Five Reason why Africa must Unite

Kwame Nkrumah once said ‘Africa must unite or perish!’ Without genuine African unity, our continent will remain at the mercy of imperialist domination and exploitation. Below are five simple, yet profound, reasons why Africa must unite under a socialist economic system.

1. Africa’s Wealth
Africa is extremely wealthy! In fact, it is the wealthiest land mass on the face of the earth.This wealth can be found in its abundant mineral resources and in its huge agricultural potential. Africa’s mineral wealth includes a wide variety and huge volume of resources that are critical to the technical and industrial development of humanity, e.g., gold, platinum, diamonds, manganese, colbalt, cromite, coltan, coal, radium, iron ores, chromium, copper, lead, zinc, tin, titanium, antiomony, tantalum, germanium, lithium, phosphates, bauxite, uranium, petroleum, and natural gas. Similar figures could be provided regarding Africa’s agricultural potential, which remains largely untapped. Although there are an estimated 632 million hectares* of arable land in Africa, only 179 million hectares are actually cultivated, i.e., less than 30% of its arable land. As with Africa’s mineral resources, this arable land is unevenly distributed.

In fact, in just four countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo,Nigeria and the two Sudans), where nearly 40% of this uncultivated land is located, there is enough agriculturally-rich land to feed Africa’s 1 billion population several times over. However,because this wealth is unevenly distributed,showing no relationship to the artificial,imperialist imposed division of the continent, this wealth can only benefit the masses of African people when it is shared on a continent-wide basis.

2. Pooling Investment Resources

To invest in large scale production, in both industry and agriculture, a large amount of investment resources is needed. When Africa unites, it will be able to pool its investment resources to ensure that it will have enough money to invest in the large-scale production of industrial and agricultural goods and services. Once Africa unites, it will no longer have to go begging the World Bank, IMF, and various donor nations of the world for loans that are tied to very high interest rates and exploitative conditions designed to keep Africa impoverished and dependent. Africa’s total foreign reserves (held by African central banks) is ½ trillion dollars–$510 billion! Separately, the various individual states in Africa will never be able to raise the funds required to invest heavily in any aspect of production, especially in the production of heavy equipment designed to build cars, trucks, tractors, roads, bridges, trains, ships, airplanes, and other basic items required of the 21st century.

Let each African country invest 5% of its foreign reserves into a giant African Infrastructure bond. In short, genuine African unity, where the wealth and resources of this great continent are amassed in the ‘Great Bank of Africa’ and shared amongst its people, is the only alternative for Africa to avoid begging for loans that are designed to keep Africa poor and in perpetual debt.

3. Optimal Market Size
Only a united Africa, with its more than one billion people, can provide the requisite market size to stimulate large-scale production.

In fact, according to African Union figures, the actual purchasing power of the continent of Africa is $1.515 trillion, which would place it, if it were one nation, as the 11th highest purchasing power country in the world.

However, as it stands, a weak and divided Africa has been forced to turn its purchasing power, i.e., its various balkanized markets, over to the United States and various other industrialized nations of the world. These nations, in turn, use this so-called ‘free market’opportunity to flood Africa’s markets with goods, many of which are of very dubious quality, produced by their large-scale factories, plants, and farms. These factories, plants and farms,

because of the huge size of their markets, benefit from what economists call ‘economies of scale,’ and are, therefore, able to produce their goods at a cheaper cost, per unit. Additionally, these same companies often benefit from their governments’ effort to protect them from international competition in the form of government subsidies. As it stands, the producers and potential producers of Africa have little or no incentive to expand production when faced with the tiny markets of their individual so-called nation-states.

As a result, workers in other lands are producing everything from underwear to cellular telephones, from handkerchiefs to refrigerators, from matches to motorcycles, from rice to computers, from chicken to automobiles, and exporting them all to Africa.

4. Protectionism
Only a united Africa will be able to protect its market! China protects its industries by keeping its currency, the rinminbi, relatively low, thus ensuring its exports will remain attractive on the global market. The United States provides millions of dollars of subsidies for its farmers—especially its rice, cotton, and maize growers—in order to protect their goods against local competition in countries around the world. The European Union does much the same, with European poultry farmers being one of their largest beneficiaries, and with the declining African poultry farmers being the hardest hit. Once united, however, Africa will have the power to use tariffs, duties, quotas, salary increments, propaganda, and subsidies.

5. Bargaining Power
The balkanized states of Africa are always at a disadvantage when, separately, bargaining with the stronger industrial nations of Europe, Asia,and North America. This is especially the case when trying to court Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). For while there will always be occasions. when Africa could benefit from FDI, the terms of agreement will never be in our favor if we try to bargain with the stronger industrialized nations under our current balkanized status. We will always lose! However, once Africa is united, it will be in the best position to set the terms of agreement between it and any potential foreign investor.

Dr Ahmed Saalah (PhD)
University of Pretoria,
Professor of Social Humanity