How politicians hijack Pan Africanism: The curious case of Muhammadu Buhari

Ihave an opinion that I am prepared to argue to the moon. Wanna hear it? Here goes: “Social media and Youtube have helped what was previously a dying 20th century political movement to gain a foothold within Africa’s urban youth demographic, and Nigeria has turned into a peculiar example of this phenomenon.”

I believe that Politicians like John Magufuli and Muhammadu Buhari have ridden the newfound wave of 20th century-style Pan-africanism by selectively invoking passionate appeals to patriotic and anti-colonialist sentiment, especially when trying to force through subpar policies like commodity import substitution, capital controls, crackdown on social freedoms and institution of a police state.

Classic Soviet-influenced Pan Africanist thinking as popularised by Kwame Nkrumah in the mid20th century already failed in the 20th century, and prominent minds like the Ghanaian Professor George Ayittey have repeatedly argued that Africa’s thinkers need to create and disseminate a new doctrine for African continental growth and integration. This is needed to stop letting politicians control the narrative by calling back to the failed but emotionally potent ideology of the 1960s. Nigeria however, does not seem to be getting the memo.

General Buhari is as Pan-africanist as I am Taiwanese

He throws up the black power fist in public all the time. His administration uses certain code language and keywords designed to evoke fierce racial and national patriotic sentiment. He closes borders and decries “colonial disdain” of the effete bourgeoisie who want to feed on imports while neglecting Nigerian production and local economic growth.

These are all time-tested markers of an African leader who adheres to the Nkrumah-socialist vision of Pan-africanism which failed from takeoff, then failed even harder for the next 30 - 40 years, leaving Africa in its current position as the world’s least economically active and interconnected geographical region.

In reality however, President Buhari is about as Pan-africanist as Kwame Nkrumah was Chinese. Behind the signalling and imagery, does Mr. President for example, believe in the right of all of Nigeria’s constituent ethnic groups to assert their own independence and wield power over their own destinies?

This is actually a foundational principle of Pan Africanism, since it is an ideology whose entire purpose is to oppose colonialism and erasure at the hands of Western capitalists. Nkrumah famously put Ghana into vast amounts of debt in his attempt to keep all of the country’s regions and ethnicities happy. Is the person who made the famous “5 percent versus 97 percent” comment likely to see things this way?

Rather than face difficult questions about how government budgets simply do not accomplish 45 percent of what they set out to do every year, Pan Africanism gives leaders the opportunity to yap about Western imperialists and neo-colonialists, while their followers eat that stuff up

Your guess is as good as mine

What I believe, and what the evidence puts out is that Pan-africanism is potent and emotionally cathartic. People eat it up because it gives them a conveniently extraneous and seemingly all-powerful enemy to blame all their troubles on.

Rather than face difficult questions about how government budgets simply do not accomplish 45 percent of what they set out to do every year, Pan Africanism gives leaders the opportunity to yap about Western imperialists and neocolonialists, while their followers eat that stuff up.

It is outdated, lazy, reductive, dishonest and pretentious.

Much like a certain soldierturned political soldier in Abuja with perennially clenched fists.