Tribalism is, indeed, a problem in Africa. For Americans and Europeans, it is an obsession – the game they have played since the Portuguese planted their first outposts at the mouths of African rivers in the 1400s. However, there are limits to the effectiveness of tribal manipulation. Many “tribes” are very large – nations, actually. Setting one tribal group against the other, while suppressing the social development of each, is a tricky business. The colonizer must not to allow the “favored” group to accrue, through privilege, sufficient social space to aspire to nationhood. In that event, the formerly favored group must be crushed by the colonizer’s own military force – a brutish and costly business.
These are generalities, and Africa is a big place. Numerous colonial powers at different times employed the full mix of coercion, manipulation, favoritism, and raw (including genocidal) force.
After World War Two, and for a host of reasons, the colonial arrangement had become untenable. Europeans would continue to engage in tribal manipulation in the new political environment, while the U.S. preferred bullets and bribes as it assumed overlord status among the imperialists. However, it was clear to the old masters – and especially to Washington – that the formal structures of independence would inevitably lead to the growth of dynamic civil societies that could impede the operations of multinational extraction corporations and agribusiness. Civil societies can become quite raucous and demanding, even in countries in which there are tribal divisions. Therefore, the process of African civil development had to be interrupted, not only in those new states that were economically valuable to Europe and the U.S., but in all of Africa, so that no healthy civil model might emerge. If this could be achieved, there would be no need to fear the actions of assembled heads of African states – an irrelevant gaggle of uniforms and suits, standing in for nations, but representing no coherent social force.