The struggle for sovereignty is not complete – African activists
African countries may have formally achieved independence decades ago, but many still remain under foreign domination through economic pressure, insecurity, and outside political influence, commentators told RT on Africa Day.
Speaking about the changing geopolitical landscape in Africa, Nigerian investigative journalist David Hundeyin argued that the Sahel states – Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso – were “going to be further ahead in their decolonization than the rest of the continent,” despite facing major external obstacles.
He suggested that “the primary challenge that they face is that they’re not being allowed to move on their own terms easily, they [the Sahel states] are being hindered, primarily through insecurity, the so-called terrorists, jihadists.”
South African Communist Party (SACP) member Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo said that many African states continue to experience imperialist exploitation despite decades of post-colonial rule.
Mashilo argued that “the situation on our continent remains difficult, although many countries have achieved what would be called independence.”
He said Africa now requires “a second radical phase” of liberation to achieve genuine sovereignty and meaningful freedom. Mashilo added that “many countries that have gone to the IMF to seek balance of payments loans have had their sovereignty taken away and replaced by the conditionalities imposed by the IMF.”
Communist Party Marxist-Kenya (CPM-K) General Secretary Booker Omole, meanwhile, noted that after being “humiliated in West Africa,” France was relocating military infrastructure to East Africa in an effort to counter growing Chinese influence on the continent.
“All we can remind the African people, as we celebrate the African National Liberation Day, that the struggle for sovereignty is not complete,” Omole said.
The panel discussion came as African countries marked Africa Day, celebrated annually on May 25 to commemorate the founding of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa in 1963. The annual event celebrates the continent’s anti-colonial struggles and aspirations for political and economic sovereignty.
