by Neb Iritah Shenmira NABA

Since the earliest struggles for sovereignty of African states—marked by the creation of structures such as the Organization of African Unity (which later became the African Union) and the Economic Community of West African States—a new generation of leaders has been attempting to address the deep-seated aspirations of an African youth that is increasingly aware and demanding. However, this dynamic faces a major obstacle: the persistence of an ideological and institutional framework inherited from Western imperialism,a framework characterized by psychological alienation and intellectual contradictions. This deeply entrenched, empirical, and imperial system continues to influence governance mechanisms, educational models, and cultural and religious reference points, thereby hindering the true emergence of a new generation of elites among African people and their diaspora. It is a common tendency among our intellectuals and leaders to indulge in the illusion of emancipation through imitation, a phenomenon we shall refer to here as "Pan-Africanism."

This is a movement born in contradiction; for African elites, many of whom were educated within systems inherited from the colonial era, aspire to emancipation while simultaneously reproducing the very patterns they claim to transcend. Consequently, the acquisition of exogenous knowledge is not always accompanied by the critical capacity necessary to adapt it to African realities. The result is a form of identity transformation in which certain intellectuals and leaders, while African in their heritage, adopt frameworks of thought and modes of action that are external to their societies of origin.