PAP, Traoré and the farce of Pan-Africanism without power

Liberal commentators miss the point entirely when they treat the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) as a weak institution waiting for reform. They speak of protocols, procedures, committees, direct elections and governance standards as though Africa suffers from poor administration. Africa suffers from stolen power. The PAP held its Extraordinary Session of the Seventh Legislature in Midrand from 28 to 30 April 2026 and elected Algeria’s Fateh Boutbig as president of its new Bureau. The African Union (AU) presented the moment as institutional renewal, regional rotation and continental maturity. The newly elected Bureau now carries the language of reform, representation and revitalisation. The words sound familiar because African people have heard them for decades. Every summit promises renewal. Every declaration invokes unity. Every protocol gestures towards liberation while the material life of the continent remains trapped inside the colonial architecture that produced Africa as an extraction zone. The Malabo Protocol sits at the centre of this discussion. It promises to move PAP from advisory weakness to legislative authority. PAP’s own reporting places ratifications at 15, while 28 ratifications are required before the protocol enters into force. That delay reveals a political truth. African heads of state invoke Pan-African unity while guarding presidential power from continental accountability. They praise African people while keeping African people outside the structures that claim to speak for them. The Sahel forces this contradiction into the open. Ibrahim Traoré’s Burkina Faso lays bare the coloniality problem inside the AU and PAP far more powerfully than the endless promise of reform papers does. Burkina Faso remains an AU member under suspension from participation in AU activities after the 2022 coup, pending what the AU calls the restoration of constitutional order. It has also left Ecowas alongside Mali and Niger, with the three states consolidating the All