Second Struggle for African Independence Has Begun in Sahel

“Before the arrival of the white people, we had no borders in Africa. They were drawn by colonizers. We should erase these borders and regain our freedom of movement,” said Nigerien leader Aboubakar Alassane of West Africa People’s Organization (WAPO), addressing a panel discussion on the emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) on the second day of the three-day Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel.

“The US has 50 states united. Why can’t Africa,” he asked. Kwame Nkrumah, Pan-Africanist leader and the first president of independent Ghana, “had warned that Africa should unite or perish.” And Africa, disunited, was consequently “being killed.”

But a new lease of life and hope of unity has been offered to the continent by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which forced its former colonizer France to withdraw its troops from their countries, and subsequently came together to form the AES.

“Over 2000 kilometers of borders between these countries are erased. We can now move freely between these countries without requiring a passport or visa,” Alassane added.

Photo: Pedro Stropasolas

This process that has been initiated by AES was described by Achy Ekissi, the general secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI), as Africa’s second struggle for independence. “The second will be true independence”, he said, adding, “We were deceived when we were told we achieved independence in the 1960s” from French colonization.

Through its colonial pact, France had continued to exert control over the natural resources of its African colonies even after their formal independence, leaving them with no capacity to develop infrastructure, education and healthcare, said Philippe Noudjenoume, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Benin (PCB). While its riches like Uranium were used to power the nuclear plants to light France, “Niger was left in the darkness.”

It was in this context that the Sahelian states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger “took the bull by its horn to say that they will not be dictated to by France anymore,” said Ekissi.

This responsibility of initiating the “second struggle for independence” fell on the military which undertook coups in these countries to remove French-backed regimes because the level of organization of popular movements in the neo-colonial context was weak, added Noudjenoume. But the success of this movement depends on the strengthening of the popular movements, he said.

“This Pan African struggle should be oriented towards constructive criticism so that we don’t commit the mistakes” which in the past were used by the imperialist forces to crush it, warned Djibril Annassa, secretary general of the Nigerien civil society organization Patriotic Front, addressing a panel on the role of youth in this struggle. Blaise Tulo, a leader of the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG), emphasized that popular education and the development of young cadres will be crucial for the success of this struggle.

Emphasizing the critical role women have played not only in fields like education but also in the protests against the French-backed regime of the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum, Amina Hamani Hassane of the WAPO added that women can no longer be sidelined to play a secondary role if this movement has to succeed.

While acknowledging the challenges that lay ahead before the movement, all panelists expressed optimism about the future and confidence in the military governments ruling the AES states.

“Many people outside think we are living under a military dictatorship. But the delegates who have come to attend the conference are seeing that we are free” and exerting independence like never before, said Alassane.