Professor Edmund Ugwu Agbo, Chief Organizer of African Week and Law Professor at the United Nations University for Peace, has accused Western powers of keeping Africa poor and dependent through modern forms of control and weak leadership.
Speaking at the opening of African Week 2025 in Abuja, Agbo said Africa is no longer colonized by guns but by debt and bad leadership encouraged by powerful global interests.
“We are in a deeper kind of colonization,” he said. “Institutions like the IMF and World Bank keep African countries in constant debt, and many of our leaders can’t think for themselves anymore.”
Agbo claimed that some African leaders are chosen or backed by foreign powers because they are weak and easy to control.
“They don’t want strong African leaders. They pick the weakest so they can keep Africa weak,” he said.
He urged Africans to reject foreign systems that don’t reflect the continent’s needs or culture.
“We must create our own definition of democracy. Too many times, we copy ideas that were never meant for us,” he said.
Using Libya as an example, Agbo said that although Gaddafi didn’t come to power the usual way, his leadership brought order and progress before foreign interference led to chaos.
“Libya was stable under Gaddafi. After foreign forces stepped in, the country fell apart,” he noted.
He also criticized Africa’s outdated school systems, saying they were designed to keep Africans thinking like their colonizers.
“We were not educated to be free. We were trained to obey,” he said. “But today’s youth have the internet—they can break free from mental slavery.”
This year’s African Week theme, “African-European and Africa-Asia Cooperation for a Shared Future,” ties into the African Union’s focus on justice and reparation for Africa and its people. For Agbo, reparation must include restoring dignity and confidence to Africans.
“We lost more than land and artifacts—we lost our self-worth,” he said. “Reparation must heal the African mind.”
African Week has grown from a UNESCO initiative into a global movement, with 2025 celebrations happening in Rome, Bitonto, Abuja, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the U.S. Professor Agbo said plans are underway to hold future celebrations within Africa itself.
“Africa must stop waiting for permission to lead,” he said. “We must rise, think for ourselves, and shape our own future.”