By Munetsi Madakufamba
The Organisation of African
Unity's fading hopes of establishing
a continent-wide economic
community has gained a new impetus since the arrival of Nigerian President, Olusegun
Obasanjo, who has taken every opportunity to lobby for closer cooperation between SADC and
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Almost three decades ago, the
OAU began a process of adopting the Lagos Plan of Action, the final act of which was
endorsed in 1980, envisaging the creation of an African Economic Community that would be
built on regional economic groupings such as SADC and ECOWAS.
However, the pace has been
slow as noted by President Obasanjo in his address to the SADC Summit in August in Maputo:
"Africa's biggest handicap so far has been our lacklustre progress in economic
cooperation and integration."
Only recently African leaders
met in Tripoli where Libyan President Cnl Muammar Gaddafi led a renewed call for a United
States of Africa. But many believe that goal can only be achieved through economic unity.
The call for a United States
of Africa is not new. It is as old as the ideology of Pan-Africanism. The late Ghanaian
leader Kwame Nkrumah, during his time, called for the creation of a continental African
government by treaty. Another great visionary, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere too called
for such unity but was for a stage-by-stage approach as a more practical way. He could not
be more correct given the conflicts that still haunt and divide Africa today.
There are however, optimists
who argue that conflicts such as those in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are
not unique in the world. Europe, they say, went through periods of worse wars this very
century. But today Western Europe, at least, has managed to forge an economic unity, which
makes eventual political unity seem not only possible but also inevitable.
It is on the basis of this
thinking that Obasanjo urges Africa to remain determined to reach continental political
unity, but via the economic route.
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"In 1970 we began the
process with the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act which envisaged an
African Economic Community by the turn of the century. Unfortunately, the consequent
progress towards our integrational goals has been slow and deficient in political will and
determination," he says.
The economic route is the
principal message of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of 1980, which are the
foundation stone of the Abuja Treaty of 1991. Obasanjo says the Abuja Treaty, which also
seeks to establish the African Economic Community, is now the main hope.
The treaty, he adds, is
the platform for consolidating the vision of a viable continental community, capable of
promoting common interests and lift Africa into the global mainstream of contemporary
economic interaction.
"We have been unable
to complete the projects and programmes set out for the first stage of the Abuja Treaty.
But we should not despair," he told delegates at the 1999 SADC summit which he
attended as guest of honour. Obasanjo described SADC and ECOWAS as "two dynamic
organisations with enormous potential to be cornerstones of the African integration
process."
President Thabo Mbeki
of South Africa, past SADC chairman |
He added that the two
regions are "beckoned by history to provide the impetus for a timely realisation of
the African Economic Community of our dreams.
"I therefore call on
our two communities to explore, immediately, the prospects and possibilities of
cooperation, both at the institutional level of the two secretariats and in enhanced
bilateral interaction between the various member states, under an inter-regional
framework."
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