods.

African resistance and independence
Exploitation did not end with the ending of the
transatlantic slave trade. Britain began to ban
the trade in slaves from 1807, and it was not
until 1957 that the Gold Coast – now Ghana –
finally became the first African country south
of the Sahara to become independent from
European rulers. This period of time was filled
with long, bitter colonial conflicts. These
conflicts were not always wars in the usual
way with armies and guns.
For 150 years after 1807, Europe tried to
control Africa and its wealth. They used brutal
massacres as well as treachery, for example
involving the bribing of African chiefs, and
betrayal of their treaties and agreements, such
as with Queen Nzinga of the area now called
Angola, in their attempts to do this. Africans
would use all their available resources to
defend their people and territories. They
would fight back against the Europeans with
guerrilla tactics, sabotage, non cooperation
and by the destruction of those crops and
businesses based in Africa that benefited the
Europeans.
Many Africans fought and worked to gain
political independence from Europe, often
inspired by the 5th Pan African Congress held
in Manchester in 1945. African countries did
eventually gain formal political independence
from the Europeans. However, Europeans still
exerted a huge amount of influence on how
African countries developed. Their natural
resources were still mainly owned and
managed by European investors. Europeans still
owned much African land. Europeans were still
the main buyers of African crops and minerals.
Africans had to cope with these issues as well
as many other legacies of the European
controlling presence in Africa.
In addition to all of these developments, Africa
also had to deal with some key events
including the dividing up of Africa into distinct
countries by the European powers that took
place at the Berlin Africa Conference
(1884-1885), and the impact of two world
wars.

Ongoing exploitation
Some would argue that Africa has never freed
itself from domination by the west. In the late
twentieth century and in the twenty first
century, the relationship between the west and
Africa has been primarily one of exploitation.
International trading agreements with Africa
have been unfair on African countries. These
agreements have been overly influenced by
western big businesses. Such unfair agreements
and relationships have allowed individual
African officials to get rich while the region
sells itself cheaply and develops no
infrastructure.
This relationship of exploitation has been a
common feature of the European intervention
in Africa. It started with the arrival of the
missionaries, and continued with the arrival of
European merchants and mercenaries, and
most lately, with the western multinational
corporations.
Economic instability
When economists look at African countries
they generally find their economies are weak.
There are regularly many economic signs of
this, including:
a weak Gross Domestic Product (GDP, which
measures the value of local production and its
growth);
the exports of primary products and
agricultural products getting smaller;
a low level of using modern industrial
machines;
a terrible national debt to richer countries and
the gap between rich and poor getting bigger
and bigger.
On top of this, many multinational
corporations do not even sell African products
using prices established by the laws of supply
and demand in a free market. Increased costs
of production are not passed onto the
consumers who buy the produce, instead they
are sold from the source in Africa at a lower
rate which means less income for African
workers and business. The global market also
sets a price on most of Africa’s exports and so
the higher production cost cannot be
recouped. At the same time, a rise in
productivity will not necessarily lower world
prices by an increase in supply, because the
demand may remain fairly small. Africa has
mostly been caught in this economic cycle.
This is a fundamental inequality in
international trade and once this has been set
up it is difficult to change.
To sum up, we can say that an unequal trading
system has been imposed on Africa by Europe
from the mid fifteenth century onwards. This
unequal trading system, in one form or
another, continues today. It has meant that
African countries have never built up sufficient
national wealth to invest in their infrastructure
(in things such as roads and electricity supply)
and industry so that they can develop as
countries properly.
source-http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/articles/the-underdevelopment-of-africa-by-europe.html

This is a very big truth that had long become a lie. European exploited African because African leaders past and present are greedy. African leaders encouraged slave trade when one Oba would kidnap people from other clans for the white just to be given mirror.

In this present dispensation, you will need to answer some questions to convince me.

Is Lawrence Gbagbo a white man?

Was Abacha born white?

Is GEJ an European?

African leaders underdeveloped Africa because of their greediness and covetousness. Italy - Greece were captured and ruled over by the Romans but they still belong to the first world.

Anyway, where else would Nigeria be when our president doesn't know the disparity between corruption and stealing?

I comment my reserve