Pan-Africanism: The Tortuous Path Of A Race.
Excerpt by Naiwu Osahon
“The OAU, of course, did not fulfil the ambition of Kwame Nkrumah for a strong political union of all African states, but it opened the Pan-African ideology institutionally to non-Blacks. This is how George Padmore defended the trend at the time: “In our struggle for national freedom, human dignity and social redemption,Pan-Africanism offers an ideological alternative to communism on the one side and tribalism on the other. It rejects both white racialism and Black chauvinism. It stands for racial co-existence on the basis of absoluteequality and respect for human personality." I have no quarrel with all that, but I think we needed to haveasked Uncle Padmore:
(1) Why other races can join our institutions and would not let us join theirs?
(2) Why we are the only race of people in the world striving desperately to tag on to others. We have Black -Arabs, Black Marxists, Black-Muslims, Black-Eskimos and Black -Caucasians. Isn't that saying something forour mentality and self-esteem?
(3) Whether having a union of our own necessarily makes us any more racist than the EU, the Jewish WorldCongress, the Arab League etc?
(4) If our propensity to be seen to be identifying with our oppressors has helped to solve our being the racialunderdogs of the world?
(5) And whether we do not need to tackle our peculiar racial problems first before contributing our wonderful expertise at problem solving to the rest of the world? After all, charity ought to begin at home.
Also, Nkrumah and Padmore needed to have been asked to explain how their pan-continental politics was going to solve the deteriorating problems of the African Diaspora? Forty percent of the Black world do not live in Africa and are, as a result, ignored by the OAU.
The overall success of the 5th Pan African Congress blinded us to some of its not so sound pre-occupations. The 5th PAC set off many half-baked diversionary ideas, which unfortunately led to the failure of the 6th PanAfrican Congress. The conveners of the 6th PAC did not reckon, for instance, with the selfish interest of the newly independent African governments of the time so:
(a) They let government delegations dominate the congress,
(b) Who in turn prevented leading Pan Africanists from participating.
(c) Non-Africans, without obvious commitment to Pan-African ideals, were able to attend as delegates.
(d) The regular negative ideological division between our pseudo socialists and capitalists occupied centre stage.
(e) And, of course, University dons, as usual, were able to use congress to enhance their CVs and show off their borrowed language facilities and richly embroidered dashikis.
And yet, the 6th Pan African Congress succeeded in filling a yearning vacuum and keeping the movementalive, at least, in academic circles, 29 years after the 5th congress. More papers than ever before were submitted or read at the 6th PAC, and a great deal more resolutions were left behind for scholars to pore over till eternity as to their motives etc. The 6th PAC piled considerably more library materials, and gathered more delegates and observers, some 600 of them at one count, than all congresses before it, put together. To the extent that the 6th PAC achieved these feats administratively, therefore, it deserves to be recognized. But did the congress touch the lives of ordinary Africans in the streets? No. Was the 6th PAC any better than the jamborees called first, second, third and fourth congresses? No.
Ask any African in the streets of Europe and America about the 6th PAC and you would draw a blank. Ask any grassroots African on the continent about Pan Africanism today and he would think you are speaking Greek. The 6th PAC has not stopped the continued racial rape and murder of our people in the Diaspora nor has it educated Africans on the continent, sixteen years later, to think beyond the severely circumscribed OAU.
Only the 5th congress was able to make immediate direct impact on our lives with its independence fire sweeping rapidly across colonial Africa soon after the congress. The 5th PAC set the standard by which to measure the success of all future PACs.
The 6th PAC, therefore, was no more than a boring charade and if Pan Africanism is to be saved now, it must be moved beyond the constraining walls of our Ivory Towers, thedeadly hold of our narrow-minded political leaders, and deposited squarely on the laps of virgin grassroots Africans.
These were precisely the sources of my motivation when I began the campaign in 1982, as a private initiative,for the 7th Pan African Congress to convene within three years in a liberated African country. My principal ambition was to use the congress to institutionalize the Pan African Movement and unite the Black world. I was building a farmhouse facility (I called the Monument to African civilization), at Ilogbo-Eremi in the Badagry local government area of Lagos State in Nigeria, at the time, as venue for the 7th Pan-African Congress. The idea was to set up a possible meeting place that would be grand and yet rural in setting and relatively cost free to participants, to avoid recourse to government subvention or sponsorship and, therefore, influence. At the time, I thought that the congress could hold in Nigeria in 1985. A picture of the still being constructed 'Monument' was eventually published in the Guardian newspaper of Nigeria, on Saturday February 4th 1984, with the following caption:
"This is the house Mr. Naiwu Osahon is building. When completed it would be one of the most unique, artistically designed houses ever built anywhere, says Mr. Osahon of the house located on a suburban farmland. Mr. Osahon, ............... on the proposed retreat for local and visiting artistes says: 'Discussions are already being held abroad about holding the next Pan African Congress at the Craft farm house in 1985."
Obstacles, which I considered were mainly responsible for our disunity and lack of focus as a family included:
(1) Foreign religions and ideologies (which in all respects treat us as inferior human beings). These pull us in all sorts of directions to keep us divided despite our being the most marginalized people on the face of the earth already. It is not in the interest of any dominating ideology for victims to unite or have a common focus. Native spirituality serves to bind and encourage claims of ownership and birthright. Religion or spirituality is the greatest mobilizing strategy available to man and we have nothing of our own as a rallying force like Islam is to the Arabs, Judaism to the Jews, Christianity to the Whites or Buddhism to the Asians.
(2) Allowing colonizers, (particularly Arabs who do not consider themselves even remotely as Pan Africanists), to participate in and sponsor our congresses. Arab occupiers of Northern Africa continue to exploit and dominate original African native owners of the land. The war in Sudan is ethnic cleansing against our race and is funded massively by the Arab League through Libya and Saudi Arabia. Arabs have their League but do not want Blacks to have one. We as a race have not been able to focus on how to liberate Northern African Blacks, as we have done against white racists in Southern Africa, because Northern Africa Arabs are equal partners with Blacks in the OAU.
(3) Allowing our 'Movement' to be hijacked by reactionary African political leaders ruining our governments. These are leaders tied to the apron strings of our colonial masters for handouts, which our leaders promptly divert to their individual private accounts abroad for personal gains. They are too busy enriching themselves at our expense to care about our collective welfare.
I strongly believed that while we could excuse the OAU perhaps, to serve the interest of all and sundry as a continental contraption, our 'Movement' cannot afford such a luxury. Not when there is liberation, reparations and repatriation wars still to be fought and won world-wide.
Our Movement must aggressively tackle racism and our marginalization, if we are ever to collectively make progress as a people. And our 'Movement' must remain permanently on the alert thereafter. The best guarantee of this is a civil society controlled 'Movement,' with grassroots Africans from the continent linking with the grassroots Black Diaspora, to wrestle power from our opportunistic political elite controlling our governments. The grassroots Black world need to take their collective destiny into their own hands through an institutionalized 'Movement' that gives equal treatment to both governments and individual delegations. I was implacable over the 7th PAC institutionalizing the Pan African Movement as a vibrant civil society complimentor challenge to the lame-duck OAU.
To keep rancour to the barest minimum at congresses, I insisted that decisions and resolutions of the'Movement' must be fine-tuned and worked out at preparatory conferences and workshops etc., in advance, with congress being used only to endorse. The preparatory activities of the 7th PAC were, therefore, to focus principally on the following three planks:
(a) To agree a body of resolutions and decisions to be known as THE BLACK AGENDA, which could be up-dated now and again at regional and state conferences to become the bible or focus of activities of the Blackrace, including Black governments and individuals.
(b) To chisel out a strong and dynamic CONSTITUTION for the institutionalized 'Movement' welding together, Black governments and Black civil societies in a symbiotic relationship with leadership resting solely in the hands of civil society. The 'Movement' would have to develop a vibrant native spirituality for such a leadership (or moral leadership of the Black race) not to be controversial.
(c) To set up a 'Foundation' to ensure that the 'Movement' or Black League' would never have to beg for financial support from anyone, particularly from extraneous sources. The philosophy of the 'Foundation' (called PANAF at the time), being that every Black person in the world, alive or yet un-born, owes PANAF a hundred units of his or her local currency once in a life-time.
These pre-occupations were embodied in the first set of documents written and distributed lavishly by me around the world from 1982 to announce the convening of the 7th PAC in Africa in 1985.
Responses to my 'CALL' were generally enthusiastic, over the convening of 7th PAC (which was described as overdue), but lukewarm on Nigeria (which at the time was under the jackboot of a vicious military dictatorship), serving as host. C.L.R. James, who was one of the first renowned Pan Africanists at the time to receive our delegation in London, was full of support for an African country hosting the congress. He was not too fussy about the politics of the possible host African government.
However, the series of letters addressed to Babangida, the self-proclaimed Military President of Nigeria at the time, to provide 7th PAC with logistic support in the area of easy visas and adequate security for delegations were ignored. President Dos Santos of Angola wrote us the most inspiring letter of the time, but was sorry he could not play host because of the debilitating civil war in his country. Zimbabwe was more interested in hosting the Commonwealth Heads of State Conference at the time, and Ghana complained of poor financial resources.
While we were still shopping for a possible host country, the Foreign Minister of Nigeria, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, out of the blue in 1987, announced the Nigerian government's interest in convening the 7th PAC. A failed coup de'tat caused some changes in the Nigerian government with Brigadier Ike Nwanchukwu replacing Prof. Akinyemi as Foreign Affairs Minister. The Brigadier was not interested in the 7th PAC and wanted to know what it meant and its affiliates. Apart from abysmal ignorance about self-history, South African Pan African Congress of Azania (PAC), added to his confusion. However, the earlier announcement of the Nigerian government's interest increased foreign focus on 7th PAC and my efforts, which were independent all along of the Nigerian government's attempted hijack.
The make shift leadership arrangement we had relied upon was formerly structured in 1987 involving a two-tier arrangement with the 7th PAC International Secretariat located in Lagos. The ultimate leadership committee was called the International Co-ordinating Committee (ICC) and had as pioneer members, Professor Kwesi Prah, a Ghanaian working in Kenya at the time, B.F. Bankie, a Ghanaian-Gambian living in London then and Naiwu Osahon, based in Lagos, as the Convener/Chairman.
Reporting to the ICC was the International Steering Committee (ISC), which had as members: Ayi Kwei Armah, Nee Kwati Owoo, Robert Hayfron-Benjamin Beye and Boutros Boutros Ghali.
By January 1989, the ISC had been scrapped due to lack of performance by its members perhaps because ofthe cumbersome two-tier system in operation, and was replaced by an expanded ICC comprising of Naiwu Osahon, Convener/Chairman, Prof. Antonio Neto, Angola, Tau Napata, Jamaica, Prof. Alfred Opubor, Nigeria, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Egypt (who wrote trying to discourage us from institutionalizing the Pan-African Movement but stayed on as committee member even when he became the Secretary General of the UN), Eunice Neto Foreid, Portugal, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, USA, Prof. H. Cunha Jr. Brazil, H. E. Dr. Henri Bangou, Guadeloupe, Dr. Laura M. Torres Souder, Guam, Amar Bentoumi, Algeria (who later withdrew because of the focus of the 'Movement'), Dr. Joycelyn Loncke, Guyana, Dr. Digna Castaneda Puerta, Cuba, Pauulu Kamarakafego (Roosevelt Brown, now late, who represented us at the UN and was the pioneer sponsor of the 6th PAC, Bermuda, Hon. Mr. Bernard Narokobi, Papua New Guinea's Minister of Justice at the time, Dr. Cyril.E. Griffith, USA, Grace Mera Molisa, Vanuatu, Prof. Mary Frances Berry, USA.
By 1990, we had received several letters of support from the likes of Leopold Sedar Senghor living in France at the time; C.L.R. James, before he died, insisting that the congress must be convened in an African country. The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Bahamas; the President of the United Republic of Tanzania; the Minister of Justice of Papua New Guinea; the governments of the Republics of Cote D' Ivoire, Liberia, Togo, Angola, Zaire, Ghana, Guadeloupe Senator in France, Boutros Boutros Ghali as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Egypt. We had influenced Chief Abiola of Nigeria sufficiently for him to try to steel our thunder by embarking on a 'Reparations' programme of his own, which was eventually sold to the OAU with our active lobby.
By 1992, we had established national branches or committees of the Pan-African Movement in the following countries; Angola, Australia, Barbados, Belize, Benin Republic, Bermuda, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon,Canada, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, France, Gambia, Germany-Benelux, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guinea, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Senegal, South Africa, St. Kitts, St Lucia, St. Maarten, Surinam, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad, UK, USA, Zaire, Zimbabwe and several new national representatives were being cultivated.
The UK national branch was the very first committee of the 7thPAC to be set up by Naiwu Osahon. It was launched on the 10th of October 1988 at Flat 69, Schomberg House, Vincent Street, Westminster, London,S.W.1, occupied at the time by Prof. Antonio Neto. Founding members of the UK committee included Neto, Bankie, Babu, Pepukayi, Napata, Gotzmore and Bing who was elected the protem secretary.
We started having problems with London right from its take off because, as things turned out, the branch was dominated by self-declared Marxists. They wanted to take over the leadership of the ICC and move its International Secretariat to London because according to them, communications were easier from there. Besides, they were not comfortable with my anti-Marxism or anti-foreign ideology posture and attempt to institutionalize the 'Movement'. Also my determination to exclude Arabs of Northern Africa from the union was a headache. One of their staunchest supporters at the time was Prof. Kwesi Prah who wrote that: "We can notbind the next generation to an institutionalized 'Movement."
My answers at the time were to ask why that should stop us from trying. And how did other races achieve their institutions and union without some first steps? No answer to these questions ever came from Prah or London, or maybe it came through their gradual withdrawal from our fold to encourage and team up with a Uganda faction that eventually developed. They tried desperately to gain access to our International Secretariat's address list before they finally dropped out of our hold three years after their launch. Our (ICC) impression of them at the time was that they were on an ego trip desperate to etch their names on posterity for convening a Pan African Congress regardless of the quality of the congress.
My criticism of DuBois for bequeathing to us the culture of jamboree congresses appeared also to have alienated some supporters of the intellectual icon, including his son, who took offence and started looking for opportunities to scuttle our efforts. Nkrumah's son too soon became less active on the ICC because his father, along with Padmore were blamed for diluting the spirit of Pan-Africanism with their defence of all comers' congresses that welcomed Arab colonizers and Marxist domination all in one breath.
Preparatory conferences of the 7th PAC around the world included:
(a) Hamilton Bermuda (from July 20 - 22, 1990).
(b) Bridgetown, Barbados (from 21 - 22 September, 1991)
(c) Solidarity with Cuba (Saturday 7th December, 1991, Bridgetown, Barbados).
(d) Port-of Spain, Trinidad (Second regional conference of the Caribbean Pan African Movement (from 27 - 28August 1993).
(e) Savannah, Georgia, USA (from 1 - 3 May, 1992)
(f) Toronto, Canada (where ZAWADI KWAFRICA was launched for the first time in the world by Naiwu Osahon(from June 23 - 27, 1993).
The inaugural meeting of the BLACK THINK TANK (BTT) of the Pan-African Movement, now known as THE THINK TANK OF THE BLACK WORLD (TTB), took place from 1 - 8 August 1992, at ASCON, Topo, Badagry, Lagos, Nigeria. The BTT was attended by: Naiwu Osahon, Chairman, Catherene Acholonu, Nigeria, Denese Bradford, USA, Duane Bradford, USA, Tom Dalgety, Guyana, Viola Davis, Barbados, C.M. Eya-Nchama,Equatorial Guinea, Diane Forte, USA, Malinali Meza Herrera, Mexico, Onwuchekwa Jemie, Nigeria, Owei Lakemfa, Nigeria, Olusegun Maiyegun, Nigeria, Rudy Mattai, USA, Kinja Mulegwa-Migabo, Zaire, T.C Nwosu, Nigeria, Osagie Obayuwana, Nigeria, Yinka Ogunsulire, Nigeria, Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade, Nigeria, Charles C. Roach, Canada, Gbenga Sonuga, Nigeria. Two delegates who could not get to the venue of the BTT, but who had paid to attend were: Joycelene Loncke, Guyana and G. Mawa-Kiese Mawawa, Congo.
The BTT examined the issues: "Why are we so blessed and yet so poor?" "Why are we not benefiting as a people from the civilization we pioneered, and what are we to do to get back on our feet again as one family?" THE BLACK AGENDA is a product of the BTT's deliberations and it lays down the rules to guide the activities of Black governments, individuals, organizations, communities, family units, institutions. The BTT also produced the CONSTITUTION of the Pan African Movement, and approved ZAWADI KWAFRICA (ZA) as the name of the Pan-African Foundation. Zawadi Kwafrica are Swahili words meaning gifts of and from the peopleof Africa.
Members of the ICC in 1993 included: Naiwu Osahon, Chairman, Charles C. Roach, Vice Chair, PauuluKamarakafego, Vice Chair, H. E. Dr. (Senator) Henri Bangou, Guadeloupe, Dr. Thomas Cornell Battle, USA, Gerlin Bean, Jamaica, John Benjamin, Anguilla, Prof. Mary Frances Berry, USA, Farika Birhan, Maroons, Dr.Michael L. Blakey, USA, Duane Bradford, USA, Musa Cham, Gambia, Bobby Clarke, Barbados, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, USA, Tom Dalgety, Guyana, Viola Davis, Barbados, M.K. Dingake, Botswana, Babacar Diop, Senegal, Robert M. Dossou, Rep. du Benin, Noel Dossou-Yovo, Rep. du Benin, Prof. Quince Duncan, Costa Rica, Louise Edimo, Cameroon, C.M. Eya-Nchama, Equatorial Guinea, Januario Garcia Filho, Brazil, EuniceNeto Foreid, Portugal, Dianne Forte, USA, Roderick Francis, Jamaica, Major-General J. N. Garba, President of the UN General Assembly at the time, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, (UN Secretary-General at the time), Siegfried Hazel, Curacao, Malinali Meza Herrera, Mexico, Dr. Byron R. M. Hove, Zimbabwe, Eddie Iroh, UK, Onwuchekwa Jemie, Nigeria, Senator Irvin Stephen Knight, Dominica, Pontiff His Grace Srila Bhakti-Tirtha Swami Krisnapada, USD/USA, Joan Lucas, Belize, Dr. Joycelynne Loncke, Guyana, Dr. F. L.Lwanyantika Masha, Tanzania, Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro, Namibia, G. Mawa-Kiese Mawawa, Grenada, Kinja Mulegwa-Migabo, Zaire, James Mutambirwa, PCR/WCC, Hon. Bernard Narokobi, Papua-New Guinea, Abdiasdo Nascimento, Brazil, Michel Ndoh, Switzerland, Prof. Anthonio Neto, Angola, Felipe Noguera, Trinidad, T.C. Nwosu, Nigeria, Frantz Obas, Haiti, Clement O' Garro, St. Kitts. Prof. Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie, Nigeria, Placide Prosper, St. Lucia, Dr. Digna Castaneda Puertas, Cuba, Mora Araceli Reynoso, Mexico, Omowale Satterwhite, USA, Mr. and Mrs Savane, Senegal, Bania Mahamadou Say, Niger, Dr. Jean Sindab, USA, Ghenga Sonuga, Nigeria, Dr. Laura M. Torres Sounder, Guam, Andre France deSousa, Portugal, Hassan A. Sunmonu, OATUU, Cheikh Tidiane Sy, PANA, Dr. Robert B. Sykes, Australia, Terrel Thomas, Suriname, Charles Pascal Tolno, Rep. du Guinea, Stewart M. Tsela, Swaziland, Siteri V. Tuilovoni, Fiji, Prof. Theo Vincent, Nigeria, Amelia Ventura, Mozambique, Alvin Williams, Bermuda, EmmanuelYork, St. Maarten.
Out of frustration for not finding a suitable host country for 7th PAC, we pursued Uganda, more for President Museveni's Guerilla war credentials than for any recognizable record of achievement in the realm of PanAfricanism. The man would not even tolerate dissent from within let alone from outside Uganda. Museveni's Uganda is in the pockets of the Arabs that are marginalizing our kith and kin in Northern Africa.
Our first letter to Museveni was in January 1990 followed by another in September 1990 and a third one in June 1991, inviting his government to be a possible host of 7th PAC without pre-conditions. At the end of March 1991, a number of documents arrived at our International Secretariat in Lagos from Kwame Ture, stating that Kwame Ture of the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), Col. Otafiire, the personal assistant tothe Uganda Head of State, and four others, had met in Tripoli, Libya, on December 10, 1990, and decided to constitute themselves into a pre-preparatory committee which is to be enlarged to become the preparatory committee to convene a conference to create a mass Pan African organization.
Among the documents sent was an invitation to Naiwu Osahon to attend a preparatory meeting of their proposed conference in March 1991, in Uganda. Obviously that meeting did not hold because according to another notice from them later, the invitations were sent out too late and got to their destinations well after the March date of the proposed meeting. Three further attempts were made, up to the 27th of January, 1992, to put their preparatory meeting together without success but further documents were sent to the International Secretariat of the 7th PAC in Lagos and addressed as such. The documents specified that they were putting together:
(a) A conference focusing on anti-Zionism and
(b) To be called "All African People's Conference. “
Since the title of their conference was not in conflict with our own, we were not entirely opposed to co-operating with Uganda although we wrote back to say: "While we are not uncomfortable with your anti-Zionistfocus, we also want anti-Arab and anti-West focus for your proposed conference."
On the 7th August, 1991, we received a letter from Col. Otafiire, calling their group, the 7th Pan African Congress Committee, with Col. Otafiire as convener and Chairman, and President Museveni as their Patron, thereby constituting a direct challenge to the International Secretariat of the Pan African Movement in Lagos. On the 7th August, 1991, we addressed a comprehensive letter of our objection and discomfort on the matter to President Museveni. After waiting for a while without response, we wrote on the subject to all ourcommittees around the world. Several activities followed around the world after the Uganda bombshell, culminating in a long awaited first ever meeting between Kwame Ture and me, in my office in Lagos on Saturday 27 March 1993. It was an extremely warm and inspiring meeting lasting nearly four hours from about 4.45 p.m. The Secretary General of the 7th PAC national committee for Nigeria, Dr. Osagie Obayuwana, was in attendance mainly as an observer. Several issues concerning the way forward were discussed and the highlights of our agreement were:
(1) That everything humanly possible should be done to keep us and the Black world united. We felt strongly that our detractors must not be given any comfort on this issue. That we needed to close ranks and give purposeful direction at this critical point in our history otherwise posterity would judge us harshly.
(2) That no African government, not even the OAU, under any disguise, should finance or host the 7th Pan African Congress or any other Pan African Congress. They can participate at congress meetings but as equal partners with the rest of the Black world. Congress definitely does not need the authority of the OAU to hold since the OAU is a child of congress.
(3) That non-Black sources should not finance or host any Pan-African Congress.
(4) That the 7th Pan African Congress should be held in Africa, preferably in a country where:
(a) Blacks would have no problems obtaining visas to attend, because no Black person, for ideological,religious, or any other reason should be prevented from attending or speaking his or her mind freely on anyissue as affects the Black world at the congress.
(b) The lives of delegates and others attending congress would be safe and largely guaranteed.
(5) We did not discuss congress date in details but felt that the December 1993 Uganda date might be too soon considering the enormous task of preparing adequately (especially in area of fund-raising) for a meaningful congress. The August 1994 date proposed by the International Secretariat in Lagos, we felt, was feasible particularly for the launching of the institutionalized 'Movement.'
(6) We felt that there was a strong need to ensure qualitative attendance at congress and agreed that while the mass movement dimension of congress should not be hindered, it is necessary for the movement to be led by recognizable Pan-Africanists. In other words, there is a need to identify and agree on who serious Pan Africanists are right now, around the Black world, and either split congress dates to accommodate them or find ways to ensure that congress direction and decisions are controlled by them. If congress date is to be split, the institutional dimension of congress could be held first, say in August, 1994, as already scheduled, followed immediately by the Pan African leaders congress.
After further consultations on the above issues through correspondence with Kwame Ture and other Blacks of diverse interests world-wide, it was agreed that the Uganda conference slated for December 1993, should be a preparatory one for the 7th PAC of the International Secretariat in Lagos in August 1994. The Uganda team ignored our recommendation and announced that they were going ahead with their December 1993, 7thPAC charade.
With US$300,000 blood money to convene the 7th PAC from Gaddafi, Museveni was not only well fortified to play the devil's advocate, he was poised to launch his personal ambition to become the Emperor of a new Tutsi Hema Empire, annexing Rwanda and mineral rich Zaire (now DRC), under the behest of America. We immediately began circulating a strongly worded message warning the patriotic Black world not to go to Uganda.
On January 3, 1994, we received a phone call in Lagos from one of our deputy leaders, Pauulu Kamarakafegoin Bermuda, informing us that the December 1993 Uganda make-believe congress failed to hold. It was cancelled in the last minute because of the non-arrival of quality delegations. Several ordinary, innocent Blackfolks from the Diaspora, unaware of the high wire politics being perpetrated in the name of Pan-Africanism,and hoping to touch base perhaps for the first time in their lives with mother Africa, were turned back at theKampala airport.
A Uganda team, led by Col. Otafiire then set out on a tour of the Black world to deliver Museveni's invitation and offers of free return travel tickets and free accommodation in Uganda to government delegations and renowned intellectuals, who attend their rescheduled April 1994, 7thPAC. They had to move fast to nullify our pending August 1994, 7th PAC date. They arrived Nigeria on January 5, 1994, to deliver their invitation to the Nigerian government without visiting the 7th PAC International Secretariat.
And yet, no head of state attended the Uganda 7th AC debacle. Not even Nyerere who had received our warning message earlier on and who was the principal host of the 6th PAC in Tanzania would grace Uganda with his presence at least to demonstrate continuity. As predicted, the Uganda exercise turned out to be an attempt to be a convener of congress regardless of the outcome to the Black race.
A lot of bravado prevailed, loads of resolutions were passed, and delegates were feted lavishly be fore returning to their various countries, no better off than they were before the congress. In fact, the average Black person in the world today does not know that the 7th PAC has taken place in his or her name. Another jamboree has passed, one of the many failed attempts that litter our chequered history but Uganda achieved 'a me too.' Uganda succeeded in helping us waste another decade, another generation, while Museveni rides on his high visibility profile to destabilize his neighbouring countries to annex and exploit their mineral resources.
The Uganda 7th PAC set up a Pan-African office in Kampala as a propaganda tool of Museveni's Empire building machinery. That done, his hit man, Paul Kagame, a CIA protégé, with US military school training,brought down a plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi over Rwanda/Burundi and Uganda common border. The Presidents' death launched Rwanda's sack and pogrom, resulting in the death of over half a million Rwandans and the displacement of millions of others. Then they replaced the dreaded Mobutu with Laurent Kabila as President of the DRC. Kabila, a Lumumbist, refused to play along, so Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda occupied the mineral rich regions of the DRC in 1999 with America's technical backing. They massacred over two and a half million Congolese, while looting and plundering the DRC's mineral wealth.
But for the meddlesome intervention of the armies of Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, Emperor Museveni was only a hair's breath away from his dream of usurping what potentially would have been the largest and richest modern Empire in Africa. The failed Emperor apparently had misled the President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, into appearing to support his ambition because Mandela was waiting on a ship off the coast ofKinshasa at the time, to crown Wamba Dia Wamba, as Laurent Kabila's replacement, and Emperor Museveni's new surrogate in the DRC.
AFRICAN UNION (AU)
The latest version of the African Union concept revived from a totally discredited non-Black source with an OAU's special meeting bankrolled by Muamar Gaddafi in Sirte, Libya, in 1999. Gaddafi, as we all know, is the rascal or Satan behind all the modern civil wars in Africa. From Chad to Liberia to Sierra Leone, Gaddafi had his fingers on the rotten, smelly pie. He financed and trained Museveni's Guerrilla adventure, and he is the leading sustainer of Arab pogrom against Africans in the Sudan right now. After failing to build his, the United States of the Arab world dream, he turned to hapless Africa for relevance in international politics. His interest in the African Union is fiendish and totally opportunistic and was designed to lead to the setting up of the AU's headquarters in Sirte, Libya, with Muamar Gaddafi as the United States of Africa's first President. At first,Gaddafi's dream project was opposed by Presidents Obasanjo of Nigeria and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. President Obasanjo and Abdoulai Wade of Senegal opposed the Reparations for Slavery and Colonialism strategy of the Black world at the 2001 UN World Conference in South Africa, against Racism. It was no surprise, therefore, that with Wade, Gaddafi and Obasanjo playing key roles in the formation of the AU, a constitution that delivers the AU as a neo-colonial appendage of the West and Arab domination was crafted.
NEPAD
The NEPAD team members went down on their knees to beg the West for a $64 billion handout but instead got $6 billion spread over a period of perhaps 64 years, to make it worthless. Obviously, that is where NEEEPAD comes from. The $6 billion bailout is to enable us continue to beg the West with loads of NEEEPADS bought from them.
The deputy leader of the Pan African Movement, Charles C. Roach, who is based in Canada, described the African leaders begging scene at the 2002 G8 conference in Canada this way:
"There is an amusing photograph of Prime Minister Chretien of Canada sitting astride a kneeling camel on his recent trip to Algeria and five other African countries over the NEPAD issue. The Prime Minister is entreating the camel not to stand up and this is understandable, because the way a camel gets up, unfolding its long legs is a roller-coaster ride for anyone on its back. Symbolically, Chretien was telling the African camel to stay on its knees while he perches on its back."
Earlier in 2002, President Moi of Kenya, said in a speech in Blantyre, Malawi, that Africa was doomed to perpetual poverty and backwardness unless African leaders free themselves of egocentricity. That
"no country in the West had an obligation to baby-sit and spoon-feed independent African nations. African leaders must accept this fact, however unsettling, and rethink about their development strategies."
Recently too, President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia was reported to have described NEPAD as a charter for beggars. Hear him:
"NEPAD would not work. ....Africa is the richest continent in terms of mineral resources, but because of ignorance, Africa, in economic terms, is the poorest continent, and we Africans are the laughingstock of humanity. We have failed because some of us are agents of the same people we are supposed to fight against. We produce the bulk of the world's raw materials so why are we still poor? Some of us are fighting proxy wars in Africa for the benefit of others. Africa has never colonized anyone. Some people who prolonged apartheid are now waving the flag of democracy and freedom. The African debt is not globalized, it is Africanized."
At a forum in Addis Ababa in March 2002, Prof Shadrack Gutto of South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand was asked why NEPAD was presented first to the G8 before African governments had a chance to discuss it. Mr. Wiseman Nkuhlu, the South African president's special adviser on NEPAD, providedthe not so wise answer at the forum that it is because African governments have been pre-occupied with building the AU. In answer to another question at the forum, Mr. Nkuhlu admitted that consultation with civil society "is not where we would like it."
If the NEEEPAD team, backed by the West to perpetuate our developmental pains, would not consult with even their colleagues in African governments before inflicting the culture of the begging bowl on Africa all over again, does the African civil society have a right to expect a miracle from the AU? Where does that leave the Black Diaspora in the scheme of things? What about 'Reparations' and Repatriation'?
The answer is for African civil society to link up with the Black Diaspora civil society to establish a vibrant, uncompromising institutionalized 'Movement' for the Black world, independent of the AU that is currently dominated by Arab league members. The two priority areas of activities of the institutionalized 'Movement'would be:
(a) to pressurize the AU to produce a Pan-African Passport (PAP) to enable any Black or African,mregardless of nationality, return or visit home (Africa) at will without let or hindrance and
(b) to compel the West and Arabs, by any means necessary, to pay Reparations to the Black world for slavery and colonialism. The modern Pan-African Movement is known as the African Peoples' Union (APU), the counterpoise, conscience and spiritual beacon of the AU, wielding its authority as a pressure group through moral strength and scholarship of the Myk.”
NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince)of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M.Poet, Author of the magnum opus: 'The end of knowledge'. One of the world's leading authors of children'sbooks; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City
