Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
THE material conditions that are currently prevailing in Africa, in this advanced world, more developed and fairly enlightened environment, should not put any obstacle to the struggle for African unity.
For a continent that houses 1,4 billion people, speaking between 2 500 and 3 000 indigenous languages and having the greatest civilisation where some Greek philosophers and historians studied, everything good is possible with Africa.
It is a continent where the richest man to ever walk on the earth is from. His name was Mansa Musa, the 14th century ruler of the Mali Empire. Africans are the only people in the world who fought colonialism, defeated imperialists and today still continue to strike fear in the hearts of neo-colonialists and neo-imperialists. Echoes of African unity today send shivers in Western capitals that for a long time have benefitted on dividing and conquering the people.
The same spirit that made ordinary Nigerians sacrifice their hard earned salaries and monies to support the anti-apartheid struggle, is the same spirit that should be a guiding principle in the approach of what Africans can do for their continent. The same motivation that made Ghanaian authorities issue South Africans and other non-Ghanaian leaders from oppressed territories travelling documents, logistical and financial support tells a story of an Africa that can sacrifice for another.
Every African country played a key role, and made contributions no matter how small they might be deemed, for the independence of one African state or the other. Algeria under Ben Bella provided military training to Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial forces. Zimbabwe itself delayed its national agrarian reform project to ensure that Apartheid ended with the victory of the black majority in 1994. Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia and Egypt among other countries were pushed by a revolutionary and anti-colonial fervour to break colonial tentacles that had spread over the continent.
Resisting colonial erasure
One of the goals of the colonial project that Europe embarked on in Africa was to commit genocide against the local inhabitants. The first genocide of the 20th century was committed by the Germans against the Nama-Herero people in Namibia between 1904 and 1908. The pattern was the same if one considers what King Leopold II of Belgium did in the now Democratic Republic of Congo (then Congo Free State) between 1885 and 1908. During this period King Leopold II killed between 12 to 15 million Congolese.
The idea to exterminate Africans by the Europeans was a carryover mentality from what they had done with the Aztecs in Mexico, the Inca in Peru and the Aborigines in Australia.
When Spanish forces invaded the Aztec Empire in Mexico in 1519, their intention was to destroy and exterminate all Aztecs. Violent Spanish conquests also spread to Peru up to 1532 when they killed the Inca people whose empire was as strong, yet peaceful and had no animosity towards the Spanish. Similarly, the British also sought to exterminate the aborigines of a territory known today as Australia. The only difference between the victims in Mexico, Peru and Australia, and Africans is that the latter managed to fight back to end the colonial intent by Europeans to exterminate them.
It is not fabrication to highlight that Africans are the only people the Europeans wanted to entirely kill or exterminate but failed because they fought back. Thus, besides Africans having historically sacrificed for their colleagues to attain independence, housing Greek sojourners who studied in Egypt and having the most diversified continent, they are also real fighters.
Unite against xenophobes, secessionists
On January 2, 2026, The Times of Israel news websites published a story titled Africa Must Fragment, South Africa First. At the centre of this story by Grant Arthur Gochin, Emeritus Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs at the African Union, was the argument that “to avert widespread violence, a peaceful breakup represents the only viable solution” in South Africa.
Gochin further pushed the notion of the need in South Africa to have “independence for historical ethno-cultural homelands such as those of the Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho, Venda, and Tsonga” through referendums that he said “would replace coercion with genuine consent”.
These views are quite disturbing for a country that in the past two months has been experiencing widespread negative and hateful sentiments towards foreigners. While today the sentiments might be directed towards African immigrants in South Africa, the point by Gochin that suggests various ethnic groups can demand their own administrations in the “Rainbow Nation”.
This is a highly dangerous notion in a country already facing the test of a ‘new republic’ that is being pushed by the secessionist CapeXit movement that wants the right to self-rule and self-determination in the Western Cape.
Such disturbing events, coupled with the strong-willed xenophobia (targeting Africans only) obtaining in South Africa, makes outlaws want to become ahistorical and have selective amnesia on the sacrifices some Africans made towards their freedom. These people are cowards who negate African values of collectivism to address common challenges. They are unheroic in our times, and in future.
There is no legitimate concern that one can raise in the name of “nationalism or ethno-supremacism” against a fellow African as validation to hate another African. In South Africa today, it is the African foreigner who is being persecuted when others are silent. Tomorrow shall be the persecution of a Pedi, Xhosa or Zulu. When silent falls in that period, the words of German theologian Martin Niemoller’s 1946 statement when he said: “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists, I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist….. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Unity anchors development
Whatever historical feat Africans have made, that has been premised on their availability to work together amongst themselves and develop together. No one should forget that Modibo Keita, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ben Bella, Samora Machel, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba and many other great Africans wanted development to be anchored by unity.
The day Africans unite in this era to foster any positive change, their status of competence and greatness shall give them results that future generations will relate with pride as a fulfilment to what founding fathers wanted.
Africans, remember we are one. This is homeland!
