Four African independence leaders who stayed in bed with former colonial masters

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Budding Pan-Africanists are usually surprised to learn that Senghor, one of the fathers of Negritude, disagreed with Nkrumah’s advocacy of antipathy towards former colonizers.

Senghor as Senegal’s first president was very friendly towards colonial masters France. Indeed, he continued to maintain both a political and intellectual posture to this effect.

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Together with Houphouët-Boigny, Senghor advanced an ideology that the French would take advantage of to maintain an unnecessary presence in their former colonies.