Africa Day came and went without much to be proud of as more young inhabitants continue to risk life and limb as they unlawfully cross into Europe to escape joblessness and backwardness.
Tensions between Morocco and Spain went up a notch last week as more than 8,000 African migrants illegally entered Spain through the border with the city of Ceuta.
European analysts fear Morrocco may have deliberately opened the “Gates of Hell”.
The EU has a well-documented fear of an influx of Africans, who they believe could put pressure on limited social services.
Suggestions are that exhausted Morocco border guards forgot to lock the gates and thousands of young Africans bolted into Ceuta.
Yet others say the staged migrant influx was a deliberate response to Spain allowing Morocco’s ailing opponent Brahim Ghali to be treated medically in that country.
Ghali, the General Secretary of the Polisario Front, was a leading figure in the fight for the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco.
Elsewhere on the continent, Africa sought African Solutions.
Harare the capital of Zimbabwe was sealed off on Tuesday as government officials took part in rituals in the middle of the city, where a statue of a prehistoric figure was unveiled.
Paranoid and out of ideas to revive Zimbabwe’s dying economy, the government has sought to appease its war ancestors.
On Tuesday a statue of Mbuya Nehanda – an anti-colonial figure and spirit medium who lived in the 1800’s, was unveiled under heavy police and military presence.
The government want to repatriate her remains from the United Kingdom, where they are thought to be kept in a museum.
The next move in reviving the county’s fortunes, as indicated this week by a village court, is the exhumation of the body of long-time ruler Robert Mugabe.
Whispers in corridors of power say powerful traditional objects that kept the economy going were buried with Mugabe.
In pursuit of African solutions to African problems, the court ordered Mugabe’s widow, Grace, to pay a fine for supposedly burying her husband without obeying local tribal rituals. Grace was fined five cows, and two goats for violating Mugabe’s burial rites.
Mugabe’s nephew, Leo, says the family will fight the court order and will not let anyone tamper with the grave.
Mugabe was deposed in an obviously prearranged “coup” in November 2017. The nonagenarian, who was sent packing with a whopping US 10 million dollar gift, died aged 95 on 6 September 2019.
Zimbabwe’s neighbour South Africa is host to the Pan African Parliament (PAP) based in Midrand, near Johannesburg.
To mark Africa Day – which is meant to celebrate the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union), the PAP held several events.
However, most attention was focused on the music concert with a lineup that included Xitsonga artist ShoMadjozi whose hit song “John Cena” remains a fan favourite.
Perhaps even more interesting – than the usual African Unity speeches – was the inclusion of renowned actor Idris Elba as the concert host.