The Paradox of United States of Africa
Daily Champion (Lagos)
OPINION
27 August 2007
Posted to the web 27 August 2007
By Chuma Ifedi
Lagos
THE ninth ordinary summit of the African Union failed to bring into fruition once again the dream of the African founding fathers which is the formation of the United States of Africa.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, was the driving force and did everything possible to convince the other delegates at the recent Ghana conference. Observers believe that he was merely trying to make his presence felt after three decades of diplomatic isolation. Expectedly, Nigeria adopted a gradualist approach.
What we saw in Ghana was another reincarnation of the events in the same city of Accra in 1965 when Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah lost out in the call for the immediate creation of a United States of Afria. Despite the desire of African leaders to unite, even the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was not easy. There was a great deal of infighting and rivalries which had to be overcome to allow for the formation of the organisation at Addis Ababa in 1963.
The fight occurred between and among Casablanca, Brazzaville and Monrovia groups. In the course of the conflict of opinions, the diverse nature of the component parts of the continent were highlighted as the stumbling blocks. Apart from the United States of America which evolved from a confederation under the 1777 Articles of Confederation into a federation, states of the world have de-emphasized potential confederation of independent nations due to the complexities involved. Economic integration such as the European Union has become the vogue. The reality staring us in the face is that it is dangerous and obviously myopic to force down the concept of a merger on unwilling African states.
There are too many differences to be reconciled among African states. The multiplicity of languages including Arabic, Swahili, Hausa and many others in addition to French, English and Portugese requires to be addressed. What wil be the lingua franca in the United States of Africa? How do we smoothen the prevailing communication barriers? A situation in which Islamism and Christianity are overtly contending for supremacy cannot help matters. While Islamism has its base in Saudi Arabia, christianity has a primordial attachment to Israel, a nation permanently at war with the Arab world. North Africa accounts for over 60 per cent of the Arab world.
The political systems in Africa are as divergent as the rainbow. There are democratic, one-party, military as well as dictatorial regimes. On what political platform do we erect the United States of Africa? Are the respective independent states ready to surrender their sovereignty without resistance? By what criterial shall we elect the president of the United States of Africa and devise the hierachy of governance? What will be the foreign policy of the emergent union? In the context of the prevailing Anglophone and Francophone dichotomy, what indeed will be the direction of our international relations? By what means shall we resolve the raging civil wars all over the African continent? The prospects of stability in such a milieu of anarchy are very distant.
Will the new union be foisted on capitalist or socialist economic orientation? Africa has a cormucopia of national economic development programmes based on different ideologies. Countries like Zimbabwe are literally ravaged by an inflationary spiral of over 3000 per cent. For all intents and purposes, the economic profile of Africa is chaotic directly subjugated to the pressures of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which are known to be offsprings of the most powerful G8. Everything is patently wrong with African economic management in the wake of unprecedented poverty, thieving political leaders with massive foreign accounts, corruption and escalating youth unemployment and crime rate, very little is being done to halt the population explosion and undue dependence on foreign capital. Without the lopsided loans from Europe and North America, few African states will survive.
The African Union Government (AUG) is premature. It is an ultimate goal achievable probably in the next 100 years. For now, the emphasis should be on consolidating the regional groupings like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and South African Development Community (SADC). Many proposals such as the common currency is far from being realised. Similarly, common customs and immigration policies. The current trend is that every nation clings to its sovereignty. Since the birth of the African Union five years ago, several key institutions have been set up like the Peace and Security Council, Pan-African Parliament and the African Tribunal on Human and People’s Rights.
But the African Union has not been able to implement to the full what is envisaged in the Constitutive Scheme. It is ridiculous that the same African countries which cannot constitute and fund the Peace-Keep force in Sudan are spending sleepless nights on a union government. A merger of that immense magnitude demands a formidable political will.
Africa must promote a strong relations between the white North and the black South. The establishment of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa in January 1975 was a significant step in the right direction. So also the earlier Special Arab Fund for Africa launched in 1974 as a result of direct consultation between the OAU oil committee and the ten countries of the organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting countries. Bilateral financial cooperation and assistance between North Africans and the south will boost African solidarity.
The need for a United States of Africa is highly desirable. But, the process must be gradual, painstaking, realistic and well structured to take into consideration all the complex implications of bringing together such a heteregenous composition of divergent politics, economics and societies. The collapse of the Soviet Union and other similar confederations is instructive. Besides, we want a new breed of leadership superior to the present band of selfish, greedy and Kleptomanistic corrupt hypocrites.
