I first heard the phrase “Africa must unite” on the Mob Jazz Podcast : that one Ugandan society and culture podcast where wisdom is delivered the way aunties deliver advice. Casually, confidently and without asking if you’re ready or need it. I nodded along like, yes, absolutely, very true. But also… unite how? Like group chat unite? Matching outfits unite? Shared budget, shared trauma unite? “Africa must unite” sounds suspiciously like one of those statements everyone agrees with until you ask for logistics.

This phrase is not podcast core. It’s actually historical heavyweight core. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, was saying this in the 1960s with his full chest. As a warning. According to history books and very serious men with very serious eyebrows, Nkrumah believed Africa either unites or becomes permanently sidelined in global politics and economics. Which is bold, because even today we struggle to unite over which Jollof is superior.

Pan-Africanism in theory, is simple. It’s the idea that African people. Both on the continent and in the diaspora, share a common history and should therefore work together for a common future. Britannica defines it as a movement that emerged to resist slavery, colonialism, and racial oppression. In other words, Pan Africanism was born out of suffering and not aesthetics. It wasn’t supposed to become a Pinterest board.

But here we are.

The movement gave us icons. W.E.B. Du Bois said Black people worldwide needed solidarity. Marcus Garvey said, “Let’s go back to Africa,” started a shipping line that flopped, but still somehow gave us the Pan African Flag , red for blood, black for people, green for land. A cultural win, if nothing else. Even failed attempts can be influential. Very Gen Z, actually.

Then came the independence era. Nkrumah said African borders were fake (because they are) and that we needed a united Africa with one military, one economy, one political vision. Some countries agreed: this group was called the Casablanca Group. Others said, “Let’s slow down, please, some of us just got independence yesterday.” That group became the Monrovia Group . Africa immediately split into Team Let’s Do This Now and Team Let’s Not Rush. A dynamic that still feels painfully familiar.

The compromise gave us the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union . Unity in theory, independence in practice. Which explains why it’s easier to travel from Kampala to London than from Kampala to some African capitals. Colonial borders expired but nobody cancelled the subscription. So today, Pan Africanism exists in a very confusing space. It’s both serious and unserious. A vision and a vibe. A manifesto and a meme.

On the vision side, we have actual plans. The African Union‘s Agenda 2063 outlines long term goals for economic integration, free movement, shared development and political cooperation. This is not a Pinterest quote, it’s a policy document. Very long, ambitious. Very unread.

On the vibe side, culture has already united Africa in ways policy hasn’t. Afrobeat crosses borders effortlessly. Nollywood movies are watched everywhere. Fashion, slang, podcasts, and music have done what visas could not. Podcasts like Africa Must Unite and conversations on platforms like Reddit show that people, especially young people, are still deeply invested in the idea of continental unity, even if they’re remixing it with humour.

Gen Z doesn’t reject Pan Africanism. We just interrogate it. We ask the important questions like: unite to do what? Under whose leadership? With which currency? And will this meeting be an email? Older generations remember Pan Africanism as speeches, summits and post independence optimism. Younger generations experience it through culture, migration and shared frustration with systems that still don’t work.

Maybe Pan Africanism doesn’t need to look like one giant country to succeed. Maybe it looks like cooperation instead of competition, shared infrastructure instead of duplicated failure and Africans negotiating globally as a bloc instead of 54 individual voices shouting into the void. Maybe unity doesn’t mean sameness. Maybe it just means solidarity with structure.

So when I hear “Africa must unite” now, I laugh, respectfully. Because it’s funny how simple the phrase sounds and how complicated it actually is. It’s aspirational. It’s irritating and necessary. And until further notice, it remains both a vision and a vibe. One we keep quoting, debating, remixing and pretending we’ll fully figure out soon.