What do South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Mali, South Africa and Zimbabwe have in common?

Between them they have produced about 90 per cent of the greatest African musicians, filmmakers, actors, writers, cartoonists, dancers, and academics.

In other words, they are the most creative and exciting countries in Africa, even when their politics is sometimes hopeless.

They have the most sinful and fun cities on the continent too.

A friend in Johannesburg tells me that Nigerians swallow the second highest amount of Guinness beer in the world!

And they have something else — they are also the most culturally and ethnically diverse African countries.

This ethnic and cultural diversity in Africa is one reason some people say we are always murdering each other to get to State House.

It is also the reason we are dangerously corrupt, because tribal identity is highly developed where many ethnic groups are vying for public goods.

So we end up robbing the taxpayers to fatten ourselves and our tribes.

However, it is true that the most democratic countries in Africa, with the freest media, also tend to be its most diverse.

One can only speculate that the upside of ethnic and cultural diversity is that you eventually come to accept “otherness” as normal, and you learn to discount the hostility of other tribes toward your own.

In largely monolithic countries like Rwanda and Somalia, tolerance and acceptance of differences doesn’t come naturally — hence the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

A monolithic country provides incentives for industrial-scale murder, because one ethnic group can actually wipe out another. Now, try and do that in Nigeria.

There are too many tribes; you can’t finish them all off.

There is something else; there are very few culturally and ethnic diverse countries in Africa — or the world for that matter — that are Islamic.

It is perhaps instructive that in Somalia, the areas under the control of Islamic hardline groups are peaceful.

And in Rwanda in 1994, the one heroic story that has not yet been told is the role of the Muslims.

About 10 per cent of Rwandese are Muslims.

However, while priests, nuns, and bishops in the Rwanda Catholic church participated in the butchery, the Muslims came to the rescue of the Tutsi who were the targets of the genocidaires.

The majority of the survivors who hid out in the homes of other Rwandese, took sanctuary predominantly in Muslim homes.

Islam is based on highly discipline-oriented tenets, so it seems more suitable to monolithic societies where the fury of conflict tends to be higher.

Christianity, then, seems to be better suited to the chaos and permissiveness of diverse societies.

Why does this all matter? It suggests where to invest in the cultural market, and the places where you might look for talent if you are making a high-budget African film.

Also, if you are particular about living in a fun city, then Nairobi, Kampala, or Lagos are the places for you, not Mogadishu, Asmara, Kigali or Gaborone.

The latter two you would choose to live in if you are looking for clean and orderly cities.

Tribal passion has proved to deadly in Africa.

However, it is also the source of life. It is the sweet and sour pork of African politics and culture.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive director for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail [email protected]