21:38 Revolutionary Pan African greetings to everyone. My name is Siphiwe Baleka. I am attending in the capacity as the Head of Research and Strategy for the Pan-African Federalist Movement West Africa Region. Greetings to my good friend and comrade brother Imani. We have started working together this year and he knows my position on these things already. . . .
26:00 I happen to agree with what comrade Ayo just said, which is that we should simply ignore the African Union and build the alternatives that put people at the center. If we're going to talk about Unity, if we're going to talk about a United African States the question has to be asked: what kind of unity is it going to be? Unity of the political elites at the top or is it going to be a Unity of the African people at home and abroad? I believe all of us here would like to see the unity of all African people at home and abroad and so our conversation is best directed at the logistics of how to harness the sovereignty that exists within African people to bring about that kind of United African States and this is the agenda of the Pan African Federalist Movement again which I am here representing.
I'll give you one example in the Alliance for Sahel States if you look at the constitution of Burkina Faso, article 146 and article 147 state that any proposal for a confederation a federation or a complete Unity, a Continental Unity, must be submitted as a referendum to the Burkinabe people. And so I am suggesting that now the time is right for all Pan Africans to unite behind that. Go in and say we support what is happening and in order to demonstrate to the world that we support the Alliance, we support President Ibrahim Traore and to give Democratic legitimacy to what's happening, we organize the first referendum because it's already part of the Constitution. Having had that successful referendum, we use that as an example, a template. We go to Niger, we go to Mali and then we start going out to all the other African Nations and have these referendums. Now any nation that would refuse would eventually become a pariah because it could be said, “well, why are democratic principles and freedoms respected in the Sahel Alliance and they're allowed to have a referendum on this issue so that the people can exercise self-determination and these other nations are preventing it?” We would then be able to shame and isolate these pariah nations who refuse to accept the sovereignty of the people. This is where our conversation should be at because the African Union is not going to close its doors and we don't have the power to shut them. The best we can do is, like brother comrade Ayo said, build the alternative and I'll land there. Thank you.”
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