Prominent African Leaders of the 20th Century.
A continent molded by ideology and post-colonial battles, Africa has produced influential people. These are the top five African leaders in order of prominence.
Despite being frequently disregarded in the field of geopolitics, Africa has had a significant impact on global political developments in the 20th century.
Africa has served as a testing ground for numerous ideas, some of which have been wildly successful and some of which have failed miserably, since it was a center for colonial and decolonial practice.
Africa served as a field for battles for ideologies after World War II fighting over the continent as the US and USSR wanted to establish their dominance.
Due to such conflicts, African leaders got involved to influence their nations positively or negatively.
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela, arguably the most well-known African leader to date, is a symbol of adversity, liberation, harmony, and forgiveness.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in the Transkei region of South Africa. He received his education at the University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand, where he pursued his legal studies.
He got involved in resistance to the apartheid practices of the white-minority government of South Africa in the 1940s after joining the African National Congress.
As a result of Nelson Mandela’s advocacy, the African National Congress (ANC) established uMkhonto weSizwe, or “The Spear of the Nation.”
He was a defendant rather than an attorney, and he spent time in and out of court. He was given a life sentence after it was shown that he had planned to overthrow the country.
Nelson Mandela altered his perspective on life and completed his education via correspondence while he was incarcerated.
Even though he was still in favor of Black sovereignty in South Africa, he turned pacifist after seeing that apartheid had stripped Black people of their dignity and made White people harsh.
Mandela promoted total equality and the elimination of the need for revenge.
Apartheid was unsustainable by the late 1980s, and the FW de Klerk-led South African government concluded that granting Black people political authority was the only way to prevent civil war.
Nelson Mandela was freed from jail in 1990 on the condition that Black people would not seek retribution. Following the first completely democratic election, Mandela was elected president in 1994.
During his presidency from 1994 to 1999, he oversaw reconciliation. Significant attempts were made to unite the various racial groupings and to promote South Africa as a diverse but inclusive nation that protected human rights and freedom for all citizens, regardless of background or color.
In 1993, FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nelson Mandela utilized South Africa’s 1995 Rugby World Cup hosting as a platform to galvanize the people of his country. South Africa ultimately emerged victorious in the competition, and for a fleeting instant, the entire country united.
Nelson Mandela mostly withdrew from public life following his presidency and passed away on December 5, 2012, at the age of 95.
Kwame Nkrumah
Nkrumah, born in 1909 was educated in the US and fought without ceasing to secure the Gold Coast from British rule.
Marcus Garvey, a Black American leader, and Marx and Lenin were among his main sources of inspiration.
His desire for independence from Britain grew more radical, and he founded the Convention Peoples’ Party to coordinate peaceful demonstrations and large-scale action in support of his demands for instantaneous independence.
British Togoland and the Gold Coast united to form Ghana in 1957, the year the nation gained complete independence.
It was instantly evident that Kwame Nkrumah would rule in an authoritarian manner when he approved of detention without charge or trial.
Nkrumah was elected president of Ghana after the country became a republic in 1960. He ran a relentless campaign, seeing the goal of his endeavors as the creation of a “United States of Africa.”
He was more concerned with advancing pan-Africanism than managing his nation, which led to Ghana’s economic problems resulting from disastrous projects. Nevertheless, Ghana became a one-party state and Nkrumah declared himself president for life.
Nkrumah died from cancer in 1972 while he was on tour to China when the nation descended into corruption, following his assassination attempt he withdrew in 1962.
He became popular due to his anti-colonial view and struggle for independence. He is now regarded as a significant African leader who championed pan-Africanism throughout the continent.
Thomas Sankara
Many people refer to Thomas Sankara as the Che Guevara of Africa. He was born in 1949 in Upper Volta, which is now part of Burkina Faso. He chose to pursue a military career, against his parents’ wishes for him to become a priest.
He experienced populist uprisings, communist ideology, and the horrors of war early in his career while serving as a soldier in Mali.
Sankara was a man of great charisma and reputed for his honesty. Despite holding high positions in the government, his political rivals viewed him as dangerous because of these qualities.
Sankara was detained by President Ouédraogo, but in 1983 he managed to escape from prison and take office as Burkina Faso’s president.
He put into effect several effective socialist programs during his brief presidency. By emphasizing equality, education, and ecological preservation, he transformed healthcare and significantly decreased the newborn death rate.
He improved access to education and gave women more authority. He planted ten million plants to stop the desert from getting worse.
The conservative portion of the nation criticized him despite his enormous success because they disagreed with his progressive policies and anti-imperialist views.
A scheme involving France, the CIA, and former president Blaise Compaoré resulted in the assassination of Thomas Sankara in 1987. Compaoré went on to take over the government and rule until his retirement in 2014, at which point he left the nation.
In 2021, Compaoré and his accomplices were tried in absentia by a tribunal, which found Compaoré guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison.
One of the greatest African leaders, Thomas Sankara was assassinated at the age of 37, similar to many other revolutionaries.
Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada Oumee reigned over Uganda from 1971 to 1979, a particularly cruel period in the nation’s history.
Idi Amin, a member of the Kakwa ethnic group, a tiny minority in northern Uganda, was born in 1924 (or 1925).
He enlisted in the British colonial army’s King’s African Rifles at an early age and was employed as a cook. He supported the British to colonize Kenya in between 1952 to 1956 during the Mau Mau
As he advanced through the ranks, Idi Amin became one of the few Africans to hold the rank of officer by the time Uganda gained independence in 1962.
Amin made friends with Milton Obote, the newly appointed president and prime minister of Africa, and the latter appointed Amin Chief of the Air Force in addition to the army.
He drove Asians out of his nation and punished some Ugandan tribes. It is estimated that 300,000 or more people died as a result of his leadership.
He invaded Tanzania in 1978, and the Tanzanians overran the capital city of Uganda, Kampala, the following year, ending his tenure. Thereafter he left for Saudi Arabia until he died in 2003.
Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe is well-known for leading Zimbabwe to independence and liberation from the white minority government under Ian Smith, but he is also criticized for his harsh authoritarian style of rule, which attracted a lot of political attention from opponents of his administration.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who was born in 1924, attended the University of Fort Hare in South Africa before relocating to Ghana to work as a teacher.
After his return to Rhodesia (the former Zimbabwe) in 1960, he founded the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in the ensuing years. He was imprisoned from 1964 to 1974, during which he launched a party coup and assumed total command of ZANU.
Rhodesia was engulfed in a civil war from 1964 to 1979 as the Black majority waged a guerilla war against their colonial authorities while the White minority tried to maintain their control.
After being freed from prison in 1974, Robert Mugabe joined the conflict. When the war came to an end in 1979, Robert Mugabe easily emerged victorious to lead the ZANU-PF party.
In the initial years of his rule, he achieved significant progress in rapprochement, establishing alliances between the Shona and Ndebele communities, and crucially, providing security to the white farmers who were the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy. These compromises and peace efforts proved short-lived.
Amid a severe economic crisis, he turned Zimbabwe into a one-party state by the end of the decade. There were elections, but they were marred by intimidation and bloodshed.
The resistance increased over time. With the economy of Zimbabwe still in freefall, Morgan Tsvangirai founded the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999.
The ZANU-PF continued to hold power despite the MDC winning over half of the parliamentary seats in the 2000 election.
People identifying as “war veterans” utilized violence during this period to demand land reform.
Even though many of them were far too young to have served in the military, their acts caused a large-scale evacuation of white farmers from Zimbabwe, which resulted in a serious food shortage and an economic disaster.
Mugabe’s adoption of measures to permit the expropriation of land owned by White people made this worse. Over 50% of the farmers departed Zimbabwe.
The nation’s decline persisted, with inflation reaching 100,000%. Mugabe’s mental and physical health was deteriorating, but rigged elections kept him in office.
Eventually, in 2017, a military coup overthrew him, and Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed the presidency. In 2019, Robert Mugabe passed away at the age of 95.
Of course, Patrice Lumumba, Haile Selassie, and Muammar Gaddafi are only a handful of the many notable African leaders who should be acknowledged.
Africa is a large continent with a vast number of powerful African leaders. While some of them were helpful dictators, many of them were cruel ones.
There were monarchs and emperors, capitalists and Marxists, leaders of the white minority, and rebels.
Africa has produced some tremendously interesting leaders who have guided their countries through the upheavals of a developing continent, ranging from the hated and reviled to the adored and revered.
Prominent African Leaders of the 20th Century.