Reinterpreting Guy Martin’s African Political Thought in the Contemporary Frame “A Critical Review and Reassessment of Case Studies in Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Guinea, and South Africa”

This article undertakes a systematic review and reevaluation of the Pan-African political economy framework developed by Guy Martin in African Political Thought (2012), focusing on Chapters 4, 6, and 8, which address Pan-Africanism and African Unity, the socialist-populist ideologies of Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sékou Touré, and Modibo Kéïta, and the Africanist-populist perspectives of Claude Ake and Daniel Osabu-Kle respectively. Employing a qualitative document analysis grounded in a decolonial-critical approach informed by Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of critical consciousness and dependency theory, the article pursues three objectives: to evaluate the continuing relevance of structural dependency as an explanatory framework for underdevelopment across five case-study countries; to assess the historical legacy and contemporary policy resonance of African socialist experiments; and to examine the state of Pan-African continental economic integration since Martin’s writing. Drawing on empirical evidence from Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Guinea, and South Africa including recent macroeconomic data, AfCFTA implementation statistics, digital economy indicators, and youth demographic trends the study confirms that Pan-Africanism as imagined by Martin retains significant intellectual vitality while revealing interpretive limitations in the context of a more multipolar, digitally networked, and institutionally complex Africa of the 2020s. The article extends Martin’s framework to incorporate Chinese economic engagement as a new axis of dependency, digital extractivism as an emergent form of structural extraction, intra-African distributional conflicts, and the epistemic dimensions of development failure identified by recent decolonial scholars. The article concludes with three Freirean policy recommendations directed at policymakers, academics, and civil society advocates in pursuit of genuine African economic sovereignty.

Pan-Africanism, African political economy, dependency theory, African socialism, decolonial theory, Guy Martin, Freire, AfCFTA, digital economy, youth movements, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Guinea, South Africa

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