Gamal Nkrumah's column was the subject of a lively online forum

The issue is not whether Africa should unite: she must!

Although Kwame Nkrumah's vision was and is still great, so much has changed in the geopolitical landscape of the African continent.

Africa should unite based on adaptations of Nkrumah's vision.

It will require selfless leadership, which is presently almost entirely absent.

It also requires the acceptance of a rich diversity and, most importantly, it requires a highly conscious citizenry, a population that can hold corrupt governments to account.

Alieu Darboe, Latrikunda, The Gambia

Constipated Africa

Africa has a leadership problem. She is heavily constipated and needs to purge herself of leaders who see political power as the icing on their career cakes.

The Mugabes, the Contés and others like them have no place in a truly united Africa.

As far as I am concerned, African unity has to move away from a geographical unity and enter into an ideological one.

Physical boundaries were created as a means of African division but that is in history's dustbin now.

Let's not wait until we are ideologically Balkanised before we start another round of the blame game.

Deladem Abanaglo, Accra, Ghana

Elastic nation

As a Kenyan, the first thing I turned to in the January-March 2007 issue of the magazine was the story by Gray Phombeah on identity in our country.

I had no complaints, and totally agree with his analysis! It is very clear that Kenyans will be anything you want them to be as long as it brings them money, as we saw recently in Kibera where politically correct people used idle youths to silence the opposing camp, causing loss of lives and the destruction of property.

It is a shame that over 40 years of independence have done little to change the way we perceive one another, especially if someone is of a different tribe.

It is high time that Kenyans woke up and embraced the ideals of our founding fathers, especially Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, as we seek to eradicate poverty, disease and, most importantly, ignorance.

Gichohi wa Nderitu, Nairobi, Kenya

Fortune-seekers

I fully support Gray Phombeah's article on Kenya's copycat culture, in the January-March issue of the magazine. Most Kenyans do not know who they are.

Kenyans will be anything you want them to be, as long as it brings them money.

It's embarrassing to see Tanzanians distinguished by their vitenge dresses and head gear, Ugandans by their staple food and so on.

But in Kenya, efforts to come up with a national dress have always been fruitless.

They want to copy the West and be seen as serious people in three-piece suits. It shows that when the colonisers left, they left their clones behind.

Wake up Kenyans and be patriotic to your nation.

George Gatume Waweru, Nairobi, Kenya

One-eyed perspective

All the excitement I felt about the previous edition of Focus on Africa magazine washed away when I glimpsed Sola Odunfa's article entitled "Under Siege". Frankly, it's rather unfair.

How can the crisis of interests in the Peoples' Democratic Party, numbering only a couple of thousand, equate to the "value of human life diminishing in Nigeria", which has some 140 million people?

Nigeria needs a break from these ceaseless humiliations. What else will she have to do to win some positive mention in the global media? Aren't the various socio-economic successes of the past couple of years deserving of some reportage?

Perhaps Sola might begin to see the other side of Nigeria that everyone – Focus on Africa magazine included – appears determined not to acknowledge.

Pelu Awofeso, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

This is a small selection of letters published in the April - June 2007 edition of Focus on Africa magazine.

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