World View: On the social calendar of every African president, one date stands out this year. Come next Tuesday (March 6th) the streets of downtown Accra will be clogged with Mercedes Benz limousines, writes Joe Humphreys
Heads of state will vie for attention as they parade through the Ghanaian capital. Fine words will be spoken, and fine wine shall be drunk - for this kind of event comes around just once in a lifetime: Africa commemorates 50 years of independence.
In fact, it is only Ghana that turns 50 on March 6th. But the whole continent owes something to the former British protectorate, once known as Gold Coast, for it was the first African state to obtain independence from colonial rule.
When Kwame Nkrumah became Ghana president in 1957, he lit the flame of freedom struggles from Algiers to Cape Town.
Within three years, the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, would make his famous "wind of change" speech, heralding his country's ignominious retreat from the "dark continent".
Other colonisers followed suit, fleeing one by one - until eventually, with the fall of apartheid South Africa in 1994, all of Africa was in African hands.
Hence the reason for next week's celebrations. Amid all the expected fanfare, however, there is a danger of some perspective being lost. Just as the street traders and beggars of Accra are being swept aside to make way for VIPs, the suffering of African citizens over the past half-century is largely being ignored in commemorations.
Indeed, it is fair to ask why Africa is celebrating at all, given its first 50 years of independence have been largely characterised by underdevelopment, famine and conflict.
The continent's much-feted "liberators", Nkrumah included, proved on the whole to be either grossly incompetent or obscenely corrupt. Living conditions have barely improved in some countries, and have worsened in others.
Just what caused this half-century of disappointment is a matter of some debate, but colonisation - or rather its legacy - shouldn't be overlooked. Having exploited the continent for centuries, imperialists abandoned Africa with little thought as to what they would leave behind.
As Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin puts it in a new book on his troubled homeland, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, "Colonialism lasted just long enough to destroy much of Africa's indigenous cultures and traditions, but not long enough to leave behind a durable replacement."
For many countries, independence led directly to civil war. Places such as Mozambique and Angola took decades to recover. Sudan has yet to do so.
Other nations shook off the colonial yoke only to become satellite states for foreign superpowers during the cold war. Uganda's Idi Amin, "The Last King of Scotland", was kept in power for long periods through Soviet money. Congo's Mobutu Sese Seko, who advised his servants to "steal cleverly" from the people, was largely bankrolled by the United States.
That said, Africa's political leadership is itself far from blameless. Too many liberation heroes turned out to be despots. As historian Martin Meredith points out: "By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power."
The cult of the "Big Man" may not be as strong as before. But a single dictator - such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe - is still one too many. Of concern today also is the manner in which some once progressive governments - notably Yoweri Museveni's in Uganda, Paul Kagame's in Rwanda, and Meles Zenawi's in Ethiopia - are threatening to return to oppressive ways.
In his recently-published book, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, Meredith sifts through various excuses for the continent's woes, and concludes: "Time and again, potential for economic development has been disrupted by the predatory politics of ruling elites seeking personal gain, often precipitating violence for their own ends."
The criticism is just. But it shouldn't blind outside observers to albeit isolated examples of responsible leadership that have sprung up in Africa against considerable odds. Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first female head of state, has won widespread praise for her delicate stewardship in a traumatised land. Governments in Botswana and Tanzania have made significant moves to open up the media, and continue to grow economically. In South Africa, president Thabo Mbeki has presided over a prolonged period of political and economic stability in the wake of apartheid's downfall.
War-torn DR Congo's hosting of relatively peace- ful elections last year ranks as another achievement. Clean elections in Nigeria next month would further boost Africa's democratization hopes.
In short, a number of African leaders gathering for celebrations in Accra next week deserve to take a bow. But many, if not most, should hang their heads in shame - or, alternatively, they should be made to do so by their peers.
If one habit needs to be broken after 50 years of independence, it is the tendency of African leaders to refrain from criticising one another - a tendency that is sure to be on show in Ghana next week.
Years of foreign exploitation, and the West's continuing bullying of Africa, at trade negotiations in particular, has cemented a feeling of "us and them". One unfortunate side-effect is that rogue governments can enjoy a certain kudos, if not popularity, within Africa by mere virtue of the fact that they rub up the likes of Britain and the US the wrong way. Mugabe, who continues to trade on anti-colonial rhetoric, was, for example, named the continent's third-favourite leader of all time (after after Nelson Mandela and Ghana's Nkrumah) in a poll a few years ago in New African magazine.
Is it easy to despair at such findings, and at the general unwillingness of African leaders to tackle abuses of power on their own continent. But the outside world should also reflect on what it has done to over the past half-century, and what it continues to do, to keep Africa subdued, isolated and in a state of near-complete poverty.
After all, it is in this environment that democrats struggle and despots thrive.