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Veteran journalist and Pan-Africanist Kwesi Pratt Jnr has issued a passionate call to African youth to reject foreign influence, end imperial exploitation, and unite across generational lines to reclaim control of the continent’s immense natural wealth.
Speaking at the International Youth Forum on Debt and Reparations in Accra on September 5, 2026, Pratt acknowledged the power of recent diplomatic unity among African nations at the United Nations, but warned that these triumphs are undermined when governments sign bilateral security and intelligence agreements with foreign powers.
Pratt cited Ghana’s Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) to demonstrate how leaders fail to protect finite assets, criticizing plans to sell a 70 percent stake to foreign investors for $600 million despite sitting on bauxite reserves valued at $10 billion. He emphasized that finite resources like gold, bauxite, and lithium are being permanently depleted, while colonial-era infrastructure continues to route mineral wealth straight to ports rather than powering domestic economic development
Dismissing generational tags like the “Gen Z revolution,” Pratt argued that true resistance is defined by a shared struggle against exploitation rather than age. He urged young people to form solid alliances with workers and older generations to achieve total economic independence.
Reframing the campaign for reparations, Pratt described it as a fundamental demand to overhaul international institutions like the IMF and United Nations, secure resource ownership, and reform educational systems to discard colonial narratives.
The forum concluded with delegates from Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger adopting the Legon Declaration. Framing themselves as a generation inheriting illegitimate debt, the youth called for debt cancellation, monetary sovereignty, full control over natural resources, and solidarity with the Alliance of Sahel States.
