AFRICAN UNION, IS IT A WASTE OF TIME?

EVER since the over throw of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of the Republic of Ghana and the proponent of the African Union idea, very keen observers of the African continent think, whatever is left of the idea and whatever is being done to promote the idea, is just a waste of time, energy and scarce resources.

We know that our great leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, proposed the formation of a Union Government for the whole continent just like United States of America (USA) and the European Union, so the people of Africa can travel freely and trade freely with each other.

He also proposed a common currency for Africans. People can not move about freely if they have restrictions with money and have to be changing the money they have on them every now and then depending on where they are.

There is also no doubt that Africa, because of its size, is made of thousands of tribes, with different cultural and traditional backgrounds and different languages. This cultural difference has created misunderstanding sometime among some Africans and has resulted in wars.

It was for this reason that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, again proposed the setting up of an African high Command or a common army that can be deployed very quickly in trouble spots and also help maintain peace on the continent.

This, at the time and even now, are a very laudable idea that, if African leaders had given it some attention, would have propelled the development of the African continent and today, we would not be at the mercy of developed nations.

42 years after the formation of the African Union, then the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), what has been its achievement?

Just like the Group of eight (G8), the African Union has become a big social club for the Heads of State of the African Continent that meet every now and then to fraternize and chat over Champaign and cups of coffee.

Majority of the African people think it is a social club because most of the time, whatever decisions taken at the gatherings, never get implemented and at the end of the day, it is foreign NGOs that take advantage of the short comings of African leaders and exploit the situation.

A typical example is Darfur, in Sudan.

Let's ask ourselves, what has been done in Darfur by African leaders, as the government in Sudan, continue destroying innocent lives in that part of the country?

Anytime African Leaders have met on Darfur, the meeting has become a talk shop, where African leaders would trade in their views on what they think should be done. At the end of the meeting, nothing gets done and they depart to their countries blaming Western nations of not doing enough to stop the carnage in Darfur. But what has African leaders themselves done to stop the killings going on there?

Zimbabwe is another trouble spot waiting for solution in their fight with the European Union and the United States of America over Mugabe's seizure of white owned lands in that country.

With the exception of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who because he understands the problem, has been supportive of the Zimbabwean President, most African leaders have joined the West to condemn President Robert Mugabe for taking over white owned lands.

Is Robert Mugabe not a member of the African Union Club? If he is, has any of his colleagues, taken the trouble to read the Lancaster Agreement, which ushered in the independence of Zimbabwe?

At least, what some of us expect is that, before anyone should condemn President Mugabe's action, in connection with Zimbabwe's land policy, he or she must first understand what was agreed upon at Lancaster during that country's independence talks in the 1970s.

What do we see today?

While talking about an African Union, where all the peoples of the continent would come together as one people, some African leaders in meetings with their Western counterparts, condemn the Zimbabwean action while some, even do the condemnation in public.

An example of this behaviour is when the African Union Chairman, President J. A. Kufuor of Ghana condemned Robert Mugabe during his visit to the United Kingdom on a state visit and also accepted cash donation from the British government to host the African Union Human Rights summit in Accra to condemn Zimbabwe's human rights policies.

One person who does not cease fascinating me is the Libyan leader, President Gaddafi. If our memories serve us right, he was the one who championed the change from OAU to African Union with a very laudable speech in Nigeria, only to go back to his country and start molesting Africans migrating to his part of the world, which is Libya. Continued    Source: Palaver

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