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16.01.2011 Commentary

ARP Chairman Yahaya Ndu: When All African Peoples Are Liberated, African Unification Can Start

By Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin MegalommatisDr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
16.01.2011 LISTEN

In four earlier articles titled "Nigeria 2011: Chances for an African Renaissance. Interview with ARP Chairman, Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu", "ARP Chairman Yahaya Ndu: African Renaissance to Redress Criminally Instituted African Borderlines", "Chairman Yahaya Ndu Confident Nigeria and Africa Can Rise to Prominence Again", and "African Renaissance Party Chairman Yahaya Ndu, Nigeria, India, Brazil, China, Africa and the UN", I published the first four parts of an interview with Mr. Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu, Chairman of the African Renaissance Party (ARP), who was a candidate in Nigeria's presidential elections in 2003.

Visionary and politician, intellectual and activist, Chairman Yahaya Ndu is member of the National Committee of the African Unification Front (AUF), and spearheaded many initiatives aiming at eliminating colonially-imposed tyranny, military dictatorship, cultural alienation, socio-behavioural disintegration, historical denigration, and identity confusion from Africa. Struggling in the first line of the front against fallacious, colonialist historiography, neo-colonialist involvement, policies and practices, Chairman Yahaya Ndu defends the cause of reparations for Africa. His interview bears witness to new theoretical and intellectual trends that emerge in Nigeria, to prevail throughout Africa and thus herald a great future for the entire Black Continent. Today, with the fifth part, I complete the publication of the interview,

23. What would be the main axes of your foreign and All-African policy?

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu – My commitment will be manifested in three areas, notably

1. Creating an African Super State out of Nigeria
2. Establishing an African Electoral Commission, and

3. Integrating, harmonizing and synergizing African manpower

With respect to the first, I would initiate the process of turning a new Nigeria into an African Super State able to play the role of a big brother for the rest of the continent.

As regards the most needed African Electoral Commission, I want to state that it is greatly important to conduct pan African elections to the African Union and its organs such as the African parliament. As it is now, the African Union is built on defective foundations that prevent the organization from playing the role all Africans want it to play. The African Union is today a meeting place for people who rig or shoot themselves into power in their respective countries and then come up automatically in the international body to purportedly represent their nations whereas they are indeed totally deprived from the right to do so as they do not have any real mandate coming from free, democratic elections.

Furthermore, I believe that manpower in the continent of Africa needs to be harmonized and synergized for optimum benefit of all the peoples of the continent. This means that, although all peoples of Africa should be encouraged to become self-sufficient nations, efforts have to be deployed to encourage all nations to focus their national development efforts in areas of competitive advantage, which will be more beneficial to them and more profitable to the whole continent.

National planning must be complemented by continental planning; for instance, a country should be selected for the production of an African car, and in this case African professionals with skills and experience in the sector should be invited to join forces and operate in the selected country. This type of continental planning would enable the continent to produce its own motor vehicles, and this development would be far better than the current situation whereby all African nations have been engulfed, importing motor vehicles into the continent.

Similarly, another nation may have already a comparative advantage in the Chemicals – Pharmaceuticals sector; under the proposed arrangement, this country should be selected to become the continental focus in the said sector. Subsequently, African specialists in this field should be encouraged to move and work in the selected country to ensure continental, African self-sufficiency in the Chemicals – Pharmaceuticals sector.

24. How would you help Somalia pacify and gain national unity and rehabilitation?

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu - Comprised of a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia was created in 1960 when the two territories merged. Since then, its development has been slow. Relations with neighbors have been soured by territorial misunderstandings.

The University of Peace's Peace and Conflict Monitor Report a few years back states that the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was better placed to pacify Somalia.

The Report was based on the understanding that for the six-month period June to December 2006 in which the ICU was in control of Mogadishu and much of Central and Southern Somalia, that territory enjoyed peace, order and security; we know very well that this was good and unique, unprecedented ever since the Siad Barre administration had collapsed. In other words, the security situation was getting better in this swathe of land that had only known and lived with over 15 years of statelessness, insecurity, clan feuds, thriving warlordism and lawlessness.

So, the question is why the Ethiopian-backed offence – with tacit support from the United States and a number of Western powers – was undertaken and who finally decided to kick the Islamic Courts Union out of Somalia when the courts merited an opposite response from the international community, having already delivered stability and order to the most of Somalia's territory?

25. Where do you stand as regards African conflicts, notably Eritrea vs. Ethiopia, Western Sahara and Uganda vs. Congo?

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu – I believe that the African Diaspora should intervene and come up with constructive suggestions able to offer an exit to those conflicts. The acrimonious relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia is both, old and new. Resentful ethnic stereotypes run deep, but more recent political events have added a toxic element of embitterment. Whipped into this unstable mix is the fact that the Horn of Africa is a region at the cross roads of Europe, Asia and Africa, where the ambitions of the world's greatest powers have colluded with local populations, religions and political formations for the last centuries.

26. What is your position about national liberation fronts and autonomy movements, notably Ogaden, Oromo and Kabylia?

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu - Let me start by saying that I myself and the African Renaissance Party are irrevocably committed to the convocation of a sovereign national conference of all ethnic nationalities of Nigeria for the direct purpose of the renegotiation of Nigeria in order to offer an amicable coexistence formula to all the peoples of Nigeria.

The lessons taken from the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970, the incessant interethnic unrests that have befallen on our the nation ever since, as well as the ongoing unrests pertaining to the Niger Delta region of our country, to the extent that active military operation is going on there right now, are more than an eloquent testimony to the fact that the component units of any nation should not be bound by force but by unmitigated free will.

I therefore support freedom for the peoples of my country, and I do support freedom for all the peoples of Africa, forall the ethno-religious groups wherever they may happen to be located.

One of greatest obstacles in the path the African Unification is that efforts to unify Africa have hitherto deployed to implement the unification project with the grossly defective 'blocks' formed out of the colonially and arbitrary contrived boundaries. These states are subjects of serious and at times bloody contentions throughout the length and breadth of the continent.

Liberation fronts are fighting for the liberation of their various peoples and deserve the support of all right thinking human beings. When all African peoples are liberated, then the objective of African unification can be commenced in earnest.

All liberation movements in Africa should be supported by all and sundry, as it is diversionary, unnecessary, and wicked for governments to seek to control peoples against their own free will. In every instance, a system must be introduced to determine the true feelings of the people; wherever it is established that they wish to be independent, the proper modalities should be worked out to enable and implement the independence process.

However, I must make the point that there is a political solution to internal strife issues, and this unfortunately has not yet been thorough explored in most of the needy African nations. This solution is: True Federalism. This implies running real, functioning and fair, federal governments.

Faced with corruption and stalled development, Africa is seeking a fresh path to good governance; federalism is the Black Continent's watch word in this search.

The Fifth International Conference on Federalism, the bi-yearly gathering of the forum of federations, and the Global Network on Federalism, which opened in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on December 13th 2010, has offered African leaders the opportunity to review the benefits that would accrue to the nations that embrace federalism. The theme of this year's conference was "Equity and Unity in Diversity for Development".

I want to underscore the fact that it is the first time the conference is being held in Africa since its initiation in 1999 in Mt. Tremblant, Canada.

27. What should Nigeria do to terminate strife in Darfur?

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu - As we know, open confrontation or warfare erupted in Darfur in early 2003, when two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked military installations. This was followed closely by peace agreement brokered by the US to end the twenty years old civil war in the South of Sudan which allocated government positions and Oil revenue to the rebels in the south.

In recent weeks, Sudanese armed forces and elements of the Janjaweed armed militias have renewed attacks on villages throughout Darfur and the truth is that the Southern Sudan referendum has overshadowed Darfur.

It appears that the African Union must wake up and make a determined and unrelenting move to end the genocide in Darfur in the short term while a permanent solution to ensure the peace and security of Darfuris is arranged in the long term.

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 52, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

Originating at www.afroarticles.com

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