AU should walk the walk

The past week’s talks in the AU, as always, revolved around the rhetoric of the United states of Africa with talks of a two million strong army and other magnanimous goals. As always, politics has skewed towards lofty goals rather than practical ones that could be implemented directly on the ground. African cohesion can only be possible if we, the people of Africa, first come together and that can be possible if Africans are allowed to move about freely within the continent. This means allowing free movement of people across borders, do away with restrictive visa applications and move towards creating a borderless Africa with free movement of both people and goods- then and only then can one talk of creating a United States of Africa.

Having a common currency is also a viable way of uniting Africans thus closing gaps in trade and commerce. African leaders continue to believe that African unification should first start with governments. This is a misconception of how things should go about. True African unification comes when the people of Africa can interact and understand each other; the OAu and now the AU has predominantly been a meeting forum for governments and policy makers. Average Africans continue to know little about the rest of Africa beyond their regions. One finds oneself hard pressed at looking for ways where the people of Africa were ever given the opportunity to comment on the working of the AU or any other regional organizations. So far politicians continue to monopolize the workings of the AU with little if at all any mechanism for the masses to actually comment on the progress or rather lack of, in regards to African Unity. The AU could work towards rectifying this by allowing the public more than photo opportunities and statements regarding the work of its various commissions.

A blue print towards African unification has so far not been delivered. What one sees is one leader after another proposing initatives that often lack follow up. One key word here could be infrastructure i.e. enhancing telecom and transportation links among nations and across regions can help bring the continent closer. Instead of banking a lot on lofty talks and dreams, Africa’s leadership should look into more practical means whereby they can push for African integration. This would require working together rather than against each other.

As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step so should be the rule that African leaders should be evoking work on the basics by laying down the ground for eventual cohesion. This, besides investing in our common future, would also require commitment to preempt conflicts that often escalate because fellow African leaders would like to look the other way whenever conflicts arise in the continent. The conflicts in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Ethio-Eritrean border have all gone on as fellow African leaders did too little too late. This trend cannot continue if we are to see a united Africa work. African leaders should start here focusing on the basics i.e. infrastructure, trade, conflict prevention, tackling corruption, respect for the rule of law, development and promotion of democracy. These are tenets that all members of the AU claim to be pursuing in their own individual nations. But ironically, the continent has one of the poorest track records in terms of human rights, corruption, nepotism, conflicts, diseases and poverty. African leaders have yet to collectively come out and explain how these phenomena continue. •

July 6, 2007