By Moses Ntandu, Dar es Salaam
How can Africa, in the 21st century, continue to call itself free while one of its nations remains in chains? How do we celebrate independence anniversaries and speak of sovereignty when Western Sahara, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), still languishes under Moroccan occupation?
For decades, the voices of Africa’s liberation giants, including Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Ben Bella, and Nelson Mandela, rang across the continent; uniting north and south, east and west, in a common cry for freedom.
Today, those voices have faded into memory, and with them, much of the solidarity that once defined African politics.
In Tindouf, southern Algeria, where Saharawis live in sprawling refugee camps, the paradox of African independence becomes painfully clear.
The camps, built in the desert, serve not only as temporary shelter but as the headquarters of a government-in-exile, a state that exists in principle but not in practice.
Here, men and women are living their entire lives waiting for a home they may never see. Children are born under tents of canvas, yet they sing songs of a land their parents insist they will one day inherit.
SADR President Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, speaks with the conviction of a man who refuses to surrender.
At a recent gathering, he praised Algeria for its enduring solidarity, while calling on Africa to rise from its silence.
“The Sahrawi cause remains alive on the international stage,” Ghali declared.
“But Morocco’s occupation threatens not only Western Sahara, but the unity and stability of Africa itself. We call on the African Union to uphold its founding principles and ensure the decolonization of Africa’s last colony.”
His words echo a truth many African leaders would rather avoid. Globalization has not united Africa; instead, it has divided it, making governments more eager to sign trade deals with foreign partners than to defend a fellow African nation’s right to exist.
Western Sahara has become Africa’s “orphaned child” spoken of in communiqués, but rarely defended in action.
The stakes are larger than one territory. The Saharawi struggle raises uncomfortable questions:
What does Pan-Africanism mean if it cannot liberate the last colony on the continent? What is the value of independence if one African country can colonize another while the rest of the continent looks away?
In Tindouf, I saw resilience: elders who recall the first shots of resistance, youth who speak of socialism and unity, women who sustain their families against impossible odds. But I also saw the cost of indifference, generations trapped in exile, caught between memory and hope.
Western Sahara is not only Morocco’s problem. It is Africa’s unfinished business. To ignore it is to betray the promise of freedom our founding fathers left us.
Until Western Sahara is free, Africa’s independence story remains incomplete.