The African Disdain for the Sea – A Curse of Africa’s Development

Culturally, Africans are generally landsmen. They tend to concentrate their activities on land and have little interest in the sea. Even in coastal areas, where fishing is a significant trade, when fishermen return from the sea, they concentrate their activities on land. They do not live by the sea. They tend to have only temporary shelters along the beach and build their homes further inland. If you were to drive along the beach in Accra, you would observe that of the few buildings located along the beach, the vast majority have their backs to the sea. In most of the communities along the sea, the beach serves as their open-air toilets and rubbish dumps. The African is generally a non-swimmer.  This is another indicator of the African disdain for the sea. Perhaps the following quotation explains the African attitude to the sea:

“To the ancient African continent, the sea has the association of that which is dark and primal, unknown and uncontained. Indeed, the sea was traditionally the bringer of all that is ill-begotten, miserable and dangerous: slavery, exploitation and the quibbling by foreigners over indigenous land and resources.”^[i]   - Rear Admiral (junior grade) Bernhard H. Teuteberg ^[1]

The historical relationship between the African and the sea, which served as a gateway for slave traders and colonisers from Europe, perhaps is responsible for the African’s disdain for the sea. This could be the bane of Africa’s underdevelopment. No nation has become a great power without the use of the sea. From the ancient Greece and Rome to the European adventurers who conquered the world through discoveries and trade by great ancient sailors to the United States, which adopted Mahan’s strategy of establishing distant fleets around the world, and now China’s growing maritime power, all great powers have discovered the enormity of great wealth. This open secret continues to elude African countries to the detriment of the continent’s development. The maritime domain still provides enormous opportunities for those who are smart enough to use it. 

The other issue is the security paradigm of most African states, which equates national security to regime security. As regime security seldom has a maritime dimension, maritime security is often relegated to the background in favour of land-based security. Ironically, whatever bad happens at sea ends up on land.

The Way Forward

To break this cycle, Africa must reimagine its relationship with the sea. This requires:

1. Cultural Reorientation – promoting maritime education, swimming, and sea-based cultural identity from childhood.

2. Strategic Shift – reframing security beyond regime survival to national and maritime security.

3. Investment in the Blue Economy – harnessing fisheries, shipping, offshore energy, and marine tourism as engines of growth.

4. Regional Cooperation – building collective naval and coast guard capacity to secure shared waters.

Africa’s development future is tied to the ocean. Unless the continent embraces the sea as an asset rather than a curse, it risks remaining landlocked in its thinking—while the world sails past.

[1] Paper by Rear Admiral (junior grade) Bernhard H. Teuteberg at the Sea Power for Africa Symposium, South Africa : 29 August 2005