Kwame Nkrumah,a great Pan-Africanist and the first president of Ghana, penned down an interesting and a famous book among leaders and “Pan-Africanists” alike titled “Africa Must Unite.” In this book, Nkrumah passionately posits that the only feasible path to Africa’s development will be through unity. In other words, without Africa’s unity there will be no development in the continent. Decades later,it appears that he has been ostensibly proven right. Although the continent has made a few steps forward, they are minute and not commensurate to the time and resources put forward.
This idea of African Unity has been continuously parroted by all and sundry since the early days of independence but till today little to no progress has been made in this direction. Movement of goods and people across the colonially imposed borders is still difficult. Air travel between different African countries is still ludicrously expensive. All African countries infrastructure still looks outwards rather than inwards and traveling outside the continent is still cheaper than traveling within the continent just to mention a few. Dubious leaders and self-proclaimed Pan-Africanists have been using this mantra in every single occasion for their own gains and the deluded masses applaud without asking salient questions about it. What does a united Africa look like? How is the unity to implemented? How will it work? How will the numerous differences between states and regions be successfully countered? Will it be like the European Union or the American system or something absolutely different?No one asks. It just a beautiful rhetoric intended to please the gullible.
Nkrumah is the only leader who had a vision and a strategy to accomplish the task of uniting post-colonial Africa. His main strategy which fell short after 1963 with the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was the alliance which he forged together with Modibo Keita of Mali and Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea. These three countries were to have a unified foreign policy and a common currency and to be the base for a real and practical African Unity. None of which ever happened. Other countries were to join after gaining their independence or at their own convenience. This was a viable idea but Nkrumah and his comrades underestimated the power of vested colonial and post-colonial interests. Colonial powers fought both directly and clandestinely to thwart any emergence of a real united Africa organization. There’s is no other worthy strategy which has been put in place since that I know of. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) will not create a united Africa in the sense of what Nkrumah envisioned with a common currency, borderless and with a unified foreign policy and a common defense policy, which is what is really needed. Even the African Continental Free Trade Area might fail to dully materialize by 2063 as stipulated in the document. Neocolonial interests abound. If the newly formed Alliance of Sahelian States ( AES) were to weather the endless storms they face and create an alliance with a unified foreign policy, a common defense policy and a common currency, then they will be following in the footsteps of kwame Nkrumah and his ilk. This might be the playbook they are using and the aim is to try to actualize Kwame’s original idea. All the other numskulls who parrot and sing about the unity of Africa without actually elaborating on how to achieve this are probably political opportunists just like the African leaders who go to the African Union meetings in Addis Ababa engage in silly rhetoric of unity every year without actually coming up with a plan.
I fully agree with Nkrumah though, unity is the best thing that can happen to this continent. Having said that, I see no way of uniting these countries other than by a military force Mao style ,which is entirely impossible of happening. My solution is that since the continent can only be effectively united by a military action which is unlikely to happen, let them be but with a fierce military competition like that of Europe. This military competition will absolutely force the African countries to intently develop their economies and militaries keeping in mind that without that potential adversaries will gobble up their territories. This will also solve the problem of the many tiny politically and economically unviable countries which will probably cozy up to big the powers or get merged with bigger ones all together through diplomacy or force. This will be good for the economy of the continent as a whole. Suggesting this because all else have failed miserably. Currently, African states are very much engaged in fighting their own populations, fierce military competition will force them to work and develop their own populations and economies as a means of survival and to focus outward. It is simply a redirection of the fight, nothing much. What is going on is a vicious competition among the states- a competition for mediocrity but a competition nonetheless.
Africa has never been united in its entire history. This is why it was conquered and colonized in the first place. There must be a logical reason for the continued lack of unity. There are over 3000 tribes which with growing numbers will become nations in themselves. To go forward, history must be put into consideration. Uniting a continent as huge as Africa (30.37 million square kilometers) is almost entirely impossible. So to postulate that this massive continent can be united can both be refuted by history and by logic. The vicious military competition which is being proposed here is what really led to the European continent to have exponential growth around the 19th century. They competed in every aspect of life including in participating in slavery and colonialism. Each of them compete savagely to get a piece of the cake. It is time for African countries to try other measures since the quest for unity has failed. The late Nelson Mandela once said in an interview that it did not matter whether the cat was black or white as long as it can catch the mice. African countries should now focus more on catching the mice and not on petty politics of the processes or methodologies.
The opponents of this military competition will obviously cite the idea that this is basically warmongering. That the casualties in such scenarios will be considerably high and it will be disastrous to the continent. That this is unfair and totally wrong. I want to unequivocally state that war is always with us even though it is wrong and unfair. It is a companion that never leaves. There’s a war in Congo and another one in Sudan. Most countries are fighting terrorism in the Sahel while others are embroiled in circles of neverending internal turmoils. African history is ladened with cases of genocides and ethnic cleansing. History of some of the most successful countries today point to a time when they had to put their plan in motion and it was indeed absolutely bloody. China for instance during the long march. China is now on the pinnacle of the world. My idea is to simply change the course of it from internecine conflict characterized by civil war and intertribal clashes to a more beneficial warfare. This might sound utterly ironical but some warfare are somehow beneficial.
Anonymous 