 It's a very beautiful day here in Nairobi, Kenya and let me tell you something, I showed you guys these skyscrapers in Nairobi and you guys are telling me that this is not Kenya. If it's not Kenya, what else do you want to be this beautiful man? Africa is beautiful, this is the Africa that you don't see on the media. But hey, I'm super excited today because I'm meeting the one and only PLO Lumumba. I know this is the moment that all of you have been waiting for, yes, not just you, but included me. It's such an honor to meet such a great man. I'm classifying one of the living legend and as an orator of Africa, I think I have so many questions to ask PLO. You know what, do me a favor, like the video, it's very very important because I realize that some of you just watched the video without liking it. And if today is your first time seeing this annoying face on your screen, my name is Dagane Baby. Please subscribe and part of this family, 570,000 subscribers, why the 30K subscribers? What are you guys doing? Please subscribe, let's hit 600,000 before I leave Nairobi, Kenya. Thank you so much for subscribing, I appreciate each and everyone of you coming to me and let's go talk to Prof himself. I'm out, peace out. You know, there's one particular question that everyone is saying I should ask you before I continue my intro. They want me to ask you, what does PLO? Patrick Lodge Otieno Lumumba. And are you related to... No, not at all. I'm not related to Patrice Emery Lumumba. I think our only relationship is that we share certain ideals, including the desire to have a united, peaceful and prosperous Africa. Do you think Africa will ever unite something? Yes, it will. But I'm not talking about the unity of the grave where there is no disagreement. I'm talking about unity on things that will improve the quality of our lives. I believe that Africans will trade more amongst themselves. I believe that Africa will have a language that is dominant with the use. I believe that Africans will begin to celebrate the diversity of their culture. I believe that Africans will decolonize their minds and Africans will look to Africa rather than to Europe and America as the magnets of development. That is my vision of unity. Prof, we all know you to be a great orator. You've got charming speeches out there. But we all want to know what are you doing on the grounds about the things that you say out there because I literally listen to you from morning to evening. We want to know what is Prof Dain on the ground to change the face of Africa? First of all, you will appreciate that we are present through the PLO Lumumba Foundation in 38 African countries and in 10 countries outside of the continent of Africa. We are active in education, we are active in health, we are active in agriculture, we are active in innovation and invention, we are collaborating with artists and we are active in mentorship programs which are energizing young Africans across the continent. So our words are wedded to our deeds. We do what we say and there is evidence on the ground across countries in this continent. And this is what I think so many people don't know because you don't show us what you do on the ground. Of course, as we say, you don't advertise the things that you do. They speak for themselves in the fullness of time. When you see people shouting about what they are doing, it means they are doing very little. So you all have heard Prof, because this is the question that I had a lot of likes because everybody wanted to know what is Prof doing. We keep on hearing his speeches and all that, but Prof, you are keen yet? Yes indeed. Have you ever thought of running for presidency? I have thought of serving and I am serving in different ways and I do not believe that running for the presidency is what defines one's contribution to one's country. In fact, you will note if you look at my words which you have now had the opportunity to look at, the people you see there are Patrice Emery Lumumba who of course was a prime minister, but a reluctant one. You see Julius Kambaragge Nyerere who said that he was a teacher by passion and by design and a politician by default Kwame Nukuruma politician, another Nelson Mandela, a reluctant leader, Martin Luther King Jr., who held no office, Mahatma Gandhi who held no office, but I believe that time will define how we choose to up the game in our activities in this continent. But I have never ever thought and this is the problem with many Africans. The assumption that in order to serve you must occupy office this is a problem and that is why there are so many conflicts in Africa where people think that you've got to be a member of parliament, you've got to be a president and that is why people kill each other to be presidents and then they mess African countries. But people who do great things are doing them without the burden of asking for public office. That does not say that if circumstances are right we will not seek it. Prof, talking about 21st century here in Africa right now, the talks of Kwame Nukuruma, Patrice Lumumba and Julius Nyerere do you think that we have a Pan-African leader in Africa right now, a Pan-African president at this very moment? That is a question that is very unfortunately I cannot identify a single leader who has the passion of Nukuruma, who has the passion of Nyerere, who has the passion of Lumumba or the passion of Nelson Mandela. I don't see that leader. There are few leaders that I admire and I think are doing good things but they are inward looking. If you listen to Kwame Nukuruma in 1958, you listen to Nyerere in 1963, 1996, 1997 you listen to Patrice Lumumba in 1961, you listen to Mandela in 1994 they are talking Africa. In other words, Africa is the main thing and their countries are little components in that jigsaw, that leader of the presidents that are alive today I don't think that there is any single one that is in that pantheon of this great man. I just want to know, are you proud of the AU? No, I'm not. The ACOAS? No, I'm not. The Saudi? I'm not. Why? Because these are organizations which have great potential but they have refused to use their potential to good effect. Let me give you an example of SADAC. SADAC brings together nearly about 14 countries. There are many issues that they ought to deal with. I want to see young men and women moving from country to country without the requirement for visas. What have we seen? We have seen xenophobia. Right now there is conflict in Mozambique as I speak to you now, 50 people are massacred by people described as Islamists. Not a single SADAC leader has condemned it. We have seen what happened recently in West Africa. You know what is happening in the coming runes. You know what is happening in Mali. You know what is happening in Mauritania. You know what is happening in Bukina Faso. And you don't see them coming out as they should. They have to be prodded to come out. And when they come out their statements are so measured that they have no impact. And people are being impeded in terms of movement. You saw what happened between Nigeria and Ghana at the semi-border. You are closing borders in a world that requires young men and women to move. And if you come to East Africa, the heads of states have been unable to meet. In state I see the president of Burundi celebrating that they have now been re-admitted into the Francophonie. Can you believe it? In this day and age. And the African Union of course, they used to say of its predecessor the OAU that it was a toothless bulldog. This one I doubt even if it is a bulldog. That is the tragedy. Bro, you know, I am a young African who travels within Africa. And it's sad sometimes things that you see when you travel to another African country. I just feel like we don't have leaders in Africa. Because certain things happen and no one is able to come out and speak against it. I have been arrested in an African country which is not supposed to happen. I have been deported in an African country which is not supposed to happen. Do you ever think that Africa should come under one umbrella and use one passport? Oh yeah, I have no doubt. And of course to their credit, the African Union about two years ago in Kigali in Rwanda came up with the African passport. But beyond the launch, nothing. I have quarrelled with a young lady at the entry in Namibia when they are asking me for a visa. And a white man is passing. I have been denied entry in Zambia. Because they said I was a threat to the security of Zambia. I don't know how I can threaten the security of a country. So there is a sense in which I think that Africa needs to style up. I look forward to the day. When a young Ghanaian will pick up his or a bag in Accra and ride a train and ride that train to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and the following week they are in Bangi in Central African Republic and they are in Lusaka and Lillongwe and they are looking for jobs without a work permit. It is doable because it is now happening in Europe. Europe which went to war with each other in two tribal wars that they called the first world war and the second world war. What you require is the dedication of young people. I no longer have faith in the generations that have gone past. Even my generation, I no longer have faith in most of them. I think it is your generation that are going to apply the necessary pressure and the remnants in the other generations will urge you on. Just look at the American election. You look at the intellectuals. They are expending so much energy giving you a blow by blow account in what is happening in American state. How does that matter? There is war in Ethiopia. They are not talking about it. There is war in Mozambique. They are not talking about it. There is an election in Tanzania. They are not talking about it. There is a forthcoming election in Uganda. They are not talking about it. There is a forthcoming election in Ghana. They do not know. Let me tell you. Yesterday, which was the sixth day of November this year, I was at a restaurant and I told somebody I want to test if these young people who are high school graduates know African leaders and I called for them and I asked them, do you know the president of Burundi, which is in the East African region? None of them knew the president of Burundi. But they knew which American actor had eaten something the previous day. They knew which European football had scored. They knew what was happening in the vote count in Georgia. How can a continent in the 21st century be so full of ignorant people and we expect that we are going to compete with the Chinese, with the Vietnamese, with the Japanese, with the Europeans and the Koreans in this age of information? Prof, you don't think our education system is wrong? Of course I do. For what you said, I think it's because of our education system, because we don't know our history. Somebody asked me a question yesterday that if you had the chance to change something in Africa, what will it be? I just said education system because I had to grow up just to find out my own history because we were never taught in school. A country like Ghana, you will never hear about common women to start growing up. I can't agree with you more. Do you know that in certain Scandinavian countries, whatever you study, whether it is geography, whether it is chemistry, whether it is physics, whether it is mathematics, you have got to learn the history of that thing. A people without a sense of history cannot have a sense of their present and cannot have a sense of their future. That is why when you go to European countries, they have museums. Museums are the link between the present generation and the past generation. Here in many African countries, out of 10 people, if you ask them now, they visited museums because it was mandatory to do so when they were at school. But they can't just take their children to museums. When they travel to Europe and America, they travel to Disneyland, not to museums. I can't agree with you more. One of the things that we must do is to decolonize our minds. Gugiwa's young was right because if you control a people's mind through indoctrination and through false information and through false history, then you can control them very easily. Prof, do you think Africa needs democracy? You know, this is a question. I'm very glad you've asked me that question because Europe and America came here. Europe and America, I called them the conceptual west. They came here and told us democracy means multi-party politics. Democracy means regular elections. That cannot possibly be the only meaning of democracy. That can only mean western democracy. Africa must now begin to define her own democracy. And how do I define democracy? Democracy is a government in which the people have the opportunity and the right to participate in decision-making. It will differ from society to society but as long as the people have a role in decision-making that to me will constitute democracy. So I believe that African societies must define their own idea of democracy as long as the people participate, as long as those who are in charge of people's affairs are answerable to the people. That and your own countryman Nanna Kobin and Kesia who himself is a traditional ruler and a former professor at the University of Cape Coast has written a book talking exactly about that. That this idea of democracy which is one size fits all must be discarded as long as if Africa is to grow. The reason why we can't work, why we think that western democracy doesn't work in Africa is because it is not suitable to our circumstances. You now see in every African country almost after election there is conflict. Because the winners will deem to have rigged and the losers will never accept. That is not how Africans reign their affairs. I'm not claiming to have an answer but I'm clear about one thing. In a democratic dispensation those who are in charge must know that they are there because the people have put them there and they must know that the people must participate in decision making. Prof, there is this initiative that was brought by African Union that's the AAFCTCA. Africa Continental Free Trade Area. I just want to know what do you think about this initiative? Good. On paper very good. And I have been in touch that they were supposed to start their activities on the first day of July this year out of Akragana but it was postponed but they went and received the offices from President Nana Danko Adu Akufo Adu and that they are beginning to operate from the first day of January. I've had a conversation with the CEO of the organization Wamkele Mene from South Africa and I think that if we were to implement that this is what in Kruma was speaking about in 1958 so that there are many things that we are implementing now which Lukruma spoke about in 62 years ago and what it seeks to do which I think would be beautiful is to break down tariff and non-tariff barriers so that a good if we have chocolate and ganayans and togolis and codaei warans are now making chocolate we can have that chocolate without any barrier when it comes to East Africa it is going to dissolve the borders so I think it is going to encourage intra-African trade if it is not hijacked already the French are working to hijack it already the British are working to hijack it already the Americans are working to hijack it already the Chinese are working to hijack it by entering into bilateral relationship with African countries while under the ACFTA we are saying that we are going to negotiate as a bloc so that when we are negotiating on certain critical matters Africans are going to negotiate with the Chinese as Africa not as individual countries and I think therefore challenges will be there but the prospects are quite good if we combine it with a number of things one let's have one passport two let us move towards a single currency within the African continent three let us remove work permit requirements and that will of course ensure that we also eliminate visa requirements and sometimes I know why African countries can't eliminate visa because it is a revenue collection thing I have always said you can actually say there is no visa but there is an entry fee some twenty dollars so that you don't lose the revenue and that entry fee also allows you to monitor people as they enter for security reasons but eliminate the visa if I wake up today and I say that I want to go to Malawi let me go to Malawi and you say at the border I'll pay twenty shillings and give my full details and in these days of technology I don't even need to fill the form I can do it online so by the time I go there they just click and they see I'm there and I pay I can even pay online and one of the things that you young people should begin to do because you are technically and technologically savvy and I hope this is going to happen African banks must now move in the direction of running an African credit and debit card we should run away from these visas these master cards I want an afro card that afro card will ensure that money circulates within the continent today I use a visa card linked to a bank the money goes outside of the continent so a lot of our money is getting out of the continent and when that happens it means we can't fund research and development when we can't fund research and development it means that you who are in the technological space you cannot enable you to participate in the commercial arena and yet we are going to be 1.4 billion SCFTA is going to create the largest common market in the world