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A UNITED States of Africa, strong, powerful,
functionally integrated, and technologically
advanced, is a dream that would forever captivate
the minds and imagination of most Africans. In a
world in which power remains the currency of
international politics, it is logical to expect a
natural accretion of power towards poles or points
of concentration since only such points can offer
opportunities for power maximization. This explains
why every international system has easily
identifiable power centres and why the trend among
state and non-state actors alike is towards
functional integration or cooperation.
The logic of imperialism and colonisation had of
necessity to follow the opposite trajectory of power
diffusion, making the colonies exploitable points of
weakness in the international system. Hence, whereas
pre-colonial Africa could boast of a number of
empires and kingdoms that could be classified as
power centres, these were effectively balkanised
into smaller colonial states controlled from
metropolitan Europe. At the end of the
decolonisation process, the colonial state evolved
into the post-colonial state, with all its
territorial and structural inadequacies. The logic
of power and competition in the international system
should have made it immediately apparent that on
their own few of the newly independent African
states could embark on any meaningful trajectory of
development and power accumulation. Most were simply
too small and too weak to evolve into power centres.
A move towards functional cooperation and
integration was clearly a necessary and desirable
precondition for African development.
To be sure, a few visionary leaders recognised this.
Foremost among them was Kwame Nkrumah, the leader
who led Ghana to independence in 1957. Nkrumah had
the vision and the dream of a united Africa, which
he offered through the ideology of Pan-Africanism.
In fact Pan-Africanism had inspired many African and
Diaspora intellectuals and leaders since the 19th
century; a Pan-Africanist Congress attended by
leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta had
been convened in Manchester as far back as 1945. In
1958, barely a year after leading Ghana to
independence, Nkrumah had convened a Pan-Africanist
Congress in Accra to persuade other African leaders
to share in his dream of a United States of Africa.
Unfortunately, for most of the emerging ruling
elite in Africa, exercising maximum power in their
little state enclaves was far more important than
pooling their meagre national resources together in
a pan-African union. With the exception of a few
countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Mali, Guinea and
Morocco, no other African countries shared Nkrumah's
vision. Hence the best that could be fashioned out
was the Organisation of African Unity, which neither
promoted African unity nor fostered a move towards
greater functional integration across the continent.
For over four decades, the principles of sovereignty
and non-interference in the internal affairs of
member states remained cardinal to the operations of
the OAU, until trends in other parts of the world
and the reality of the African situation led to the
transformation of the organisation to its current
status, the African Union or AU, which was
established in 2002.
It is against this backdrop that the current move
initiated by President Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya
to transform the AU to a United States of Africa
should be viewed. President Gadaffi rules over a
desert country with a population of six million
which is nevertheless endowed with enormous
petroleum resources. Since emerging as the country's
leader in a coup in 1969, Gadaffi has promoted
revolutionary and ideological causes including moves
towards Pan-Arabism and lately, Pan-Africanism.
President Gadaffi had been most instrumental in the
transformation of the OAU into the AU.
At the 9th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of
the African Union, held in July 2007 in Accra,
Ghana, President Gadaffi had been at the vanguard of
those who sought to accelerate the process of
creating a United States of Africa. This group had
been opposed by the "gradual incrementalists" in
what was dubbed the "Grand Debate on Union
Government". The latter group prevailed at the time,
but apparently not for long. Although the 12th
Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit of
Heads of State and Government held recently in Addis
Ababa had as theme "Infrastructure Development in
Africa," it was the push for a United States of
Africa that dominated discussions. Once again it was
President Gadaffi that gave momentum and verve to
the idea.
However, as in the past, the idea did not have
much support from most countries, including the big
economies such as Nigeria and South Africa. In fact,
Nigeria was represented by Vice President Goodluck
Jonathan, who would certainly not have had the
authority to commit the country to such a
revolutionary decision. In the end a compromise was
reached which permitted the addition of "Authority"
to the name of the African Union, thereby
transforming it to the African Union Authority.
President Gadaffi was also elected as the next
chairman of the AU.
If precedent is anything to go by not much will
come out of the desire to use the AU platform to
forge a United States of Africa. In 1972, President
Gadaffi had tried to fuse his small country into a
union with Egypt and Syria to create the "Federation
of Arab Republics". In 1974, he made a similar
attempt to unite Libya and Tunisia. Neither of these
succeeded. His ambition to establish a North African
Arab federation from Morocco in the west to Egypt in
the east also fizzled out. And it is most likely
that the current attempt to create a United States
of Africa will follow a similar path.
These failures are inevitable because unions
are not created to satisfy the whims of a
leadership. Numerous examples across the world
demonstrate that the process is long, gradual,
deliberate and sectoral. In short, a union of
disparate sovereign states can only be created
through a gradual process of functional integration.
That is the model adopted by the European Union, and
that is the true path towards a United States of
Africa. If Africans want to actualise the dream of
pan-Africanism they should adopt a process of co-ordinate
integration by applying the necessary political will
to regional integration through existing movements
such as ECOWAS and SADC. When the sub-regions are
sufficiently integrated they would provide the
necessary platform for continental union. Only then
would the dream manifest into reality. |
