Legal Practitioner and New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for the Adentan Constituency, Yaw Buaben Asamoah, has said the African Union should endeavour not to repeat the errors of the Organisation of African Unity.
His caution came during a discussion on the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa on JoyNews’ news analysis show Newsfile, Saturday Morning.
Making his contribution on the topic, the law maker counted the isolation of South Africa from the rest of the world in various spheres such as economic and cultural as one of the root causes of the recurrent xenophobic situation witnessed in the former apartheid country.
“South Africa as a nation has been isolated for a very long time from the rest of the world, in all spheres economic sanctions as well as cultural including sports. So there is a certain sense of isolationism that is inbuilt in their DNA.” He said.
He cited international economic situations as another factor which according to him affect most African countries.
“We also have the international economic situation that impacts all countries across a certain band. Lower-income, Lower Middle Income Higher Income. You have these bands with certain basic indices which unfortunately hits most of the African countries.”
He mentioned that the AU in its role “has not done enough” to help the situation and thus cautioned the organization to exercise caution in its dealings lest it ends up like the Organisation Of African Unity (OAU), in relation to its mandate and objectives.
“When you say what should the AU do, I say the AU shouldn’t do what the OAU did. For fifty years the OAU did nothing, now we’ve become AU.”
Whiles acknowledging that the OAU had some successes, Mr. Asamoah said, the organisation did little to achieve its objectives.
“Yes there are highlights but what did it achieve in terms of what we set out to do. Did it achieve any major political integration, did it achieve political stability across different regimes, different ethnic groupings, different geographical characteristics across the continent.” He queried.
Mr Buabeng Asamoah, therefore, called on the African leadership to stick to the objectives set out by the AU to ensure collective success.
He cited examples like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement which he says relying on the correlation between trade and movement, has the potential to affect the comfort of citizens across the African continent.
“Trade goes with people moving and if people move we can’t say that certain kinds of people are different from us and therefore they cannot trade, they cannot work, they cannot labour to produce the goods that are supposed to make all of us comfortable.” He said.
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