By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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The last ten days of July featured interesting events involving the youth of East Africa.

On July 21, Kenya’s President William Ruto said enough was enough, thus officially losing patience with the Gen-Z movement to whose demands he had earlier acquiesced by killing the Finance Bill that had sparked protests.

The president, who blamed the protests on foreign players, proceeded to appoint a new Cabinet of “national unity,” bringing in opposition figures, apparently reducing the economic/ accountability crisis to political power sharing.

In Kampala on July 22, a pro-regional integration youth body, Afrika Mashariki Fest, launched an annual combined Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Pilgrimage “Twende Butiama”  for October 14 to commemorate the (25^th) anniversary of Tanzania’s founder’s passing by reflecting on his ideals of unity and honesty while at the same time marking the 25^th anniversary for the revival of the East African Community.

Read: Road trip in memory of Mwalimu Nyerere

Tanzania’s High Commissioner to Kampala Major-General Paul Simuli Kisesa co-hosted the historic event.

Most of the pilgrims from Uganda, comprising locals, Congolese, Burundians and Eritreans, will travel to Nyerere’s birthplace in Butiama by buses designed and built in Uganda, to honour his spirit of economic emancipation through industrialisation for import substitution.

The rest will fly by a chartered Uganda Airlines plane from Entebbe to Mwanza, a route between too major regional towns that has no scheduled flights, further poking the regional leaders who have so far failed to deliver a unified commercial airspace.

Still in Kampala on July 23, youthful activists defying a stern presidential warning to not dare stage a protest against corruption in the Legislature, attempted a march on Parliament and scores were arrested.

Read: Ugandan security forces arrest protesters marching in Kampala

The government blamed foreigners for the protest, just like its Kenyan counterpart had.

And on July 25, the Comesa-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) came into force.

What a beckoning sign of the times that Eastern and Southern African leaders should see as it flashes brightly in their eyes!

Given the intelligence at their disposal, the leaders’ claim of foreign hands in the youth protests cannot be dismissed.

The foreign interests could at least have come in after the youth mooted the protests.

In fact, a political officer in a powerful country’s embassy would be sleeping on the job if s/he didn’t try to sneak into the gap and “offer some help” to angry aspiring players in a territory of attractive resources with a growing market.

But that should be a wakeup call, not a problem. For, if foreign powers seek to have the local youth on their side, even for selfish intent, why shouldn’t disgruntled youth’s own government seek to have them on its side?

Why wait for foreigners to seek to recruit your youth, why not beat them to it by recruiting the youth through engagement before they become agitated?

Unless, of course, the assumption by African leaders is that all the youth are happy with the massive corruption that they themselves acknowledge to exist. 

And how does the TFTA, which became operational that week of snubbing agitated youth, come in?

First of all, how wonderful it would be if everyone pronounced TFTA in a Swahili way as “Tafuta,” which it actually means as in “look for” or “go find” freely the market for your product or service anywhere in the 29 countries it covers, that have a combined population of 800 million people (well over half of Africa’s total) and total GDP of $1.9 trillion! 

This is a make-or-break stage in Africa’s development, with its place in the global economy already getting precarious, as the leaders are aware.

Consider this: At independence six decades ago, Africa accounted for four percent of global trade, exporting mostly raw materials.

Today, Africa’s share of the global trade value has declined to 2.5 percent though its population has more than doubled.

Sadly, Africa still increasingly trades more with outsiders (exporting more raw material volumes but cheaply) than among its countries.

So, the youth of Africa should be courted and influenced by African leaders rather than by foreigners.

If there is expanded demand by the freed market on the continent, the case would be strong for industrialization, which would create millions of jobs for the African youth, who now would rather risk being eaten by sharks in the Mediterranean than languish in stagnated, actually shrinking economies.

If you neglect your children while big bullies around you pluck the food from their hungry mouths, you are tempting your neighbour to influence them against you, which is bad but understandable.

What matters is that it can be avoided, and for the better. 

So, let the architects of TFTA give it a mandatory mandate to support lawful anti-corruption youth movements in its member countries.

Not doing so will leave them open to influence by external forces, to Africa’s detriment.