ABSTRACT
Political leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana had the dream of creating a United States of Africa and used the ideology of Pan-Africanism to mobilise the continent in the fight against neo-imperialist forces. The chapter explores the struggle for unity in Africa and engages with the debate that diverse security threats have foisted on Africa the imperative to unite and survive, or perish, within the context of the transformation of global political and economic systems. African unity based on Pan-Africanism became a mobilising political, ideological and social discourse. Discourse is used here to convey the notion of a set of ideas and as an interactive process. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana is credited with the development and popularisation of Pan-Africanism in Africa. The Organisation of African Unity became the concrete symbol of Pan-African unity. In May 1963 a new conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was attended by 30 independent African states.
