Op-ed By Abu Bakarr Jalloh – CEO, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The African Dream
In 1963, at a time when several African countries had gained independence from Western colonial rule, African leaders came together and launched the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The purpose was to promote African unity, solidarity, cooperation, and to eradicate colonialism and neo-colonialism on the continent. Kwame Nkrumah, Emperor Haile Selassie, Sékou Touré, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, William Tubman, and Ketema Yifru were the key African leaders who played a major role in forming the OAU. They all shared one goal and vision: a united Africa.
During the launch of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Nkrumah gave a speech. He told his colleagues that Africa should have a common market, an African currency, an African monetary zone, an African central bank, and a continental communications system. Nkrumah urged African leaders in that room to form a continental union government immediately, warning that delaying African unity would leave the continent vulnerable to neocolonialism and external manipulation. He said: “Africa must unite. We have the resources. We have the manpower. Can we not find the courage to match them for the sake of Africa’s greater glory and infinite well-being?”
Unfortunately, Nkrumah’s speech was only heard by the walls of the conference building. After that meeting, 62 years later, Africa has yet to achieve the single goal and vision Nkrumah spoke of. No change, no transformation, nothing. Probably the only change was the renaming of the Organization of African Unity to the African Union in 2002.
Since then, the African Union has become more of an accomplice to the crimes the West has committed against Africa rather than a voice for the continent. They say the African Union is the voice of Africa. But whose voice does it really echo? Whose interests does it serve? If we look at what the European Union has achieved for Europeans, it should be clear that the African Union has benefited the West more than Africans.
It is both appalling and heartbreaking to realize that those who were supposed to protect, lead, and serve Africans are Africa’s greatest betrayers. Neither the West, the white man, nor the Chinese are solely responsible for Africa’s failure and poor development. The African Union has become a gatekeeper of the status quo. It is not the Pan-African dream of Nkrumah, Sankara, or Lumumba. It is an elite club that meets in glittering conference halls built with Chinese loans, protected by security guards armed with guns made in Europe, and funded eighty percent by Western donors. Yes, eighty percent of the African Union’s budget and operations are financed by Europeans and Chinese. How can African unity be built on Western money?
One of the most ridiculous policies of the African Union is Agenda 2063. It is shocking that the African Union has an agenda for Africans but young Africans must wait until 2063 to benefit from it. This agenda was crafted by imperialist hands to maintain control over our trillions of dollars worth of resources. You cannot call yourself a liberation force when your timeline matches the patience of the colonizer. While our leaders plan for 2063, the West exploits our minerals, our youth flee across deserts and drown at sea, and our currencies crash under the weight of imported ideologies.
Had we worked on Nkrumah’s vision, Gaddafi’s dream, and Lumumba’s goal, we would not have someone like Elon Musk disrespecting South Africa’s sovereignty. We cannot speak of sovereignty when sixty percent of your budget comes from the European Union, China, Russia, the IMF, and the World Bank. You cannot talk about integration when most member states do not allow fellow Africans to cross borders freely. You cannot shout about development when the same extractive economies from the colonial era remain intact. You cannot talk about economic independence when the West is busy digging our gold, bauxite, cobalt, and diamonds, exporting raw materials, importing processed goods, and keeping us poor.
Someone said, “South Africa has more to lose than America if the United States cuts ties with them.” I felt pain and disappointment. Where is the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement? It is a powerful idea, but ideas without enforcement rot in bureaucratic mouths. Until we have a continental currency, continental infrastructure, and political will, all we are doing is moving goods across imaginary borders while the West continues to write the rules.
Here is the truth: the African Union does not threaten imperialism. It accommodates it. They work against their own people. The second largest continent by population, the richest by resources, and the youngest by youth is still without a single passport for its people to travel freely, without a single currency to trade, without a single military or nuclear weapons, without fulfilling the vision of Sankara, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Sékou Touré, Gaddafi, and Amilcar Cabral. Yet, they have Agenda 2063, which exists only on paper.
So the next time they mention Agenda 2063, ask them: who benefits from the delay? African liberation is not something we schedule; it is something we seize. It is clear: the African Union either needs radical transformation or it should get out of the way.
When I say the African Union is Africa’s greatest betrayal, this is what I mean. Where was the African Union when Muammar Gaddafi was butchered in Libya? In our own backyard, they watched the West fly jets over Tripoli, drop bombs, and turn the most stable nation in North Africa into a failed state and a playground for modern-day slave markets. Where was the AU when Thomas Sankara was assassinated? In our own backyard. Where was the AU when Patrice Lumumba was kidnapped, assassinated, his body dumped in acid, and his teeth kept as trophies of empire? In our own backyard.
And what did the AU do? They just protested weakly and continued running back to imperialists for loans, aid, and food. The African Union, whether out of fear, compromise, or cowardice, stood by and watched as Western intelligence agencies
We have the U.S. – Africa summit, China – Africa summit, France – Africa summit, Russia – Africa summit. All these summits are annually held outside Africa. Our future is being discussed away from home with the imperialists. Yet we wonder why they don’t respect our sovereignty.
The AU has become an elite club, far removed from the dreams of its founding fathers. These African leaders meet in Addis Ababa, drink coffee, debate empty resolutions, and wait for funding from Brussels and Washington. But they never confront the truth.
How can a continent with the most gold, diamonds, cobalt, oil, bauxite, and fertile land beg Europe, Russia, and China for loans and grain from Ukraine and Russia?
Our youths are sent to die in the Mediterranean because our economies rely on exporting raw materials and importing processed goods at inflated prices. We extract the wealth, ship it out, and import poverty in return.
Every year, African leaders fly to Paris, London, Washington, and Beijing with begging bowls, pleading for loans, aid, and crumbs of investment from the very powers that stole, raped, and bled this continent dry. Some even fly to Paris for regular medical checkups leaving behind rotten healthcare system for their people to die of curable illness.
Agenda 2063 exists only on paper, but at the borders, goods rot and people are harassed. I cannot use my Leones in Nigeria. I cannot use my Sierra Leone passport to travel freely within my own continent. I cannot use my Rand to trade in Ghana. Colonial policies still choke our freedom of movement. What we have is not unity. It is illusion. What we have is not sovereignty. It is scripted submission.
How can Africa be given a seat at the table when it does not even have a table in its own backyard?
Let us look at the recent rift between South Africa and the United States. The United States disrespected South Africa’s sovereignty, yet its leader, President Ramaphosa, went to the United States and surrendered sovereignty for America to exercise imperialism with impunity. Some argue it is partnership, but this is not partnership. This is the legacy of colonialism engraved in our political and social systems.
It is not that Africa cannot defend itself, but the deadbeat leaders at the AU are too polite to power. We are too scared to offend the empires that have never stopped exploiting us. The AU keeps dancing to their tune.
We are so naked and vulnerable that if the West decided to colonize Africa again today, they would succeed in a split second. Why? An entire continent with trillions of dollars in natural resources and the youngest population has zero nuclear weapons to protect itself from Western influence and imperialism.
You may say “Africa does not need nuclear weapons,” but that is not true. If Russia had no nuclear weapons, America and Russia’s enemies would have destroyed it completely. This is the modern world, a new era of geopolitical chess, where nuclear weapons dictate respect, yet we have none. I remember when the West told Gaddafi to dismantle his nuclear programs. African leaders went to him and convinced him to end those programs. They did not support him; they acted on behalf of the colonizers. Gaddafi dismantled his nuclear program in 2003. Eight years later, he was killed by the West with no help or backing from the AU.
We sit and watch foreign powers militarize our soil, set up bases, and draw maps of Africa without our consent. We cannot build a united Africa on a foundation of fear and foreign funding from those who do not have our interests at heart.
Until we have one currency, one army, one economic agenda, and one uncompromising voice, as Nkrumah envisaged, we will continue to be spectators in a game played on our land, with our lives, and against our interests.
History will not forgive the AU if it continues down this path of irrelevance. Neither will we.
