When Ghana became the first African country to gain independence from a colonial power, Kwame Nkrumah declared: “Ghana’s independence is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa”. If Nkrumah were alive today, I think he would be pleased with the recent progress towards his dream of an African Union, though he would have been disappointed for its lack of radicalism in implementation thereof addressing continental challenges.
In Africa Must Unite, Nkrumah talks of the dangers of continued Balkanisation, including potential division and conflict, and the vital need for political unification and All-African economic planning. In Challenge of the Congo, he said “how meaningless political independence could be without economic freedom and how necessary it was for African solutions to be found for African problems”.
“People of Africa have shared interests and should be united around common goals. This is the main idea behind Pan-Africanism and what many of its proponents envisioned as unified Africa.”
The challenges of weak leadership remain a barrier on how to stop corruption in many African countries. Enforcing the rule of law, addressing poverty and strengthening accountability measures will go a long way towards reducing the corrupt practices in African public and private sector institutions and can become a driving force behind unity which should embody a new consciousness of Africa, where its leaders combine their efforts to solve the problems of this continent.
The new consciousness should discontinue the gap between sound economic governance and accountability, citizen-centred governance so that economic growth remains a sufficient co-operation between African states. It should embody a culture of intra-African trade in developing the African economy.
Africa continues to struggle with collective decision-making both in response to conflict and the promotion of evenly balanced development through its regional economic communities. The AU, which was created to attain greater unity and solidarity between African countries, balancing the principle of sovereignty with the need to accelerate political rights and socioeconomic growth and co-operation on the continent, should further strengthen these objectives to be achieved by increasing intra-African trade, building a regional consensus and action on people-centred, good governance norms and principles.
As for conflicts that frequently occur, member states need to work together and look for more effective, actionable African solutions to African problems; otherwise African unity shall remain a hollow statement.
African leaders must stop bemoaning Africa's challenges in fields of science, leadership, governance, corruption, economic development, health and infrastructure as well as technology and begin to aid development with good governance.
This new consciousness has a responsibility to ensure that the future leaders of this continent have a Pan-African orientation when they graduate. That the ugly scenes of violence against African foreign nationals which dominate our spaces should be dismantled.
This responsibility must dismantle the idea that the African Union and the African parliament are used as a means by most African leaders to advance the sovereignty of their nationalism rather than Pan-Africanism.
So do their followers, which completely undermines the values and principles of a united Africa. This makes Africa weak and vulnerable. It gives way for “a continuity of preoccupation”. The new consciousness of Africa must restore the dignity of Africans in a world that has hitherto conceded them none. This new consciousness should radicalise the total decolonisation of Africa and her children for social, economic and political freedoms in a Pan-African way.
• Mosele is a member of the Young African Leadership Initiative Network and a World Literacy Foundation blogger
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