This book concerns the bond between H.M. Queen Elizabeth II and the African people over 75 years. Providence deeply tied her queenship to the Africans, considering the role she would play in the end-of-empire process. The influence of Elizabeth’s extraordinary life on people around me was the primary inspiration for this book. My late aunt Catherine, who had no formal education, was hooked to her persona. My wife's aunt, Mrs. Comfort Emeruom, never looked back after meeting Her Majesty as a 15-year-old during her historic visit to Nigeria in 1956. Comfort, who later earned her nursing degree from London, carried herself as a princess. Similar life-changing stories abound across Africa, telling the magical realism of Her Majesty's life of humility and charisma.

Regrettably, the Machiavellian nature of colonial maneuvering and decolonization politics sullied the Elizabethan African story. Whitehall micromanaged her African mission's dynamic and changing phases. By the terms of her office, Elizabeth was first and foremost bonded by the interests of the British people. As a brand, the government and the Church of England defined and monitored her actions and inactions. So, she could not have been a forceful advocate of Africa’s progress without the ire of those to whom she was answerable. 

Still, Elizabeth’s commitment to Africa was evident in her dedication to the Commonwealth cause, despite, as we now know, the succeeding British government’s devices to sabotage the association. She built an inclusive and unified organization where the Africans could play a vital role and appropriate political and economic autarky. Whitehall must honor her memory by steering the Commonwealth in a positive direction, with Africa at the center.

Writing this book was challenging due to limited access to some privileged sources in a world where the court of public opinion could suffocate historical memory. I requested an interview with the Queen in 2017, but it was declined because she was forbidden to grant interviews with individuals. Such censorship raises questions about what historians of the British Empire think they know about their field. British colonial history, at best, has been pigeonholed. The deliberate mischief of the colonial archives is emblematic of an opaque through which the prudent see colonialism's alterations and imbalances – characterized by silences, the virtual preventability of truth, obscurity of facts, crime scene cover-ups, planting of intellectual landmines, and misleading whispering galleries. Anyone who researches and teaches colonial history cannot, in good conscience, claim that the history of decolonization is complete without mentioning Queen Elizabeth II, the undeniable center of this history. 

Perceptively, the Elizabethan story is not about the wealth or privilege she may have relished while her former subjects stewed in poverty and deprivations. It is not about her longevity or the blame she may deserve for what she did or did not do right. The story is about the Queen's fortitude in bearing responsibility for Britain's colonial sins with uncommon equanimity and silence.

It is important to reflect deeply on how far British authorities could go to chase nation-first goals; anyone could be sacrificed for Britain. This book reveals Whitehall’s manifest objectification of Elizabeth as a dispensable object in the decolonization face-saving scheme. Young Elizabeth came to the decolonization journey with the best intentions for the colonized people. But she was oblivious then that her commission into the process was London’s late colonial invention to diffuse and delay the independence movement. The clashing plot to use Elizabeth to achieve hidden national interests and at the same time project her monarchy as a messianic mission under an empire brand that embodied manipulation, exploitation, and oppression was like the Frankenstein story in which the negative repercussions of science and technology became a matter of thought after the fact.

A stark reality of the Crown's branding and the tasks attached to the position is the amorality of colonial conduct. This is an opaque lens through which the prudent could see the dissonance of imperialism and a convoluted path to a royal messianic journey Elizabeth was tasked with in 1952. She was, in reality, a hostage—the proverbial sheep led to its slaughter—she opened not her mouth.

Readers of Queen Elizabeth and the Africans should remember the Queen as loving, peaceful, and caring. Her humanity is exemplified in her commitment to the African cause through the Commonwealth agency. The lives she changed worldwide through her sheer charisma and the quietude with which she bore the sins of colonialism are signposts of modern British history. 

We may never know all about the twists and turns of Elizabeth’s reign, especially the degree of control politicians held over her. What is clear is that Elizabeth completed her life journey as a British postwar lodestar and savior. Unfortunately, many Africans see only an unkind, unscrupulous, and unapologetic colonizer. These views are mainly shaped by the imposed culture of silence on the monarch while controversial events unfolded. Silences in historical narratives are worrying because they erode legitimacy, contexts, and knowledge frames.

The Elizabeth II era has ended, but the enthralling history of poise, love, open-mindedness, patriotism, and devoted service she spurred is a fountain of inspiration for leaders worldwide. In light of African history, her epitaph should read, "The most conscientious and humane European that ever set foot on African soil." 

Sommaire

Preface 

Abbreviations

Introduction 

Chapter 1 — The House of Windsor: African Subjects and the Princess-Queen 

Chapter 2 — Deconstructing the 1947 Cape Town Speech : Decolonization Rhetoric and the Commonwealth 

Chapter 3 — The Cold War: African “Radicals” and Her Royal Stateliness, 1953–1961 

Chapter 4 — Her Majesty’s Africa Tour-De-Force : Feasting with the Obedient, the Noble, and the Nonconformist, 1961–1989 

Chapter 5 — Majestic Milestones: The Commonwealth and Africa’s Development 

Chapter 6 — King Charles III and Africa’s Commonwealth Future 

Conclusion

Notes 

Bibliography 

Index