The AU Summit, How Different will it be now?

Five decades after Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, had called for an African unity, the dream is yet to be realized. It is 50 years today since Nkrumah declared Ghana independent from colonial rule, 43 years since the formation of the OAU to bring to fruition the ideals of an African union that he and likeminded Africans proposed and five years since the OAU metamorphosised into AU.

However, this dream of Kwame Nkrumah and cohort visionaries such as Julius Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba and others of an African unity seems further away than ever. The language and disposition of the leaders at past summits have remained much the same. The only differences have been the location, time and audience. It seems the continental unification idea has eluded the continent’s leaders.

In July, African leaders will once again assemble in Accra, Ghana. This assembly under the banner of the African Union should be to deliberate exhaustively on the true unification of the African continent. This unity idea has remained in incubation for far too long and any mediocre arrangement on the part of the leaders at properly tackling the real issues will render it a dream-to-be-fulfilled forever. Today, Sudan is bleeding in colossal pain, Somalia is without status and Zimbabwe is at the threshold of economic collapse and all African leaders do is sweet talking diplomacy. How many conflicts and wars to we want to have, how many lives do we want to be consumed by wars before we can truly unite, how many summits do we have to organize before we can turn Africa around? It is therefore high time the leaders adopted a truly practical approach to the unification process since Africa does not need another summit after July’s to effect the unification of Africa.
I strongly hope that this year’s summit will serve as a realistic ground to practically commence the implementation of the ideals of the African Union which is to promote continental unity and peace among African states, economic development drive and promote a stronger international partnership and cooperation for development as an intergovernmental entity. There are indications that Africa has a great potential to turn around. So if these goals are guaranteed, Africa can be turned into a monumental economic superstar in the next two decades.

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
By Tamale, mmumuni@ashesi.edu.gh / mmmutaru@yahoo.com