Instead of assimilating with the world, Africa should urgently close itself in and map out and implement its unity so that it may not continue to be a rabbit among beasts of prey, writes Andrew Wutawunashe in his book Dear Africa – The Call of The African Dream that The Patriot is serialising.

THE black intellectual is burning out his energies on parroting over-subscribed themes of Western democracy and sexual rights instead of drawing creative themes for black people from the rich social, cultural and political heritage of the amazing paradigm of African consensus.
If this unfortunate trend continues, history will record our times as a ridiculous era of African intellectual slavery.
No one notices that the reason African youth is distinguishing itself by lack of unique direction is the sheer absence of a body of distinct African intellectual thought.
While the cheques which foreign non-government organisations (NGOs) pay for papers promoting Western ideas are handsome, it is time for black intellectuals to abandon the role of prophets for hire and return to the place of relevance to their own people.
Prime to this relevance should be cutting edge theses on the critical theme of African Unity.
The visionaries whose dreams gave birth to the political liberation Africa has experienced, saw the liberation and uniting of Africa as one and the same dream. Kwame Nkrumah, founding President of the first free African nation, Ghana, spoke of the United Nations of Africa, and gave momentum to co-operation of African nations to liberate the whole continent together by declaring that the liberation of Africa would be meaningless until every country on the continent was set free.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union (AU), was organised to ultimately mould Africa into one economic and political entity.
This dream should be held sacred by all black people and should never be trivialised.
It holds in it the surest promise of dignity and competitiveness for African people.
To understand this, we must have a clear world view.
The reality of the world is that those who are unable to form a powerful united front will ultimately have to submit themselves to one powerful bloc or other because of economic and military realities.
During the cold war, African nations were turned into an ideological playground of big powers.
They ended up variously adopting political systems irrelevant to African needs, instead of crafting a system relevant to Africans.
Present realities also point towards an imminent volunteered re-colonisation of African countries under those who have built strong united blocs or nations, unless the continent’s leaders embark on an urgent and aggressive initiative towards comprehensive unity.
Africans deserve an identity, presence and significance that is able to support integrity, dignity and self-determination.
The present situation where former colonial masters police African countries and even national constitutions have to be drawn up with outrageously irrelevant clauses aped to please big nations, while bereft of any African values is a one way ticket to a new slavery.
African political leaders must wake up to the fact that the present misguided doctrine of seeking to be in rhythm with an international community made up of blocs which have through unity built themselves into strong entities, while African nations themselves have not built themselves to the same or greater strength through African unity—is tantamount to again leaving Africa armed with bows and arrows—this time ideological bows and arrows—in a world which is on every side armed with the advanced ideological weaponry of unity.
In our lifetime, nations are deliberately emerging in significance.
It is critical that an African significance emerge.
It is the one significance glaringly lagging behind, and if this continues, black people shall once again be taken serious advantage of.
Instead of assimilating with the world, Africa should urgently close itself in and map out and implement its unity so that it may not continue to be a rabbit among beasts of prey.
A united Africa would easily acquire or even dictate terms of trade favourable to itself on the world market.
The present situation where Africa holds a lion’s share of resources while only being able to reap a chicken’s portion when these resources are traded, proceeds chiefly from one source—the disunity of African nations.
A misguided and shortsighted fractured nationalism in Africa has some nations of the world laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of African people. History will not honour Africa’s present leadership if they continue to focus on preserving these small principalities.
History will hail them as men and women of foresight if they change direction and boldly unite the African continent.
Uniting the nations of Africa is not at all a complex issue.
There are many factors that will come to their help if the continent’s leaders assume real leadership in uniting Africa.
Not least of these factors is the oneness and goodwill that exists among the African people themselves.
Left to themselves, they will welcome, mingle and assimilate with one another quite easily.
I have been to almost every African nation south of the Sahara and have never felt like a visitor anywhere.
When the politicians finally roll up their sleeves and unite the continent, they will discover that the people are way ahead of them.
There are some simple steps that Africans can take in order to build momentum towards African unity.
The formation of the AU, the African Parliament and regional politico—economic blocks such as the Southern African Development Community, Economic Community of West African States, East African Community, Preferential Trade Area, and so on, is a resounding step in the right direction.
These organisations must be taken seriously and be given teeth to aggressively formulate and pursue programmes that will enhance African unity.
The AU in particular, needs to be given an irreversible and aggressive mandate to unite Africa and to ‘market’ the concept of African unity aggressively all over the continent.
Pan-African visionaries like former South African President Thabo Mbeki must not be buried in the graveyard of local South African politics, but in the context of the AU, must be mandated to use their extraordinary gifts and experience to formulate, steer and aggressively implement an incisive programme for a united Africa.
‘One Africa’ is a concept every African must be endeared to, the children and the youth in particular.
Certain core educational curricula can be introduced to make African education uniform in key areas.
An African national anthem is long overdue.
This is a powerful, but uncomplicated symbol which could easily foster a sense of African oneness and patriotism.
One African nation which realised its freedom later than most African nations is Namibia.
Older African nations have much to learn from the way this younger sibling has kept fresh and upheld values of African unity concerning which some African nations appear to be suffering from amnesia.
In Namibia, for example, the African National Anthem is sung at state and important occasions together with the local anthem.
This should urgently be emulated by other African nations.