Today is Africa Day, that hallowed day when we celebrate our beloved continent, its diverse people and cultures as well as its varied but rich resources that ought to bring positive change in the lives of the citizens of this blessed land.
It is sad, if not tragic, that this year’s Africa Day comes at a time when as Africans we are not only at war with each other but have become a collective shame through the various acts of omission and commission, especially by our respective leaders.
For example, while it is valid that other African leaders must sort out their own countries to prevent the massive influx of their nationals into South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, it remains shameful that today, even as we commemorate Africa Day together, South Africans appear too keen to drive out fellow Africans while embracing Europeans, Americans, Chinese and other foreigners from outside the continent.
Is it not shameful that citizens from other African countries find themselves unsafe in South Africa, on their own continent, while the true foreigners are embraced with wide, open arms?
Another disturbing matter is that notwithstanding the need by South Africa to protect her trade interests with Washington, we commemorate Africa day today, just days after President Cyril Ramaphosa has just been humiliated in the US.
To the shame of Africa, Ramaphosa, who seemed ill-prepared for his meeting with Trump, found himself having to explain a litany of gross, blatant lies that drive the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
With his tail firmly tucked between his legs, and to the utter shame of all proud Africans, Ramaphosa disgraced our continent when he appeared before Trump with the deportment of a mischievous schoolboy before the school principal.
The sight was disgraceful and an affront to our collective African pride, moreso the capitulation as evidenced by Ramaphosa’s haste soon after the meeting in bending SA’s black economic empowerment laws to solely benefit Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, Trump’s sidekick.
We also commemorate this year’s Africa Day at a time when Africa’s First Ladies are due to hold a meeting next month.
Sadly, if not shamefully, that meeting of the wives of our leaders to discuss the problems affecting African women will take place not here in Africa, on our own soil, but in faraway London.
The African First Ladies’ meeting scheduled to take place in London next June is justifiably facing mounting backlash across Africa, with critics legitimately questioning why the high-level summit is being held thousands of miles away from the continent whose challenges it purports to address.
Africa is simply embarrassing herself.
Indeed, the event, which the organizers say aims to tackle crucial issues in Africa such as maternal health, gender equality, and youth empowerment, has sparked a flurry of valid criticism across the continent.
At the heart of the debate is a simple but legitimate question: Why London?
This astounding behaviour by our leaders’ wives of going to a foreign continent to discuss our African problems just showcases how our continental leadership has become a collective African shame.
The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, regularly hosts such high-level summits and is fully equipped for such events. As one Ghanaian academic put it recently, why ignore the AU headquarters in favour of a venue that adds no value beyond colonial nostalgia?
It is obvious this is a shopping trip to London disguised as a workshop to discuss issues affecting African women.
Moreover, and as stated earlier, our continent must stop the shameful, needless fight with herself at a time when we should collectively confront external challenges as a united front.
Africans are at war with each other. As I write, Zimbabweans and Zambians are in mortal combat at the Chirundu border post, shutting each other out of their respective countries while in the DRC, a civil war is raging between that country and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
This is not to ignore the foreign hand abetting the DRC war in a bid to access the vast mineral wealth in the Great Lakes region.
My point is that as Africans, we must be wise enough to understand that we are brothers and sisters first. We must stop this embarrassing fight against ourselves.
Indeed, we cannot be pitted against each other by some strangers angling for our wealth—strangers who have mimic-moulded our mothers’ breasts on our own dry Sahara sands to exhort us to a vicious fight against each other.
As we commemorate this year’s Africa Day, our beloved continent must seriously reflect on these issues and get her act together.
For me, it must be a cause for utter shame that while the AU and SADC dismally failed to resolve the raging conflict in the DRC, it had to take Donald Trump’s cowboy regime in faraway Washington to calm the tempers between the belligerents in the mineral-rich country .
On 25 April 2025, under the auspices of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the DRC and Rwanda signed a “Declaration of Principles” in Washington, D.C, pledging to cease support for armed groups and to draft a full peace agreement.
They also reportedly agreed to establish joint security and economic cooperation—an unprecedented step toward ending 30 years of the proxy war over eastern Congo’s mineral wealth.
While the accord aims to stabilize a region that has suffered over six million deaths and the displacement of more than seven million people, it is pertinent to note that for the US-brokered deal to take place, Kinshasa had to pledge her vast mineral wealth to Washington, a huge price to pay to outside foreigners for peace between two African belligerents.
Like a typical harlot in a Kinshasa nightclub, the DRC government had to mortgage her bosom by opening her sacred vaults to an egoistic Washington suitor that is desperate to enter her treasured innards for the greater geopolitical objective of countering Beijing’s advances in Africa’s Great Lakes region.
Our continent has become the proverbial cheap harlot prone to bedding a troop of arrogant cowboys for short-term benefits.
This is shameful. Africa must simply get her act together.
And while Washington is brokering peace in the DRC for her own selfish ends, the question that begs an answer is: What happened to the mantra of African solutions to African problems?
Instead of seriously reflecting on these bigger issues, Africa is currently busy with wars against herself.
We are stronger together. As the US escalates its trade war with the rest of the world, one expected a co-ordinated response from Africa and her sub-regions. Instead, we have sold each other out as we sought to individually placate America by removing tariffs on imports from Washington.
Instead of co-ordinating a sub-regional response to Washington’s tariff wars in his capacity as the chairperson of SADC, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was busy placating Trump at a time Washington had virtually declared an economic war against South Africa and Lesotho, countries that are members of SADC.
The problem with Africa in general and SADC in particular is that we don’t market our products collectively as a continent or even as sub-regions. Instead, we approach the global market as Lilliputian pockets of small, individual countries. In the end; we sit on the table as weak negotiators.
In short, Africa ought to have a co-ordinated response to US arrogance in this trade war but somehow, as individual countries and as small economies, we have firmly tucked our little tails between our legs and kowtowed to Trump’s tariff bullying, as ED did early April.
This failure to harness our collective strength in favour of our individual weaknesses has made us a laughing stock internationally.
Year in year out, 54 African leaders troop like small boys before one President, be it to the Sino-Africa-Summit, the US-Africa summit or the Africa-Japan summit, also called the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).
Africa should get her act together and decide to send a delegation rather than all 54 of them trooping before the leader of one country, in the process putting our collective African dignity to shame and ridicule.
But because Africa is at war with herself, she cannot co-ordinate a united response to foreign arrogance.
Only recently, the trade war within Africa itself escalated between Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa.
Last month, Tanzania gave Pretoria and Blantyre an ultimatum to remove non-tariff barriers on Tanzanian produce or it would restrict all farming imports from the two countries. In addition, Tanzania said Malawi risked losing access to the through her terrain.
South Africa on her part is stopping banana imports from Tanzania, while Malawi is blocking flour, rice, ginger, banana and corn imports from Dar es Salaam.
Tanzania also announced that farm goods from both South Africa and Malawi would not be allowed to transit through Tanzania or its ports. Additionally, Tanzania said it would block shipments of fertilizer to Malawi,
As we commemorate this year’s Africa Day, our beloved continent must reflect on these issues and realise know that we are stronger together. Africa must stop embarrassing herself, put her act together and market herself globally as a single market to reap bigger and better dividends.
The AU theme for this year’s Africa day is: “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations”
I have no problem with this theme. I think reparations for the ignominy that this continent has gone through are long overdue.
But this can only happen if we as Africans are truly united in word and deed and if we speak with one voice at all international platforms, which is currently not the case.
The tragedy is that we treat ourselves not as a sovereign continent deserving dignity and respect but as little pockets of beggars. Yet we are home to the world’s biggest repository of natural wealth.
My own issue about reparations, which are the AU theme for today, is that charity must begin at home. Before we demand reparations from elsewhere, some African governments must themselves pay reparations to those they have wronged internally.
In this case, I have the Gukurahundi victims in mind. The Zimbabwe government must pay reparations to the victims of genocide in the Midlands and the Matabeleland provinces. The Gukurahundi issue has been discussed for years and the time for lip service is over.
Lastly, Africa must purposely ride on the dividend of Afro-optimism that has begun to gather momentum in global geopolitics.
Notwithstanding the justified negative news about our continent on the issues of misgovernance, corruption, State-sanctioned violence and Presidents who want to die in office, there are indeed some shining economic stars on our continent.
In the last few years, there have been phenomenal economic growth rates among the so-called African Lions; namely Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya.
This growth appears to show a continent on the rise, never mind that some of the leadership faces fronting this growth are widely seen as doyens of tyranny. Paul Kagame and Yoweri Kaguta Museveni are cases in point.
In recent years, six of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies have been African nations. Only recently, the IMF was projecting a growth rate of 5,4 percent in Africa, against a global average of 3,6 percent.
All these impressive figures seem to show a continent on the rise. In 2014, the IMF chose to host its conference in Maputo that was aptly dubbed “Africa Rising: Building to the Future.”
Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda more than doubled their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 1989 and 2009. All very impressive.
Sadly, the impressive economic figures have not transformed the lives of the citizens on the ground. They remain impressive balance sheet figures in the ledger book, with no relationship whatsoever to the daily toil of the struggling citizens in Kigali, Addis Ababa and Kampala.
Africa must take advantage of this day to seriously reflect and get her act together.
Africa has a simple choice to make: either to prod forward to a future full of hope or to chain herself down with her own massive frailties that manifest through disunity, misgovernance and corruption.
Otherwise our beloved Africa remains a source of both our collective pride and our collective shame in equal measure.
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. By profession and training he is a journalist and a political scientist You can interact with him through his Facebook page or via the X handle @ luke_tambo.
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