African Unity: Can We Still Talk About It?

The Need for Unity

After the very first sub-Saharan African country, Ghana, gained its independence in 1957, there was the instant realization that true attainment of self-rule and genuine self-determination would be hollow, meaningless and illusive if we ignored the need for unity. As many more African countries became independent, the awareness and the clarion call for unity became stronger and led to the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Our very own first President, Kwame Nkrumah, was in front and center as the leading cheerleader for African unity. He spoke loudly and vehemently about it. He rallied other African leaders and freedom fighters and used any opportunity open to him to promote and educate others about the seriousness and the urgency for a continental union. The title of one of his books, “AFRICA MUST UNITE,” was a point blank direct message to all Africans about the need for a continent-wide unity and what awaited us if we didn’t unite. The dynamic visionary that he was, Nkrumah saw the weakness in maintaining as separate independent countries the 50-plus nation-states that were carved and imposed on us by the colonialists.

Many other African leaders also saw the need, in some cases not with the same zeal as Nkrumah, for a union of these newly independent vulnerable nation-states. They recognized the need for strength, improved interrelationships, stability and growth that unity would bring to the continent. They discussed and reflected on the potential rapid progress that would have catapulted all of us away from the residual effects of colonial servitude into 20th century standards and would have allowed us a firmer control over our resources.

Unfortunately the OAU died a predictable death along with the gradual passing, one way or the other, of the first generation of African leaders and especially from the treachery of external forces who were bent on having us divided and weak. Since then, continental unity, as a strategic nation building tool and as a security blanket, does not feature any more in the economic and political management of the individual nation-states. Our vulnerabilities as individual countries are even more glaring now than in the past, yet we have become shockingly or may be intentionally blind to it. We seem to be content and comfortable with our present miserable lot; and our individual national identities, to the exclusion of other African nations, have become sharper with time so much that we do not see much beyond our national boundaries. We have been dealt a very dirty hand and yet generations after Nkrumah do not seem to care anymore about Africa’s future.

Myopia as a human frailty has been overused to label many African leaders but it is still an apt description of today’s African when we realize that the once great momentum of the drive for the union of African states has of late lost its steam and prominence. We have become weaker sometimes by default and often by our own lack of perception and foresight. We have become just reactive and not proactive citizens of the earth, and have allowed ourselves to be dictated to, all because we have a mistaken illusion of security and strength in our little enclaves of poorly insulated dreamlands of nation-states that we call countries. This is where the neo-colonialists wanted us and they have definitely succeeded. Some of us even walk around wearing masks of Black pride and puffed up confidence full of hollow emptiness like inflated balloons that a tiny prick will make them disappear in an instant disintegration and nothingness. Look around you and you can easily see our sorry state of affairs after all these years, even for the moderately progressive country like Ghana and the energy rich country like Nigeria. However much we try, we don’t seem to get anywhere.

Reluctance to Let Go

During the era of independence struggles, it was very clear that the profitable colonial possessions in Africa and elsewhere in the world were being given up by the Europeans reluctantly. It was also very clear that even after some of the colonies were divested from European control, the more calculating sly Europeans began to devise other means to extend their control over the economic, political and social affairs of their former colonies. No sooner after the Europeans had publicly given the colonies their freedoms than they instantly went to work to clandestinely keep African countries separate and weak. The Europeans were primarily panicking that by giving up their colonies, by relinquishing total control and just going back home meant the abrupt cessation of the valuable resources that have flowed almost freely for centuries from their just released colonies to their homelands. When they were in total control, they named their prices, only if they had to, for our valuable resources and they saw the urgency in their usual sly way in going back to the drawing board to strategize their continued control over their ex-colonies. They benefited in full from our wealth and resources and we were never allowed to share in our own riches and affluence. Surprisingly, they still do; and as for us, we have failed to see the light. To them, we were only objects of labor. From all indications, they have succeeded very well, because we are still helpless and so fractured that all semblances of economic and political advances across Africa look like window dressing that cannot be sustained for long.

This is why I particularly worry about complacency in today’s Ghanaian leadership. We have made a few advances but I am afraid they could all blow away like powder in a gale if we do not look beyond our borders. We were once the champions of a unified Africa, with Nkrumah at the helm. I do not mean to excuse other African leaders but today’s leaders of Ghana, all those after Nkrumah, do not espouse any recognizable ideology or vision. They only live in the moment without a single identifiable drive to rally the youth towards bigger and better aspirations. Charisma and vision, two essential leadership qualities, are completely missing in our leaders.

The reluctance of the Europeans to let go of their colonial possessions was so evident in the many wars and violent struggles for freedom on the continent. Algerians, Mozambicans, South Africans, the Congolese, and many other Africans had to fight deadly wars to be allowed freedom from overbearing, unrelenting, demeaning, disdainful and repressive colonial control. As soon as they demonstrated the desire for self-rule and an end to disenfranchisement, a good many African countries and their potential leaders could not escape varied forms of retaliation and oppression, often in the form of assassinations and imprisonment, before being reluctantly granted “conditional” freedoms. Prominent instances are Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned for twenty-seven years, Patrice Lumumba who was tortured and assassinated, Kwame Nkrumah and many other African leaders who were murdered or suffered imprisonment and forced detentions. European and American murdering mercenaries readily offered their services, surreptitiously entered the continent, to fight and kill African leaders and silence freedom fighters during the independence struggles in order to help keep the colonial settlers in control.

Historical Perspective

For centuries, the Europeans traveled around the world, forcibly and cunningly took over lands, imposed themselves on and exploited unsuspecting and naïve nationals, took control over their natural wealth, and openly maintained elitist superiority and separate, or apartheid, existence with the inhabitants by subjugating and relegating them to inferior menial status. In utter disregard for tribal and family units, they carved up and divided the whole continent among themselves only because they wanted to find a solution to their greedy rivalry and bickering. They even enslaved the nationals at the point of the gun and through coercion and bribery. They often forcibly seized arable lands and lands with agreeable living climate and pleasant atmosphere and, without care and shame, uprooted the nationals to unproductive barren locations and left them to fend for themselves. And after many, many years of subjugation when the time was ripe for the nationals to ask for what was rightfully their own, these Europeans shamelessly used violence to hold on to what did not belong to them in the first place.

Without exception, they supported and justified their usurpation of other people’s lands and properties by dismissing indigenous cultural practices, religious rites and beliefs by replacing them with Middle Eastern Christian religion as their own. They selectively applied their newly found religious enlightenment to justify their rule and enslavement of the gullible and unknowing nationals. Africans were the worst victims. The reason why it was more telling on Africans had more to do with not just the nature of the native inhabitants but with the continent’s geography, our idolatry worship, the crudeness of our indigenous rites and religious practices which victimized other Africans through human sacrifices and cannibalism. And our own overreaching very controlling superstitions did not help either. Our crippling fear of the unknown has inflicted a lasting binding immobilization that makes many of us easily accepting of foreign cultural transformation influences and foreign spiritual influences introduced to us by all exotic strangers. The stranglehold of foreign religions that have become our permanent straightjacket, mixed with our own debilitating indigenous rites and practices and binding superstitions, have left us so confused we do not know which way to turn for spiritual solace.

For example, Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya, wrote that the European came to Africa, taught us how to pray by clasping our palms together in front of us and then asked us to raise the clasped hands to our faces where he could see them. He then told us to close our eyes when praying. He also asked us to kneel down during prayers. He helped us memorize the prayers. And when we were mesmerized and our eyes were closed and our hands were in front of us, he, the European, pilfered our valuable resources. Kenyatta’s colonial anecdote is not totally facetious. He only tried to remind generations of Africans after the era of independence struggles about what went on before their time.

Prior to the onset of the European adventures on the African continent, our small and localized tribal groupings in harsh tropical environments did not allow easy access to and contact with faraway people. Tribal groups within a few miles in the same deep forest environment even became strangers, and sometimes, enemies when they bumped into each other. The eventual inevitable contact with the people of the northern hemisphere generated a very lasting damaging awing reaction in our ancestors. Our self-imposed daze and haze that hung over us in our awe of the Europeans allowed them to control and steer our existence for too long. [I don’t totally buy into some of the sanitized historical accounts of how advanced, highly educated, complex and sophisticated many tropical African societies were before the advent of the European. Such feel-good accounts are uplifting to all peoples of African descent but the stark naked truth is that many deep forest African tribal groupings had little advancements and narrower awareness with no contacts outside their immediate environments. The Africans in the deep forests had crude, harsh and enclosed existence. The only acceptable accounts of the complexity of social structures of the deep-forest African can be attributed to the maintenance of orderliness in the tribal groups through hierarchical power structure from, let’s say the chief on down. This is simply what all human groupings do. Upon meeting the tropical African for the first time, the cleverer European adventurers quickly saw the glaze over our ancestors’ eyes and they used their deviousness and advancements to immediately lord it over us. Of course, there are documented accounts of a few complex societies on the continent, such as in Egypt, Ethiopia, and other spotted places, but we have to accept the fact that our harsh tropical environment and the lack of extensive exposure to the world out there allowed persistent outsiders to take advantage of many of us.]

Where Are We Now?

After all that is said and done, it is now nearly 50 years since the continent began to taste freedom. We can continue to play the blame game. When we do, it only gives us a warm feeling of comfort that we can easily identify someone else (the colonialists) as the ones who set the stage for our quagmire and our stubborn and seemingly unmanageable problems. But what have we done for ourselves lately? Africa is still generally mired in poverty, pandemic diseases, famine, stagnation, constant armed conflicts, ethnic genocidal explosions, and total despair and hopelessness. We sit on abundantly rich resources and yet we still go around the world a-begging. In addition to the inevitability of our harsh tropical environment, the widely recognized splinted boundaries that we call countries have really stymied our economic and political growth. One of our most valuable but damaging exports now is our homegrown strong, young, educated citizenry even after slave trade ended hundreds of years ago. As a result of the dismal conditions at home, many of our strong, young, highly educated professionals seek greener pastures in the northern hemisphere. A medical doctor in Ghana lamented to me recently that there are more Ghanaian medical doctors in New York City than in all of Ghana. In the meantime, as we all continue to complain, we are self-destructing by our corrupt, maniacal, immoral, and self-hate approach to the wellbeing of the continent.

The discussions on the many reasons for the intractable problems of Africa have gone on forever without tangible results. Many books and volumes have been written about what needs to be done about Africa’s problems and all possible solutions seem to have been exhausted. We continue to talk about our problems and the solutions until we become blue in our Black faces and nothing happens. There seems to be no new and innovative ideas left to save the continent except if we become wise enough to go back to the drawing board and resuscitate the African union idea one more time. I am not talking about the current rubber-stamping African Union organization which has no teeth. The persistent nagging control of the developed over the developing and the underdeveloped continues unabated. They know our weaknesses but we don’t have a clue. Though this may be a tired discussion for many of you, I will still offer my perspective on what I strongly know that needs to be done to make a real change on the continent. Anyway you turn it, it is called: A TRUE UNION OF AFRICAN STATES.

Picture This

Again, some of you may take issue with my assessment of the state of affairs on the African continent. But allow me to offer just two fitting examples. First of all, the once selfish fractured Europeans who would not share their worldly booties with their neighbors and found themselves embroiled in two major wars that unfortunately drew in the rest of the world have finally found the need for a workable form of a union, the European Union.

Secondly, the United States of America may not have the same climatic harshness of Africa, but it shares similar political structures with Africa. The USA is made up of 48 contiguous states plus Alaska and Hawaii. The States in the US are almost as many as in Africa. America experienced a painful struggle in its transition from individual separate states to become a single federation. Remember, the US even went to war in order to achieve a true union of all the states. In just 230 years after the American Declaration of Independence by the first thirteen British colonies, the USA has steadily reaped an extraordinarily immense harvest from its union to have become the only formidable preeminent superpower and the major director and driver, for good or bad, of world affairs and events.

Imagine forty-eight separate contiguous independent countries in North America when Hitler of Germany decided to conquer Europe and exterminate the European Jews. If Germany had succeeded under those conditions, Hitler would have proceeded to wrestle control of all colonies from the British, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Dutch and like the Americans say in jest today, “we would all be speaking German.” It would have happened because after his conquest of Europe, Hitler would have easily run over a disunited Americas. It is thus very clear from all historical accounts that the defeat of Hitler’s Germany would not have been easy or even possible without the intervention of a united states of North America in the Second World War. For us Africans, our least worry would have been the German language. In Hitler’s concept of human hierarchy of superiority which had the Aryan race at the top, Africans and other dark skinned people did not even belong in that structure. If we now rate the atrocities of the Belgians and the Portuguese on the African continent as abominable, imagine what would have existed for Africans under Hitler’s Germany as the victor of WWII and the ultimate prevailing superpower. Our only solace now is that with the defeat of Hitler we ended up in hands of the lesser of two evils.

Our Weaknesses

Evidence and examples of our weaknesses are a dime a dozen. The many conflicts and conflagrations raging on the continent today and those of the past could easily have been controlled or even avoided if there had been some form of formidable union(s) of African states. The on-going genocide of the Sudanese in the Darfur region; the sad barbaric internal strife that went on recently in Sierra Leone which killed and maimed many helpless women and children; the killings and destruction that took place recently in Liberia; the armed political struggles of our next door neighbor, Ivory Coast; the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia; the not-too-long ago famine in Ethiopia and the Sahel region that decimated millions of Africans; Idi Amin’s buffoonery in Uganda; Mobutu’s naked theft of billions of Zaire’s resources; the genocide in Rwanda; the HIV-AIDS pandemic across the continent; the numerous violent government overthrows; and many other current and past conflicts and catastrophes on the continent and the utter disregard for human rights could all have been contained or avoided if all or large portions of the continent were unified. A strong central government of a unified Africa would have the authority, power, and the wherewithal to garner the forces necessary to control and discourage spotted blow-ups and the widespread destructive disasters all over the continent.

What’s In Store

An easier cross-migration of Africans would be a very important benefit of a unified Africa. Africans could seek job opportunities across state lines and interstate travel by air and connecting highways would take place from coast to coast, from east to west and from the Mediterranean to the southern tip of Africa. The continent would tap into its own educated, experienced, and qualified diverse expertise and curtail brain drain. With a more secure control over our resources, pay scales and the quality of life of the African would quickly catch up with the West. In a unified Africa, cross migration and interrelationships would reduce tribal and ethnic differences and conflicts, and promote diversity and sustain peaceable coexistence within a few generations. In a broader sense, the union of African states would make the world a better place.

Increased inter-state commercial activities as a result of an African union would divert our primary focus from the unfair individual trade relationships with the northern hemisphere countries toward a stronger bargaining position and the opening of wider markets within the continent. Leadership accountability and transparency would prevail and in turn control endemic corruption. The rule of law, especially civilized law enforcement and above-board prosecution of criminals will begin to take shape. Entrenchment and power bases would be minimized with a wider deployment of civil servants, political office holders, and especially military and law enforcement personnel across the continent. A unified African people would no longer feel trapped in areas of famine and other major natural disasters but be able migrate without hindrance to areas of peace and tranquility on the continent without becoming burdensome refugees.

After continued serious reflection of Africa’s problems in my life time and with the kind of forces at work in the world today, I have often concluded that Africa’s only starting point towards sustainable progress is unity and nothing else. My plea to the current leaders of all African nation-states [see the list below]: For the sake of our children, be truly selfless and seek meaningful and lasting solutions to our problems.

If not, we will be spinning our wheels. We will be going in circles for ever. We will continue to be the only continent which the rest of the world feels sorry for. So, my fellow Africans, let’s start screaming again about African Unity. We shouldn’t stay down simply because we’ve been knocked down. Let’s keep the hopes of the youth alive. Unity is the one and only solid foundation. All other solutions will be built upon it.

[Algeria-Abdelaziz Bouteflika; Angola-Jose Eduardo dos Santos; Benin-Mathieu Kerekou; Botswana-Festus Mogae; Burkina Faso-Blaise Compaore; Burundi-Domitien Ndayizeye; Cameroon-Paul Biya; Cape Verde-Pedros Pires; Central African Republic-Francois Bozize; Chad-Idriss Deby; Comoros-Azali Assoumani; Congo-Joseph Kabila; Democratic Republic of the Congo-Denis Sassou-Nguesso; Djibouti-Ismail Omar Guelleh; Egypt-Mohammed Hosni Mubarak; Equatorial Guinea-Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo; Eritrea-Isaias Afworki; Ethiopia-Girma Woldegiorgis; Gabon-El Hadj Omar Bongo; The Gambia-Yahya A. J. J. Jammeh; Ghana-John Agyekum Kufuor; Guinea-Lansana Conte; Guinea-Bissau-Henrique Rosa; Ivory Coast-Laurent Gbagbo; Kenya-Mwai Kibali; Lesotho-King Letsie II; Liberia-Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Libya-Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi; Madagascar-Marc Ravalomana; Malawi-Bingu wa Mutharika; Mali-Amadou Toumani Toure; Mauritania-Maasaya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya; Mauritius-Anerood Jugnauth; Morocco-King Mohamed VI; Mozambique-Armando Guebuza; Namibia-Hifikepunye Pohamba; Niger-Tandja Mamadou; Nigeria-Olusegun Obasanjo; Rwanda-Paul Kagame; Sao Tome and Principe-Fradique de Menezes; Senegal-Abdoulaye Wade; Seychelles-James Michel; Sierra Leone-Ahmad Tejan Kabbah; Somalia-Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed; South Africa-Thabo Mbeki; Sudan-Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashin; Swaziland-King Mswati III; Tanzania-Benjamin William Mkapa; Togo-Faure Gnassingbe; Tunisia-Zine El Albidine Ben Ali; Uganda-Yoweri Kaguta Museveni; Zambia-Levy Mwanawasa (President-elect); Zimbabwe-Robert Gabriel Mugabe; and other adjacent lands and islands still under colonial control.]