Britain’s imperial past still troubles the world

Lately, I have been met with a silent realization that history rarely retires. Oftentimes, it only changes clothes and walks back into power. You may realize how poignant this fact is when you consider the current geopolitical chaos across the world. From the smoking war fronts, to the jittery markets that shed trillions, the displaced millions of refugees, and the geographical and border disagreements, among many rancours. These rancours are often blamed on weak leadership, self-agenda, or strategic collisions. But beneath the opinions, are the old British imperial choices that were perilously made in London centuries ago, which still breathe, while their delayed tremors are crashing into the current chaos across the world.

The British Empire, which ruled the world for centuries, made several crippling mistakes that still bite the world today. From forceful partitions, to illegal declarations, resource plundering, forceful amalgamations, crippling financial systems, among others. For instance, can we pay attention to the sui generis of the current India and Pakistan tension? Their longstanding rifts and wars remain the clearest proof that a border that’s drawn in haste can bleed for generations. The existing chaos between these two countries dates back to the British exit in 1947 which left behind a rushed partition that displaced about 14 million people and killed roughly one million – one of the largest forced migrations in human history. Kashmir was forcefully suspended between two newborn states, which many people across the world condemned as a geopolitical goof. Till this very moment, these two nuclear-armed nations still circle each other while draining billions into defence regardless of the excruciating poverty that is eating them deep.

Forcefully, the British Empire also merged borders without listening to people’s cries. My country, Nigeria, for instance, is a clear indication that a forced unity can ferment permanent insecurity and economic woes. The British Empire amalgamated the northern and southern parts of Nigeria into one in 1914, selfishly and mainly for British administrative ease. Yet, they never corrected the error in spite of the agitations from foremost Nigerian nationalists like Herbert Macaulay, Adegboyega Edun, and Orisadipe Obasa, among others, then. The British Empire forced Nigeria to inherit a structure that ignored religious, political, social, and cultural rhythm; and the end result? Boko Haram insurgency, banditry and kidnappings, separatist agitations, farmer-herder violence, and biting economic turbulence. Today, despite Nigeria being Africa’s largest country, we still bleed internally, and we’re still getting ravaged by insecurity, majorly from the northern parts of the country, where the anachronistic Almajiri system has done much harm. The recent false claim of ‘Christian genocide’ by the American president that made him order a Christmas Day airstrike in Sokoto is just a sour fruit from the ungraceful tree of insecurity in the Northern parts of the country, which is dominated by Muslims and where far more Muslims have been killed compared to Christians. But sadly, it only reminds me of the proverbial saying, “When the roots of a tree begin to decay, it spreads death to the branches.” The roots here were never organically planted; they were artificially devised by the forceful amalgamation of the self-serving British empire.

Majorly worthy of mention is the ongoing Palestine and Israel war, which stands as a global moral wound that refuses closure. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been responsible for the death of about 71,000 Palestinian people in what the Amnesty International and millions of people across the world have called a clear ‘genocide’. But the genesis of this issue is not what we should overlook; it is another error from the British Empire. The 1917 Balfour Declaration by the British that promised the same land to different peoples was a contradiction that has been abandoned rather than resolved. In a historical letter that was addressed by Arthur Balfour, the then Britain’s foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a historical promise was made and a homeland was given to Jews in Palestine, this was done by an empire that did not even belong there. Only sixty-seven words were used in the said declaration, yet more than a century of fire, genocide, sectarian cleansing, and chaos has been lived inside them. That single letter has continued to dictate borders, grief, and resistance even in 2026. Britain left, but chaos stayed.

It’s quite imperative that I add Sudan and South Sudan. The chaos with these countries also clearly shows that their separation from the British Empire without healing has birthed endless chaos. The British colonial administration spearheaded the North and South divisions that independence later inherited the split. South Sudan’s civil war is on record to have displaced over 4 million people and destabilized the Horn of Africa. The chaos has never stopped till this very moment. Refugee flows strain neighbouring economies that are already gasping for lives.

When author Walter Rodney argued in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa that “underdevelopment was not accidental; it was engineered,” I can’t but agree. I mean, we may need to consider how the British Empire engineered and fermented trouble in Kenya. They seized Kenya’s fertile land, and post-independence reforms never truly corrected it. Election violence in 2007 was rooted in land grievances that ended up killing over 1,100 people. Inequality feeds unrest; unrest scares investment. Capital flees, currencies weaken, and Africa’s growth promise is delayed.

Look at how Iraq and the wider Middle East have also remained trapped in British colonial mismanagement. Britain forcefully fused the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish regions into one mandate state, despite knowing clearly the variance in their ideological beliefs. The Kurdish aspirations were ignored, and today, Kurdish struggles stretch across Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and, in a way, destabilize NATO alliances and US military strategy. America’s supremacy would always make the claim of filling the vacuum Britain left, yet stability in these countries remains elusive. War economies, they say, thrive where political design failed; the British Empire failed in the political design here.

It has become pertinent that I mention how debt and dependency reveal the British Empire’s economic misgivings. Former British colonies dominate IMF and World Bank loan registers. According to World Bank data, over 80 percent of IMF borrowers are former colonies. And by this, the structural adjustment was made to replace colonial rule that enforced austerity while wealth still flowed north. Sadly, many of these weak countries that are former British colonies are heavily dependent on the crippling loans from the IMF and World Bank. And yes, they are crippling loans because how would a country seek a loan that comes with stringent conditions that meddle in the internal affairs of the country?

Sadly, America is making many mistakes made by the British Empire, too. Believing power lasts forever is an illusion, and you know, history has a habit of retiring empires and dominance. Many current actions of America are currently uniting the world against her, so much so that even the Western NATO, which embodies many major and non-major American allies, now threatens military support for Denmark over America in regard to Greenland. Many of her major allies, like Saudi in the Middle East, now make security pacts with Pakistan after seeing how Israel struck Qatar in the spring of last year, claiming it was looking for Hamas members, yet America would do nothing about it. The forceful overtaking of Palestinian lands by Israel that was supported by AIPAC and Neocons is another worrying fact to mention. Proxy countries are getting controlled by America, and borders and partitions are getting forced too; proxy wars echo the same impulse of the British, economic control/sanctions/tariffs are being put above human cost, and trade routes and resources now seem to matter more than human lives; all these were the same pitfalls that the British empire did not avoid. How far does the sun really stay overhead of America?

Hashim Yussuf Amao wrote from Oluyole Ibadan, Oyo State

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