Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – President Hage Geingob has emphasised that peace, security and effective governance “are the conditions indispensable for our shared prosperity in the new Africa”.
In a recorded Africa Day message on Friday, Geingob said that in line with Agenda 2063, Africa has to silence the guns by 2020 for an Africa of opportunity for the majority to become a reality.
“We cannot create opportunities for our youth if we do not create accountable and transparent institutions, and intensify efforts to fight corruption. The decision by the African Union to dedicate its theme for 2018 to the fight against corruption is a step in the right direction. Concerted efforts should follow,” he said.
The AU has dedicated 2018 as anti-corruption year, under the theme ‘Winning the Fight against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation’, and African leaders have declared July 11 every year as Africa Anti-Corruption Day.
Africa Day is an annual commemoration of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, which is now known as the African Union. “I have no doubt that with more determination and focused implementation of policy our vision of a united and prosperous Africa will become a reality. We have a unique opportunity to create sustainable conditions for our collective success,” he added.
Geingob said Africans should reaffirm their commitment to work for a better Africa, a new Africa and a different narrative for the continent.
He said Africa Day signifies victory against formal colonialism on the continent.
“The rise of Africans against the brutality of imperialism and colonialism – Africans, conscious that they had the right to determine their own destiny, pursued through different forms of resistance and armed struggle the systematic dismembering and termination of colonialism,” he said.
He said Africans need to pause, reflect and remind themselves of the courageous deeds by the Pan-Africanist movement from its base in the Diaspora led by influential activists and academics, including W.E.B DuBois, Henry Sylvester Williams and Edward Blyden, and nationalists such as Nkwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Modibo Keita and Ahmed Sékou Touré.
Geingob said Africa is free. “We are now in the second phase of our struggle in which the noble ideal of shared economic prosperity for all is not secondary, but an indispensable condition for a sustainable African future.”
He said: “The Africa we want remains important in ensuring that the majority of Africans have access to decent housing, health, education and economic opportunity.
“To fight poverty, inequality and marginalisation, and to unlock opportunities for our shared prosperity, particularly for our young people and future generations, we should encourage deeper economic integration, increase people-to-people exchanges and make more investments in infrastructure to facilitate trade.”