What Role Did Nationalist Movements Play in the Transition to Independence

Essay

What role did nationalist movements play in the transition to independence in Africa, and how did such movements differ from their counterparts elsewhere? Would Africans have been better off if they had changed the existing colonial boundaries at the time they attained independence rather than keeping them? What advantages, and disadvantages, could different boundaries have brought to Africans in the 1950s and 1960s, and since?