Nzo Ekhah-Ngaky and the Africa he did not see

By Mwalimu George NGWANE

Joseph Nzo Ekhah-Ngaky, apart from his rich national career, will for long be remembered as the youngest Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U).  At the age of 38, the patriarch Nzo was the second African (after Boubacar Diallo Telli of Guinea) to occupy this pan African post between 1972 and 1974.

The Swiss Press Review and the News Report issue of August 7, 1972 had this to say of Nzo:

Fluently bilingual, he encompasses in his experience the elements brought to Africa by both Britain and France. By all accounts, Mr. Ekhah-Ngaky is likely to be more active than his predecessor, and we are likely to see more dynamic attempts to turn into reality some of these resolutions of past conferences- many of which as in the U.N itself, have remained dead letters. Perhaps the most important of these are connected with the liberation struggle against the remaining outposts of colonialism in Africa.

The period against which Nzo was elected as Secretary-General was mired in an international climate of political/economic turbulence as well as the teething challenges of the O.A.U.

   First in October 1973, Egypt (with the support of Syria and Jordan) launched an attack on Israel in a bid to recover its occupied territory and also press for Palestinian autonomy.  The consequence was the unilateral decision of the Arab countries to raise the price of oil to the detriment of the purchasing power of African countries.

Second, it is within this era that the O.A.U set up the Committee for the liberation of Africa with the specific task to eradicate the vestiges of colonialism in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, Azania (South Africa) and Western Sahara.

Lastly, Nzo like his predecessor, Diallo Telli had wanted to carve an executive rather than an administrative role for the Secretary General of the O.A.U to the extent of taking unilateral decisions without concerting with the Heads of state.  This did not go down well with some Heads of State (including his own-Amadou Ahidjo) who wanted a ceremonial Secretary General and with some members of the O.A.U secretariat who preferred to pay loyalty to their home governments rather than to the Secretary-General (S.G).  Jean Emmanuel Pondi and Francois Herve Moudourou in their book Le Secretaire General de l’O. U.A dans le systeme International (1996), analyse five categories of the post of the S.G of the O.A.U to include, the militant class to which Diallo Telli and Edem Kodgo belong; the political class comprising Nzo and Salim Ahmed Salim; the diplomatic class of William Eteki Mboumoua; the technocratic class of Ide Oumarou; and the transition class reserved for interim S.Gs to which Tesfaye Gabre-Egzy and Peter Onu belong.

If Nzo lived to see an Africa whose poignant liberation theology broke the walls of apartheid in the Southern African sub-region, he will never see an emerging Africa, which even with the birth of the African Union, is still tottering on the borders of national self-destruction and a pathological Afrocentric allergy.  He will never see an Africa whose political fortunes gained during Independence through a liberation revolution have been reversed with a false wind of democracy through a velvet revolution.  With all the emancipatory movements of multipartism and labour unionism across half of the continent, conflicts from the bullet and the ballot are still rife. 

For a Secretary General whose optimism of people-oriented African unity was legendary, Nzo must have been aware, before his June 6th 2005 transition that the people of Africa are still yearning for the fruits of their hard-won Independence. Obsessed with a third term and limitless term mandate (madness), African leaders have defied all logic of democratic dividends in pursuit of the blind alley of self-preservation and self-perpetration.  The miniature democratic gains made in the 80s have been derailed towards dynastic trends.  Today, periodic election results are as predictable as constitutional hold-ups are à la mode. 

Having connived in the elimination of the genuine nationalistic and visionary leaders of Africa like Nkrumah, Um Nyobe, Lumumba, Cabral, Mboya, Sobukwe, Biko, Nasser, Sankara etc, the neo-colonialists continue to pamper and caress a nascent vampire elite whose political compass and economic appetite are dictated by the caprices of insensitivity and imperialism.  The paradigms of self-reliance, endogenous development and pan African Unity are still theoretical as most African countries jostle to conscript themselves to the list of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, Debt cancellation candidates, IMF best pupils and U.N Security Council agents.

Patriarch Nzo, what has become of the May 1973 Declaration, which under your tenure as S.G, proclaimed that the economic integration of Africa is a pre-requisite for the realisation of the objectives of the O.A.U?

Nzo, how can one explain the paradox that the Southern African countries, which the rest of Africa sought to liberate in the 70s, have made greater strides in clairvoyant political leadership and economic development than their “liberators”?

How come, Nzo that after close to five decades of nominal Independence, Africa is still browbeaten by a condescending sympathy from a certain “Commission for Africa”, intimidated by the selective demonisation of the G8, and fleeced by the biased trade terms of the World Trade Organisation?

Sage Nzo, how can one explain the grim truth that while at the age of 27 you returned to serve your country from the then prestigious Oxford University, it is the same age bracket that today swarms our Police offices for passports and foreign Embassies for visas?

Patriarch Nzo, even if you were well and alive you would have chosen not to answer these questions because after the London Rhodesian Mining land Company (Lonrho) controversy of January 1974 and your subsequent quit from the office of S.G in August 1974, you became as politically silent as your Nguti grave.

While other former S.Gs like William Eteki Mboumoua, Edem Kodjo, (late) Ide Oumarou and Salim Ahmed Salim still articulate national and continental issues, you chose the path of retreat and reticence.  It was a choice you made, but one, considering your diplomatic savvy and political astuteness that will impact negatively on the Africa that you will never see.

As for the more than 700 million Africans that mourn you, their challenge today is to either emulate your pan African militancy and save this continent, or go along with Professor George Ayittey’s pathetic prescription in his new book “Africa Unchained”-which is to allow Africa ‘to collapse to its own fate’.

Sleep well, good Knight and may you join the other pan African ancestors in praying for the Africa that your children are seeing.

Secretaries-General of the OAU (Founded May 1963)

1964–72 Dialo Telli (Guinea)
1972–74 Nzo Ekangaki (Cameroon)
1974–78 William Eteki M'Boumoua (Cameroon)
1978–83 Edem Kodjo (Togo)
1983–85 Peter Onu (Nigeria) (Acting)
1985–89 Ide Oumarou (Niger)
1989–2001 Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania)
2001-2002 Amara Essy (Cote d'Ivoire)

The OAU was decommissioned in 2002. The functions of the OAU were transfered to the African Union Commission, with Oumar Konare as chair.