Africa needs leaders who will rise above petty ideological, ethnic and religious quarrels, the flag bearer of the Progressive People’s Party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has argued.

“What Africa needs are people to lead who will rise above petty ideological, ethnic and religious quarrels to consider the greater good of all African people.”

In a statement to mark African Union Day which fell Thursday, he said “we must believe in ourselves, ” saying “We Africans must remember that it is through unity that we can have strong institutions that will help us do away with unnecessary internal conflicts, disease and poverty.”

On May 25, 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed. The organisation was restructured and re-named the African Union on July 11, 2002.

According to Dr Nduom, he disagreed with many commentators who had suggested that the African continent had not made any progress towards unity.

“I disagree. More than any other continent on the face of the earth, Africa has suffered throughout the years at the hands of invaders. The slave trade, the partition and sharing of its territory among colonial powers, religious crusaders, the east-west cold war, etc, have left difficult and stressful marks on the continent and its people,” he stated.

In this regard he said that Africans spoke English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, all non-indigenous languages, that required the people to learn multiple languages for survival.

In his view, the scramble for the gold, diamond, copper, gold, uranium and recently oil and gas had equally fanned the flames of

internal conflicts from Liberia to Angola to Mozambique to Sudan, the Congo and points in between.

Yet Africa still stands and Africans have hope, he pointed out.

He said an effective Common Market would ensure that Africa retained more profits from her gold, timber, cocoa, diamond, oil and gas, etc., at home in Africa to rapidly improve the standard of living for her people.

He said “Americans are fighting to retain their prosperous American way of life. The European Union is fighting to strengthen the European markets and save jobs. We need the African Union to wage an aggressive war against poverty, war and disease. We need the African Union to open up our borders for intra-Africa trade, travel and investment.”

He said those who wanted to discourage the African people, wanted to discount our history, the rape and theft of resources and assign a permanent mark of irresponsibility and despair on us would not succeed.

He said the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) gave birth to the Peer Review Mechanism and gave our people hope that good governance would arrive soon in many countries through peer pressure.