About a week ago, our newspapers and social media pages were inundated with pictures documenting the 3-day visit paid to Nigeria by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The royal couple had visited Nigeria to celebrate the Invictus Games, a tournament organised by Prince Harry for wounded soldiers.
A Tale of Two Monarchies: Britain and Africa
Seeing different pictures and videos of the royal couple being serenaded and celebrated by Nigerians left me pondering on the paradox of the British Monarch – How the same Britain who led her former colonies in Africa into sidelining their monarchies has been able to retain and situate her monarchy in today’s modern government.
Nigerian guest, Prince Harry, was born into a royal British family. He is the son of King Charles III of Britain who inherited the throne from his mother, the late Queen of England, Elizabeth II.
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Dismantling African Systems: A Colonial Tactic?
The British monarchy where Prince Harry comes from is a dynasty that divides British society into royals and non-royals. A Briton not born into the royal British family has zero chance of ascending to the throne of the King or Queen. This isn’t different from the monarchies which existed in some parts of Africa before Britain and her co-colonialists invaded Africa and disrupted African native or traditional system of societal organisation.
For example, the old Benin Kingdom (Nigeria) was a well-structured and progressive empire that existed for many years before it was struck by colonial invasion. In fact, around the year 1862 when Britain began to make attempts to annex the Benin Kingdom as one of its protectorates, it (i.e. Britain) was met with stiff opposition from the then King of Benin Kingdom, Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, who was later forcefully dethroned by the British Colonial administrators and exiled to Calabar alongside two of his wives (Queen Egbe and Queen Aighobahi).
Apart from using its military might to invade and disrupt African traditional mode of governance or societal organisation, Britain also employed the rhetoric of ideological propaganda just to feed Africa with the notion that our traditional systems of governance, which had kings or monarchs in some parts (just as we have today in Britain) was primitive and anachronistic. British jurists and writers like Henry Maine, as far back as 1861, described as unprogressive a society where ascribed status like royal status still holds sway.
As a result of the above-stated facts, British colonies in Africa, upon attainment of independence, hurriedly discarded their traditional system of governance and opted for a new system of government based on the Western idea of democracy.
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The Power and Privilege of Britain’s Royal Family
Surprisingly, the same Britain that led her former colonies into ditching their monarchies for an elected or democratic government still practices monarchy today. The British Constitution up till now still recognises the King/Queen as the sovereign. Still, it confers on him/her enormous powers, including the power “to veto laws made by the parliament, to appoint or dismiss the British Prime Minister as well as other ministers, regulate the civil service, issue passports, declare war, make peace, direct the actions of the military, and negotiate and ratify treaties, alliances, and international agreements.”
What is even more shocking is that Britain pretends not to know that her monarchy is highly undemocratic and discriminatory – that it is primitively autocratic that successive Kings and Queens are being imposed on British people for life without any election and that it is unjust that only one family in Britain, i.e. the royal family, enjoys the exclusive right to aspire or ascend to the throne of the King/Queen.
Dissent and Democracy: Challenges to the British Monarchy
Though, recently, anti-monarchy campaigns have sparked off in Britain, the British authorities have been able to arrest the situation and muffle these dissent voices by cracking down on them with the police.
In May 2023, Aljazeera reported that the police arrested about 51 anti-monarchy protesters, including one Graham Smith who is the leader of a group known as the Anti-Monarchy Group Republic. Another protester by the name of Symon Hill was arrested and charged to court for publicly shouting, during the Coronation of King Charles III, as follows: “A head of state has been imposed on us without our consent.”
A Legacy of Contradictions: Moving Forward
It is both baffling and revealing that Britain which professes itself as a civilised society and which preaches and prescribes democracy for her former colonies in Africa, still practices a primitive monarchy. More than anything else, this is what agitates my mind whenever I come across any picture of any British monarch or any members of the British royal family being celebrated in any part of Africa.
