“It’s the most difficult thing to experience, being exiled. I’ve had to start everything over again. My assets are all frozen and I can never go home.” These are the words of an exasperated, emotionally exhausted Navigue Konate.

We meet on the sidelines of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation’s Youth Retreat, held in Johannesburg at the end of September. Young people from across Africa met to discuss transformation of the continent and ways of making the African Renaissance become a reality.

38-year-old Konate, a Cote d’Ivoire native, became a political activist in high school, when a teacher encouraged his class to fight injustices in their country.

Years later he was exiled when his leader Laurent Gbagbo was taken into custody by United Nations forces in April 2011, following a civil war. He was living in Gbagbo’s house at the time and says his saving grace, was the fact that he and some of his compatriots had left in search of food. “They (the army) landed as I was coming back from a food hunt. I heard grenades. I saw soldiers rushing into our home and immediately made a run for it.”

Konate is missing home. His voice goes a few octaves higher as he says, “It’s ze French”, claiming that the west African country’s current leader Alassane Ouattara is being bankrolled and controlled by France. “If I tried to go back, I would be lucky if I just got arrested. Everyday women are being raped, men are being tortured. Gbagbo supporters are playing hide and seek, fearing for their lives.”

Konate should have vacated his role as youth leader when he turned thirty, but says that won’t happen until his cabinet meets and they have elections to choose his successor.

Although he is thankful that Ghana provided him a safe haven, he’s unhappy as he never wanted to go underground. He wanted to work with his comrades to bring about a revolution in his home country. “Gbagbou is at The Hague but he should be with his people. I was uprooted from an incredibly tense environment but I should be in Abidjan. I want to go home but I need home to be better. It must be better than the Ivory Coast I left behind last year.”