Keypoints:
- Pan-Africanism’s revolutionary purpose has eroded
- Lomé’s 9th Congress exposed a widening ideological void
- Neocolonialism now defines Africa’s unfinished struggle
THE 9th Pan-African Congress, held in Lomé, Togo, from December 8 to 12, 2025, arrived wrapped in history but emptied of direction. Flags were raised, speeches delivered, slogans repeated. Yet beneath the ceremony lay an uncomfortable truth: Pan-Africanism, once a revolutionary project rooted in struggle, land, and mass mobilisation, is steadily withering into an exercise in remembrance. Lomé did not revive pan-Africanism; it revealed how far the movement has drifted from its original purpose.
This drift is not accidental. It reflects a long departure from the foundational principle that pan-Africanism must be civil society-led. The earliest congresses convened by Henry Sylvester Williams and later shaped by W.E.B. Du Bois were not sponsored by states. They were convened by people in struggle, not by governments seeking legitimacy. This distinction mattered deeply to the CLR James school of thought, which consistently opposed government-sponsored pan-African Congresses on the grounds that liberation cannot be managed from above.
Manchester and the question of power
The decisive turning point in pan-African history came with the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945. That gathering did not merely debate ideas; it redefined strategy. Its central insight was that freedom required a territorial base. Without land, state power, and organised masses, pan-Africanism would remain rhetorical. This was a direct challenge to the colonial order formalised at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85.
It was in pursuit of this bridgehead that Kwame Nkrumah, accompanied by Kojo Botsio, returned to the Gold Coast in December 1947. Through mass organisation and mobilisation, Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party transformed pan-Africanism from an idea into a political force. A decade later, on March 6, 1957, the movement secured its first territorial foothold with Ghana’s independence.
Pan-Africanism was no longer abstract. It was home, rooted in African soil, embodying Mother Africa herself.
Accra as the continental bridgehead
This transformation drew revolutionaries to Ghana. George Padmore, Frantz Fanon, and I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson converged on Accra, recognising that pan-Africanism had entered a new phase. In April 1958, Ghana hosted the Conference of Independent African States. Later that year, in December, the All-African People’s Conference convened in Accra, marking a decisive rupture with the diaspora congress tradition.
This was not simply another congress. It was the consolidation of a bridgehead against the Berlin order. The programme of action adopted at Manchester was executed clinically: the masses of the Gold Coast had been hurled against colonial rule, disorganising and defeating British imperial authority. From that moment, pan-Africanism ceased to be a travelling congress and became a continental struggle anchored in Africa itself.
Why the later congresses lost meaning
It is against this history that the later congresses must be judged. The 6th, 7th, the two 8ths and now two 9ths have increasingly become superfluous gatherings, heavy with symbolism but light on strategy. Had Nkrumah remained in power, with Wallace-Johnson, Padmore and Fanon alive into the 1970s, it is doubtful such congresses would ever have been convened.
This explains why C. L. R. James and others effectively boycotted the 6th Congress. Ghana’s independence had rendered the diaspora format obsolete. The All-African People’s Conference signalled the end of that phase. Wallace-Johnson, Nkrumah and Padmore were unequivocal on this point. Pan-Africanism had moved from debate to execution.
From colonial freedom to neocolonial chains
Nkrumah’s later writings make clear that independence was only the beginning. His 1965 book Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism and his 1968 Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare were not academic texts; they were strategic manuals for the next phase of struggle. Yesterday, the objective was colonial freedom. Today, it is neocolonial freedom.
This clarity alarmed imperial powers. At the Organisation of African Unity summit in Accra in October 1965, the United States, its NATO allies, apartheid Israel and apartheid South Africa campaigned openly for a boycott. Lyndon B. Johnson and Harold Wilson had already concluded that Nkrumah had to be removed. Four months later, on February 24, 1966, a CIA-orchestrated coup overthrew Nkrumah and the CPP government. Africa has yet to recover from that trauma.
Nostalgia as political paralysis
Both Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere warned repeatedly against the politics of nostalgia. Lomé confirmed how prophetic those warnings were. Pan-Africanism cannot survive on anniversaries, slogans, or photo opportunities. It must boldly adopt a philosophy and ideology for decolonisation and development, grounded in African personality, collective interest, and security.
This responsibility weighs heavily on Uganda, designated as the global headquarters of the pan-African Movement, and on the historic frontline states—Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Angola. The struggle today is not merely against external domination but against the internalisation of neoliberal dependency.
Betrayal and the unfinished struggle
History offers both inspiration and warning. From eight independent African states in 1957 to thirty-two by 1963, Africa demonstrated what unity could achieve. The establishment of the Liberation Committee and the collective funding of armed struggles against settler colonialism and apartheid were monumental achievements. They must be protected from betrayal.
That betrayal has occurred before. Ghana under Nkrumah did not betray pan-Africanism. Cuba under Fidel Castro did not betray it. Yet African heads of state betrayed the people of Libya through their deafening silence following the murder of Muammar Gaddafi on October 20, 2011.
A final push, not a final ritual
Neocolonialism being the last stage of imperialism is not a slogan; it is a call to action. Lomé should have been a moment for that final push. Instead, it exposed how far pan-Africanism has retreated into comfort and ceremony. To inherit betrayal is to abandon the struggle. To refuse it is to return to purpose.
Africa must unite. Pan-Africa must decolonise. Anything less is theatre.
