If you have not travelled across Africa or if you have not kept up with Pan-African news coverage, you might think that your African country of origin is much better than others on the continent. Well, that is not necessarily true.

Even though, there are unique circumstances in different African countries, there are many shared realities across the continent.

Most African nations gained independence from colonial powers in the 1960’s. In those 60 plus years of independence, most African countries are still underdeveloped and have not maximized their potential. Sadly, some countries have regressed. This is mainly due to weak leadership, poor governance, and the seeds of division that were planted to allow for the continued exploitation of the continent’s natural resources.

Whether you look at South Africa, D.R. Congo, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tunisia, Tanzania, Mali, or any of the other 54 African countries, most still face similar problems: the most basic access to education, food, energy, healthcare, clean water, and other basic necessities are not universal. Many of the youth are disenfranchised. There is massive unemployment. There are massive inequalities between the haves and the have nots. Wealth is often hoarded and divided among small and corrupted elites. The political class is mostly corrupted and unaccountable to the people. Democracies are not thriving because many political leaders are not legitimately chosen by the people and do not truly govern to represent the interest of the people.

To be clear, I am not perpetuating the Africa-bashing narrative.

There’s a growing movement that ascribes to the “New Africa” or “Africa Rising” narratives, wanting to highlight the positive developments in the African continent, instead of continuing to push the negative portrayal of Africa, that has been flooding mainstream communication outlets for years. Many proponents of this movement believe that advancing a positive image of Africa will help develop and raise the profile of the continent, by attracting more capital and human resources towards the continent.

I agree that foreign media outlets have been imbalanced in their portrayal of Africa. For years, they have often engaged in Africa-bashing, by overly emphasizing negative events, while ignoring positive developments. This has been the case for years and has contributed to developing sentiments of shame within Africans in the diaspora. On that note, fair and balanced reporting on the African continent should be the norm.

Nevertheless, I believe that, despite our African pride and desire to advance a positive image of Africa, we should not refrain from highlighting the deep structural problems plaguing our continent. In order to solve these problems, we need to start by acknowledging them and putting all our energies in eradicating them.

Clearly, radical changes are needed for Africa to truly rise and development to happen on a large scale. These changes will be harder to implement if Africans do not unite across the entire continent. Maintaining the colonial artificial borders has obviously failed to develop Africa 60 years after the independence movements. It is time to fully embrace a different model.

I know that, just like me, many of you are simply fed up, and some of you are already fighting to change the course of the African continent. I truly appreciate that. Unfortunately, the changes we seek will not happen if only some of us are fighting. Most of us must join the fight if we want to reach a critical mass. This will not work without citizens that are actively informed and involved!

Ultimately, people get the leaders they deserve. Africa is chronically mismanaged, exploited and our leaders plunder our resources with total impunity because we collectively allow it.

Therefore, we must mobilize and raise our voices so loudly that our political leaders will have to listen to us, become accountable to us, and work to improve our collective wellbeing across the African continent.

Realistically, we can’t be everywhere at the same time. Even though technology is making the world a smaller place, we are still physically rooted in certain regions. Therefore, our fight must begin in our regions.

While fighting for a United State of Africa, we must simultaneously organize politically to make our respective regions stronger by fighting for equality, justice, and unity, while rebelling against corruption. However, while we are rooted in our respective regions, technology offer us many tools to amplify our efforts and collaborate with our brothers and sisters who are fighting to advance the cause in other regions.

No matter which region of the African continent or the diaspora we are from, we cannot let the artificial colonial borders stop us from fighting to reclaim our entire continent.

It is important to note that in AfriKili’s fight for a United States of Africa, structural, systematic, or cultural racism has no place. Racism based on the color of our skin is another construct designed to divide us and we will not allow it in our fight. If we look deeply in our past or within our DNA, many of us will discover that we had ancestors of different skin colors than the one we have today.

Obviously, there are no inherent advantages or disadvantages associated with the color of our skin. I would like to quote the great anthropologist from Haiti, Anténor Firmin, who said “all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal.”

So, whether you are from the Maghreb, South Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, or East Africa, we call on you to join our AfriKili movement towards building a united and prosperous Africa for all, a United States of Africa.

Let’s get to work!

AfriKili, African intelligence to build a new Africa!