Post independence African governments often seemed to fit a pattern.  The new presidents wanted to assert their own ideas and reject those of their former rulers.  They also found that they enjoyed the power and wanted to keep it.  Accordingly, many presidents soon turned their country into one party states with them as party bosses.  All power accrued to them.  Civilian politicians could do little except serve the party boss or go into exile.  But discontented army officers who thought they could run the country better were different: They had guns and could threaten to use them.  The first military coups soon followed and became a miserable custom for much of Africa.  Another post-independence pattern emerged.  seeking to assert their own control of the economy, many of the new governments nationalized the banks and mining companies, set up state owned marketing boards for commodities and controlled trade tightly.  But they lacked the expertise to do the job efficiently.  It soon became clear that their policies were counter-productive.