THE REAL IMPEDIMENT TO AFRICAN UNITY

 

Since the establishment of the organization of African Unity on 25^th May, 1963 with the headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, the quest for African unity has been an elusive goal not just at the regional and national level but even at the interpersonal levels as evident in different institutions. From the inside, looking outward, it is evident that the African has an inherent problem of being divided even on matters that otherwise, we should be able to easily agree on such as united contribution towards economic prosperity under one monetary system across the great continent with such immense potential.

The former colonial powers in Africa are partly to blame for the disunity that has been carried on for generations in Africa. The British and Germans for instance at the Berlin Conference in 1884, divided the continent into small nations for their conquest and instituted the “divide and conquer” system, knowing that a divided people are easy to rule over, not just within the context of the colonial period but even long after the colonial era in Africa was over for most African nations in the mid 1960’s.

With a deep level of distrust among each other that was sowed among Africans by the colonial masters, the reality of a united Africa is further from our reach. The fragmentation of the Africa into Africans on the continent and diaspora Africans also play out to the detriment of the progress of the continent and the African people anywhere in the World. The African identity hasn’t been celebrated or embraced by many Africans for lack of deep rooted self-belief that would otherwise propel the African towards the realization of the ever great need for unity.

Coming from slavery and colonialization, both the African on the continent and the diaspora Africa continued to perpetuate different ideas on what it mean to be African and also on what importance, there would be in uniting. Prior to colonization and slavery, the vice of tribalism ravaged the continent as the division also left many groups and subgroups exposed and weak for easy take over after the colonial invasion.

The impediments towards the unification of African people lies deeply and squarely on the lack of trust among the African people and the illusion that comes from misinformation, that the African has always been at the bottoms which infers that the African right place is servitude for anyone else that has unjustly broken the back of the African and stolen our history to the end of brainwashing the mind of the African both in the continent and in the diaspora.

With the realization that part of the problem has also been the lack of proper leadership on the continent that can inspire true Pan Africanism such as Kwame Nkurumah did in 1964, the African should seek to rethink on the need for the unification of his people and also the consequences of remaining divided under puppet leadership that has stalled the unification of the people in the interest of self.