Hon Speaker, the term Pan-Africanism was coined by the Trinidadian lawyer, Henry Sylvester Williams, uncle of George Padmore, in June 1897 - exactly 116 years ago - when the first Pan-African association was formed in the Diaspora through the leadership of Williams. Its mandate was to enable Africans and their global descendants to achieve, among others, their "true civil and political rights", and to ameliorate the conditions of our brothers on the continent of Africa, America and other parts of the world".
A generation later, a fiery Pan-Africanist, Kwame Toure, formally known as Stokely Carmichael, declared that Pan-Africanism is premised on the belief that Africa is one.
The artificial borders are the result of the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885, where European powers carved up the continent and divided the spoils among themselves.
Mother Africa is sadly failing to keep her children at home and be happy. According to International Organisation of Migration, IOM, there are currently more African scientists and engineers working in the United States than in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
First World nations give about $48 billion each year in foreign aid to Africa, while taking out $178 billion in debt payments. Unfortunately, African leaders have institutionalised beggary as they move from west to east, cap in hand, begging for aid. Africa must look inwards to solve its economic problems and stop being a global crybaby.
The problems afflicting Africa can be summed up in three points: one, the absence of revolutionary and visionary leaders like Kwame Nkrumah; two, the endemic corruption; and three, the culture of impunity.
Most of the African leaders are not servants of their people; they have become masters, cruel masters. They are greedily amassing wealth and are generally deaf to the cries of the people. They change rules, even constitutions, to accommodate their rapacious appetite for corruption. These are basically not African leaders because they do not have the interests of Africa at heart. They are creatures of the West, remote- controlled from Washington, London and Paris. They worship at the altar of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank. They bow before the tin god of dollar and euro. In Africa we have traitors parading themselves as leaders.
One cannot be a Pan-Africanist without answering the question: Who is an African? Kwesi Prah says, and I quote:
Africans exist and are also in the making. Africaness is more history and culture rather than biology, more a development of culture on historical premises rather than a fixed product arrested in time.
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, one of the greatest Pan-Africanist thinkers, is sadly marginalised by Johnny-come-latelies - omafikizolo [newcomers] - in the politics of Africa. A documentary portraying his life is virtually banned by the government. Mickey Dube, film director of Sobukwe - A Great Soul, lamentably said:
You'd have to be a fool to not think that the ANC is deliberately erasing Robert Sobukwe from history. Pan-Africanists are not fools. Thank you.
[Interjections.]