I was on a flight to London and a European diplomat friend of mine challenged me on the level of Pan-Africanism in the context by which the President of Kenya has taken on the world institutions.
The 8-hour flight was Hell for this diplomat friend of mine who wished he had not started the topic about Pan Africanism. Today I rise to support and echo the sentiments of the President of Kenya’s revamped Pan-African dream.
In the fight for a better Africa, Dr.William Ruto has demonstrated the ability of hope to all of us who yearn for an equal world. The sentiments expressed by the President in the last 8 months on Pan-African issues give us hope as Africans. The hope is that Africa will one day rise and shine again.
As a Christian I value hope so I looked at my Bible this morning to read about hope. “Hope in the Midst of Pressure – 2 Thessalonians 1 . The Apostle Paul penned in 2 Thessalonians the most interesting letter to the world about hope. That is why I chose to applaud the President of Kenya for giving Africa hope.
I want to state without fear that 18 years ago, in 2005 after my Sunday service at Lady Mary Anglican Church in Surrey England where I have been an elder of the church for 34 years, an inner voice with vision flashed to my mind.
Instead of going to my house after prayers, I decided to walk to a nearby Weatherspoon restaurant in the Addington Village which was between the church and a police station. Next to it, I could see Addington Palace which gave strength each time I thought of Africa.
As I sat down, this inner voice commanded me to do something about Africa. The inner voice told me to expose the ills of ICC in Africa. It commanded me to start a straight fight against ICC fake cases. It must be remembered that the first case of ICC in ICC and in Africa was in my country in 2005 where I was born.
This inner voice commanded me to stand up and oppose the evil schemes of ICC and I obeyed the voice because I had just taken Holy Communion in Church. I hit the road the same week in 2005 by issuing a tough statement from London opposing the then Chief Prosecutor of ICC Luis Moreno Ocampo.
In the same week in 2005, President Museveni had a joint press conference in Cumberland Hotel in London on ICC indictments in Uganda. This was a tough tall order for me as a lone ranger because as an opposition and chief critic of President Museveni at that time my relationship with HE President Museveni was very bad. We could not see eye to eye.
I have given this background so as to relate to how hope does not die. I did not know that a few years later in 2008 I would be in the middle of a big storm in neighboring Kenya against the same powers namely France and USA that wanted to use ICC as a tool to rule Africa.
But this will be a story for another day in my book that is going to be launched on 15th July 2023 this year. I have set the record straight for people to know where I have come from. In short, the lesson I got from this ICC matter to all my fellow Christians is that, it is better to be blessed than to receive as the Bible says.
That inner voice from God to stand up against ICC in Africa and in Kenya has borne me fruits today. I am blessed that I stood for the truth and it set me free and I now see the fruits of my bitter fight against ICC for 15 years. I feel happy when I see high profile young African President telling the French and USA the truth about Africa.My inner thoughts feel blessed by God.
Back to the subject of Pan Africanism which is my main topic in this article I want to be associated with the good words from millions across the world . I want to be associated to the soaring oratory of HE President William Ruto of Kenya who gave a speech like the Gettysburg Address to folksy, the humorous yarns, to his fervent and courageous articulation of African issues.
I also want to be part and parcel of the oomph and mettle by which Ruto has taken on the West on matters that are feared by many African leaders. This is something to be acclaimed. There is no hiding the pleasure anymore.Let the truth be told that from the bottom of my heart, I am relieved.
Allow me, if you may, to proclaim that it occurs to me without any iota of doubt that, in President William Ruto, Africa has once again earned a new firebrand who has defied subjugation of the West and risen from the fosse and the abyss of playing to the tune of the usurpers with arrant resignation of most African leaders.
Whilst he has been in office for only less than a year, so far President Ruto has manifested an exuberant disposition to tackle systemic problems in the continent upon which many have chosen not to wade into such precariously lofty territories.
The accolades accrued to President Ruto at the recent Pan-African Summit in South Africa and in Paris undoubtedly elevated and poised him as the only visible paragon chaperoning to bring to the perpetual mistreatment of African leaders by their Western counterparts in conferences and summits.
The last of the African leaders perhaps to posses such temerity was Muammar Gaddafi, who unfortunately was filibustered and his meticulous ambitions for Africa bastardized trivial horizons that he set up against his people and later his head to the guillotine.
That is what the West does to our African leaders . Sarkozy used Gaddafi‘s money to campaign and he has been found guilty by a court in France. Today the African Union has not requested the arrest of Gaddafi’s killers and instead, they encourage the ICC to haunt the divided nation.
Let me return to the subject of Africa. I must divulge here that I agree with the President to every grain of my reason on Pan-Africanism and change of strategy in AU, I concur that the African Union should be restructured.
It must be empowered enough to represent the continent at such meetings instead of having dozens of Presidents at meetings where they are given a minute or so to speak. Isn’t this what Kwame Nkurumah yearned for in his dream for a better Africa?
I stand in the same pew with him when he calls on the Western powers to cease using their economic and military power to bully African countries into doing what they want. This power imbalance, and the exorbitant interests they impose on loans lent to us, make it difficult for Africans to wade off the shackles of Western interference.
Through this perpetual manipulation, Africa has gradually lost its bearing and occasionally perceives itself through the Western lens. This has resulted in Africa being slowly emptied of its essence, and becoming a relic, no different in substance from a statue or a museum.
It’s true that we have lost ourselves as a people. In fact, most of the nations in Africa should not even be called African nations, but Western African nations. The language, political ideology, socio-economic structures, education, and everything that makes up a nation, even down to popular culture, do not originate from us, but from the West.
It is the feeblest position a continent and its people can be in because it is a position of so chronic a subservience. To an extent that whatever becomes normalized in the West will eventually be forced down our throats, whether we like it or not. Have we seen the signs or we’re still digging our heads in the sand?
The lack of befitting political goodwill to rally behind our own whenever opportunity opens its doors to us has been the bane of most of our agenda. In this light, I’d rally all African heads of state and Africans at large to support Ruto in his resolve to stand for Africa.
As I finally put my pen down, I would like to echo the words of Kwame Nkrumah, “Unite we must.
Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, we can forge a political union based on defense, foreign affairs and diplomacy, and a common citizenship, an African currency.
Therefore a monetary zone and a central bank are possibilities. We must unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our continent”.
My final message is read from Mathew 10:14 “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town”.
I will remain struggling for a better Africa.
Thanks
God bless Africa
2.07.2023
The Writer is a Political Scientist & International Relations expert based in London United Kingdom. A conflict Resolution expert who writes regularly on African Affairs. Twitter @matsangaDr
