Africa Day a reminder of dearth of true leadership

Neocolonialism sets back freedom effort

- Themba Godi

The establishment of the Organisation of African Unity on this day, May 25, 1963, gave hope that Africans, at home and in the diaspora, finally had an institution through which they will reverse the centuries of humiliation, exploitation, oppression and dehumanisation visited on us through slavery and colonialism.

However, through neocolonialism those hopes have remained a dream perpetually deferred. Brief moments of hope in the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Muamar Gaddafi, etc were killed by the imperialists and their collaborators.

We observe Africa Liberation Day having accumulated valuable lessons all these years about the internal and external power dynamics. External forces will not leave Afrika alone to chart her own development path, as in large measure they despise us, want to forever see us down and have predicated their own development on our subjugation.