Barack Obama tells Africa to stop blaming colonialism for problems "President Barack Obama has told African leaders it is time to stop blaming colonialism and "Western oppression" for the continent's manifold problems."

US President Barack Obama just completed a three nation tour of Africa that included visits to Senegal's Gorée Island, one of the infamous ports from which millions of Africans were sent to enslavement by Europeans in the Americas, and South Africa's Robben Island, where future presidents like Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma were imprisoned as their nation was exploited by a white minority during the apartheid era.

Yet before his first presidential African trip - a brief visit to Ghana in 2009 - Obama dismissed the effects of colonialism in Africa saying "I'm not a believer in excuses."

Read more about how Africans themselves interpret the colonial legacy in the conclusion of Dennis Laumann's Colonial Africa, 1884-1994 (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Barack Obama: "Ultimately, I'm a big believer that Africans are responsible for Africa" Photo: EPA

By Alex Spillius in Washington

12:28AM BST 09 Jul 2009

Ahead of a visit to Ghana at the weekend, he said: "Ultimately, I'm a big believer that Africans are responsible for Africa.

"I think part of what's hampered advancement in Africa is that for many years we've made excuses about corruption or poor governance, that this was somehow the consequence of neo-colonialism, or the West has been oppressive, or racism – I'm not a big – I'm not a believer in excuses.

Mr Obama, the son of a Kenyan, added: "I'd say I'm probably as knowledgeable about African history as anybody who's occupied my office. And I can give you chapter and verse on why the colonial maps that were drawn helped to spur on conflict, and the terms of trade that were uneven emerging out of colonialism.

"And yet the fact is we're in 2009," continued the US president. "The West and the United States has not been responsible for what's happened to Zimbabwe's economy over the last 15 or 20 years.

"It hasn't been responsible for some of the disastrous policies that we've seen elsewhere in Africa. And I think that it's very important for African leadership to take responsibility and be held accountable."

Mr Obama told AllAfrica.com that he chose Ghana for his first trip to the continent as president to highlight the country's development as a democracy.
Providing glimpses of a speech to be delivered in Accra on Saturday, he explained: "Ghana has now undergone a couple of successful elections in which power was transferred peacefully, even a very close election."
Mr Obama made it clear that Kenya's ongoing instability had ruled out his father's homeland as an initial destination, despite the euphoria it would have produced.