It’s Afrika Day today

All the Pan Afrikanists hibernating from this harsh winter season, please dust yourselves up and join the Group of African Ambassadors in Gaborone today at The Travel Lodge as they celebrate Africa Day.

It’s a pity that Botswana appears pretty much reluctant about observing this momentous occasion which remembers May 25, 1963 when our founding fathers met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to sign the Charter that established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – the precursor of today’s African Union (AU).

I say this because we have never really had any official celebrations to mark this auspicious day. Just the other day, our foreign minister, Dr Lemogang Kwape was reading a statement from President Masisi as he congratulated the President of the European Commission, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen on the occasion of Europe Day.

It was a grand reception mounted by Ambassador Jan Sadek and graced by among others, former President Festus Mogae and members of the Diplomatic Corps, Cabinet ministers and MPs.

Minister Kwape also had a word of encouragement for Sadek, who will be leaving for Eritrea in July this year.

But, you can bet your bottom dollar, our foreign minister won’t be celebrating Africa Day, not even the President – if anything they will put up a statement about Botswana’s commitment to the aspirations of Agenda 2063.

This foot-dragging on our part really surprises me, not least because President Masisi has branded himself as something of a Pan Afrikanist.

I heard him a year or two ago on his return from America, when he spoke of the need to build a Monument somewhere in Senegal in remembrance of our forbears that suffered the indignity of the Trans Atlantic slave trade.

I had the privilege to visit one of these monuments – the Elmina Castle in the Cape Coast, Ghana and I can tell you, once you see the Door of No Return you’ll be instantly converted into pan Afrikanist!

Again on the occasion of the Kazungula Bridge inauguration, our president spoke passionately about the need to record the southern African liberation struggle especially, the significance of Kasane, and the contribution of Botswana particularly.

On this score (the recording of our liberation struggle) I have suggested in past editions of Ernesto that southern African countries must include all the Volumes of Hashim Mbita Southern African Liberation Struggle in their school Curriculum.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi has also proved his mettle when he undertook a spirited campaign for Elias Magosi to be elected the first substantive Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – yet another pan African project that was started by the founding fathers of the Non Aligned Movement.

Masaisi is at present campaigning all over the world for Botswana to host the Kimberly Process (KP) Secretariat!

That is why Masisi and his party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), have successfully argued through the party secretary, Mpho Balopi for the party to be accepted in the hallowed halls of African Liberation Movements!

Now, this ambivalence with respect to celebrating Africa Day is truly mindboggling in light of the few above mentioned assertions! And you can be sure there are many other reasons that point to Botswana’s prominent role in the liberation of southern Africa.

But truth be told, it is the Botswana People’s Party that has really let Botswana down.

Here was a bonafide pan African party with all the credentials to lead this country at independence, were it not for greed! This is the party that had connections with the leaders of the OAU at the time.

Here was a party that even had direct contact with Kwame Nkrumah, the selfsame Nkrumah that donated Land Rovers for the party to campaign for the first elections in 1965, the Land Rovers that eventually led to the party splitting!

Not even the contribution given Botswana by the OAU Liberation Committee to host the first independent elections could help the BPP from the marauding BDP, which enjoyed all the trappings of wealth on account of Seretse Khama, the

Chief of BaNgwato and the support of the cattle barons as well as the remnants of the British imperial power!

It was this unfortunate turn of events that led Botswana into becoming something of a Eurocentric country – the only African country whose natives can pronounce English words with a pure English accent, a people that will, without blinking, deny their culture even going to the extent of mortgaging their land to foreigners!

So, when we celebrate Africa Day, not only do we recall the chivalrous deeds of our forebears, especially the role of the African Diaspora in our liberation, but we also introspect on our present conditions to see where we could have deviated from our chosen path that could have led us to total independence.

For instance, it’s time to ask the critical question, how far are we, concerning the commitment to total African unity? The AU Commission chairperson Musa Faki must give us an update on this grand scale project.

You will recall that in 1991 Africa promulgated the Treaty that would set up the Pan African Economic Community complete with all its requisite structures and timelines. How far are with meeting those deadlines.

In 2015, Africa adopted Agenda 2063, establishing, according to Musa Faki, “the most significant structural transformation programme for Continent for the next 50 years”. What is the progress with respect to the First Plan 2014-2023 of this transformation programme?.

What is the progress with respect to the liberalisation of the African airspace, what about that ambitious Continental Free Trade Area? Here we expect the South

African national, Wamkele Mene to get us up to speed with progress.

There is also the issue of the African Raw Materials Strategy, this is a critical issue especially during these Covid 19 pandemic which has been exacerbated by the invasion of Russia on Ukraine, which has wrought adverse repercussions, such as food shortage!

In its commitment to Africa unity, Africa has also resolved to adopt an African Passport as well as create seamless and borderless free movement of persons and goods across the continent – of course starting with Regional Economic Communities first! But what is the progress with this?

There is also the Pan-African University as well as the Pan African Parliament, a Parliament invested with full legislative powers! How soon can this be realised given the stranglehold that African leaders individually have on their people and the passionate obsession to national sovereignty?

Africa has also through its Peace and Security Apparatus committed to end of conflicts by silencing the guns by 2020 – but the prevailing conditions in Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, northern Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Cameroon’s north-west and south-west regions are an indictment on her commitment.

These are just some of the reasons why it is imperative for Africans at home and abroad to celebrate Africa Day. I hope that the ardent among the Pan Afrikanists will keep the fires burning and eventually achieve that noble ideal of total African liberation as initially espoused by Marcus Garvey

Selah!