A united front of political parties and civic groups took to the streets of Durban calling for tighter immigration controls and the large-scale removal of undocumented migrants.
The scramble for Africa during the 1884 and 1885 Berlin Conference, in Germany, remains intact to this day despite decades-long initiatives to address such issues.
The purpose of the conference was to ensure that Africa's future was decided as a supplier of resources and raw materials to the West.
After this, every possible initiative and media became unleashed to rattle Africa's image and prospects. It was the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (now the AU) in 1963 in Addis Ababa, which became not only momentous but also gave hope to Africans.
The formation of the OAU sought to promote Pan-Africanism and maintain the sovereignty of African states. In essence this was to ensure the addressing and advocating for the reversal of colonial decisions, as they were meant to paralyse Africa for good.
At the centre of this decolonial project was the ideological debate of presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, which has been forgotten. This debate should be resuscitated to become a regular feature in our reflections if Africa Day celebrations are to be meaningful.
These reflections put us in a position of hindsight over Nkrumah and Nyerere. I do not think we have taken full advantage of this hindsight, but instead it seems we have become way too comfortable to contend with the chaos of poverty, inequality, economic migration, exclusion and youth unemployment, among other things.
This comfort position continues to delay the prosperity and competitiveness of Africa even more on a global scale.
So, Nkrumah's position regarding the need for an immediate united Africa with a continental government needs revisiting, especially considering geopolitical issues that are currently shifting in favour of the global South and China in particular.
His position was also propelled by his own mobilisation of the West African nations support to reverse what I consider to be the colonial agenda to conquer, divide and exploit Africa for eternity. This position was always going to ruffle the feathers of colonial powers, as it represented a radical change that was going to require resilience, courage and sustained efforts.
This is now an opportune time for Africa to revisit this position in an intentional and concretised manner.
The article was first published in the Sowetan Newspaper.