African unity will remain elusive without sacrifice

African Executive
by: Lord Aikins Adusei
Saturday, June 05, 2010

The dream of a united Africa has escaped the leadership in the continent.

Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said, "the United States of Africa will be proclaimed in 2017, to allow for the time needed to work out the different African institutions."

Although some are sceptical doubt Africa's ability to achieve unity because of the differences in languages, religions, literacy levels, political systems, infrastructural gaps, geographical diversities and cultures, these challenges can be solved.

Unity in Africa is the only option we have if we want to attain peace, stability and economic development.

We cannot act together to bring peace to Somalia, Sudan and DR Congo because some of our leaders with the connivance of foreign defence companies and contractors are benefiting from those conflicts.

If Africa is going to make it, then the leaders must act together as one, eschew their personal interests and put the needs of the continent first.

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was once quoted as saying: "Kwame Nkrumah and I met in 1963 and discussed African Unity.

We differed on how to achieve a United States of Africa. But we both agreed on a United States of Africa as necessary... After independence the wider African community became clear to me. I was concerned about education; the work of Booker T. Washington resonated with me.”

Mwalimu said: “There were skills we needed and black people outside Africa had them. I gave our US Ambassador the specific job of recruiting skilled Africans from the US Diaspora. A few came.

Some stayed; others left. We should try to revive it. We should look to our brothers and sisters in the West. We should build the broader Pan-Africanism. There is still the room – and the need."

Some African leaders are dragging their feet and drowning the Africa Union initiative. They are not asking the implication of Europe’s unity to Africa. Europe is strategising for the next phase of global politics which will centre on who controls what vital resources and in which area. This underscores why US is seeking military bases in Africa.

How will a small country like Gabon respond if its oil becomes a target of US occupation? Does Equatorial Guinea have the military capability to withstand an all out invasion by Europe if they decide to take her resources by force as America has done in Iraq?

The shortage of resources in Europe and the US and its abundance in Africa means Africa is going to be a battleground for these countries for the control of the resources. US has projected that by the end the next decade, 85 per cent of its oil needs must come from Africa.

China too wants Africa's oil. India wants it and the EU is not staying idle either. How is the US going to ensure that the 85 per cent target is met? How do we ensure that Western countries will not exploit our weak and insignificant countries for their own advantage?

Developed countries’ scramble for Africa may mean wars; supporting dictators; coups in resource-rich countries; civil wars; assassinations; blackmail and arm-twisting. What are we going to do if we are not united?

Fearful of what Africa could achieve if united, Europe under the leadership of France is proposing the Mediterranean Union,’ an association that encompasses all nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea including the five north African countries. This ‘divide-and-rule’ move is largely seen as an attempt by Europeans to weaken Africa’s effort to unite.

It has been reported that the Mediterranean Union project is also aimed at promoting French interests, while ignoring some of the biggest dangers in the former European colonies in West Asia and Africa.

France’s real motive, though, is to establish a French southern sphere of influence to counter Germany’s dominant position in central and Eastern Europe.

President Wade warned: "But, of course, there are other obvious goals behind the Union for the Mediterranean initiative like Algeria's oil and gas and Libyan oil.”

The same hidden agenda surrounds America's Africom. It can never be about any other thing other than exploiting Africa and keeping it at the bottom of the world development ladder.

We must fight these divide-and-rule policies. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia can never be called Europe and will never be accepted as such by Europeans no matter what French president Nicolas Sarkozy says. The earlier the leaders in North Africa realise it the better.  

President Wade was right when he said "we cannot be kept into a limited space by African leaders who are holding on to petty little states."
 
It is only by uniting and integrating our economies that we can stand on our feet and be recognised as people.

Unity will end the wars that ravage many parts of the continent and enable us pool resources to tackle the continent’s challenges.

Unity will end disputes between Nigeria and Cameroon regarding the ownership of the Bakasi Peninsula; the tension between Kenya and Uganda over the Migingo Island in Lake Victoria; the Yumbe border dispute between Uganda and Sudan and the Katuna and Mutukula border area dispute between Rwanda and Tanzania. There will be no border disputes between Morocco, Algeria and Western Sahara.

Unity will make it unnecessary for Uganda and Rwanda to cross several times into DR Congo to grab resources for the development of their countries. Unity will end the border dispute between Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia and enable us to speak with one voice when dealing with Europe, the US, China, Russia and India.

Africa must stop thinking in terms of Anglophone, Francophone, Arab, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese or Mediterranean. We must not think as Muslims or Christians. These divisions only serve foreign interests.

If we do not unite against the external forces bent on seeing us weak and fragmented, we have ourselves to blame. The people of Southern Sudan, Northern Sudan and Darfur must see themselves as Africans: not as Southerners, Northerners or Darfurians.

There is no Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa or Ghana but Africa. If we think as Africans and work together, we can accomplish a lot for our peoples.

The European Union worked because Germany, France, Britain and the political leadership made huge sacrifices. Africa must make economic and political sacrifices to realise unity.

The analyst wrote this piece for the African Executive.