‘A united Africa is the only way to end discrimination’
PROMINENT Kenyan lawyer and scholar Professor Patrick Lumumba has warned that Africans will continue to be on the receiving end of discrimination if they fail to embrace Pan-Africanism and unite.
Lumumba yesterday delivered a virtual lecture organised by the EFF on the history of Pan-Africanism.
He said while Africans are still divided over the concept of nationality, they are also discriminated against in other countries, including China, which he claimed was also exploiting the continent, because of lack of unity.
“When the Chinese punish Africans in China during this corona (virus) period, they make no distinction between a Nigerian and Ghanaian. All they see is our black skin,” he said.
Lumumba said Africans around the world have to understand the meaning and importance of Pan-Africanism, if the continent is to ever prosper. This, he said, includes the dissolution of country borders and the unification of currencies.
“Today Africa has currencies none of which is called a hard currency. We are here during the coronavirus and some of us are now trying to hoard dollars, because our countries mean nothing outside of our boundaries. I look forward to the day when there is only one currency.
“I look forward to the day when South Africans will not be threatened by Nigerians or Ghanaians are not threatened by Nigerians. I look forward to the day when I can set up shop in Cape Town, and nothing happens,” he said.
Lumumba further credited Ghana’s founding president Kwame Nkrumah for playing a central role in cultivating Pan-Africanism and energising other African leaders after the country became the first on the continent to gain independence in 1957.
He said Nkrumah was, however, defeated by nationalists who opted to maintain inherited colonial boundaries and a “weakened Organisation of African Unity”, which he added enabled colonial powers to continue exploiting the continent even after all African countries were no longer colonised.