ZIMBABWE’S government has decided to rename the country’s provinces and rid them of colonial names.

This is the latest move by African countries to rid themselves of the yoke placed around their necks by the former colonial rulers through a process of Africanisation.

It follows the renaming of around 25 streets and public squares in the Malian capital, Bamako, that honoured French colonial administrators.

It mirrors the actions of Niger and Burkina Faso, where street and monument names tied to France have also been replaced. Niger decided to rename several historic sites in its capital, Niamey, distancing itself from its former colonial ruler.

These changes should be seen as more than an aberration. They are, in fact, the latest stage in a process of African reclamation of names, places and, perhaps most importantly, dignity.

Before Burkina Faso, which gained its independence from France in 1960, the country was previously known as Haute-Volta. It later became the Republic of Upper Volta. Then, in 1984, the country became Burkina Faso, meaning “the land of upright and honest people.”

The country’s legendary leader, president Thomas Sankara, said at the time that the name change ushered in a new era for the nation by giving it a name that held value in its native tongue.

The current phase of name-changing is a highly significant moment in the decolonisation of Africa and a significant departure from the “flag independence” that has plagued the post-colonial era on the continent.

The decolonisation of Africa, as well as Asia and the Caribbean, gave the formerly colonised countries the right to have their own flags but, in reality, little actual sovereignty or control over the abundant natural resources of their lands.

In Zimbabwe, historian Methembe Hadebe said: “The naming of the provinces was part of the colonialists’ divide-and-rule antics. It was a programme that was meant to make people not see themselves beyond their ethnicity.

“Changing the names of the provinces will create national pride as opposed to having people thinking only of their ethnicity.”

The changes are part of a longer process of African nations fighting to assert their place as real people with the right to name themselves and the places in which they live.

African identity has been systematically swept away during the 600 years of humiliation and exploitation heaped on the continent. During the tyranny of the transatlantic slave trade, individuals were stripped of their family names, the languages they spoke and their cultures in an expression of power and control.

The names of many African countries were given by colonisers who identified them based on what they could exploit from the region or who ruled it.

So, on winning independence, it was natural that the newly “freed” nations would seek to redefine themselves in their own words. But the process has been long and arduous and usually only won after years of struggle, often armed.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, has had a number of different names.

From 1885 to 1908, it was ironically called the Congo Free State while it was ruthlessly ruled as a private venture by King Leopold II of Belgium.

Later on, it became the Belgian Congo — to avoid confusion with the neighbouring French Congo — then known as Congo-Leopoldville.

After winning its independence from Belgium in 1960, it became the Republic of Congo and then, in 1964, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 1971, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko renamed the country the Republic of Zaire, derived from Zaire, an alternative name for the Congo River. Mobutu hit on Zaire (“great river”) as a more authentic African name. After Mobutu’s fall in 1997, the country’s name became the Democratic Republic of Congo again.

In 1884, Germany claimed the region that is now known as Namibia as its colony and named it German South West Africa. South Africa was given control of the territory by the League of Nations in 1920 and changed the name to South West Africa.

After a vicious 70-year occupation and a liberation struggle, the territory became the independent state of Namibia in 1990. The new name is derived from the Namib desert, the oldest desert in the world.

Ghana was called the Gold Coast until 1957, when the country won its independence under the leadership of the great pan-Africanist hero Kwame Nkrumah. It was named after the former great ancient civilisation of Ghana.

The Benin Republic was known as the Dahomey Republic until 1975, 15 years after it gained its independence from the French. Benin — named after the Bight of Benin and a centre for the trade of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean — was thought to be more politically neutral for all ethnic groups in the state, whereas Dahomey was reminiscent of the Fon-dominated ancient kingdom.

Dahomey was another great African empire that, in its prime, encompassed parts of present-day Benin Republic, Togo and southern Nigeria.

The land now known as Malawi was “claimed” in 1889 by British colonisers and called the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1907, its name was changed to Nyasaland, from the famous Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi).

After Nyasaland won independence in 1964, the country was renamed Malawi, which is said to come from “Maravi,” another ancient kingdom in the region. Nyasa means “broad waters,” while Malawi means “flaming waters,” as shown on the Malawian flag.

Zimbabwe and Zambia were both part of the British protectorate of Rhodesia, named after the brutal British coloniser Cecil Rhodes, at the time one of the richest men in the world.

The countries now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia were called Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia, respectively. Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony in 1923, while Northern Rhodesia became a British protectorate in 1924.

Northern Rhodesia won independence in 1964 and changed its name to Zambia, after the Zambezi River, which served as the border between the country and Southern Rhodesia. Thereafter, Southern Rhodesia was known as just Rhodesia till 1979, when it became the short-lived state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

In 1980, Zimbabwe won independence after years of fighting and dropped the Rhodesia part of its name. The name Zimbabwe, which was first used to refer to the country in 1960, comes from Great Zimbabwe, a magnificent medieval city that used to be in the region.

After taking control of present-day Botswana in 1885, the British named the territory Bechuanaland. After winning independence in 1966, the country was renamed Botswana after its dominant ethnic group, the Tswana.

Nigeria was given its name by the British journalist and writer Flora Shaw in 1897 when she referred to the region as “Nigeria” in an article that highlighted the unexploited potential of the area.

It is time many of the other names given to African lands by colonists were also challenged. The name changes are part of the process of Africans fully regaining the self-dignity so ruthlessly and systematically stripped away by the slavers and colonists over the years of humiliation and exploitation.

These renamings are a critical part of the process of building a new pan-Africanist movement, which must, inevitably, break down the artificial borders created by the colonists in the first place.

The borders created by the colonists largely remain in place — regardless of what they are named. The borders divide long-established tribes and tongues from each other. Challenging these borders must be next in line for the decolonisation of Africa and the building of a new pan-Africanism.