Over the years, Africa day has been a sustained celebratory day that African people use to mainstream how attached to the African land. Celebrated on 25 May ( The day the OAU was founded), Africa day has turned into highlighting what makes us African, the joys of being African, and the struggles as well. While all of these are valid and one should always have a personal attachment to a collective celebratory day, Africa Day has a long history rooted in Panafricanism and Liberation.
In this essay, we are going back to the politics of Kwame Nkrumah and the creation of the Organization of African Unity.
Who was Kwame Nkrumah?
Kwame Nkrumah, born on 21 September 1909 in Nkroful, was a Ghanaian revolutionary and pan-African who believed in the urgency to unite African peoples everywhere. Nkrumah had a particular unique journey. He experienced white supremacy through colonization in Ghana during his primary education at a Catholic boarding school and racialized segregation in the states where he went to school. That is why his overall plan was to connect struggles. Decolonization, for him, had to be global. Nkrumah started his activism when he was a student, organizing a group of African students in Pennsylvania. He built the African students association where members organized and educated on a pan-African strategy, demanding each African colony to aspire and gain independence. In 1944, Kwame organized the first Pan-African conference in New York. [1]
In 1945, Kwame relocated to London, where he started his Ph.D. in Anthropology at the London School of economics. He will later withdraw and focused on political organizing. Alongside George Padmore, Nkrumah organized the fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester ( 15-19 October 1945)[2] to design a strategy of dismantling colonialism and replacing it with African socialism. The main agenda was to establish the United States of Africa with interlocking regional organizations and governance by states of limited sovereignty[3]. They agree to build a new African culture without tribalism, pursue a democracy within a socialist system, mix traditional aspects with modern thinking and achieve that by nonviolent means if possible[4].
The most important collective decision was to make decolonization an urgency. Nkrumah became the secretary of the WANS ( West African National Secretariat) to organize Africans to secure their nations’ independence. Nkrumah then became a particular threat to the US empire. His plan of solidarity with movement leaders in Vietnam, Cuba, Harlem bothered the CIA.
On 12 June 1949, Nkrumah founded the Convention People’s party after he relocated back to Ghana. His party’s slogans included “carrying the masses with us.”[5] He endured a lot of setbacks and challenges. He was even arrested. On 6 March 1957, Ghana became independent as first Britain’s African colony to gain majority-rule independence. It is the same day that Nkrumah became the Prime Minister of Ghana.
On 1 July 1960, Nkrumah became the 1st President of Ghana Nkrumah. He spent his presidency promoting pan-African culture to challenge the norms of white supremacy and euro-centrism imposed in education and ways of living.
The organization of the African Unity
By the 1960s, Most African revolutionaries such as Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda had picked up on Pan Africanism and incorporated it in their political goals and objectives. Most of these leaders were also in community with each other as they had met in different Pan-AfricanCongress.
When Nkrumah became president, he hosted Pan-African conferences with a vision to free colonized countries. Nkrumah’s main objective was to build a nonviolence strategy that would still achieve regional integration and solid economic ties. However, Nkrumah’s vision of the United States of Africa was not supported by most African leaders. This division was also rooted in language difference, diverse opinions, and strategy while all committed to a better continent. They found Nkrumah’s idea of the United States of Africa to be unrealistic and takes away sovereignty. By 1961, the Continent was divided into blocs of Pan-African ideology: The Casablanca group ( Ghana, Mali, Guinea, Libya, Egypt. Morocco, and Algeria), which believed in a radical and total continental integration, The Monrovia group (Nigeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Togo, and Somalia) which believed in the unification of the Continent in intermediate steps and the Brazzaville group ( Congo-Brazaville, and other francophone countries, led by Senegal and Ivory Coast) which opted to sustain colonial ties with France.
To find common ground, delegates from 32 African countries met in Addis on May 22-25, 1963. They agreed to establish the Organization of the African Unity( OAU) as the base of pan-Africanism and continental collaboration. The OAU was established with the hope that it would guide all these countries to work together collaboratively. The OAU developed a Charter and outlined its objectives:
a) Promote unity and solidarity of the African states
b) To coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa,
c) To defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and independence,
d) To eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa, and
e) To promote international cooperation, having due regard to the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Right by calling on member states to recognize
1. The sovereign equality of member states,
2. Non-interference in the internal affairs of each state,
3. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and the inalienable right to independent existence,
4. Peaceful settlement of disputes by negotiation,
5. Unreserved condemnation, in all its forms, of subversive activities on the part of neighboring states or any other states,
6. Absolute dedication to the total emancipation of the African territories, which were still dependent, and
7. Affirmation of a policy of nonalignment concerning all other blocs.
For a country to attain membership status in the OAU, independence was mandatory. The heads of states acted as the executive body of the OAU under an assembly that met annually to discuss the concerns of pan-African harmony.
The OAU also had a council of ministers made of foreign ministers who met biannually to prepare matters and concerns for the assembly to discuss. They were also responsible for the implementation and coordination of agreements of the assembly. An appointed Secretary-General also headed a Secretariat. The charter of the OAU made it clear that the secretariat was to remain objective and accountable only to the OAU.
The OAU did as well establish a commission of mediation to address any disputes between member states. The OAU, faced with the realities of internal wars, also adopted the African convention on refugees obliging states to provide temporary refuge to asylum-seekers.
Unfortunately, the OAU faced tremendous obstacles and challenges, especially the failure to stop the civil wars in Nigeria and Angola because of the policy of non-interference. However, one of the OAU’s accomplishments was the immense help it provided to movements across the Continent to free themselves from colonial regimes. It achieved independence for many former colonies.
The OAU also achieved regional economic integration such as the ECOWAS, the South African Development Coordinating Commission (SADCC), the North Africa-Greater Area Free Trade Area, and the Central Africa-Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries. The OAU also established the Organization of the African Trade Union. It set up the African development bank to implement economic projects that will get the Continent out of debt.
The truth of the OAU and its failures is that it was made of developing countries after the independence with so much internal work required to rebuild themselves. In its 39 years of existence, The institution failed even to protect citizens from its leaders. It grew to become a club of the ruling class that betrayed the interests of the masses due to its commitment to respect the countries’ sovereignty. The OAU dealt with the rise of dictatorship governance and rebel groups all over the Continent. By 1990, the OAU was powerless as most African countries had chosen to hold onto their territorial power. The unification that the OAU wanted always seemed like an over-reach because these countries from the beginning prioritized existing in the shared vision under blocs so they could navigate political instability, lack of proper infrastructure instead of sustaining an immense dream as the United States of Africa
On July 12-14, 1999, At the 35th OAU Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Libya, President Muammar Al Gaddafi led a plenary session that analyzed the OAU’s failure and inadequacy to facilitate Africa’s collective and economic growth. The head of states agreed to reform the OAU under the Sirte declaration[6]. The Declaration included the following decisions:
1. Establish an African Union in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the Charter of our continental Organization and the provisions of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.
2. () Accelerate the process of implementing the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community, in particular:
– Shorten the implementation periods of the Abuja Treaty,
– Ensure the speedy establishment of all the institutions provided for in the Abuja Treaty, such as the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Union, the African Court of Justice, and, in particular, the Pan-African Parliament. We aim to establish that Parliament by the year 2000 provides a common platform for our peoples and their grassroots organizations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing our Continent.
– Strengthening and consolidating the Regional Economic Communities as the pillars for achieving the objectives of the African Economic Community and realizing the envisaged Union.
– Mandate the Council of Ministers to take the necessary measures to ensure the implementation of the above decisions and, in particular, to prepare the constitutive legal text of the Union, taking into account the Charter of the OAU and the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community. Member States should encourage the participation of Parliamentarians in that process. The Council should submit its report to the Thirty-sixth Ordinary Session of our Assembly for appropriate action. Member States should work towards finalizing the ratification process, where appropriate, by December 2000, in order for a constitutive Act to be solemnly adopted in the year 2001, at an Extra-Ordinary Summit, to be convened in Sirte.
– Mandate our Current Chairman, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, to engage African creditors on our behalf on the issue of Africa’s external indebtedness, with a view to securing the total cancellation of Africa’s debt, as a matter of urgency. They are to coordinate their efforts with the OAU Contact Group on Africa’s External Debt.
– Convene an African Ministerial Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in the Continent, as soon as possible
– Request the Secretary-General of our Organization, as a matter of priority, to take all appropriate measures to follow up the implementation of these decisions.
Summits followed this Declaration at Lome in 2000, where the Constitutive Act of the African Union was adopted, and at Lusaka in 2001, where heads of states adopted the plan to implement the African Union. The first session of the Assembly of the African Union[7] and as well as the
inauguration of the African Union was held in Durban on 9 July 2002.
The objectives of the AU are the following:[8]
1. To achieve greater unity, cohesion, and solidarity between the African countries and African nations.
2. To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of its Member States.
3. To accelerate the political and social-economic integration of the Continent.
4. To promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the Continent and its peoples.
5. To encourage international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human rights.
6. To promote peace, security, and stability on the Continent.
7. To promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation, and good governance.
8. To promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and people’s rights and other relevant human rights instruments.
9. To establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations.
10. To promote sustainable development at the economic, social, and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies.
11. To promote cooperation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples.
12. To coordinate and harmonize the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union.
13. To advance the development of the Continent by promoting research in all fields, in particular in science and technology.
14. To work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the Continent.
Is the AU today operating way better than the OAU? Has the AU sustained the overall vision of our Pan-African founding fathers who wanted an independent united Africa?? These questions are due for another essay.
References
[1] GRISCHOW, JEFF D. (2011). “Kwame Nkrumah, Disability, and Rehabilitation in Ghana, 1957—66”. The Journal of African History. 52 (2): 179–199. doi:10.1017/S0021853711000260. ISSN0021-8537. JSTOR23017675. S2CID162695973.
[2] Martin, G. (2012). African Political Thought. Palgrave Macmillan US. ISBN978-1-137-06205-5.
[3] Fulcher, James (1 November 2000). “Globalisation, the Nation-State, and Global Society”. The Sociological Review. 48 (4): 522–543. doi:10.1111/1467-954X.00231. ISSN0038-0261. S2CID145019590.
[4] Gebe, Boni Yao (March 2008). “Ghana’s Foreign Policy at Independence and Implications for the 1966 Coup D’état”(PDF). Journal of Pan African Studies. 2 (3). Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 June 2014.
[5] Addo, Ebenezer Obiri (1997). Kwame Nkrumah: A Case Study of Religion and Politics in Ghana. University Press of America. ISBN978-0-7618-0785-8.
[6]SIRTE DECLARATION (archive.org)
[7]Assembly of the African Union – Wikipedia
[8]“Constitutive Act” (PDF). African Union. Retrieved 2 May 2021