Dear Editor,

On May 24, 1963 President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana made a prophetic speech to 31 other African heads of State that had converged on the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

In his speech President Nkrumah implored his fellow African leaders to follow the American model and create a continental union of African states. President Nkrumah was convinced that the greatest destiny for Africa could only be achieved if African leaders were willing to resist the lure of the trappings of personal aggrandisement in favour of creating a powerful African State that could represent the interests of all African people.

President Nkrumah’s vision and that of other pan-African leaders on the continent called for the creation of a United States of Africa with one currency, one army, one central governing authority that could act on behalf of all of Africa and a common economic zone that would allow for free trade across the continent. The counter proposition presented by those who opposed President Nkrumah’s vision was the creation of a union of independent, autonomous states that would meet and discuss issues affecting the continent of Africa.

The intoxicating wine of power combined with all the trappings of national leadership seduced the majority of African leaders gathered in Addis Ababa in 1963. Instead of a United States of Africa as envisaged by President Nkrumah, the majority of African heads of State opted to form the Organization of African Unity, which later evolved into the African Union. Absent from both the Organization of African Unity and the African Union was the chief ingredient that would have made both organisations feasible and effective, namely political union.

The prophetic element in President Nkrumah’s speech was summed up in his declaration that Africa would either unite or perish. President Nkrumah understood only too well that the struggle against colonialism did not end with the attainment of national independence. He, therefore, sought to sensitise his colleagues to the dangers facing the newly independent African nations.

The two options available for the African continent, according to Nkrumah, were a political union comparable to the American union or recolonisation. Nkrumah held up Latin America as an example of what Africa would become without political union.

President Nkrumah and his pan-African supporters saw what the majority of African heads of State did not see back then and still refuse to see today. It was not by accident that the African continent was carved up like a pizza and distributed among European interests. From independence to the present, European nations have continued to exert significant influence over the militarily and economically weak African states they created. Europe, often acting in conjunction with the US, has helped to destabilise African nations and effect regime change.

Oil- and mineral-rich African countries are easy targets for American, European, and Asian interests. Countries like Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, and Angola are significant oil producers and are therefore tagged as nations of interest. The African Union could only watch from the sidelines as American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces assassinated Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and reduced Libya to a failed State. The ongoing conflict in the Congo may very well be connected to the rich deposits of coltan and other minerals in there.

As traditional sources of oil and minerals become depleted or unavailable due to a realignment of the world order, a new scramble for Africa will intensify. African nations will once again be hard-pressed to adequately defend their resources, land, and people from rapacious invading forces bent on repeating history. A United States of Africa with a well-equipped modern army and a few nuclear weapons would have been an effective deterrent to the neo-colonisers.

Regrettably African politicians dropped the ball in 1963, dooming the contemporary generation of Africans to additional domination and added oppression.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

rodneynimrod2@gmail.com.