With JAK as AU Chairman, There is hope for Africa`s future

THE CHOICE of President Kufuor as the new Chairman of the African Union (AU) has sparked various opinions.

Whilst some have given it a thumps up, others have also sought to render it irrelevant and worthless but Professor George Ayittey, an Economist at the American University says it “offers fresh hope to a continent that is dysfunctional and lost”.

In a telephone interview with this reporter after speaking with the BBC on the same issue, on Monday, January 29, 2007, he said “Congratulations to President Kufuor for a richly deserved selection. He is one of the few African leaders who can steer the AU in a new direction”.

He says “President Kufuor's nomination brings a new hope for a beleaguered continent”.
According to him, the continent faces crises galore in Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan (Darfur), Chad, Somalia, Congo, Zimbabwe, among others with another just rising in Guinea, while the AIDS, food and debt crisis, as well as others, continue to rage.The record of the AU's defunct predecessor – the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in resolving these crises was grotesquely abysmal, he said.

In his opinion “all it did was to appeal, appeal and badger the international community for aid and peacekeepers” and nothing else.

As the new AU Chairman, Prof. Ayittey emphasised that President Kufuor must take the AU in a new direction and restore its lost stature.

For him, “The former Chairman, President Dennis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo (Brazzaville) did nothing to burnish the AU's image even in neighbouring DR Congo”.

Speaking in Accra on Jan 25, 2007, former U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, provided a hint of the new direction for Africa in which he noted that “African leaders must adopt three pillars – peace, development and security.”

That notwithstanding, he said “talk without action is meaningless” hence Kufuor should act swiftly to restore the image and dignity of Africa.

Professor Ayittey, who is also President of the Free Africa Foundation, noted that Africa as it stands now needs a new organisation with teeth and which means what it says.
The proposed organisation, he said, “should be called the Organisation of Free African States” (OFAS).

If the AU is modeled after the EU, he stressed that it must be realised that not all European countries can become members of the EU hence strict eligibility requirements must be met.

Similarly, he said rogue nations in Africa should not become members of OFAS. Furthermore, he noted that all countries that fail to meet the ideals of the organisation must be expelled from OFAS.

In that regard, the distinguished Fellow noted that if an African country collapses into conflict and anarchy, OFAS must intervene to stop the killing and, if necessary, take over the running of the country.

For this reason, he said the imperative of OFAS must be to protect the people, not warlords or despots and as such, he prescribed that the first test of eligibility should be democracy, which must be clearly defined by OFAS.

Left to him alone, only those African countries that have an independent and free media (for freedom of expression and free flow of information), an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), an independent electoral commission, and an independent central bank (to check capital flight) should be eligible to join OFAS.

“African peasants know that not everyone can become a member of a village organisation without satisfying an eligibility requirement. Even kings must meet certain tests. Further, trouble-makers can be expelled from a village and bad kings can be removed”.

He is thus of the conviction that an African Union under the leadership of President Kufuor will be a success story.