Zuma on pan africanism

Pan Africanism is a term evolved in the early 20th century by blacks and African-Americans to fight for equal rights for black people all over the world, particularly against racism in Europe and America. Black leaders like W. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, among others, led the movement fighting for the dignity of black man worldwide. It was a movement founded to arouse African consciousness in a polarized world where Africans were regarded as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the colonial masters. It should be recalled that Pan Africanist leaders and Pan Africanism influenced the nationalist movement in the 1940s in Africa. In my university days, we students of history relished topics like pan Africanism, imperialism, neocolonialism, nationalism, etc. This is because these topics are eye openers on the denigration of blacks by the whites and the need for the blacks to put their acts together economically, educationally, politically and technologically, if we are to save the generation unborn from servitude. Scholars of development like Walter Rodney, Samir Amin, Franz Fanon, amongst others, were held in high esteem by students in our days.

However, the era of globalisation has killed anything like human dignity or black consciousness among blacks, especially in Nigeria. Gone are the days when there were national borders that could be closed to certain foreign products all in order to protect local industries. Today, Nigeria especially is the home of used clothing materials, cars, electronic gadgets, etc. In the good old days when the black man cherished his dignity, imported used cloth popularly known as “Bosikoro” in Yoruba and “Okirika” in Igbo was used as farm clothing and those who sold it did that at hidden places and those patronizing the sellers moved to hidden place to assess the materials. But what are we seeing today? Markets have been created for all sorts of used products, even in places like Lagos and Abuja where learned and educated men and women shop for Okirika. This is not to talk of rural areas where it is ubiquitous. How can the local manufacturers of clothes, bags, shoes, etc, grow in view of the prime position given used products in our clime?

As a matter of fact, I was all along thinking that pan Africanism was dead until the visit of the South African president, Jacob Zuma to Owerri at the instance of governor Rochas Okorocha. There is no doubt that Zuma’s visit to Imo State was in the spirit of pan Africanism. This is because it was to strengthen partnership between education foundations in Africa. I had the opportunity to watch the reception held for Zuma on the NTA and wondered at the humility of Zuma in leaving South Africa because of an individual and the audacity of Okorocha to evolve the philanthropic idea in the first instance and for putting together such a classical event in view of the unrest in that part of Nigeria due to IPOB agitation and military crackdown on them.

Zuma’s speech after he was honoured with the Imo merit award and after signing an MOU between his education foundation and Okorocha’s shows that South Africans are blessed with the right leadership, despite the nation building problems facing that country and the excesses of its leaders. What I mean is that Zuma understands the basis of backwardness, not only of his country, but Africa as a whole. I believe once the cause of an affliction is known, a solution is not too far.

Zuma spoke about xenophobia in his country as regards Nigerians in South Africa where he asked for a halt to the killing of Nigerians. He equally spoke about stronger economic ties between Nigeria and South Africa, the two strongest economies in Africa, as a recipe for economic emancipation of Africa. He also urged unity among African states and peoples as against individualism which will continue to deepen our backwardness. Again, Zuma emphasised the prime position of education in our quest for development as a continent. The irony is that Nigerian leaders are paying lip service to education by canceling free education, privatizing education, owing teachers backlogs of salary and emoluments and devoting peanuts to education in annual budgets, then, how are we going to get out of  the woods in that situation? Illiteracy, according to Zuma, is the root of African sociopolitical and economic problems which he laid at the doorsteps of the colonialists! I am of the opinion that Yoruba adage that when translated means “you have not suffered, yet you say you are a writer, who is your teacher? is applicable to Zuma here.

Zuma was a freedom fighter against the apartheid regime in South Africa until 1990s when the crime against humanity collapsed in that country. According to Zuma “the gap between Africa and the west was created by the colonialists, who plundered the region’s resources”. My question is , do our leaders in Nigeria know this? I doubt it because if they knew, they would not be looking up to the same plunderers of our resources for solutions to our problems as they do at the moment by seeking aids and grants from neocolonialist lenders, which further adds to our misery.

Adegbite writes in via [email protected]