But if this is the case, what then does it mean for the broader Pan-African project being spearheaded by the AES countries?

As you can imagine, a question that's very close to my heart, but it is a very important one.

And I think it's important to step back and remind ourselves what do we call, what do we mean by Pan-Africanism? Because, as you know, there's many people who will throw that word around.

In fact, I read a report a few weeks ago when Emmanuel Macron was in Kenya.

He declared himself representing the kind of French history in Africa as true Pan-Africanism.

So what, at least for our purposes, we understand Pan-Africanism to mean is to say that in order for Africa to overcome some of the challenges it has, we can do that by one, uniting politically among one another, and two, by building a kind of common future which has a recognition that we are not just coming from a similar history.

Yes, we are different.

But as much as the AES countries do not outrightly take away the objective of pan-Africanism, A lot of people out there may want to also understand or distinguish between what Pan-Africanism today in contemporary times, what it means for Africa and how it differs from the post-independence Africa.