The African states were in a very big mess after they gained independence. The reasons for that were numerous. In the same boundaries there multiple people from ethnic groups that traditionally had lot of tensions between them, different religions that were not fond of one another was also existing in the same territories, lot of leaders turned out to be dictators, and also lot of the people that turned out to run the countries did not had political experience.
All of that resulted in lot of violence, separatist movements, genocides, coups, civil wars, further partition of the countries. The ordinary people suffered the most, as always, living on terrible poverty and constantly being on alert because the safety was non-existent.