Global Afrikan sovereignty can and must become a reality in this lifetime. In order for that to happen, everyday Afrikan women,men and children deserve a clear understanding of our current situation and what it truly takes to attain power.

Only through the establishment of a grassroots-oriented Pan-Afrikan Federalist government, also known as the United Afrikan States, can the dissemination and execution of that information be institutionalized in direct response to neocolonialism and its many manifestations.

The pieces of that Pan-Afrikan Federalist government currently exist via the untold number of Afrikan-centered organizations and institutions scattered across the world. How those pieces fit together, or whether they will choose to do so in the achievement of the common goal of the United Afrikan States remains to be seen.

In the 1960s, leaders of newly independent Afrikan states were engaged in similar discussions about how they would politically unify.

The Casablanca bloc, which included Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, stood as proponents of a federated Afrika in which power would be consolidated in a central government and each nation, instead of standing independently, would be states and its leaders, governors of those states.

The Monrovia bloc, which included President Tubman of Liberia and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, sought each Afrikan nation-state to be independent and working toward economic cooperation. Ultimately, the Monrovia bloc’s interest would supersede that of the Casablanca bloc.

What would happen over the next few decades highlights the shortsightedness of what the Monrovia bloc proposed. One by one, Afrikan leaders met their fate at the hands of imperialists, either by death or forced exile.

Today, outside governments and multinational corporations control Afrikan resources and Afrikan heads of state are at their beck and call. The masses of our people look to these compromised figures for change, not understanding that we didn’t choose those people.

The same concept applies in the United States, where the Congressional Black Caucus, Black mayors, Black agency heads and other Black officials who benefit from the sacrifices of our freedom fighters perpetuate systems that marginalize us on this side while further destroying Mama Afrika.

The United Afrikan States is the final frontier in our fight for global Afrikan sovereignty because it is of the people, not any neo colonial government or institutions that are beholden to colonizer governments. The consolidation of power within a global government or our own making represents a vision that Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and countless others articulated over more than a century.

Most importantly, the United Afrikan States represents an opportunity for our Pan-Afrikan organizers to hash out ideological differences and unify around the common goal of sovereignty.

These organizations, each serving a specific purpose as it relates to Pan-Afrikan self-determination, can attend the yet-to-be-scheduled Pan-Afrikan Federalist Congress to hash out minute, but significant ideological differences and establish some clarity around how the United Afrikan States would operate.

Neocolonialism, or what Nkrumah called the last stage of imperialism, reinforced a belief among the masses of Afrikan people that elected officials and governments have our best interests in mind. Below the surface, one quickly sees that these leaders are handpicked by Western nations and institutions hellbent on exerting control over the natural resources of Mama Afrika and marginalizing us through the military, public education and other institutions not of Afrikan people.

While these duplicitous powers work together on the world stage, the masses of Afrikan people choose to divide themselves for a bevy of reasons. They are following in the footsteps of Afrikan leaders who acted similarly in the mid 20th century to satiate their thirst for power, even though Nkrumah advised them against it.

Nkrumah told us repeatedly that unity among newly independent nations would prevent the execution of a divide-and-conquer strategy by their former colonizers. Malcolm X, and his progenitors in the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, embarked on a similar mission to establish nationhood for New Afrikans who’ve been under siege in Amerikkka for generations.

However, the U.S, French, and British governments, along with their comprador collaborators within Afrikan leadership, blunted these collective efforts. Decades later, we see the divide-and-conquer strategy play out as foreign entities continue to influence political, economic and cultural affairs on the Afrikan continent. Afrikans in the U.S. are just as fragmented, especially since the Donald Trump presidential era inspired a new brand of ethnonationalism through which Afrikans are pledging blind allegiance to colonizer identities not of their own making.

These Afrikans, in their own ignorance, vehemently deny their Africanity. They boldly and flagrantly call into question the viability and legitimacy of Pan-Afrikanism. If they don’t provide anecdotes about negative encounters with Afrikans of a different ethnicity or nationality, they take on a position about the pre- Columbian Black indigenous presence in the Americas that lacks nuance.

Meanwhile, the Pan-Afrikan organizations and organizers who are capable of changing the tide do so in their silos. They do so successfully out of a desire for their safety and ideological purity.

For decades,they have maintained Afrikan customs, attitudes and traditions without interruption. While no one can question their longevity, there’s still a question of impact and whether our organizations have the capacity to stretch beyond our silos and into the everyday Afrikan communities most in need of a self determined Pan-Afrikan Federalist government.

The everyday Afrikan knows little to nothing about Pan-Afrikanism. Those who tap into this ideology do so through self-centered social media personalities who leave much to be desired. Meanwhile, handpicked elites throughout global Afrikan society provide a warped sense of what it means to be Afrikan.

They continue to collaborate with their neocolonial overseers in the co-optation of the Pan-Afrikan identity.

Such a dilemma requires that real Pan-Afrikan organizers and organizations act as an equal, if not stronger, force that provides the everyday Afrikan woman, man, and child a viable alternative to what they believe to their current reality.

However, we cannot do so in their silos. We must combine forces and resources to expand our presence beyond our Pan-Afrikan bubbles. Doing so requires a series of productive meetings like what would happen during a Pan-Afrikan Federalist Congress.

It’s about time that we unify and organize around the reimagining and actualization of a new government. The true Afrikan people’s government. Take this into consideration, or risk the further balkanization of our Pan-Afrikan society by so-called Afrikan elites who are put into positions of power to further enslave our people all over the world.

Sam P.K. Collins is a Garveyite campaigning for the United Afrikan States. He’s the young adult coordinator for the Pan-Afrikan Federalist Movement of North America.