United, we can exploit our potential, Uhuru tells AU Summit

AU Summit 2019

President Uhuru Kenyatta has rooted for Pan-Africanism, urging Africa states to strengthen ties with the continent’s descendants to realise a shared prosperity.

During the 32nd AU Summit in Ethiopia, Mr Kenyatta said Africa has a shared cultural heritage and that having common goals would make Africa exploit full potential.

In a session to remember the legacy of slave trade and colonisation during the ongoing African Union Summit, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Africans will have to strengthen ties with the continent’s descendants to realise a shared prosperity.

“I am a Pan-Africanist who believes that African peoples have a common cultural heritage and historical experience that we must understand if we are to have clearer sight of our desired destination,” President Kenyatta said during the session to mark 400 years since the era of Transatlantic slave trade in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

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The session was meant to “start a conversation” on renewing ties between Africa and other people of African descent.

The idea of learning from the atrocities meted on Africans and uniting them for a common goal is not new.

President Kenyatta’s father Jomo Kenyatta, Ghanaian founding President Kwame Nkrumah and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie were some of the chief proponents of African unity that would help black people emerge from the years of torture and poverty.

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“It is no doubt that African heritage is important. The founding fathers saw Pan-Africanism as a way for Africa to see themselves anew,” said Prof Winston Jumba, the dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Nairobi.

“Our problem has been the wait-and-see. Very few countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia have been brave enough to enter other territories and restore peace, for example,” he said.

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The leaders advocated for closer ties through art, scholarship, trade, religious ceremonies as well as youth movements.

 

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