Pan-Africanism and African Citizenship: The Way Forward

This paper critically analyzes Pan-Africanism as an ideology for the liberation of Africa, with a view to assessing the possibilities of a common African citizenship. This paper argues against the claim that the focus of Pan-Africanism should shift from activism, agitations and struggles to a univocal platform that will define the authentic African identities by crystallizing a common nationality for Africans in the continent and those in the diaspora. This claim is known to be rooted in the age-long African values of brotherhood, complementarity and family hood (Ujamaa) that made Africans to see other Africans as brothers who share the same humanity. This is different from the Africans of today who have assimilated western values of individualism which is divisive and exclusive in nature which in reality is a negation of the authentic African personhood and society. This have given rise to ethnic agitations, xenophobic attack, populism and hatred against 'outsiders'. Thus in this paper, we shall employ the philosophical method of critical analysis in carrying out our investigation of the various issues that necessitated this research work.