THIS Sunday, May 25 2014 marks the end of the first 50-year phase of the African Union (AU).
“The year-long celebrations saw Africans defining for themselves the Africa they want to see over the next 50 years, in what is known as Agenda 2063,” the organisers said in a press statement released last week.
Unfortunately, the celebrations are already marred by the kidnapping of 250 girls by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
This is the predicament Africa faces.
The West has never made it a secret that the industrialisation levels they have reached require endless supply of Africa’s vast resources.
Over the last two decades, the Americans have made sure of their strategic presence in Africa from Djibouti to Gaborone.
These strategic bases ensure their military presence on the continent and rapid response when necessary to eliminate threats, real or imagined.
Africa has at the end of the first jubilee adopted a policy that goes against the tenets of NATO.
And the task set for the next 50 years by Chairperson of the AU Commission, Madame Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma is far more challenging than the decolonising process.
According to Madame Zuma’s report, Africa in the next 50 years must, “design a comprehensive industrial development framework that is inclusive and transformative to speed up and deepen value addition of local production, linkages between the commodity sector and other economic sectors.”
According to the AU Agenda, 2063 is an approach on how the continent should effectively learn from the lessons of the past and optimise use of Africa’s resources.
At the recent EU-Africa summit in April, Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council President said, “The summit has demonstrated how wide and deep our relationship is, and how shared values and a shared vision…enable us to face the challenges of the present.”
“Our partnership of equals has come of age,” he said to the beaming 36 leaders that chose to attend although they had initially agreed not to.
When the AU, then (Organisation of African Unity) was established in 1963, it was in an environment of ‘militancy and confident optimism’.
It was a selfless declaration by the leaders at that summit that Africa must be free and every African had a role to play.
It took a gruelling 32 years to achieve official independence, but not the elimination the institutions that white people left in place to ensure continued exploitation.
Colonialism created the basic conditions of the crises Africa faces today: dependent economies, distorted structures, artificial boundaries, divided people, undeveloped human resource base, weak undemocratic state structures and most disappointingly a divided Africa.
Years earlier before the 1963 convention, in 1944 Europe was in shambles and its member states came together to map an economic way forward and for the benefit of future generations.
The aim of the conference held in rural Bretton Woods, New Hampshire was to ensure post-war prosperity through economic cooperation; there they pledged that they would avoid intra-conflicts on their continent.
After the Bretton Woods meeting, two key institutions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, were created to manipulate the colonial crises already in place in order to reconstruct a devastated Europe.
They began to milk the countries by enforcing ‘economic programmes’ like the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) that Zimbabwe adopted in the 90’s and for a while they boomed as today African countries still pay close to US$20 billion in debt repayments per annum.
Unfortunately, once again, America and Western nations find themselves besieged by economic meltdown and debt and Africa is their target.
In 1883 King Leopold II of Belgium, as a reminder to the missionaries headed for Congo, wrote, “…it will be best to protect your interests in that part of the world. “You have to keep watch on dis-interesting our savages (Africans) from the richness that is plenty in their underground to avoid that they get interested in it and make you murderous competition and dream one day to overthrow you.”
While during the era of King Leopold, the Europeans plundered and enslaved, they have now resorted to full blown war.
It now takes the form of war on terror.
Boko Haram in Nigeria, Niger and Mali.
AlShabab in Somalia and Kenya.
Al Quaeda in Algeria and Mali.
As seen by the recent facebook pleas for America’s readily available intervention, Africa is yet for another invasion.
It seems Africa’s military is unable to thwart ‘religious terrorists’ considering that there are already about 10 000 f
oreign troops in the Central African Republic.
African troops can fight rebels in Somalia and Congo, but are suddenly overcome when it comes to religious terrorists.
It is saddening for Africans to go on social platforms rallying up lobbyist and crying to Washington for help in Nigeria, just as the Malians did in 2011when they called France for rescue in exchange for resources.
What will be the price for the Israeli, US and British rescue in the oil rich country of Nigeria?
Economic Adjustment Programmes still active in many developing countries dictate that Africa will only perform as European markets and receive finished products.
Madame Zuma’s 2063 mandate means that Africa no longer becomes a market for finished European products, but rather the seller which would inevitably bankrupt their already struggling economies.
Zimbabwe’s Indegenisation policy has already ensured that locals should get the most of their resources which is in tandem with AU’s vision.
However, the country finds itself besieged by Europeans who already know the impact the Zimbabwean success will make across Africa.
Zimbabwe was condemned when it implemented the Land Reform Programme.
The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair made no secret of his desire of a military invasion in Zimbabwe under the guise of defending human rights.
Leaders like President Robert Mugabe who set to deconstruct white interests will find themselves besieged by European powers.
These are the threats that Madame Zuma’s 2063 dream faces in the next 50 years where we might find Africa in the same predicament it finds itself in today.
So until Africa speaks with one voice, the next 50 years will find us in the same predicament.
This Sunday is a time for Africa to reflect.