Vanogodé Dosso | Ligue Panafricaine Umoja (LP-U)
Delegates, from here and elsewhere, from the historical Diaspora, and from the continent—Brothers and Sisters, comrades in struggle, distinguished guests in your ranks and positions,
It is an honor for me to be here on the land of the Mau Mau, this land that is irradiated by the energy and memory of these freedom fighters.
My presence today belongs to the Panafrican Umoja League, a French diaspora organization whose purpose is: to make Pan-Africanism a way of governance—by organization, not agonization—acting with the feeling of common fate of all Africans, in the right lines of our ancestors.
We are here, at the gathering of truth, facing the imposture of the Africa Forward Summit for Innovation and Growth.
At this very moment as I stand before you, they say that Africa is being built, but the question that Malcolm X would ask us today is simple: who owns the bricks and who carries the cement?
If you build a house that does not belong to you, you are not a builder—you are a modern slave disguised as a partner.
That is why the sage of Bandiagara, quoted by his student Hampaté Bâ, reminded us that Africans are sitting on a gold mine, which they should develop instead of going to seek fortune elsewhere. And that ‘elsewhere’ we have identified: it is these summits.
France-Africa / Russia-Africa / China-Africa / Italy-Africa. So many summits where Africa is not in a position to decide.
And this is not the recent hijacking by the President of the Italian Council, who in 2026 imposed her Italy-Africa summit on the sidelines of the AU summit. The so-called MATEI plan aims to support African economies in order to limit migration from Africa, while extending Italy’s influence there. Africa is indeed 54 countries and soon the world’s leading demographic power; compared to it, Italy is a dwarf.
Alas, Africa—weakened—is divided and therefore porous to all external pressures. That is why we advocate, as a weapon of resistance against France-Africa and imperialism: PAN-AFRICANISM.
I. The ‘Poker Face’ of the Oppressor
Comrades, this official summit is the ‘clean’ face of imperialism. It speaks of innovation with a velvet smile in refined settings, carried by carefully orchestrated communication.
To paraphrase historian and activist Amzat Boukari-Yabara, imperialism has a second face hidden behind this clean, polished face. It is a bloody face.
On one side, it plunders with locked, opaque contracts and fine speeches in refined salons, giving the impression that Africa is moving forward. On the other, it kills with the weapons it provides to illegitimate and very often illegal regimes.
Comrades, know that one can also move forward backwards—and that is called dying.
To allow us clarity, I must make a historical reminder. France-Africa was theorized for the first time in a book entitled ‘La coopération économique franco-africaine’ by René Hoffer, in which he describes a very simple mechanism: overseas territories, like former colonies, must be administered for the benefit of the metropole.
France-Africa therefore existed well before independence; it is the continuation of a system of colonialist, capitalist, hegemonic, reactionary domination—in short, a system of death, which Aimé Césaire described as a ‘sacking of civilization.’
Yesterday, in December 2025, they were organizing a bar association conference in Lomé, while our brother Steve Rouyard, a Guadeloupean, was in prison for having demonstrated in Togo alongside comrades during a popular revolt—banned by the authorities—against the cost of living, the price of electricity, and a constitutional reform allowing leaders to remain in power without term limits.
They speak of democracy, freedom and progress in these summits, but arm oppressive regimes in Abidjan, in Yaoundé, in Guinea-Bissau to hunt down those who demand their dignity.
This summit is part of, I quote the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘the continuity of the 2021 Paris Summit on financing African economies.’ As you understand, it is the continuation and reinforcement of the Montpellier summit. This is France-Africa. It is hypocrisy disguised as democracy.
What I call the hypocrisy of the mask of democracy, the ‘Poker Face’: one hand shakes yours, and the other arms repression against the populations whose happiness it claims to seek.
Comrades, it is clear that since its beginnings, imperialism has remained structurally the same. In the words of sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, it is ‘the one that needs the State; the State is essential to its survival.’ The Africa Forward Summit, co-chaired for the first time with an English-speaking country—Kenya—demonstrates the relevance of this truth. The leaders of Kenya thus become accomplices in the 21st century of this empire that resolutely refuses to die.
Ten years ago, in 2016, the whole world watched in astonishment the condescension, contempt and orchestrated irreverence of a French head of state towards his Burkinabè counterpart. The Africa Forward Summit marks a major stage in relations between France and the African continent, nearly ten years after this scene of humiliation. It would be childish to believe in recipes that have hardly worked in the past.
II. Sudan / DRC / Togo / Côte d’Ivoire: The Mirror of Organized Chaos
Look at Sudan! Look at the DRC. Why is the silence so heavy about the massacre of our brothers and sisters? Because there, the ‘Poker Face’ has fallen. Imperialism no longer bothers with words. It lets the country tear itself apart to better control the remains. Sudan and the DRC are proof that for these powers, the life of an African means nothing compared to the control of resources. The resistance of the Sudanese people is our resistance! Their pain is our battle cry!
Conversely, in Togo, the 9th Pan-African Congress shows a carefully orchestrated recovery of Pan-Africanism, breaking with the tradition of Pan-African congresses.
In Côte d’Ivoire, with a growth rate approaching 8%, poverty and precariousness have never been so high—around 37%—according to a Coface study.
And do not be mistaken, comrades, the statistics are roughly the same in Kenya: 36% is the poverty rate, with GDP per capita of $2,110. Do not be mistaken, France and the European Union want to reverse the trend in Kenya—a country with a very wide diversity of partners, representing 7% of imports from the European Union.
Kenya is 15 places behind Venezuela, a multi-sanctioned country. What is important to keep in mind is how a sanctioned country is ahead of Kenya in terms of production per capita.
Faced with neo-colonialism, Pan-Africanism is the only way out.
III. From Vassalage to Federation
The allegory of the house Negro and the field Negro certainly speaks to you. During slavery, the house Negro identified with the master; when the master was sick, he said ‘yes master, we are sick.’ The field Negro did not care about sharing rags and leftovers in the master’s house; he wanted freedom—live free or die, death rather than shame—as Soundjata Keita proclaimed at Krina before his army, because he knew his ancestors had always lived free.
Today, vassal states, these ‘delegated powers,’ are the new house relays. They use the weapons of genocidal states like Israel or France to suppress their own people, under the cover of respect for law and legality. What a shame.
Power comes from the people; therefore no legality can prevail over the aspirations of the people for a decent and dignified life. The experience of the Sahel states is for us a message coming from militant and political memory of the past.
Comrades, Pan-African thought travels. The peoples of the AES—in Mali, Burkina, Niger—have decided to leave the master’s house, to break with France-Africa. Militarily, they have expelled military bases—a first. They have created a common diplomacy, active and passive, breaking with former ECOWAS channels, and seek to be a new framework of expression, a new voice and path for this Africa that refuses the generalized contempt expressed by these summits of shame.
We are in the era of the Second Independence.
We no longer want an ECOWAS of leaders—we call for a true ECOWAS of the peoples! We no longer want an African Union of lobbies—we want a responsible African Union resolutely turned toward the realization of the second independence.
And never forget Ayiti (Haiti). If imperialism has been relentless against Haiti for two centuries, it is because it is the symbol of the first rupture. They want to make Haiti an example of chaos to disgust us with freedom. But Haiti is our compass.
IV. Pan-Africanism: Our Weapon of Neutralization
Marcus Garvey taught us: power is the only response to injustice. Pan-Africanism is not a slogan—it is our weapon of neutralization.
Neutralize Françafrique through rupture. Neutralize imperialism through unity, from Palestine to Kanaky, from Martinique to Guadeloupe.
This is what Nkrumah, our champion, leaves to us as legacy:
• An Africa with its own diplomacy
• An Africa with its own economic expression
• An Africa with its own defense
In short, an Africa that plays its own game in international relations—not a puppet dragged from summit to summit to be humiliated.
Conclusion: Freedom or Death
Imperialism reinvents itself? Very well. We reaffirm our Pan-African project.
To the imperialists: do not speak to us of partnership as long as your boots are on our necks. Do not speak to us of growth as long as our brothers are in prison or under bombs in Sudan. Africa no longer builds with you; it builds its destiny against your chains!
To all those listening to me and to future generations, I want to tell you that there is hope. I want to tell you that the Pan-Africanism we all dream of is a refuge. It is a fighting Pan-Africanism, one that crystallizes the solidarity of peoples in struggle—a Pan-Africanism where the weakest, the most vulnerable, the most fragile has a voice. This Pan-Africanism is meant to be a door of hope for Africa and its diasporas, for the world, because ultimately all of us here present at this counter-summit are the world.
So wherever we are, the time has come to step out of the shadows and enter the great stage of history. Nothing will be done without us.
AGAINST France-Africa—let us reaffirm our Pan-African project!
Support for peoples in struggle!—UHURU!
