INTRODUCTION
Since the Nkrumah days, Africans have been
noticing, on a daily basis, the inevitable need for a concrete unification
process involving all African countries. This process can be given a
substantial impetus if it is tackled mostly at the level of some activities and
structures. These activities and structures are as follows: the family, peer
groups, educational institutions, religious institutions, socio-cultural
groups, political parties, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental
organizations, intellectual and academic circles, sporting activities, musical activities,
government contribution, monetary and economic realm, as well as defence and
anti-terrorism issues.
The African family
should mobilize all its human, moral, psychological, intellectual, material and
financial resources to ensure that its members become highly enlightened on the
urgency of African unity and solidarity.
This mission or vision should be considered as a categorical imperative or
mandatory route, the sole route which would enable Africa to be a strong and
unified country. The legendary warmth and solidarity in African families should
be transferred to the said mission or vision.
African peer groups
are not left out in this august mission or vision. Each member of a peer group
in Africa, should, once in a while, focus his or her attention on his or her
future and that of his or her children and children’s children. For instance,
the use by African youthful peer groups of their ingenuity in many trivial or
unnecessary ways and domains could be oriented towards the search for their betterment
through the unification of youth-oriented moves in Africa targeting African
unification.
Educational
institutions have to play a strategic role in Africa’s unitarian process. As far as the future of Africa is
concerned, education and educational institutions have a preponderant place, a
place which is clearly defined by Malcolm X when he extols education in the
following words:
Education
is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who
prepare for it today.
However, for any educational process in
Africa to be part and parcel of Africa’s unitarian
process in admissible terms, educational establishments in the African
Continent should draw up syllabuses or curricula which enable them to be pacesetters or pacemakers in the said
process.
Religious
institutions in Africa must realize that the oneness preached in the Bible
could be converted into oneness for Africa. In other words, the Christian message
of love, solidarity, peace, unity, etc should be rationally used by Africans to
attain a sublime level of unification in their continent. Furthermore, the
various religious groups (Christians, Moslems, believers in African religions, etc) should endeavour to come up
with a harmonized preaching approach targeting African unity.
Socio-cultural groups
in the African Continent are a potential unifying tool if judiciously
harnessed. African songs, rites, dances, etc encompass a good number of themes
or topics which call for unity and solidarity. These socio-cultural aspects
should be exploited for purposes of bringing all Africans together within the
confines of a traditional and modern unified African society.
Political parties are
double-edged weapons or swords in any democratic process. They are able to
contribute to a people’s welfare as well as their doom or gloom especially in
the case of the very disgusting use of power by these parties as perceived by Beth
B. Hess and al.
Within the framework of African unity and solidarity, the African Continent
needs political parties which contribute to its welfare, political parties
which have a far-sighted vision in terms of Pan-Africanism, political parties
which lay much emphasis on the promotion of African unification at the expense
of their respective national interests.
Just like political
parties, non-governmental organizations are likened to double-edged swords or
weapons. Many Africans and African groups use them to enrich themselves while
others (just a few) believe that they could be used to ensure the welfare of
the population. It is in this light that well-organized networks of
non-governmental institutions at the national, subregional
and international levels in the domain of Africa’s unification process could
provide interesting ideas aimed at furthering the said process.
Nowadays,
inter-governmental organizations are playing a role which is not satisfactory
to the common man. This is the case with the United Nations which is the main
inter-governmental organization in the world. This is also the case with subregional and regional institutions in Africa. These
African institutions have to be restructured or overhauled so that they could
play a systematic and fundamental role in the unification drive in Africa and
cease to be spectators when African countries are being pillaged or destroyed
by imperialists.
The intellectual and
academic circles, just like the educational ones, have a primordial role to
play in enabling Africa to be a unified continent. A new breed of African
writers, academics and experts should emerge, a breed which aggressively
focuses on the urgent need to unify Africa. This breed of writers, academics
and experts should endeavour to organize themselves
across the African Continent so as to ease Africa’s unification endeavours through their prolific Pan-Africanism literature
or ideas.
Contrary to what a
good number of people may think, sporting activities or issues could have a
significant role to play in Africa’s unification process. It is in this light
that in all sporting activities in this continent, the urgency of Africa’s
unification should be conspicuously felt. Moreover, this urgency should be
discernible owing to the appellations for sports infrastructure and materials
in Africa.
Music is a great
relieving force in the society. It soothes minds and societies. It takes us to
very passionate or emotional levels as well as enables us to dance and sing in
a relaxed atmosphere. This role can as well be played by music in Africa’s
drive for unification. At this level, tracks, concerts, etc promoting African
unity and solidarity have to be given an august place in Africa’s musical
realm. Furthermore, networks for Pan-Africanism musicians should be set up all
over Africa.
African Governments
have to play the most decisive role in Africa’s journey to oneness. They have
to mobilize all their institutions or structures (ministries, corporations,
projects, etc) so as to raise awareness of the need to journey towards unity
and solidarity in Africa as well as propose strategies for the concretization
of this unity and solidarity. To this end, central units should be set up in
African States to coordinate Pan-Africanism activities while at the regional
level, these States should set up a regional structure to coordinate the said
activities and speed up the unification process.
At the monetary and
economic level, all the three institutions mentioned in the African Union
Constitutive Act (African Central Bank, African Investment Bank and African
Monetary Fund) should be given the tools needed to enable Africa to set up a
buoyant or dynamic market, a market which shall function in a free manner and
with one powerful currency within the confines of a federal structure, a market
which shall be able to ease Africa’s economic transactions and contribute to
its unification process because of the presence of an impressive and resilient
monetary and economic policy as well as an alluring road infrastructure at the
national, subregional and regional levels.
By and large, a
thorough implementation of all the recommendations above, coupled with the
rational implementation of recommendations in other key or fundamental domains
such as the legal realm, industrial development, mining, tourism and health,
could speed up the much-cherished unification process in the African Continent
and the commendable Agenda 2063 for Africa’s development. On
the strength of this dual implementation, the Khartoum Dream would see the
light of day in Africa, thereby raising Africa to the level of a reputable,
viable and formidable continent, a continent comparable to none in the world!
