Most African nations (not countries) are relatively new compared to other nations in different continents.
After independence from colonialists from 1950-70's, most African countries had set backs due to internal conflicts between 2 local ideologies or external factors.
I want to focus now on external factors because most of Western African countries were corrupted by ex-colonialists. The ex-colonialists took advantage of the weak state of those countries during the transition to autonomy, to exploit their resources and consequently void them of any way to fund the development of those nations.
Also, for political reason, US destabilized most of them from Senegal down to South Africa. In ex-Zaire (now RD Congo), Patrice Lumumba, a brilliant mind native from ex-Zaire was trying to nationalize everything in his country as a democratically elected president. However, that would mean that Belgium and US wouldn't have control of their natural resources and the latter feared that USSR would instill communism in the country's political scenario. So, CIA funded rebels lead by the brutal Mobutu Seko, which lead the capture and execution of Patrice and would forever sent the country into a deep state of turmoil.
Almost the same thing happened in my country, Cape Verde Islands. When we were fighting the Portuguese for our independence, Amilcar Cabral (also a brilliant engineer, tactician and diplomat), asked Nixon for help us due to US relations with Portugal (Nato). Instead of helping Cape Verde, Nixon bid $5 billion to Portugal to transfer their sovereignty to US, whom could have used Cape Verde as a military platform (Navy) in Africa and Atlantic Ocean. Obviously Portugal refused and Nixon left us without response as Portuguese dictator Salazar was also fighting communism in Africa.
With these stories said, it takes a long time to structure a country and make it work as a nation. Especially when all the brains leave the country to study or find a better life.







