When Uganda got debt relief in 1999, the first item President Museveni bought was a presidential jacket for himself.

African history is filled with experiences of people shooting their way to power and then splintering into factions, like in Somalia and Liberia.

Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.

Across Africa there is what I call a colonialist mentality or orthodoxy. Orthodoxy in the sense that a lot of things have gone wrong in Africa in the post-colonial period. And time and time again, any time something went wrong, the leadership claims that it was never their fault.

There's a belief that since Africa got a raw deal from the colonial West, then the Chinese must be Africa's best friend. But the evidence doesn't show that, and the main criticism is that they are building infrastructure in exchange for Africa's resources in deals that are structured to favor China.

Virtually all of Africa's civil wars were started by politically marginalized or excluded groups.

Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.