The full emancipation of black South Africans, which is one of Late Nelson Mandela’s philosophies was not achieved, a Nigerian lawyer has said.

While reviewing the life and times of Mandela as South Africa’s president, Mr Olisa Agbakoba insisted that the late icon was not a political leader but a great revolutionary.

He said: “Blacks in South Africa are as disposed as there were in the 1900s.”

“If the struggle was about emancipating the black people, and you go to South Africa today you find three groups of people. Five per cent of white, black-Indian and coloureds are controlling 90 per cent the economy.  Then the class underneath are the ones who live in Alexandra, and it is terrible.

“Mandela did not quite achieve the emancipation of South Africa, having done nothing to free the enslaved blacks, for me, that is a critical failure.

“The essence of deconstructing apartheid was to give equal opportunity to every South African and I will say that that has not happened. The blacks are still down trodden; they are in a worst position than during apartheid.

“Alexandra is a residence for blacks and it is the worst ghetto I have seen in my entire life. Mandala was not able to emancipate all blacks,” Mr Agbakoba said.

He pointed out that Mandela was a moralist and that he was not sentenced to death because of a plan to use him in the future.

“The fact was that the CIA and the English intelligence actually advised the South African Government not to pass a death sentence because they might need him at the end of the day.

“He came crucial because he was not sentenced to death and he was seen as someone that will calm the blacks.

“His contribution was to make that crucial sacrifice for the crucial compromise when apartheid was about to blow up in the faces of the white,” he said.

Mr Agbakoba stressed that Africa should find its own identity saying that what works in Africa is not what works in the western world.