Africa rising! Is Pan-Africanism an idea whose time has come?

There are ideas that will not die regardless of the passage of time, what with their power and reach being of such magnitude. One of those ideas is Pan-Africanism. It’s return to prominence is reflected in the recent rise to power of a new generation of African leaders in defiance of Western neo-colonial attempts to maintain control of the continent in service to their own economic and geostrategic interests.

Currently, in Niger, in Mali, and in Burkina Faso are the kind of leaders the continent has not seen since the 1960s and 1970s, when the ideas of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism last held sway across the continent.

At the 2023 Russia-Africa Forum, held in late July in St Petersburg, Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore shone brightest with a speech that called to mind a young Hugo Chavez in its passionate denunciation of Western imperialism and its malign exploitation of Africa.

In this he was standing on the giants of those who went before and from whom the current generation of leaders who have embarked on a new developmental path for their respective countries — leaders like Ibrahm Traore — have drawn both inspiration and wisdom.

With this in mind, let us take a look back at the lives and legacies of those very Pan-Africanist giants with a view to…