By Saul Gwakuba-Ndlovu

THE campaign to unify the African continent politically waned following the decolonisation of Namibia (South West Africa) in 1990 and the democratisation of South Africa in 1994. 

The then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU), was launched primarily to enable colonised black African people to free themselves from colonialism. 

That mission was virtually achieved when Namibia became independent and SA got one person, one vote. 

The Spanish Sahara issue has turned into a controversy whose urgency has become a non-issue that no longer commands much interest to the continental body. 

Most African governments are now headed by relatively young people who did not practically experience the historical continental anti-colonial campaign whose global effects included the tragic deaths of the Congo’s (Kinshasa) first black Prime Minister, the fiery Patrice Lumumba; the revered United Nations secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjold; the overthrow of Ghana’s founding President, Kwame Nkrumah; and the treasonable unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by the desperate Southern Rhodesian white-settler Premier, Ian Smith. 

Recognising that their strength against colonialism was in their unity, free African nations formed the OAU. 

The eventual coming together, as a united continent, was that organisation’s ultimate political objective. 

A socio-economic look at Africa indicates that one of its strengths is in its large manpower base, a fact that could be used to launch labour-intensive development projects. 

Its large population can actually be converted into a thriving market, all things being equal. 

Another of the continent’s strengths is its vast mineral resources which, if properly exploited, marketed and the proceeds wisely utilised, could turn the continent into a gem of the world. 

Botswana’s socio-economic condition is an excellent example of what the entire continent could become if properly administered. 

Yet another of its strengths is the agricultural land, plus the large quantities of water most of which presently is left to flow unutilised into either the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic Ocean on the western coast. 

The Red Sea, along the continent’s horn in the east, also receives some, albeit not much, of the water that parts of Africa could harness for agricultural production; so does the Mediterranean Sea in the north.

A weakness that some African nations have, and are likely to have for the foreseeable future, their religious cultural incompatibility and radicalism. 

The former, that is cultural incompatibility, is currently experienced in parts of Nigeria, Somalia and, occasionally, in a few other parts of East Africa. 

A religious community that believes that only its beliefs, (repeat the phrase only its beliefs) are worth upholding, and that its neighbours should be violently made to embrace them can never accept unity, let alone continental unity. 

We are currently practically experiencing such religious incompatibility in northern Nigeria, in Somalia and, also, quite often in Egypt where Islamic die-hards kill scores of Coptic Christians in cold blood. 

Such people cannot live within the same borders with those who believe and worship differently from themselves. 

Another weakness on the African continent is insecurity, such as has prevailed in the DRC virtually since that huge country became independent in June 1960. 

The Sudan has also been another centre of insecurity, as has been South Sudan, a very recent nation created and recognised by the UN with the very active support of the AU. 

Libya and Egypt have their share of insecurity in North Africa, albeit not as long running. 

A weakness that many independent African states have had for a long time is lack of political leadership that is less subjective, less micro-nationalistic, but is deeply respected at home, abroad and is highly committed to African continental unity; a leadership that promotes a Kwame Nkrumah-Ahmed Sekou Toure-Modibo-Keita kind of pan-African political philosophy. 

Most current African political leaders are by far less concerned about African, let alone, Afro-Asian, solidarity than their predecessors who actually experienced colonial injustices such as dispossession of livestock, arbitrary taxation, displacement, discrimination, general social humiliation and economic exploitation. 

They are understandably deeply concerned about and involved in procuring what is offered by post-independence Africa in the form of economic and political opportunities, social amenities and material comforts, movements and activities that culturally and socially transform them. 

The AU agenda should be to prioritise the political values and objectives that will put the African continent at par with the rest of the world.  

Organisations such as the Economic Organisation for West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area obviously mean much to today’s African political leaders, some of whom do not see any role for inter-African political solidarity.

It would be of great interest for each of the AU’s 54 states to hold a referendum to see what the electorate’s position is on a continental union more or less similar to the United States of America. 

In any case, the AU objective cannot be achieved without such member-states holding a referendum. 

African opinion makers and policy generators would be well-advised that African international economic co-operation is based more on the mu tual promotion and protection of each nation’s interest, including the preservation of the colonial boundaries of each of the AU’s 54 countries; African political union would mean the abolition of those boundaries, a not easy thing for many, if not most, interested current leaders to accept. 

It is well-nigh impossible for Africa’s three kingdom’s (Lesotho, eSwatini and Morocco) to agree to become parts of a united African continental union that would be obviously predominantly republican. 

The leaders of those three kingdoms would not be happy to play second fiddle to an elected African head of state.

This is an issue for much debate, of course.

Saul Gwakuba-Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email, sgwakuba@gmail.com