The approach of chastising the Western powers as imperialists and blood sucking colonialists worked and it actually galvanized the post independence African leaders into making Pan African declarations that were intended to focus and benefit Africa. The African masses supported and viewed those post independence leaders of the time as the beacons for Africa's rebirth.
Africa was filled with euphoria and sighs of relief. Africans hoped that Africa had reached a stage where the continent would be able to resist the overtures and tyranny of the Western imperialists and colonialists.
The formation of the Organization of African Union (OAU) was seen as the opportune vanguard that would be used as a special purpose vehicle by the African countries to forge their own ultimate sovereignty, peace, stability and prosperity. That must have been the vision of the likes of Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie, Egypt’s Gamel Nasser, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Nigerian’s Nandi Azikiwe, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Kenya’s Jomo Kinyatta, Uganda’s Milton Obote, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Senegal’s Leopold Senghor.
However, no sooner had the OAU been formed, visionary and sometimes very fiery declarations made by the African leaders than wanton eliminations of those leaders started. One by one, they were either murdered in cold blood or killed following military putsches that were instigated by those that felt threatened by the desires of the African people to be free and able to determine their own destiny. Unfortunately, in most cases, these extra judicial eliminations of the post independence African leaders was and could only have been possible with the connivance of sections of the Africans themselves.
Given the various enticements offered by the foreign forces to these African collaborators, the new leaders who appeared on the scene as replacements of the post independence leaders instead became puppets of the foreign actors and sometimes they turned to be total sale-outs as far as the African continent was concerned.
Therefore, although much of Africa had gained territorial independence, in effect much of Africa was still under the colonial yoke which was always to manifest itself in form of neocolonialism. Matters have not been helped by those that have come on the scene successively as subsequent leaders in Africa.
The African leaders continue to allow themselves to be played and to be manipulated into sometimes even fighting other people's wars to the direct detriment of the very principles of the Pan Africanism.
As time has progressed, Africa is again finding herself in the midst of global political and economic scramble. Africa is again on the dining table at which international players are jostling to partake of its resources. All this is being done under the guise of fostering "genuine and fair" friendship which is claimed to be based to "equality, respect and mutual benefits". However, in spite of the rhetoric, nothing can be far from the truth than these hollow declarations. It is no secret that Africa's natural wealth in form of the minerals and the geopolitical position that some countries hold is the reason why the foreign forces are still scrambling for Africa. Western, Eastern and Asian powers are jostling to replace and overtake each other's position in the various parts of the continent.
Although there has been incessant calls on Africa to craft African solutions to the African problems, these calls are always watered down or undermined by the ever increasing quest of the African leaders themselves in still offering hope to finding solutions to Africa's problems from elsewhere.
We have seen several African summits held in Beijing, Washington and Moscow to which almost the leaders of African countries flock and pour out their wish lists for potential offers, partnership, agreements and give a ways. African leaders continue to walk around many capitals of the West, East and Asia with begging bowls.
It is reported that USA continues to operate several military and calling bases in several parts of the continent of Africa’s coastline. Not to be out competed, France, China and Russia have thousands of military troops in several parts of Africa. The recent implosion in the Western states of Africa, like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, Chad and C.A.R is a manifestation of the helplessness situation that Africa finds herself in. It is a sad situation that is faced with Africa in the wake of the roaring and reignited control appetite of the neo-colonialists of the West, East and Asia.
Even after numerous praises were poured on a few selected leaders by the American masters who often tried to gleefully describe their new found friends in Africa as the "New beacons to the African Renaissance", Africa continued to slide into the grip of the colonial mastery. Most of the West African countries drifted more to France, while those in the Maghreb drifted towards France and Italy. Those in East Africa saw themselves being embraced by their already known colonial master Britain.
With that alignment, even the formation of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) the newly found refugee anchor for the African countries in the wake of the global jostling of the cold war didn't offer much. Many African countries have continued to confess to be Non Aligned but that is actually only on paper. In practice, most of them continue to pay deep allegiance to what their masters in the West or East have to say. It is a situation that is becoming very precarious for the African countries to extricate themselves from without eliciting the warnings and the wrath of the masters. We see the anger and wrath of the masters often expressed in the warnings given to African countries which try to change their allegiance.
Without a strong, self sustaining and decisive African vanguard in the name of the African Union being resolute about Africa’s economic, social, and political problems, we shouldn’t expect much out of the declarations and pronouncements about Africa’s sovereignty as continent and as a people.
---- By Edward Baliddawa
August 2023