Why the AU Summit failed Africa Monday, August 13, 2007 3482 Reads Discuss Feedback Print Send

Did leaders at this year's AU summit miss a golden opportunity? The fact that the ‘leaders’ missed a golden opportunity to move the continent onto a course of true liberation and emancipation showed their inability to realize the grand task that was put before them. The much anticipated and hyped AU summit in Accra was an immense disappointment to many including reporters, political analysts and activists alike, writes Dr Kwame Osei. The fact that the ‘leaders’ missed a golden opportunity to move the continent onto a course of true liberation and emancipation showed their inability to realize the grand task that was put before them. In 1965, Dr Kwame Nkrumah called for African states to “unite now or perish.” Had those leaders at the time heeded his call, Africa today would be a global super power able to compete with the West, China and India and managing its own affairs without European/foreign interference. Realizing how a union of African states would mean that Europeans would literally go hungry, measures were put in place to derail plans for African unity, including the sabotage of Ghana’s economy and the coup that overthrew the architect and proponent of African Unity Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. His overthrow was a stark warning to other progressive African leaders that if you go against the interests of the West a similar fate would befall you and so the dream of African Unity fizzled out completely until Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi re-invigorated it a few years back. A brief history lesson will give the readers an appreciation of the concept of African Unity. The reception given to the Accra Declaration by the assembled leaders differed greatly from the enthusiasm shown by the early independence delegates when the 1945 Resolution was adopted at the 5th Pan African Congress in Manchester in October 1945. The leadership behind the passage of the 1945 resolution, including Du Bois, Padmore, Kenyatta, Azikiwe, Nyerere, Nkrumah and Blyden, foresaw the current crisis now facing Africa and advocated for a united Africa. They were far ahead of their time. At the 1945 Congress, speaker after speaker including: Blyden, Padmore, DuBois, Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Azikiwe, Mboya, Hayford and Manley, all passionately argued in favour of unity. All the participants at the 1945 Congress were greatly influenced by the fore runner of Pan-Africanism, the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey’s influence extended beyond continental Africa and stretched further afield to the Caribbean and North America during the period in question. Kwame Nkrumah, who adopted Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line dream project, took the fight to the colonialists on the continent and won the independence argument, stating at the All-Africa People’s Congress in Accra, 1958, that the only way Africa could realistically compete with the rest of the world’s regions was to form a union government based on the federal model of the United States of America. Nkrumah, who emerged as the anointed successor to Marcus Garvey religiously took the same stance as Garvey did by advocating for immediate unity. This is the same position that those in the ‘unite now’ camp, including Gaddafi, argued for.

When independence really means western dependency The economic, fiscal and monetary policies of the government of Ghana are determined by the World Bank and the IMF, who in essence run Ghana’s economy...this hardly constitutes independence. Unlike the current proponents of the ‘unite now’ advocates, Nkrumah’s group carried the day at the 1945 Manchester Congress. Nkrumah’s charisma, intellect and his passionate argument for unity, aided by great Pan Africanists such as George Padmore, W.E.B. DuBois, Jomo Kenyatta and Blyden, ensured that all the delegates supported the unity agenda. Garvey became incensed by the enslavement, racism, colonialism, brutality and forced ignorance that were responsible for the degrading roles African people were forced to accept. It became his mission to change the status Africans had to adopt in order to survive. The 1945 5th Pan African Congress held on British soil in Manchester, brought the unity agenda to the fore. Nkrumah and Padmore’s speech electrified the Congress and became a focal point of the African unity crusade. Nkrumah said years later that, “I think that of all the literature that I studied, the book that did more than any other to fire my enthusiasm was the Philosophy of Marcus Garvey published by his wife.” The 1945 Pan-African Congress Resolution was a historic document that would be cherished by Africans for years to come. It was the defining moment and the start of the unity agenda spearheaded by Nkrumah. So the above was the framework that was put in place with which Dr. Kwame Nkrumah used as his template for the formation of the Organisation for African Unity in May 1963 and where armed with a plethora of information at his disposal called for a Federation of African States immediately. Nkrumah knew that a single Africa with its immense mineral wealth and human labour was well placed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and to transform the economic structures of individual African states from poverty to that of wealth, from inequality to the satisfaction of the needs of the African people. He also realized that the balkanization of the continent as a result of Berlin Conference in 1884/1885 where western states literally carved up the African continent for their own economic and geo-political needs, was not in the best interests of African peoples culturally, spiritually and economically, making his cry for African unity now more potent. This brings us on to the current reality of ‘independent’ African states. African states today are not independent because of the mere fact that their economies are legacies of imperialism that are controlled by former colonizers. An example of this is that 65 per cent of Ghana’s economic output is made up from ‘donor’ countries and that contrary to popular misconception, the economic, fiscal and monetary policies of the government of Ghana are determined by the World Bank and the IMF, who in essence run Ghana’s economy. This hardly constitutes the definition of a country that is supposed to be proud and independent and free form foreign dictates. By their failure to seize this historic opportunity afforded to them at this summit African leaders failed not only this current generation of African people both at home and abroad, who in particular are crying out for a united and strong Africa, they have also failed future generations of African people and history will judge them harshly indeed.

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