Africa: Once Upon a Continent

T- Malcolm X oday (Monday 25th of May) is Africa Day! What then about it when a billion Africans worldwide in 2015 muddle through without African consciousness? We have all the structures; Africa Union, (AU), 40plus heads of governments and states, African parliament,regional organizations, ad ifinitum. However we lack the real thing that would drive the African institutions; African consciousness. How many Africans remember Africa (Liberation) day? Its time we reinvented pan-Africanism with a demand for a continent-wide obligatory observance of Africa day. We must promote the education and consciousness about African Renaissance! On the 8th May every year, Europeans in unison pause (with public holidays!) to mark the Victory over Nazi Germany’s aggression and oppression in Europe during the Second World War. 60 million people (including thousands of Africans) reportedly died during the Hitler’s war of attrition. But lest we forget; as many as some 100 million African lives were lost to 19th century European brutal colonial terrorism and earlier 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade! Younger Africans must be aware of the enormous sacrifices of the founding fathers who through resistance and nationalism fought for African liberation. Otherwise we loose them permanently to complacency and complicity that may nourish a repeat of the tragic history of enslavement and coloniaization. No thanks to loss of memory, Africa is sliding back into primitive tribal wars (witness SouthSudan), xenophobia, crude and violent tribalism (ala South Africa), ethnoreligious wars (Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Central Africa Republic). These

Buhari mutually destructive war-types in the past undermined African communities before the colonial predators came calling. Modern-day Visa lotteries and serial Mediterranean tragedies with boats carrying thousands of African migrant workers sinking underscore the truism that lack of memory ruins a Continent.

Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission must bring some renewed energy and pro-active activism into the Africa Union (AU) secretariat if Africa must matter in a globalized world. I searched in vain for the 2015 theme of an anniversary of the Africa Day. One recalls an OAU of Togo’s Edem Kodjo (1978 - 1983), Nigeria’s Dr.Peter U. Onu (1983 - 19 85) and Tanzania’s Dr Salim Ahmed Salin (1989 - 2001). OAU commendably offered Africa the needed leadership in the struggle against apartheid in SA and last vestiges of colonialism in Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Nigeria is better positioned by its checked solidarity history in the struggle for African liberation to lead a renewed pan-Africanism. But that is if its outgoing leaders halt the last minute reported criminal scramble for “take away” Commonwealth. Or better still, if the incoming ruling party officials stop agonizing over sharing (as distinct from production) formula based on the their zones, regions, villages and clans. On assumption of office this weekend, President-elect General Muhammed Buhari must definitely act local to refix Nigeria. He must however with equal energy think and act African and indeed global. General Murtala Muhammed almost single handedly roused Africa to action over Southern African liberation with the famous Africa-has-come-of-age speech. Africa today begs for quotable leaders! We need self reliance. If poorer Africa built OAU Secretariat independently, why would Africa with triple figure GDP rely on China to remodel AU secretariat years after ? Contemporary Africa parades big chieftains, with their wives, wealth and power but little vision, idealism and love of the continent. Africa Day raises the nostalgia of eminent great African statesmen like Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, Tafawa Balewa Sekou Tuore, Murtala Muhammed, Samora Machel, Amilcal Cabral, Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela and non-state panAfricanists like Mariam Makeba, Ngugi Ngg wa Thiong’o, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, my late dear friend and pan-Africanist, Dr Tajudeen Abdulraheem who died on Africa day in a tragic accident in Nairobi 6 years ago .

At the founding of Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 Nkrumah rightly observed that indepedence “is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs;”. IMF and World Bank taunt Africa as an emerging market with alluring growth rate of 7 per cent. But market for whose goods? In the 70s Fela Anikulapo Kuti sang and enjoined us to “Buy Africa”. Apart from South Africa, which accounts for 27.3 percent of the subcontinent’s total Manufacturing Value Added, the whole continent is littered with smuggled, second hand and imported goods from Europe and China. Nigeria scandalously exports crude and imports refined petroleum products. It’s time to Make-in-Africa, add value to the abundant raw materials, create jobs for the youths. Africa should be the value addition and beneficiation/ job destinations impossible without electrification. In 1963, NKrumah had noted that “Our continent ....exceeds all the (other continents) in potential hydroelectric power, which some experts assess as 42% of the world’s total”. 50 years after, Africa economy groans under the weight of power poverty.. We cannot drive industrialization with power outages in Accra, Lagos or Johanesburg!.

54 Heads of government Africa are almost thrice Heads of government that make up the eurozone of 19 countries. European Union, (EU) remains unapologetically insular tightening immigration laws by the day. Recently it’s leaders said they would “destroy boats used by smugglers to bring migrants across the Mediterranean”. Indeed the EU is set to present a resolution to the UN Security Council to that effect. No voice so far is heard from the continent whose territorial waters is now an arena of gun-boat diplomacy. Who then speaks for Africa? Some 29 billionaires in Africa are distributed almost between Nigeria and South Africa. Yet the two countries harbour as many as 100 million poor! We must urgently compliment the well- having of the few with the total well-being of all Africans. The challenges of production and distribution in Africa call for bigger economy of scale which is only possible with economic integration and United States of Africa! Again Nkrumah saw it all earlier; “Our objective is African union now. There is no time to waste. We must unite now or perish”.The Maastricht Treaty which established European Union was signed on November 1st 1993, thirty years after OAU was formed by far sighted philosopher - leaders- kings of Africa. EU today exhibits robust common big market and common citizenship. What is good for Europe has long been envisioned by African founding fathers. Let’s realise the vison. Happy Africa day.