Professor Horace Campbell argues that Africa needs a new alliance of traders, workers, small farmers, progressive students, cultural artists and religious leaders to create a new movement for putting in place the mechanisms for the unification and freedom of Africa and not the current reformist leaders that the continent has. 

Namibia is the only African country that conferred upon Castro its highest national honour. This is a big shame for Africa. Castro personally and the people of Cuba made great sacrifices for African liberation. The African Union should honour Castro and deliberately seek to deepen ties with the Cuban people.

Gaddafi was certainly not killed for humanitarian reasons. He wanted to empower Africa. He had a plan to create a new African Union, based on a new African economic system. He wanted to introduce the Gold Dinar to back African currencies, so they could become free from the dollar. He wanted to protect Africa’s vast natural resources from Western looting. The imperialists eliminated him.

The vision for an African-led clean energy revolution is in danger of being thrown off course because of attempts by the European Commission (EC) and France to hijack the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative.

What does it mean to live under colonialism today? Despite numerous UN resolutions affirming the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people, Morocco with international support continues its illegal and atrocious occupation. From about the age of 14, Saharawi journalist and activist Malainin Lakhal has been fighting for his people’s liberation. In Nairobi this week, he told Pambazuka News editor Henry Makori his experience.

The fundamental problem of the African Union is ideological. And no one typifies this crisis better than Paul Kagame, the terrifying tyrant and imperialist stooge of Kigali. His new report proposing remedies for reforming the Union belongs in the dustbin. The AU does not need reform. It needs a radical transformation taking it back to its Pan-Africanist roots.

In 2013 Mozambican government officials formed three private companies and took out illegal secret loans totaling $2 billion. Donors suspended credit to Mozambique because of the loans as the national currency fell by 70% in 2016. Restructuring the illegal loans means imposed austerity on a population already living in extreme austerity and eventually repaying the creditors from revenues derived from Mozambique’s natural gas deposits that on the market in 2023.

Morocco was admitted to the African Union at the recent AU Summit. Until now, it was the only African country not to belong to the AU. Morocco left the AU's predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, in 1984 after the body recognised the independence of Western Sahara, which is still illegally occupied by Morocco. The following is a legal opinion by the AU regarding Morocco's application for re-admission:

With Trump’s America First campaign, African nations need to craft a coherent regional foreign policy approach for development and security cooperation with external actors to benefit Africans. Meanwhile Australia should take every step to ensure its investments and security engagement do not result in the destabilisation of African countries.

The upcoming AU Summit will be “closed”, allowing only the accredited delegations and staff to participate in and witness its deliberations. What is clear is that it will give the current class of Africa’s Heads of State a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-shape the organization.

The current efforts to elect a new Chair of the AU Commission have been caught in the crosswinds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the question of reseating Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa will face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen. The AU will survive this turbulence. But the rise of the Pan African Movement will likely sweep away the present crop of leaders.

As an example of leadership for Africa, the AU is seriously wanting. Yet this is not just an intergovernmental organization. It is a rallying point for the actualization of the African people’s deepest aspirations for freedom, dignity, unity and shared prosperity. In a hegemonic globalizing world, the AU needs a revolutionary leader with global stature to uphold and protect the principles and vision of the Constitutive Act.

The eyes of Africa are this week turned to Kigali, host of the African Union Summit, where a new Chairperson of the AU Commission will be elected. The Summit presents yet another opportunity for African Heads of State and Government to place the continental body on a new path that will genuinely respond to the needs and aspirations of the African people.

Since inception of the position of Chairperson of the African Union Commission, it has been filled by three men and one woman. Just how independent, resolute, resilient and resourceful have they been, and if they have failed, is that failure a reflection on their capability or the flawed set up of the Commission?

Whether it was the Ebola outbreak, drowning of African refugees in the Mediterranean, famines, the return of the god-President, the International Criminal Court or popular uprisings by young people demanding revolutionary change, the out-going Chairperson of the African Union Commission failed Africa. Her successor must be someone who understands, cares about and has a vision for the continent and its people.

A family in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa has been battling with the African Union over a piece of property in the past five years. But the family’s predicament is only a small part of a wider struggle under a soulless system that has little regard for the lives of its people.

Members of the Pan-African Parliament are handpicked by the executive of their country – by the same heads of state who retain the ultimate power at the African Union. And as if that is not bad enough, PAP is only a consultative organ. Efforts to change this, so that the people of Africa can have meaningful representation, continue to be resisted. African people must work hard for the transformation of this important AU organ.

Isn’t the time ripe for the African Union to create the space for true Africanisation of its institutions and ownership of its processes by the people at home and in the diaspora? There should be enough resources and incentives for all people to participate in the Pan-African project in our villages, communities, constituencies, campuses, and workplaces.

Only an upsurge from the left and anti-imperialist forces can fulfill the visions of a true united Africa in line with the work of Nkrumah, Gaddafi and other revolutionary leaders. The worsening economic crisis due to the decline in commodity prices and western sponsored destabilization is reversing the advances made in regard to growth and development over the last decade.

April 25 was declared Africa Pretrial Detention Day last year. Notably, the Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa is leading efforts, together with civil society, in several countries to implement new guidelines that will ensure pretrial detention is in accordance with the fundamental human rights of suspects.