True. I was thinking more in the vein of people panicking over Ebola (because Ebola is a very easy virus to panic over, being very deadly and messy, and IOTL there was actually something of a current of Ebola-panic at the time; think The Hot Zone and several Tom Clancy books for examples from the mid to late 1990s). Of course the disease will turn out not to go anywhere outside of West Africa, as IOTL, but it might draw attention to supporting African health systems to avoid a different "jump" and pandemic. I would envision this as both subsuming the initiatives I mentioned and replacing the vaccine effort. Although, looking further, it turns out that rVSV-ZEBOV was actually being developed in the early 2000s and entered animal trials in 2005, so maybe that just gets moved up the way that the OTL outbreak greatly accelerated development.
Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God: A History of the True Whigs
- Thread starter Youngmarshall
- Start date
Doré
George Doré: 2001-04 - The Father
The formation of the West African Federation changed the nature of the political situation and caused something of a realignment in each of the constituent countries. In Liberia, there had always been a single vote which every citizen has eligible for, the Presidential one. Thus, even with the districts system, parties were naturally nation wide. In the WAF, there was instead five different Presidential votes who made up the executive council. If you lived in Bissau, you did not vote for who took power in Monrovia, not even indirectly.
As a result, while there were alliances and sympathies between various parties, all five constituent countries of the Federation had different politics. Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone were both led by centrist pro integration parties, the 'African Party' and the 'Transformation Party' respectively, and in both cases opposition was provided initially by pro independence anti union parties, the 'Peoples Party' in Sierra Leone and the 'Batefa Party' in Guinea Bissau. As the union established itself, both parties struggled to cut through with that message, though they got more satisfaction by opposing further integration into the greater West African Economic Zone and parties challenging the centrist economic line began to emerge instead. In Guinea Bissau, the poorest of the five countries, that was primarily the Maoist 'Struggle Front', while in Sierra Leone it was the 'Union Party' which called for greater economic centralisation and neoliberalism.
The three countries that had been Liberia, of course, had an already established Socialist vs True Whig dichotomy. Both were unionist, with the True Whigs being generally centrist, while the Socialists were more left wing especially on social matters. In Guinea-Conakry however, the Guinea Nationalist Party had won the first post partition elections. They had started as a secessionist party but had come to support the federated structure, though they still officially called for a reversion to the old borders at the expense of Liberia-Kankan. They largely ended up ruling much like the True Whigs did, following the unspoken WAF economic consensus of a broad welfare state that included housing and utilities, protection of farming land from private ownership but support for privately owned factories and a cooperative relationship with trade unions. The Socialists and True Whigs both still existed within the country but would quickly lose activists and voters to the GNP, with the Maoist 'Landless People's Party' taking their position as the main opposition.
Liberia-Monrovia had seen the Socialists maintain control at the cost of an increasing conservative backlash, in 2001 they had de-criminalised homosexuality, the third WAF country to do so after Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, this was supported by the 'Progressive Christian Party' but opposed not only by the True Whigs but by the economically right wing 'Capitalist Party', the anti-immigrant 'Patriotic Union' and the environmentalist 'Country Party'. While the Socialist had won handily, there was much anger about the anti socialist vote being split and talks about a loose alliance between those parties dominated the agenda of J Nogbe Sloh, Boley's successor. Sloh would not be the overall leader of the True Whigs as that role had been taken by the President of Liberia-Kankan, George Doré.
Liberia-Kankan was the only country to reward the True Whigs for their role in the foundation of the WAF. Their candidate Doré, a Monrovian educated lawyer from a family of coffee farmers just north of the new border between Liberia-Kankan and Liberia-Monrovia, was elected in 1996, ahead of both a Socialist party that had increasingly been losing votes among its mine worker heartlands and the emerging Islamic party. 58 at the time, he had always been previously relegated to the back benches thanks to a reputation as a gadfly and an eccentric, who often clashed with the leadership, his relationship with Conté being legendarily unpleasant. But his strong ties to the local community had meant he could never be entirely dismissed and he was the obvious choice to become the first leader of the new country, taking on a calm elder statesman persona quite different from the fiery rhetoric of decades earlier.
Liberia-Kankan was hit the hardest by the Epidemic but Doré's leadership was generally praised and he was rewarded in 2000 with a second term in which to continue his rebuilding efforts as the economy bounced back. Liberia-Kankan had always been a major mining and logging area but during the 1990s and early 2000s there was also increasing manufacturing, as both foreign and domestic companies were encouraged by lower taxes to move into the area. In this they were helped by the increasing attractiveness of the WAEZ as a market. The WAEZ had slowly expanded into a complete free area for goods during the 1990s, while this would eventually allow manufacturing to be moved elsewhere in the WAEZ to undercut Liberian labour costs, at this point the WAF had clear advantages in terms of expertise, facilities and stability while allowing access to a large market. It had been a long term goal for the True Whigs to turn the WAEZ into a currency and customs zone with free movement of services and people but talks to that effect had collapsed in 1995. Instead those counties who still used the CFA Franc (Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegambia, Togo and the Ivory Coast) began to propose that their countries should form their own closer union without the rest.
The WAF, faced with being cut out of their hoped for economic union, would adapt the CFA franc themselves in 2000, as they needed a new currency for their own country anyway. This meant that when the proposed currency and customs Union did fully form in 2001, only Cape Verde, Mauritania, Nigeria and Ghana of the WAEZ countries would be left out. While Mauritania and Cape Verde weren't viewed as particularly important, Nigeria was comfortably the largest economy in the WAEZ, with Ghana second. Both had benefited from the free trade areas in terms of buying resources and selling manufactured goods but both were also reluctant to give up control of their borders, currency and tariffs. Both countries promised to join the full union at some point but would find it politically difficult to do so at the beginning and the date when it would happen kept being pushed back. The loss of two huge economies was a blow to the ambitions of this new union but did allow the WAF to take a leading role within it. While WAF plans for an entirely integrated army were rejected, they won largely on the question of protectionist tariffs and placed a promise to work towards full union at some point into the constitution.
This was a major victory for the council that Doré made up a 5th of and he was a popular man across the WAF when he became overall leader of his Party. The True Whigs had started as a Monrovian party and to an extent would always see Monrovia and its nearest cities as the heart land, but they had got used to swapping leadership with Freetown and Sloh was happy to accept guidance from the older man, while the President of Liberia-Kankan recognised something of his younger self in the maverick Sloh. While Doré had a decent working relationship with Sawyer, he was a party man through and through and often made joint speeches with Sloh and other True Whigs while visiting Monrovia.
Doré's hope for a quiet second term, healing some of the damage left by the Ebola epidemic, were to prove unfulfilled, though. Violence marred the 2001 to 2003 period, Islamic jihadists, unhappy at the secular education structure in Liberia-Kankan rioted in 2001 resulting in violent clashes with security forces that sent ripples through the nation especially given the international events of that year. The ongoing drug violence in Liberia-Monrovia reached its nadir in the 2003 Harper shootout and violence in Senegambia overflowed into Guinea-Bissau in 2002. Worst of all, however was the events in the Ivory Coast. WAF forces had been required for peace keeping between the largely Muslim migrant population and the Christian Southern Ivorians during the 1990s and the country was a tinderbox. The decision by President Ouattara, whose family was rumoured to have been born in Burkina Faso themselves, to agree to freedom of movement and full voting rights to other citizens of WAEZ in 2001, was all the spark needed. The Christian Ivorians, fearing themselves soon to be outnumbered and out voted, staged a coup. Half of the army, themselves Muslim, deserted and the result was soon open fighting.
Ouattara asked for the WAEZ to intervene, and they agreed. The WAF, Burkina Faso and Ghana all invaded the Ivory Coast, who for once could not rely on French assistance. The initial fighting was relatively short, Ouattara was reinstalled as President in short order but he'd lost fatal credibility and had to purge half his army. For Christian Ivorians, Ouattara had only confirmed his status as a foreign puppet of the Ivory Coast's neighbours. WAF flags were burnt in Abidjan and there was an attempted assassination attempt of the WAF executive President in Freetown by a disgruntled Ivorian expat. WAF eacekeepers within the country fared even worse and soon Ouattara asked for them to be replaced by Nigerians and Cape Verdeans who were less closely involved. It was a powerful reminder of the limitations of pan-africanism.
Not all the conflict Doré faced was so violent. To Western audiences he is perhaps best known as 'The Man who Burned down the Jungle' in Nancee Bright's documentary on the environmentalist struggle to halt logging in Liberia-Kankan. Logging would not be entirely halted until after Doré had stepped down in 2003 but that his successor so quickly backed down showed how much the clashes had hurt Doré's reputation. His term also saw the first of the protests against the Housing lotteries, while it was not yet the crisis it would become, he undoubtedly missed a chance to stop it early.
But despite all of the conflict and disease that marred his time in power, Doré never leant into divisive politics. His instincts were always to bring people together, to try and heal any damage that had been done. To some extent he was out of touch, not understanding the new realities of the 21st century but his calm and in control patriarchal public persona leant him gravitas even when he had little solutions to offer and it was much imitated by the people who followed him.
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The West African Federation, the Currency zone within the West African Economic Zone or the West African Economic Zone itself?
Because the answer to all three is maybe, but with different levels of probability.
The West African Economic Zone has joint peacekeeping missions, mutual alliances, free trade of goods, a human rights court and joint projects on visas and infrastructure. It's pretty attractive and somewhere like Morocco will almost certainly want in if they make their otl turn towards cooperation with sub-saharan africa.
The currency union, demands a bit more sacrifices. They have a single currency, completely open borders within it and the same external tariffs. The four members of the WAEZ who aren't it (Mauritania, Cape Verde, Ghana and Nigeria) have said they intend to join at some point but it's a bit of a harder sell (Ivory Coast has just fought a civil war upon joining which people are going to notice and think about) so that might not happen.
The West African Federation is a completely single state, they're federated internally but have one football team, one ambassador, one seat in the UN, one army, one team at the Olympics, one flag, one citizenship, etc. That is a much harder sell, the WAF would be happy to welcome their three neighbours (Ivory Coast, Senegambia and Mali) in but you'd need a government very confident in their power to propose joining it. Possibly if a Tuareg rebellion succeeds, a rump south Mali might join but outside of that, it's hard to see it. Ivory Coast probably have the most understandable motives but they also have a major faction bitterly opposed to it. Burkina Faso might well be up for it in this world given Sankara remains in power for longer if they had a border but they don't.
Why do I see this as ending with the WAF breaking into five different states? 
(Just the cynic in me, I suppose)
Would Ghana be second rather than third economically in the WAEZ? The OTL population of the WAF area is around 28 million to Ghana's 30.4 million, and considerably richer on a per capita basis (sure, they are probably further along towards demographic transition, but they've undoubtedly also grown faster in early periods thanks to being in much better shape, plus immigration).
BTW, cool scenario, although you'll need a big broom for all the butterfly corpses.
(Just the cynic in me, I suppose)
Would Ghana be second rather than third economically in the WAEZ? The OTL population of the WAF area is around 28 million to Ghana's 30.4 million, and considerably richer on a per capita basis (sure, they are probably further along towards demographic transition, but they've undoubtedly also grown faster in early periods thanks to being in much better shape, plus immigration).
BTW, cool scenario, although you'll need a big broom for all the butterfly corpses.
New states are quite rare in the modern era. You'd need either a very violent civil war that lasts long enough for partition to be seen as unavoidable (sudan, yugoslavia etc.) or something like the velvet divorce wherein the benefits of union simply aren't there any more. Not impossible by any means but like even Yemen and Somalia haven't officially broken into different states, there's an innate inertia to existing states, even if, like Yemen, unification is quite recent.Why do I see this as ending with the WAF breaking into five different states?
(Just the cynic in me, I suppose)
Yeah, possibly. My instinct was that Ghana's main advantages would be that they'd have less poor areas with no existing industry, whereas the WAF has huge areas like Guinea-Bissau where there's nothing there because the Portuguese razed it all and Liberia's regionalised economy has held it back comparatively.
Thanks.BTW, cool scenario, although you'll need a big broom for all the butterfly corpses.
I think butterflies can be cool but for a project like this it feels better to kill butterflies whenever I find them. It means I can introduce France and Ghana and whoever (expect to see mentions of China in the next update as they were investing into west africa in this era otl and they're going to be the exact same china we have in otl) into the narrative without having to take the focus from Liberia because everything's the same so I can just go 'ghana' rather than 'ghana, which in this universe saw the ashanti be conquered by the italians instead and so blah blah blah'. Easier for me to keep track of, easier for the readers to do so, keeps the focus on the subject and allows the effects of this liberia to be more noticeable because everything that has changed is something Liberia has done rather than just a random thing.
Sagno
Charles Niankoye Fassou Sagno: 2004-12 - The Economist
The True Whigs were successful enough over the years that they had became something of a big tent in views. Sagno, a Monrovian educated economist from Liberia-Kankan who took over from Doré in 2004 and comfortably won the presidential election, was from the economic right wing of the party, closer to Conté than Konneh. He, like all True Whigs, believed in the economic potential of West Africa and that the West African Federation should primarily be making and selling manufactured goods into their neighbouring countries. But he was also more eager for foreign investment than Doré had been, in particular that of China which was increasingly interested in competing in Western Africa. With the country still recovering from the violence and diseases of the last decade Sagno attempted to push for an increase in foreign investment in order to fulfil the long held aims of extending electricity, water and sewage systems across the entire country. To do this he needed to try and make the WAF a more attractive place for investment.
To an extent Sagno was in step with the other members of the executive council in this. Liberia had long profited from being the place foreign car companies made cars for the African market and inviting in foreign investment was seen as the best way for other industries to get the same boost. The war on drugs within the country and the increasing militarised police, and in particular coast guard, during the early 21st century as piracy within the Gulf of Guinea began to be seriously contested by forces from the West African Economic Zone, was motivated by an attempt to restore confidence that West Africa was now a safe place to do business in, something the Ivorian Civil War had dented. Where Sagno was somewhat out of step was pushing for greater economic incentives as well.
Because both Liberia-Kankan and the wider West African Federation were locked into a customs union with seven other countries he couldn't reduce the high external tariffs without the agreement of Monrovia, Dakar and Freetown, which were unlikely to give it. While the West African Currency Union was no longer the fearsome customs zone it had been, the 1994 World Trade Organisation decree that customs agents should only challenge invoice totals if they had compelling reason to view them as false had somewhat defanged even the notorious Monrovian agency with tax defrauding on the rise as a result, it was still harder to export from there than elsewhere in Africa which limited the appeal for multinationals. Likewise, because of the environmental protests, he found himself unable to offer logging contracts. He was, however, able to slash corporate tax, sell off the government monopolies in bauxite mining and allow non unionised work places. The latter was somewhat controversial, the unions had a traditional role within the country going back a century, but they had also grown increasingly unpopular, with rumours of nepotism and corruption widespread and many young middle class workers viewing them and their semi regular strikes as an obstacle for prosperity.
Moreover the large immigrant population from Mali had undercut wages at the lowest level, thanks to the fact Liberia-Kankan, unike Liberia-Monrovia, had never adopted a national minimum wage, meaning there was always excess Labour ready to work non-union if they were allowed to. Sagno's plan worked, from 2004 to 2008 there was increasing investment into the region which saw a reduction in unemployment and increased infrastructure investment, albeit at the cost of increasing government debt.
As a result, it must be emphasised that Sagno was a popular figure in his first term, he won his own re-election comfortably and campaigned in Liberia-Monrovia for the 'Traditional Alliance' as a popular figure there. But the cracks were already beginning to show. Increases in health and availability of goods were countered by wage stagnation and price inflation of fuel, food and particularly housing and, as West Africa stabilised, companies began to move outside the WAF to seek cheaper labour within the same customs zone. But the real first blow was the global recession of the 2007-09 era that saw a reduction in Chinese, European and American investment in West Africa and dented Sagno's aura as the man who made the economy rise.
Sagno's instinct to this downtown was to react in a Keynesian manner, spend money to get the economy moving again, but the WACU system meant individual government could not just print money, it was a central bank that did and one that was pegged to the Euro. This meant confidence could be maintained in the currency but also that the individual governments were limited in their ability to print new money. Money to be spent had to be either borrowed or raised. To this end Sagno increased the rent in government housing.
A society guided by ex slaves put value on private property and family owned homes but there had always been government owned housing available for those who couldn't afford their own property. The original settlers were often sick when they arrived and so were housed in social housing for the first six months while they recovered, or didn't, from their first brush with Malaria. Part of Roye and Blyden's pitch was to get these new arrivals out of slum housing and into decent government owned buildings. And within the interior the logic had been that all land belonged to the community and so members of that community could be rely on being housed by the elders. As the King system was formalised that role increasingly became that of the government. The expectation that free housing would be provided by the government for workers, though over the decades free became replaced by at a rent below the market value.
As the population grew however and large families began to seek out multiple homes rather than remain in one dwelling, housing grew increasingly valuable and the number of new houses being built stopped keeping up. Under Dore's government demand had begun to outstrip supply with lotteries held among the applicants as to who would get a government house. The efforts to stop further deforestation also slowed down new building work and the result was a housing bubble in the big cities such as Kankan as house prices soared and the waiting list for government housing increased. The lotteries became increasingly complex as more and more people applied for less and less houses, with local residents gaining more tickets then new arrivals and some lotteries being restricted to certain ethnicities to prevent gentrification and local identity being lost, something that increasingly led to anger among those, especially of Malian background, who felt they were being discriminated against.
Sagno did not create these problems but he did intensify them by announcing a major rise in rent in government housing, to reflect the cost of local housing with some areas almost doubling their rent. While government relief was available for those who couldn't meet this cost and the announcement was made in advance so that families had time to adjust, this was a stunningly unpopular measure. The Socialists attacked it as a regressive tax when Sagno could have chosen to instead reverse his cuts on corporate tax and they were numerous 'stop the rent increase' protests in the streets.
More importantly the Islamic Party, already gaining in votes thanks to the unpopular attempts of the WAF public health department to extend the Socialist campaign against Female Genital Mutilation into the area of Liberia-Kankan that had been part of Guinea-Conakry, had become increasingly visible as a provider of charity in times of hardship. The contrast between Sagno's rent rise and Camara's soup kitchens was stark.
While the True Whig's made much of Camara's links to anti secular jihadists, given that groups of Islamic extremists were leading insurrections in other WAEZ countries such as Nigeria, Mali and Niger which WAF peacekeepers were actively fighting but it never stuck. For many in Liberia-Kankan Sharia Law was a much more comfortable and attractive law code than the liberal secularism that had taken over in Liberia-Monrovia and since religious violence in the region was existent but not common, it was difficult to connect Camara's democratic campaign with Yusif's war in the minds of voters. In 2012, Sagno was denied a third term by the Islamic Party.
For the first time since the WAF had been formed, none of the executive council were from the True Whig party.
Wow, that's... I mean I don't think even the fully Islamic nations of west Africa like Mali, Senegal and Niger ever truly even contemplated Sharia Law OTL. For it to be considered attractive here.
It happened in the Muslim majority states of OTL Nigeria, much like there the overall federal court will be able to quash certain punishments and freedom of religion will be allowed but it'll be a fun time (Zamfara is not a bad model here, there sharia law was introduced for the muslims with a parallel civil law for non muslims allowed, though alcohol and prostitution was banned for everyone).
Gbowee
Leymah Gbowee: 2012-16 - The Alcoholic
Sloh's defeat in the 2006 Liberian-Monrovian elections had been a hard blow for the Monrovian True Whigs. The Traditional Alliance of the True Whigs, the Patriotic Union, the Country Party and the Capitalist Party had eked out a majority in the Senate, thanks to standing down for each other but the Socialists tended to dominate the most populous areas and so even without the anti-socialist vote being split, Sekou Conner still won a position in the executive council. Sloh stayed on as leader, and when the Monrovian economy went into recession in 2008 thanks to a fall in the price of oil exports, he was seen as favourite to win the 2009 Presidential election.
And he probably would have done if he'd gone up against Conner again, but the man stood down a year before the election and was replaced by Ellen Carney Woewiyu, a long serving socialist finance minister who had first entered politics under Tipoteh in the 1970s and was seen as from the right wing of the Socialist party. Woewiyu's campaign was based on the need for a steady experienced hand during a time of crisis, as opposed to the young maverick Sloh and promising to ring fence government investment in the welfare state of education, healthcare and housing rather than austerity. Sloh's position within the Traditional Alliance also began to hurt him, as there was worries that because he would owe his position to the other parties then the Capitalists and PUs would drag him to the right on immigration and nationalised industries. Sloh lost for a second time and retired from politics, disenchanted.
The Traditional Alliance fell apart shortly afterwards with the True Whigs blaming the alliance for their lack of progress and the other members bitter that they'd stood down twice in the Presidency for a candidate who had failed to win. Varney Sherman of the Patriotic Union loudly announced that he could have beaten Woewiyu if given the chance, something he would test in 2013.
The True Whigs within Liberia-Monrovia turned to Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and activist who'd first come to national attention for organising community support during the Ebola epidemic of 1998. She was also a member of the Liberian Episcopal Church and a big believer in the Church taking a central role within the community in the way the Mosques did in Liberia-Kankan, she herself had taken refuge in the Church from an abusive husband in her youth. Gbowee's belief in co-operative effort, long a centre stone of True Whig rhetoric, was a very real and tangible thing, she felt communities must work together through the churches to provide mutual aid and distrusted the Socialist view of aid coming instead from a powerful central state. By 2009, at the age of 37, she had already earned a formidable reputation for building bonds between communities and resolving disputes and it was hoped that she could reverse the political fortunes of the True Whigs.
The build up the 2013 election was disrupted by the news from 2012 in Liberia-Kankan. Sagno had been the elder statesmen of the True Whigs and his loss was a huge blow for morale but Camara's ascension was worrying for much bigger reasons than that. While he'd run on economic left wing policies of reversing the rent increases and increasing the role of unions, he was very right wing socially. Much like Ahmed Rufai Sani had in Zamfara State in Nigeria, Camara aimed to institute a version of Sharia Law within his nation for both family and criminal law. This would only apply to Muslims, with the small Christian and Pagan minorities being able to appeal to civil courts instead and Camara promised that he would always respect freedom of religion and human rights, with no punishment for apostasy introduced and an ability for all convicted criminals to appeal to the federal court. For non muslims within Liberia-Kankan the biggest effects of the new law system would be blanket bans on alcohol and prostitution.
But Sharia law was seen as prejudiced against Muslim women in terms of rule of evidence and cases in Nigeria where women who claimed to be rape victims had been sentenced to death for adultery were made much of in Monrovian papers, though in most cases the women in question had won their appeals. For feminists like Woewiyu and Gbowee this was seen as a huge step backwards and Gbowee worried this would lead to more religious strife between the christian dominated southern nations and their muslim minorities (this was in truth less of an issue than feared as many moderate Muslims moved out of Liberia-Kankan upon Sharia Law being instituted while many hardliners moved North though tension has always remained). Woewiyu would eventually establish a tense but working relationship with Camara on the council but Gbowee was steadfastly opposed to the new regime in Liberia-Kankan and would spend almost as much time organising the True Whigs in that area for their failed attempt at overthrowing the Islamic Party in 2016 as she did in her own nation.
This scare to the balance between muslim, christian and secular forces within both the West African Federation and the West African Currency Union was also something increasingly important to plans of expansion. West Africa was openly working towards a single state, but had settled into a three-tier federal system. The West African Federation had shared citizenship, a unified army, united sports teams, a single flag, a single seat at the UN and single ambassadors due to united foreign policy, this included three Christian Majority nations in Liberia-Monrovia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau and two Muslim Majority nations in Guinea-Conakry and Liberia-Kankan. While there was open talk that the thriving socialist state of Burkina Faso, under Sankaraist loyalist Mariam Blati, was hoping to also join the WAF, Burkina Faso was another Muslim Majority state and it was feared would tip the balance towards the extremists. This was especially true because in order to make a land border with Burkina Faso, the path would have to go through either the Ivory Coast or Mali.
The Ivory Coast had a Christian south and a Muslim North that had repeatedly come to blows with each other over the last few decades. Joining merely the West African Currency Union in 2001 had resulted in civil war and while many in the Ivorian government felt a Liberia like partition and then joining the Federation as two nations, one Christian dominated and one Muslim majority was the best path forward for their country, the concept was deeply controversial and protests in 2012 largely discouraged President Henriette Diabaté from pursuing it seriously.
Mali was in even greater strife, it was a country dominated by muslims with them making up 95% of the country but divided between the Tuareg north and the Bambara/Fulani south. In 2012 the North rose up to declare independence and Jihadists, led by Ihad Ag Ghaly, attempted to declare theocratic sharia rule within the new state. West African peace keepers quickly moved in, invited by both the Malian government and the Northern rebels to stop Ghaly, but it was clear that some political arrangement was needed to prevent further flare ups, with the rebels still maintaining armed forces and the government army showing low morale. Camara suggested that Mali could be split into two nations like Liberia had been and join the WAF in that manner, with the joint citizenship and single foreign policy blunting the effects of partition, while allowing separate law and tax codes. This would also, of course, open up the path for Burkina Faso to join, which would mean the WAF would go to five Muslim majority vs three Christian. Opposition from the Christian members of the executive council meant the plan never got anywhere and the Malian government, despite having been privately open to it, quickly denounced any attempts at partition.
The True Whigs felt that opportunities for their hoped for larger federation were being squandered by the parties in charge. They were somewhat molified by the expansion of the West African Currency Union, which while it didn't have shared citizenship did offer shared currency, shared customs and tariffs and free movement of peoples and services. In 2014, Mauritania would join the WECU, Ghana, having long delayed switching currencies would join in 2015, and the Cabo Verde islands would finally join in 2016, leaving only Nigeria outside the WECU.
Nigeria was at that point the only member of the looser West African Economic Zone, which while it didn't have free movement of peoples and services, did offer free trade of goods and joint infrastructure projects with the WECU countries. Both Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic would apply to join in 2016, the latter being a reaction to the former, but disagreement over the completing applications meant neither were ultimately accepted.
Woewiyu won a narrow victory in 2013 due to Sherman's third party run, despite being attacked for being more concerned with flying to Europe for diplomatic visits then working in Monrovia, but this didn't discourage Gbowee for long, she maintained her position as overall leader of the True Whigs, thanks to her unmatched enthusiasm and work drive, organising community groups throughout the WAF and winning over churches and unions from the leading parties. Gbowee believed in parliamentary politics but she also felt there needed to be a community hinterland of activists and organisations behind that, that had existed in the early days of the party but had been increasingly hollowed out due to their long years in power as the electoral politics side had born enough fruit that it had been concentrated on.
However it was increasingly clear that the effort she was putting in was coming at a terrible personal cost. Gbowee had been deeply effected by the poverty and abuse she had suffered through as a child and the horrors she'd seen as an activist during the epidemic and while representing abused women. The loneliness of her time campaigning, away from her children, the stress of her position and the pain of a long standing injury meant she increasingly turned to alcohol to self medicate. While initially her fondness of wine was seen as an amusing quirk and a counter to Camara's prohibitionist outlook, after she passed out several time drunk during campaign sessions, it quickly became apparent within the party that she had a problem. In 2016, after a particularly notorious TV interview where she was clearly quite tipsy, she was asked to stand down by the True Whigs and did so, 'to spend more time with her family'. According to her social media, she has recently celebrated four years sober.
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Greene
Jehmu Greene: 2016-?? - The Future
The true whigs had generally been dominated by the interior cities with the most prominent settler politicians mostly members of the Socialists instead which meant Jehmu Greene, the child of a settler family, was the first leader of the True Whigs to be the descendent of New World slaves since Albert Porte in the 1960s. She had been one of Gbowee's organisers and spokeswomen and took over leadership as essentially the continuity candidate during a difficult time for the True Whigs, with rumours about Gbowee's resignation going wild and divisions showing among their activist base. Moreover, with their party in Guinea-Conakry being essentially reduced to irrelevance, this meant that their focus was purely on the two Liberian elections and with the Islamic party having won in 2016 in Liberia-Kankan there was pressure to win 2017 to prove that the party was still viable.
With the socialists having held power for twenty years, there was much hope simply due to tiredness with their rule. Their new leader, MacDonald Wento, lacked much of Ellen Carney Woewiyu's charisma and drive, public transport strikes had soured many on the power of the trade unions, there was a series of minor corruption and sex scandals among their senators and rising crime rates in the inner cities encouraged a shift rightward on law and order. Greene attempted to capitalise on this by moving the party away from the social conservativism that had defined it during its time in opposition. While the party continued to oppose further liberalisation efforts such as legalised gay marriage, or easier access to abortions, Greene announced if they were in power they would no longer aim to revert the legalisation of homosexuality or the full bans on female genital mutilation and polygamous marriages.
She also re-built the alliance with the Country Party, as the effects of Climate Change began to be seen, with worries that Liberia would be particularly hard hit thanks to losing access to water and coping with rising sea levels. She ran on a Green revolution ticket, handing out WakaWaka solar products to towns without electricity as a prelude to a hoped for nation-wide switch to renewable energy. This undoubtedly hurt her among the oil towns but it was an acceptable trade off for the votes gained in the eastern Krahn provinces.
2017 would prove a triumphant return to power for the True Whigs though they relied on confidence and supply from the minor parties in the Senate. Greene's four year term would be a tempestuous time in Liberia-Monrovia with protests against police brutality, controversies over new house-building schemes and the consequences of the global covid-19 pandemic. It seems premature to judge her reign so far until we can look back at her in hindsight. Will the True Whigs remain in power after the 2021 elections or will Greene only have the one term? Will the economy bounce back to its booming pre pandemic status? Will the carbon zero environmental plan succeed? Will the Ouagadougou talks finally result in a firm timetable for when the 11 countries of the West African Currency Union reform into a full West African Federation?
At this moment we simply can't say, but, to an extent, for all the frustration of the stalling of the various governments at Ouagadougou, the greatest legacy of the True Whigs as a party is that there at least a possible chance of a united West Africa emerging as one of the 10 biggest countries in the world within the next decade. It would be fitting if there was at least one True Whig leader at that table if and when that does happen and why not Greene?
So is that it?
No. I want to do a bunch of extra material for this. Just loose graphics and background. A map, lists of all the Presidents and party leaders, a vignette from the POV of a normal person in 2021 Monrovia, a newspaper article, a scholarly look at pan-Africanism in the modern day, the WAF flag, etc.
And then I want to write a publishable novel as a prose story, or set of stories, set in this world.
The former will happen in this thread, the latter might happen in its own thread.
But this format is done, we've ran out of years. I want to thank everyone for their comments, likes and enthusiasm. Any final comments, positive or negative are more than welcome.
I think it overran as a story, I didn't come up with an ending so I just let it go to the current day and it stopped but I like a lot of what I wrote. It's by far the longest bit of writing I actually finished and I think as a description of a country that never existed, but could have done, I'm relatively proud of it. I feel like there's some good stories in this country, even if the format I picked meant I didn't tell them so far.
No. I want to do a bunch of extra material for this. Just loose graphics and background. A map, lists of all the Presidents and party leaders, a vignette from the POV of a normal person in 2021 Monrovia, a newspaper article, a scholarly look at pan-Africanism in the modern day, the WAF flag, etc.
And then I want to write a publishable novel as a prose story, or set of stories, set in this world.
The former will happen in this thread, the latter might happen in its own thread.
But this format is done, we've ran out of years. I want to thank everyone for their comments, likes and enthusiasm. Any final comments, positive or negative are more than welcome.
I think it overran as a story, I didn't come up with an ending so I just let it go to the current day and it stopped but I like a lot of what I wrote. It's by far the longest bit of writing I actually finished and I think as a description of a country that never existed, but could have done, I'm relatively proud of it. I feel like there's some good stories in this country, even if the format I picked meant I didn't tell them so far.
Ghana and Nigeria will be doing a little better than OTL simply because they have more competent local partners to trade with.
The WAF in OTL are a handful of basketcases. In TTL they're the other west african economic powerhouse on the level of Ghana if still behind Nigeria. Likewise Burkina Faso is doing better, the C'ote d'Ivoire is, Gambia is, even Mali is and trade within that bloc is much healthier.
That doesn't mean West Africa is super rich, it's still poor in western terms but it's more like central america than otl western africa.
But more like northern Central America, or more like southern Central America? The north, thanks to the legacy of American economic domination and Cold War politics, has per capita GDPs on par with OTL's Ghana or Nigeria, around $2-4 000 per person, whereas the south, thanks to political stability (and in the case of Panama the canal, of course) has GDPs that are good for any non-OECD country, $12-15 000 per person (3-4 times higher!)
...well, actually you said "West Africa" and not "the West African Federation," so probably the answer is--both! Certainly Liberia(-Monrovia) and Sierra Leone, at a minimum, will be doing staggeringly better than OTL. Compared to reality, they had relatively competent leadership through most of the 20th century, a huge amount of foreign investment , and no civil wars, so they should be far, far better off. I would expect them to look more like southern Central America or Malaysia--maybe not as well off as those countries due to the legacy of colonialism, but I would guess at least as well off as South Africa IOTL or possibly better. Countries like Mali, though, will probably be closer to northern Central America--including in the violence aspects as you have demonstrated in your last few posts, which will certainly create refugee flows...
It's a good thing that the general institutions of West Africa seem to be pretty effective overall, probably one of the most functional regional integration groups in the world at this stage (even compared to the European Union there are areas where West Africa seems to be ahead--earlier and apparently more successful currency integration and particularly more successful military integration and cooperation). That's definitely a plus for the region!
Think that's a fair summary.
The regional integration has gone faster than I intended but honestly the more I looked into it, the more likely I felt that they'd be able to integrate easier than other regions. They have a huge advantage over the EU in terms of currency in that most of their members were already using the Franc so not many countries needed to switch.
And west africa is a large provider for un peacekeepers otl for a reason, theres motives for troops to be elsewhere rather than at home causing trouble.
Historiography
The Historiography of the Unification of Liberia
The traditional Liberian history of the formation of their Republic, as taught in their education system, begins with the city of Bopulu in the early 1800s. Bopulu was ruled by a man named Sao Boso, who had spent his youth as a petty officer aboard British ships and so was often known by his nickname ‘Boatswain’. He was a man of no chiefly lineage who had taken to state building with a vengeance and who had established what is known as the Kondo Federation, an alliance of villages subservient to him that spread across modern Liberia in a way that was unprecedented, at the time.
In 1822 Sao Boso heard rumours of a possible situation in the Kru villages around the modern day site of Monrovia. There a minor Kru chief, Zolu Duma, had offered to allow a small selection of African American settlers set up in a town in his land and his neighbouring Kru were opposed to this situation. Sao Boso arrived on the scene with the Kru on the verge of civil war over the issue and instead arranged a peace and gave the new arrivals his own permission to establish their city. This, so the narrative goes, was the first, failed, attempt at the unification of the country, an all Liberian federation that spanned multiple ethnicities and that even welcomed their cousins from America.
Decades of wasted strife later, the second attempt would happen in 1871. When the Republican Uprising had taken control of Monrovia, the settlers turned to their old protectors in Bopulu and asked Sao Boso's descendants to help them dislodge the rebels from their own city. Bopulu answered their call and upon removing the rebels and reinstalling the rightful leaders of the settlers won a voice within Monrovia in terms of votes for the Liberian president.
In the aftermath of 1871 the great work of unification would be undertook with more and more interior kingdoms such as Musradu, Medina, Galinas and Man voluntarily joining the Republic and earning a vote for the President. The extension of that vote is seen as the true formation date of the Republic and in many ways the Company and Republican rule of Monrovia is told as a pre unification history in the same way as the Kondo federation or the wars between the Mande and Kru are. It's the leaders who bought their lands into this new system that are remembered as the creators of union, whether that's Blyden of Monrovia, Suah Koko of Bong county or Doblee Zeppey of Te and the unification of these smaller polities that is credited for allowing Liberia to survive the Scramble for Africa.
But that's not the only way the story of the Unification has been told. Armah Nije's controversial 1986 paper 'Black Imperialism' rejected a lot of this narrative. It emphasised instead the violence of the Liberian 19th century. The peace that Sao Boso had broken in 1822, did not last out even a year before there was a Kru attack on Monrovia and, as it detailed, the missing fifty years between 1822 and 1871 are not just ones marked by strife but by a consistent attempt by the Monrovians to extend their power through military means that collapsed the Kondo Federation and replaced Bopulu with Monrovia as the prominent city. A settler from 1870 would have already viewed themselves as ruler of Bopulu, Te, Galinas and many of the other interior Kingdoms. The post 1871 reforms were seen, at the time, as an extension of the franchise to pre-existing Liberian subjects rather than independent allied Kingdoms. Nilje argued that rather than a union, Liberia was just the settler republic extended over new subjects.
Nije also took aim at the traditional narrative of the post 1871 expansion of the Republic being primarily peaceful, noting the heavily armed nature of Liberian embassies to interior Kingdoms and the long series of wars against 'rebelling' villages that defined the Christian Party's time in power. He argued that Liberia had not in fact survived the Scramble for Africa unconquered but had in fact been conquered by non-African foreigners who happened to be black.
While Nije's paper is an important one and makes many salient points, many of the primary sources he found from mid 19th century Liberian Settlers are shocking in the open racism expressed towards the residents of the interior, his take was far from universally accepted within Monrovian academia.
As Mariam Blah pointed out in her reply to Nije, he consistently overestimates Monrovian power. They simply weren't able to conquer most of the land they claimed. Their presence in much of Liberia was based, at least to some extent, on the tolerance of the native Kingdoms. There are questions as to exactly how much those Kingdoms understood what they were signing up for, but the Kingdoms had enough power that they had to be wooed rather than dictated to and the defection of Western Galinas to Sierra Leone upon being stripped of the vote proved they had the freedom of movement to leave if treat badly. Most times Monrovia put down a rebellion, they did it with help from local pro-Monrovian allies. Even Liberia's most decisive solo victory of the period, over the Settra Kru in 1866, seems to have happened thanks to divisions among the Kru as to whether to fight.
The imposition of the Hut Tax in 1889, which Nije made much of, undoubtedly did come against the wishes of most of the interior chiefs but, while there were violent rebellions against it, it was tolerated as a lesser of two evils to European conquest by most of them. After all from 1893 to 1921 Liberia was run by chiefs from the interior and yet the Tax and its funded national army remained in place. This period is the largest piece of evidence against the imperialist theory and for a unification theory as the Monrovian system was maintained and extended even when non Monrovians held the realms.
Even more controversial a take than that was the British Historian's Gavin Ferguson's 'Monrovia: The First Victim' which largely accepted Nije's premise but went further to argue that the sack of Monrovia was in itself an imperialist act. Bopulu, by toppling an unfriendly regime and installing an ally as President, was reinstating itself as the prominent city of the region and from that point the conquest of the interior would essentially be planned and engineered by the old Kondo federation towns of Ghendimah, Bopulu, Setrra and Monrovia, now back under Bopulu control.
Ferguson made much of the fact that of the Liberia military campaigns fought from 1871 to 1921, were mostly fought with an army where in a small core of settler militias were surrounded by many more Mande and Kru irregulars. Such an army had sacked Monrovia and it was such an army that broke Fahn Kambo's rebellion and sacked Zonneu. Ferguson argued that the unification of Liberia could be best seen as a conquest of the country by a western educated elite of chiefs from the Kondo area who sought to establish their power over the other cities in the classic pre-unification Liberian way of imposing fealty. This had happened at Monrovia as much as elsewhere and Ferguson argued that Settler power had never really recovered from the Sack and that late 19th century Liberia could be best understood as a native Kingdom which had adapted the trapping of the Monrovian system as a disguise to ward off European attention rather than an extension of a settler state that had in fact not survived the Sack.
There is undoubtedly some truth in there, it is perhaps time for a revaluation of Doblee Zeppey time as President as less of a do-nothing Figurehead but more someone who ran the interior personally and left the less important area of Monrovia to be ran by underlings. But it's difficult to avoid the fact that no King of Bopulu ever took the Presidency. If they were the secret rulers of the country, they were very subtle about it. And while the Armies of Liberia always relied heavily on non settler forces, in the north and east they tended to work with local allies opposed to their target rather than imported forces from the Kondo towns.
As bloody as the unification wars were, as indeed they also were in Italy and Germany, any attempt to spin it as an entirely one sided conquest of the interior by the coastal towns, of whatever stripe, also runs up against the terms of unification. Liberia has, after all, never had a universal legal code due to a consideration for local customs that meant they're one of the least centralised countries in the world. This is almost certainly a consequence of Monrovia's weakened position but any narrative of the unification most account for it.
And, whatever academics argue, for the majority of Liberians, it is an unchallengeable truth that the Republic's formation was a unification rather than a conquest and people from all over the country are proud of their own region's role in forming the oldest African republic. The traditional Liberian line, flawed as it is, is likely to remain the best known take.
Leaders list: Liberia
List of leaders: Liberia.
Country declared independence from the American Colonization Society in 1847:
1848-1856: Joseph Jenkins Roberts (Independent/Republican)
1847: def Samuel Benedict (Anti-Administration)
1849: uncontested
1851: uncontested
1853: uncontested
1856-1864: Stephen Allen Benson (Independent/Republican)
1855: uncontested
1857: uncontested
1859: uncontested
1861: uncontested
1864-1868: Daniel Bashiel Warner (Republican)
1863: uncontested
1865: uncontested
1869-1870: James Spriggs Payne (Republican)
1867: def Edward James Roye (True Whig)
1870-1871: Edward James Roye (True Whig)- Killed during Republican Uprising
1869: def James Spriggs Payne (Republican)
1871: James Skivring Smith (True Whig) - Killed during Republican Uprising
1871-1872: Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (True Whig)- Resigned mid term
1872-1881: Edward Wilmot Blyden (True Whig)
1873: uncontested
1877: def Selim Aga (Independent)
1881-1889: Benjamin Joseph Knight Anderson (Christian)
1881: def William Spencer Anderson (True Whig)
1885: def William Spencer Anderson (True Whig)
1889-1893: Joseph James Cheeseman (Christian)
1889: def Joseph J. Ross (True Whig)
1893-1897: Doblee Zeppey (True Whig)
1893: def Joseph James Cheeseman (Christian)
1897-1913: Momulu Massaquoi (True Whig)
1897: def Arthur Barclay (Christian)
1901: def Joseph D . Summerville (Christian)
1905: def James A Toliver (Christian)
1909: def Garretson W. Gibson (Christian), Gueh-Gueh (All-Liberia)
1913-1921: Henry Too Wesley (Patriotic Union)
1913: def Momulu Massaquoi (True Whig)
1917: def Gabriel Moore Johnson (True Whig)
1921: Gabriel Moore Johnson (True Whig) - Resigned mid term
1921: def Henry Too Wesley (Patriotic Union)
1921-1926: Marcus Garvey (True Whig) - Killed during the French Occupation
1925: def Mulbah Yongo (Patriotic Union)
1926-29: Allen Yancy (True Whig)
1929-36: Thomas Jefferson Richelieu Faulkner (Patriotic Union) - Died of Natural Causes
1929: def Allen Yancy (True Whig)
1933: def Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (Socialist)
1936-37: Clarence Gray (Patriotic Union)
1937-45: Abdourahmane Sinkoun Kaba (True Whig)
1937: def Clarence Gray (Patriotic Union), Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (Socialist)
1941: def Clarence Gray (Patriotic Union), Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (Socialist)
1945-53: Nathaniel Varney Massaquoi (True Whig)
1945: def Clarence Gray (Patriotic Union), Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (Socialist)
1949: def Plenyolo Gbe Wolo (Patriotic Union), Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (Socialist)
1953-57: Alexander Harper (Patriotic Union)
1953: def Nathaniel Varney Massaquoi (True Whig), Ahmed Sékou Turé (Socialist)
1957-64: Hortense Sie (True Whig) - Resigned mid term
1957: def Alexander Harper (Patriotic Union), Ahmed Sékou Turé (Socialist)
1961: def Ahmed Sékou Turé (Socialist), Edwin Barclay (Patriotic Union),
1964-69: Albert Porte (True Whig)
1965: def Bennie Dee Warner (Patriotic Union), William Tolbert (Socialist)
1969-73: Henry Fomba Moniba (True Whig)
1969: def William Tolbert (Socialist), Bennie Dee Warner (Patriotic Union)
1973-81: Togba-Nah Tipoteh (Socialist)
1973: def Henry Fomba Moniba (True Whig), Cletus Wotorson (Patriotic Union)
1977: def Chea Cheapoo (True Whig), Cletus Wotorson (Patriotic Union)
1981-85: Angie Brooks (Socialist)
1981: def Ruth Sando Fahnbulleh Massaquoi (True Whig), Gabriel Kpolleh (Patriotic Union)
1985: Lansana Conté (True Whig) - Killed during the Agacher Strip War
1985: def Angie Brooks (Socialist), Gabriel Kpolleh (Patriotic Union)
1985-93: Kafumba F. Konneh (True Whig)
1989: def Angie Brooks (Socialist), Enoch Dogolea (Patriotic Union)
1993-97: Oscar Jaryee Quiah (True Whig)
1993: def Joseph Woah-Tee (Socialist), Thomas Gankama-Quiwonkpwa (Patriotic Union), Alpha Condé (Guinea Nationalist Party), Alexander Louis Peal (Country Party), Thierno Abdourahmane Bah (Islamic party), Ismael Gushein (Landless People's Party), Pearl Brown Bull (Progressive Christian party), Charles Taylor (Liberian Capitalist Party)
Country dissolved into the West African Federation in 1997.
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Leaders List: Other WAF member states
List of leaders: Other member states of the West African Federation
Sierra Leone
British Colony until 1961: 1947 constitution expanded the Legislative Council to 35 members.Sierra Leone
1951-64: Prime Minister Milton Margai (Sierra Leone People's Party) - Died of Natural Causes
1951 (coalition with independents): def C M A Thompson (National Council), Herbert Bankole-Bright (True Whig)
1957 (coalition with independents): def Herbert Bankole-Bright (True Whig), C M A Thompson (National Council), J C O Crowther (Independence Movement)
1962 (coalition with independents): def Tamba Sungu Mbriwa (True Whig), Siaka Stevens (All Peoples Congress)
Independence in 1961 as Monarchy with Elizabeth II as head of state.
1964-67: Prime Minister Albert Margai (Sierra Leone People's Party)
Coup by the army after the 1967 Election sees a True Whig victory
Martial Law under David Lansana
David Lansana overthrown by National Reformation Council
National Reformation Council overthrown by Anti-Corruption Revolutionary Movement
Democratically elected leader invited back into the country in 1968.
1968-1971: Prime Minister Sorie Ibrahim Koroma (True Whig)
1967 (Majority): def Albert Margai (Sierra Leone People's Party)
Monarchy abolished in 1971 and replaced with Presidential system.
1971-1979: President Sorie Ibrahim Koroma (True Whig)
1971: def Robert Granville Ojumiri King (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1975: def Albert Demby (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1979-1987: President Albert Demby (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1979: def Sorie Ibrahim Koroma (True Whig)
1983: def Sorie Ibrahim Koroma (True Whig)
1987-1997: President John Karefa-Smart (Transformation)
1987: def Albert Demby (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1991: def Abdulai Osman Conteh (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1995: def Solomon Berewa (Sierra Leone People's Party), John Arouna Karimu (Union Party)
Post 1971 Prime Ministers are simply Majority Leaders within the Assembly and so not always in Government
1971-76: Prime Minister Solomon Seisay (Tue Whig)
1973: def Salia Jusu-Sheriff (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1976-88: Prime Minister Salia Jusu-Sheriff (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1976: def Solomon Seisay (True Whig)
1982: def Momodu Munu (True Whig)
1988-97: Prime Minister Mana Kpaka (Transformation)
1988: def Salia Jusu-Sheriff (Sierra Leone People's Party)
1994: def Francis Obai Kabia (Sierra Leone People's Party), John Arouna Karimu (Union Party)
Country dissolved into the West African Federation in 1997.
Guinea-Conakry
French Colony until 1960
Part of Mali Federation from 1960 to 1968
1968-1969: President Saifoulaye Diallo (Socialist) - Killed during Portuguese Invasion
1968: uncontested
1969-1975: President Diallo Telli (Socialist)
1974: uncontested
Country dissolved into Liberia in 1975.
Guinea-Bissau
Portuguese Colony until 1973
1973-80: President Luís Cabral (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) - Overthrown by Coup
1977: uncontested
1980-94: President João Bernardo Vieira (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde)
1984: uncontested
1989: uncontested
1994-97: President Carmen Pereira (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde)
1994: def Domingos Fernandes (Batefa Party), Kumba Ialá (Democratic Party), Veríssimo Correia Seabra (Struggle Front)
Country dissolved into the West African Federation in 1997.
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