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Dozens of people protest urging the return of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram Islamists in Nigeria

IN two weeks time we join continental and Diaspora Africans in celebrating the 51st anniversary of the founding of the predecessor of the African Union, the Organisation of African Unity, launched on May 25 1963, amid so many unresolved questions for our question mark-shaped continent.
This will be a day for introspection, when every African should take stock of what he/she has done over the past year to promote the realisation of the noble goals of the continent’s founding fathers whose vision, as articulated by Ghana’s founding president Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was of an independent African who was ever ready to fight his own battles and prove that, contrary to the white supremacist doctrine, the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.

Dr Nkrumah wanted us all to demonstrate to the world and other nations that young as we were, we were prepared to lay our own foundations for self-rule and development.

As Zimbabweans we are glad that we have managed to live up to this noble vision as we took historic steps towards holistic independence through the indigenisation and economic empowerment policies.

Suffice to say, we are doing so amid great opposition from those who would rather have us remain second-class citizens in our own land.
But as we celebrate Africa Day this month, we are thankful to our African brothers and sisters who stood by us when it would have been so easy for them to join the Western band-wagon.

Their invaluable support gives us renewed hope that Africa is slowly rising to claim its stake in the world, and sending a clear message to its perennial pillagers that it is no longer business as usual on the continent.

We saw Africa speak loudly in support of Zimbabwe after last year’s harmonised elections.
Not only that, we saw Sadc and the African Union move Zimbabwe from an agenda item to continental leadership after electing President Mugabe to the deputy chair of both blocs, effectively making him the incoming chairperson when the blocs convene next in August this year and January next year.

On numerous occasions, we have seen Africa frustrate racist moves by the Western rabble-rousers, who wanted Zimbabwe put on the agenda of the UN Security Council as a security threat.

That is how it should be, all for one and one for all as the founding fathers visualised it.
But this support did not come easy, as detractors have managed to worm themselves into some of our supposedly African organs, where through funding, they also covertly influence agendas and policy.

It is also unforgivable that 51 years down the line Africa still relies on the duplicitous Western media for information dissemination, Western prescriptions for development paradigms and alms for development projects.

It is through such dependence that some right-wing forces have managed to worm themselves into some key African organs and institutions that they try to manipulate through purse strings.

Institutions such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, the Pan African Parliament and the Economic Commission need to be cleansed of Western influence to become wholly African and help us realise the dream of a United States of Africa.

We see Africa apparently batting its eyelids as Westerners mobilise to send their forces into Nigeria, ostensibly to rescue the over 200 schoolgirls who were abducted by Boko Haram.

Surely we cannot let others, particularly the erstwhile coloniser, shoulder the responsibility of protecting our daughters!
We have seen time and again that the Westerners come with preconceived agendas.

The best way is to keep them out by solving our own problems.
The African Union must come to the party in Nigeria.