Since he is already frustrated and hungry, any of these leaders could place a gun in his hands and with some food in his stomach to provide either temporary relief from hunger or an outlet for his anger and a way out of his frustrated life. An African youth is therefore conditioned to pray for and participate in conflicts based on this experience.
The growth of Pan-Africanism as an agitator was greatly enhanced in the darkest day of the colonisation due to the fact that Africans recognised that they have been dominated in their own continent. The bad treatment they received from their white rulers (colonial masters) brought about a kind of bond among Africans; the unifying principle was the shared humiliation and colonisation, by the white races. Behind it all, in Ali Mazuri's book, “African's International Relations", he continues the starting point of realization. Self realization was a big tool for the collective African continent in the struggle for liberation from the colonial warlords.
The unity, the cohesiveness and the collective voice epitomized in the days of colonisation by the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyere is today gone due to poverty and poverty induced leadership. The educated and semi-educated Africans who have captured leadership in various countries in the continent have not only squandered the resources of the state and mismanage them but have also dehumanized the extend that poverty, squalor and disease pervade the whole of African continent. The leaders have lost the traditional modes of behaviour of the African race and adopted the decisive culture of the west. Nationalism has turned individualism. The wealth of Africa has been siphoned by imperialism, leaving Africa to wallow abject poverty. Poverty stricken people are too engrossed in the struggle for subsistence and survival to care much of political rights. If success is our watchword, ignorance must be eradicated. This can only be achieved through positive and not just certification. The maintenance and defence of liberty and democracy demand therefore a heightened effort to improve the standard of living through the provision of rights to education that will bring about the creation of wealth, creation of employment, social welfare services, assistance and incentives.
Poverty can hardly be eradicated in a predominantly illiterate society; one is inseparable from the other. Reducing or eradicating poverty means eradicating illiteracy first. Simple exercising of ones political rights, an illiterate finds it extremely hard to put to his advantage. The freedom enjoyed by democracy, the modern day life by its structure and setting is too complicated for an illiterate to comprehend. An illiterate person can understand and act only as concerning actions or inactions that affect him directly, but mostly are directed by the educated elite. The choice of political party in which the leader of their choice can be voted becomes the exclusive right of the educated ones, who will manipulate their own egocentric needs.
Another milestone to drive towards growth, peace and unity in Africa is a holistic approach towards eradicating poverty, which will remove hunger and therefore anger. These two things will remove Africa from the vicious circle of poverty induced bad government and bad government induced poverty. On the other hand when people are poverty-stricken, little money given to them can make them vote for bad people who will eventually make their situation worse.
Linking Black Africans with the Arabs in the North Africa will lead to positive economic ties and industrial partnership. For example Libya has done relatively well in the vanguard of New Partnership for Development (NEPAD). NEPAD'S policy, if well implemented, will bring out what I refer to has African commonwealth. When States are inter-relented in terms of economic interests, there will be fewer tendencies for them to fight. This common wealth will inspire a truly organic solidarity among African Nations, ranging from purposeful increase in mutual trade to the promotion of technical assistance, from joint educational programmes to the creation of a joint development fund.
There is nothing wrong if fresh graduates from Nigeria go to Tanzania for their one-year compulsory youth service scheme. This will not only bring about integration of African States but will also enhance cultural bond of the African youth who are the engine-room of the future.
Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish philosopher said “People will not look forward to prosperity who never look backward toward their ancestry." Due to the multiple natures of the African States, their competing claims at once constitute national riches and a hazard to national survival. Tribal confrontations, in the words of Ali Mazariu
"Sometimes bring out the tensions between the blessing of cultural diversity in Africa and the cause of deep ethnic cleavage". Traditionalism has also known the pains of both submissive and aggressive dependence.
What we need is a process of fusing the multiplicity of subcultures domestically into larger complexes of national and regional cultures. An African is more conscious of is tribe than his state, much less his country. Permit to use this illustration; an Ibo man in Delta State of Nigeria puts his fellow Ibo man interest before an Urobo man of the same state. A Hulsi man in Burundi sees himself as totally different from Tutsi because of the appellation called tribe. There must be adequate cultural integration among African States. This will be new direction fro Black common wealth, bangada begin to borrow culturally from Acholic and Langi, the Kiknuyu to borrow from the Luo, the Hausa from the Ibo, perhaps one day the Zanzibars from South Africa will borrow culturally across thousands of miles from the Yoruba in West Africa only a relatively positive approach to this could move the continent towards genuine self discovery.
If these are not considered and taken care of, any attempt at forming an organisation that will only drift apart the existing gap among African States. Organisations like African union (AU) will forever be a mirage if there is a unity of purpose, even within nation we think as nation state, nation tribe and people, who are into integration and not unity. The overall precursor of African unity is nothing but an entrenched good-governance in all African State. A system that makes life better in the African State is most desirable. These will stop illegal migration from one African State to another where they are treated as though they are not fellow Africans. Not until a Libyan sees a Nigerian as a brother and a Somali sees a Liberian, all these hues and cry about NEPAD and AU will be forever a ruse. This is the greatest challenge to growth and prosperity of African nation.
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