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So much for African unity, eh?
Accra (GH) – 25 May 2008 - In a few days, all of us
on this wretched
continent will be celebrating African Union Day. May
26th will be a public
holiday in almost every country - except in Morocco,
which is not a member
of the AU. It’s a commemoration that is supposed to
remind us to focus on
the need to unite as one big nation. After all, they
say, we are one
people – torn apart by colonialism and slavery.
I am looking forward to May 26th. Who doesn’t like a
public holiday? But
I’m so not looking forward to what that day
represents – one big United
Republic of Africa. I am very sure it will not
happen in my lifetime. Just
about a year ago, when African leaders gathered in
Accra they chose to turn
a blind eye to all the major challenges confronting
the continent at the
time. Darfur was on fire, Mugabe was delighting
himself by plunging his
country deeper into economic and political chaos and
Somalia was (and
still is) every brute’s paradise.
If our leaders had been wise and perceptive, they
would have seen the
global food crisis and the escalating fuel prices
coming. They would have
deliberated on how to deal with the impending
crisis. Now the crises are
here and look at them scrambling around like
frightened rats.
In July last year, all they wanted to talk about was
‘African Unity.’ Our
leaders look at the European Union and they think
they can easily
replicate it here in Africa. They even want to go
further and create one
big African nation. It took the Europeans 50 years
to build their union.
Mind you, it’s not a big federation yet. But, our
leaders – always with
warped ambitions – think they can achieve what the
Europeans have not been
able to achieve in five decades.
Those few days of the AU summit (which, by the way,
was very badly
organised) made the rest of the world wonder whether
there were more
ostriches than human being in Africa. Why ignore
today’s problems and
spend the whole time thinking about how to force a
dream to come true? The
world laughed at us. Between July 2007 and now, a
lot has happened on this
continent that demonstrates clearly that we are a
bunch of jokers who like
to dream silly dreams and talk and talk and talk
about everything and
nothing.
Take the recent attacks on African migrants in South
Africa as an example.
For more than a week, South African gangs have been
attacking their fellow
“brothers and sisters” from other African countries,
accusing them of
literally taking over their country. According to
the rampaging mobs, the
other Africans have left them jobless and spouseless
whiles contributing
to the increasing crime wave in their country.
It’s a strange case of xenophobia which doesn’t
really surprise me because
Ghanaians can be very xenophobic too – especially to
people from other
African countries. For example, there are a lot of
people in this country
who talk about Liberians as if they are aliens from
another planet. Just
cast your mind back to the recent incidents at the
refugee camp at
Buduburam. Even government ministers were spewing
xenophobia all over the
place. The Interior Minister was throwing tantrums
because the Liberians
had dared to say that Ghana is not good enough for
them. Ghana is not good
enough for even Ghanaians so what’s so strange about
refugees saying that
they do not like to stay here any longer? For daring
to complain, our own
government, which prides itself in pushing the
African unity agenda, is
feverishly preparing to send back more than 20,000
Liberians to “their
country”, according to Nana Obiri Boahen, a
‘hanger-on’ minister at the
Interior Ministry.
After all the talk of African Unity one would have
thought that Africa is
for all of us and that Liberians are supposed to
feel at home in Ghana, my
compatriots should feel at home in South Africa and
Ethiopians should
settle in quite nicely in Eritrea. Thanks to
xenophobic attitudes like
what we saw with the Liberian incident and what we
are saying in South
Africa, Africans cannot help but feel like strangers
in their own land.
Where there is no xenophobia, you see major strife
that makes the whole
idea of African Unity appear like an attempt to
build a mansion without a
foundation. For example, Chad and Sudan are
threatening to go to war.
Sudan’s president, Omar Al Bashir, accuses his
counterpart from Chad
Iddris Derby of sponsoring and arming a group of
rebels who almost took
over Khartoum a couple of weeks ago. Last year, when
some rebels came so
close to his palace in N’Djamena, Mr. Derby blamed
it on Mr. Al Bashir.
Can anyone realistically expect these two ‘warlords’
to bury their
differences for the sake of a united Africa? They
should but they won’t.
Ethiopia and Eritrea are still sworn enemies. Add
all the civil wars to
these and you will see that we surely have a long
way to go.
Even in the sphere of economic co-operation, which
should form the basis
for future political integration, our continent is
not doing as well as it
should. Nigeria will not allow textile from other
African countries. They
will not even allow us Ghanaians to sell our tomato
puree in their
country. And we in Ghana do not want Nigerians to
engage in
buying-and-selling in our country –unless they can
pay a fee of 30,000
dollars. The Lebanese can afford to pay. But for our
average brother from
Naija, this is more than his working capital.
A few months ago, police men went about closing down
the shops of
Nigerians who had not paid up. It was yet another
eloquent demonstration
that we like to talk more than act.
Just a few months after African leaders had
discussed their grandiose
African Unity plan Stanbic Bank of South Africa put
in a takeover bid for
our Agricultural Development Bank. The very same
people who were arguing
for African Unity turned around to say that
“Ghanaian banks like ADB
should remain in Ghanaian hands.”
To make it even worse, the political sphere in most
African countries is a
chaotic mess. It’s true that some of us have taken
the democratic path. But
dictators are large and in charge in several other
countries. Mugabe has no
intention of ending his madness anytime soon in
Zimbabwe. If he hadn’t been
acting so silly for a man of his age, Zimbabweans
would have had no reason
to go to South Africa to add to the number of
illegal immigrants there. No
African leader is willing to call mad Mugabe to
mellow. The problems he has
caused in that country will take a long time to
heal.
Almost every African country has major problems that
will take decades to
be resolved. For most of them, there isn’t even a
resolution of any sort
in sight. Somalia is one of them. So is DR Congo.
And Chad. And Djibouti.
And the Comoros. And Sudan.
This means that if the unity they talk about is to
be achieved anytime
soon, the chaos in Somalia, the genocide in Sudan,
the xenophobia in South
Africa and the corruption in Nigeria will all be
problems for that one
United Republic of Africa to deal with. And come to
think of it, is there
anyone amongst our current crop of leaders who can
serve as the first
president of the United Republic – thinking more
about the welfare of the
people and less about himself? Kufuor buys jets when
his hospitals are
collapsing, Mbeki can’t see a crisis where there is
one, Kibaki won’t
concede defeat, Odinga comes in and appoints all his
cousins as ministers
(and gives each of them a fleet of official cars)
and Mugabe, well,
doesn’t seem to have his head screwed on properly.
If what the AU has achieved in over 50 years of
existence and what it is
noted for is anything to go by, then we are better
off being a disunited
Africa – each nation for itself and its citizens.
This is how it will be
long after I’m even dead and gone.
A United Republic of Africa will not happen anytime
soon. But if our
leaders push it to boost their egos, I’m sure it
will turn out to be one
hell of a chaotic, banana republic. I definitely do
not want to be a part
of it!
Source - Ato Kwamena Dadzie
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