By Mwalimu George Ngwane
My paper is based on three facts:
-that the United States of Africa is all about transforming the continent into a shared space through an African citizenship.
George Ngwane and H.E Jean Ping (the Chairman of the African Union Commission)
The United States of Africa desire is rooted in the prophecies of early African Christians who on January 14th 1897 resolved “to work towards and pray for the day when African people shall become a United African Christian Nation”.
It is rooted in the dreams of the early Diasporan panAfricanists who through the voices of Edward .W. Blyden, Henry Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore and W.E.B Dubois and through the pan African conferences (1990- 1945), pledged “to promote the concept of a West African Federation as an indispensable lever for the ultimate achievement of the United States of Africa”.
It is rooted in the memories of Kwame Nkrumah, Um Nyobe,Patrice Lumumba,Gamal Abdul Nasser,Amical Cabral,Bob Marley, Steve Biko, Modibo Keita, Sekou Toure, Cheick Anta Diop, Thomas Sankara and some other unsung heroes who laid down their lives in order “to form a Union of African States”. Indeed the Union of African States established on July 1, 1961 between the Republic of Ghana, Guinea and Mali was regarded as the nucleus of the United States of Africa.
It is rooted in the resolutions of the Lagos Plan of Action (1980), African Economic Treaty (1991), Sirte Declaration (1999) and the African Union Treaty (2000) which place emphasis on “the free movement of people, goods and capital through a common African citizenship”. The objective of accelerating the political and socio-economic integration of the continent is clearly stated in Article 3 (c) of the African Union Treaty.
-that the United States of Africa is already actualized by citizens albeit informally and that Regional Economic Communities (RECs) stand a better chance of establishing state-centric and people-focused integration.
In the 1980s and 1990s, different models of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) were attempted in the regions following the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Abuja Treaty. Instead of rationalizing and harmonizing these RECS, the status quo was reinforced and consolidated resulting in the problem of duplication and overlapping of membership. However the greatest problem of RECs in my opinion is their inward looking nature and the lack of an effective supranational organ to serve as executive liaison at a continental level.
In spite of the proliferation and duplication of RECs my paper identifies six of them which need to serve as feeders into an African Union Authority and partners in the Union Government. They include Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) for West Africa; Arab Magreb Union (UMA) for North Africa; East African Community for (EAC) East Africa; Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC) for Central Africa, Southern African Development Community (SADC) for the South of Africa and the Diaspora. They represent the African 6 or A6 that have the potentials of forming a confederation over which an executive African Union Authority presides. The A6 need to focus on the integration of social, institutional and physical infrastructure of member countries within their respective regions, the establishment of free trade areas, customs or a common market, the opening of borders to permit the free movement of people,goods,capital and services.
Some of the instruments needed for an effective A6 confederation are a Regional passport (with the abolition of visa), Regional currency, regional language and regional parliament. The result would be that Africa would have five main working languages to be taught in schools, five main currencies that are legal tenders and whose parity is established in the continent and five main Parliaments that feed into the Pan African Parliament. The A6 would encourage partnerships around programmes that facilitate regional citizenship and in order to prevent regions from insulating activities to themselves there should be an annual meeting (that precedes the African Union Authority summit) of the A6. I propose that each region adopts two countries that would serve as pivotal partners, whose role it is to oversee that member states readily yield part of their sovereignties in identified programmes and accelerate the implementation of resolutions within their respective regions. It will be necessary to have three liaison partners among the A6 whose responsibility would be to ensure that programmes within the A6 are not incompatible but rather complimentary to each other and not at variance with the higher decisions of the African Union Authority.
If the A6 (especially those in the continent) focus effectively on intra-community trade and free movement of people, if they do adopt the principle of a regional language, regional currency, regional passport (without visa) and regional parliament, if the A6 minimizes personality rivalries, hegemonistic tendencies, national jingoism and colonial overhangs then their physical connectivity to each of them should be assured by the African Union Authority.
- that If the A6 is to succeed in its mission as a building block towards deep continental integration then more powers should be given to the African Union (Authority) and Article 3 (l) of the African Union Treaty must be rigorously applied and adhered to.
Article 3 (l) empowers the African Union to co-ordinate and harmonize the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union.
The main role of the African Union Authority should be to determine the general policy and major guidelines of the continent and give directives, coordinate and harmonize policies of the A6. In this vein the African Union Authority should be seen as a supra-regional partner or a Union Government comprising a President, Deputy President, a few Secretaries especially in the areas of Economy, Foreign Affairs,Inter-Regional Integration, Culture/Education and Defence as well as Representatives of the A6.
The African Union Authority should be seen as the spokesperson or the voice of the continent especially in the area of foreign policy through the observance of a concerted diplomacy and in the area of Economy through the establishment of an African Common market ( free movement of people, abolition of visas for A6 members, liberalization of trade, establishing the rights of A6 members to work and reside in the country of their choice, adoption of a common economic and financial policy, pursuit of an endogenous development agenda etc) .
The African Union Authority should be entrusted with the task of concluding economic, foreign, technical or cultural agreements with third states and multi lateral organizations. The Authority should be given the opportunity to work in the frame work of the co-decision procedure which may take the following forms
-regulations: these are directly applied without the need for A6 members to implement them;
-directives: bind A6 members as to the objectives to be achieved while leaving the A6 the power to choose the form and the means to be used;
-decisions: these are binding in all their aspects upon those to whom they are addresses.
-recommendations and opinions: these are not binding.
In order to fulfill this mission the African Union Authority should recruit its staff based not on regional representations (the presence of Representatives of A6 in Government takes care of this) but on competence and merit. The staff should be seen to be independent of their regional interest and to act only in the interest of the continent. The staff should constantly seek to keep the needs of the ordinary citizen firmly in mind and to keep red tape and bureaucratic regulations to a minimum.
Conclusion
My essay recognizes the existence of national states but sees their survival only though integrative boundaries. The assemblage of several states in one regional platform is a necessary condition of civilized life. Fewdays Miyanda argues that less developed nations are raised by living in political unions with economically superior nations. Exhausted and decaying nations are revived by the contact of a younger vitality. (Miyanda, 2001:252).
My essay reiterates the urgency of creating an A6 that is the nursery for a people-focused United States of Africa and a member of the Union Government.
Finally my paper recommends the reinforcement of the powers of the African Union Authority that has both a functional and political union concept. For to quote Cheikh Anta Diop “the time has come for us to abandon our complexes and work in favor of a Union that is a favorable to all Africans. The Union should be a supranational political umbrella, in the sense of an executive organism able to take political decisions that are binding to all members. That is the crux of the matter” (Diop, 1987:112).
*The paper was forwarded to the “International Symposium on the United States of Africa and Africa’s role in Global Governance” in Dakar, Senegal 27th-29th July 2009.
Bibliography
Diop, Cheikh Anta (1987), Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State, New Jersey: Africa World Press/Lawrence Hill
Legum, C (n.d), PanAfricanisim, New York: Praeger
Mbonjo, Pierre Moukoko (1998) The Political thought of Kwame Nkrumah, Nigeria, University of Lagos Press
Miyanda, Fewdays (2001) Globalisation and Regional Integration: obstacles to its attainment, in A United States of Africa? Pretoria, South Africa, Africa Institute of South Africa.
Ngwane, George (2001) The New African Union, our hopes and fears, Cameroon, Kalak Books
Ngwane, George (2003) Way forward for Africa, Colorado Spring, America: International Academic Publishers
Olaniyan, R. (ed.) (1982), African History and Culture, Lagos: Longman
Serving the European Union: A citizen’s guide to the institutions of the European Union (1996) Brussels, Luxembourg
George Ngwane
George Ngwane is author of eight books and feature essayist in national and international newspapers. He is currently Chairman of the National Book Development Council, Cameroon, Executive Director of AFRICAphonie (www.Africaphonie.org), Member of the Advisory Board of the African Book Publishing Record, Columbia, U.S.A and former recipient of the Scholar at Risk Fund Fellowship (U.S.A) in 2004. He has a personal blog on democracy, development and culture (www.gngwane.com)
Address: Box 364, Buea, Fako Division, South West Region, Cameroon.
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