These days the social media and platforms are laden with viral footage and short films about Pan-Africanism. African youth are wearing vibrant, high-visibility T-shirts—beautiful, colorful garments that carry slogans of unity, freedom, equity, and equality. All African cities and towns are buzzing with demonstrations, conferences, seminars, awareness-raising sessions, and gatherings, where chants and songs of togetherness, tolerance, acceptance, and solidarity resonate in every corner. The spirit of Pan-Africanism has seriously started taking root and spreading in the hearts and minds of African youth. These youth are the descendants of the iconic leaders and godfathers of the Pan-African Movement. They are the grandsons and granddaughters of W.E.B. Du Bois, Henry Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey, Martin Delany, Alexander Crummell, Edward Blyden, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, and many others. It is they who planted the first seeds of the Pan-African movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. In contrast, the African youth filling the streets of African cities these days are the incarnation and continuation of these iconic leaders of Pan-African Movement, working toward actualizing their long-awaited dream.
Paradoxically, while African cities are engaged in high-level efforts toward African union, Sudanese youth are busy fighting each other. While African youth advocate for solidarity, Sudanese youth, of course not all of them, are, in effect, fostering fragmentation and disunity. The African Union’s Agenda 2063 is striving to silence the guns; on the other hand, the Sudanese regime is tirelessly seeking to import all sorts of weapons to coerce and silence its opponents and citizens. The Sudanese de facto military government continues to arm youth with weapons and drones, fostering a ‘dignity war’ that causes them to kill each other. on the other hand, in their campaign for United Africa, African youth are enthusiastically calling for tolerance, acceptance, and peaceful coexistence; in contrast, the Sudanese de facto military government’s youth are calling for hatred, oppression, suppression, and brutality, as well as issuing the discriminatory and exclusionary ‘Strange Faces Law’ to restrict the mobility and movement of certain ethnic or geographical groups. Love speech is the motto of African youth’s campaigns these days, while hate speech is the motto of war-oriented Sudanese youth in Sudan. Of course, not all Sudanese youth are hate-speech mongers. African youth have resolved to make Pan-African Movement’s vision a reality while Sudanese youth are busy with glorifying the killing gun. But what is this Pan-African Movement or Pan-Africanism occupying the minds and hearts of African youth today?
It is a global movement aimed at strengthening solidarity, cultural identity, and political unity among indigenous Africans and the African diaspora. Emerging in the 20th century to fight colonialism, slavery, and racial injustice, it promotes the belief that people of African descent share a common history and destiny aiming for political, economic, and social empowerment across Africa and its global communities. Pan-Africanism envisions unifying people of African descent worldwide, fostering solidarity between continental Africans and the diaspora to achieve political, economic, and social progress. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) came into being in 1963 and followed the footsteps of the Pan-African Movement by adopting the same vision. On July 9, 2002, in Durban, South Africa, the African Union (AU) was established to replace the Organization of African Unity. In 2013, the African Union (AU) adopted a 50-year strategic framework called ‘The Africa We Want’ or ‘Agenda 2063’ that has the same vision as the Pan-African Movement: ‘To build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven and managed by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena.
The overall vision that younger generations are pursuing is the establishment of a ‘United States of Africa.’ They envision a state with a single president, army, central bank, passport, IDD country code, unified borders, permanent constitution, strategic plan, economic system, flag, and anthem. This project aims to merge the 54 African nations into one giant entity, the United States of Africa, capable of confronting the world’s major powers and forcibly securing a seat on the Security Council.
The incumbent political leaders are unhappy with this move by the youth. They want to maintain the status quo to protect their vested interests. This justifies why these huge campaigns are led by the youth. It is only young leaders who address the crowds and the gatherings. Surely, the superpowers are unhappy. Many countries in the world are not happy because their interests in these African countries will undoubtedly be at stake. Warmongers, drug dealers, weaponry dealers, human traffickers, extremists, and international terrorists will not be at ease.
The ongoing war between the United States and Iran and the one between Russia and Ukraine have shown a huge technology gap between developed and developing countries. Such a huge technology gap has opened the eyes of developing countries, particularly in Africa, to the danger that might threaten their existence. Such a huge technology gap necessitates becoming a single entity to pool our resources, efforts, and powers to countervail these superpowers; otherwise, we will end up in the abyss. This huge gap must be bridged, but that will never happen unless we bridge the gaps between us. The marches, demonstrations, and gatherings of young people these days are a form of campaign to pressure their respective governments and regimes to revisit the Africa Agenda 2063. It is now 2026, and thirteen years have passed since the launch of Agenda 2063 in 2013 without any significant change in Africa’s political landscape. No guns have been silenced in Africa; rather, their usage is on the rise; none of the fifteen proposed flagship projects have been achieved. Thirteen years have passed without any progress toward or achievement of the seven aspirations and twenty goals mentioned in Agenda 2063.
Our young people, the leaders of tomorrow, are very angry in response to the political sloth and failure of their obsolete leaders. This anger will undoubtedly convert into violent revolution against their corrupt leaders. They have peacefully launched their campaigns with soft slogans, chants, songs, flags, banners, and symbols in pursuit of a positive response from their political leaders; however, these peaceful campaigns might change at any moment into aggressive violence. It is unfortunate that Sudanese youth are not part of these significant campaigns and events. I firmly believe that most of the Sudanese politicians and political leaders have not heard about Agenda 2063 in their lives, let alone asked if it has occupied any space in their respective political parties’ programs.
Sadly, Sudan makes no contribution to the African front—contributing nothing athletically, politically, economically, or socially. Their only contribution is exporting violent conflicts to neighboring countries. An identity crisis is the underlying cause that cripples Sudan’s ability to move anywhere. Be yourself first before you start making any contribution.
Please Wake Up, Wake Up, Be Yourself.
Mahjoub S. G.
Kampala, Uganda
May 10, 2026
