Chronicle Editor
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu
This past week, I had the pleasure of leading a high-powered Zanu-PF delegation to the citadel of Pan-Africanist thought, the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School.
This was a follow-up meeting to discuss several meetings pertaining to the operationalisation of this unique school, a brainchild of the six sister parties (Zanu-PF, ANC, MPLA CCM, SWAPO and FRELIMO).
The six sister parties were represented by their respective Secretary Generals, who serve on the board of trustees.
I have been fortunate enough to bear witness to the launch of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School and have further now been able to see this doyen of African thought be a living and breathing entity as well as a repository and intermediary of Pan-Africanist ideology.
This institution is the citadel of scientific decolonisation thought. We have indeed come a long way since the inception of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, which has indeed been a milestone in the post-independence life for all our Liberation Movements. The school is a home of African de-colonial thought and symbolises victory of the intellectual facet of our unrelenting anti-colonial enterprise and is no doubt a citadel of scientific decolonisation thought, as we continue in our quest to self-determination.
This great school is indeed a pride to the cause of African liberation theoretical and pragmatic predispositions as espoused in Mwalimu Nyerere’s Uhuru na Ujamaah philosophy and Kwame Nkrumah’s concept of African Consciencism. This school marks an awakening to Kenneth Kaunda’s creed of African humanism and Thabo Mbeki’s recent contribution to the decolonisation debate through the idea of African renaissance. The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School is indeed a strategic hub for rethinking policy-making in our continent.
Therefore, it is no accident that our great leader of Zanu-PF, Cde Dr E D Mnangagwa, found it fit to give full support to this initiative. Through this school, we will be able to re-articulate our commitment to decolonisation. In the same vein, the Zimbabwean Government is heavily invested in promoting the establishment of the Africa Museum under the Institute of African Knowledge (INSTAK). Upon its completion, the Africa Museum will be a one-stop complex for African liberation memory. This institution will not be a museum in the conventional sense, but its specific mandate will be that of archiving all our seminal records and artefacts of the wars that were fought across Africa in the quest for decolonisation.
The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School has come at an opportune time for Africa. We as a continent are under attack from our detractors, more so the Liberation Movements. However, the solidarity and revolutionary bonds which tie all our sister parties together are unbreakable. We are the parties that were instrumental in ending the subjugation of our people by the imperialists and bringing independence to our respective countries. Even to this day, we still continue to fight for self-determination and economic freedom.
The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School is a symbol of a new approach with regard to the completion of Africa’s decolonisation agenda as well as the continent’s route to self-determination and economic success.
Therefore, going forward, the school is going to be instrumental in strengthening and accelerating the multifaceted African leadership strategies and programmes towards promoting and safeguarding Africa’s rich liberation heritage. The Leadership School will also play a crucial role as an apex institution, assembling all our critical intellectual resources, facilitating the cross-pollination of ideas from the region and beyond. It will align the work of the national leadership and ideological schools.
There are several elections on our continent this year, notably in South Africa, Tanzania and Namibia. There is therefore a need to be wary of the hidden hand of our detractors who have made it a point to attack the Liberation Movements and cause divisions among us.
There is a need to remain vigilant from such manoeuvres and remain united. Lessons can be drawn from the harmonised elections held in August 2023, where my party Zanu-PF emerged victorious and after this victory, there were attacks influenced by our detractors, which culminated in the Mumba report that was disguised as the Sadc elections report.
The school will thus play a critical role in guarding the continent against vicious attacks. The school must therefore ensure that it teaches unsullied African ideology so as to stave off the influence of our detractors. With the school at the centre of taking ownership of and propagating the true Pan-Africanist ideology, we are poised to spur the continent forward to greater heights. With more institutions such as the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere School, the continent’s rich history and future aspirations will forever be safeguarded.
λ Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is an Academic and the Secretary General of Zanu-PF. He writes in his own capacity.
Bongani Ndlovu