Many thanks Kabir.
   
  Abdoulie Jawo
  University of Bradford

Kabir Njaay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Continental Government for Africa

This is an excerpt from Kwame Nkrumah's Africa Must Unite*, published by
Panaf Books, London, in 1963.*
**
We have seen, in the example of the United States, how the dynamic elements
within society understood the need for unity and fought their bitter civil
war to maintain the political union that was threatened by the reactionary
forces.

We have also seen, in the example of the Soviet Union, how the forging of
continental unity along with the retention of national sovereignty by the
federal states, has achieved a dynamism that has lifted a most backward
society into a most powerful unit within a remarkably short space of time.

From the examples before us, in Europe and the United States of America, it
is therefore patent that we in Africa have the resources, present and
potential, for creating the kind of society that we are anxious to build. It
is calculated that by the end of this century the population of Africa will
probably exceed five hundred millions.

Our continent gives us the second largest land stretch in the world. The
natural wealth of Africa is estimated to be greater than that of almost any
other continent in the world. To draw the most from our existing and
potential means for the achievement of abundance and a fine social order, we
need to unify our efforts, our resources, our skills and intentions.

Europe, by way of contrast, must be a lesson to us all. Too busy hugging its
exclusive nationalisms, it has descended, after centuries of wars
interspersed with intervals of uneasy peace, into a state of confusion,
simply because it failed to build a sound basis of political association and
understanding.

Only now, under the necessities of economic stringency and the threat of the
new German industrial and military rehabilitation, is Europe trying -
unsuccessfully – to find a modus operandi for containing the threat.

It is deceptively hoped that the European Community will perform this
miracle. It has taken two world wars and the break-up of empires to press
home the lesson, still only partly digested, that strength lies in unity.

While we in Africa, for whom the goal of unity is paramount, are striving to
concert our efforts in this direction the neo-colonialists are straining
every nerve to upset them by encouraging the formation of communities based
on the languages of their former colonisers.

We cannot allow ourselves to be so disorganised and divided. The fact that I
speak English does not make me an Englishman. Similarly, the fact that some
of us speak French or Portuguese does not make us Frenchmen or Portuguese.

We are Africans first and last, and as Africans our best interests can only
be served by uniting within an African Community. Neither the Commonwealth
nor a Franco-African Community can be a substitute.

To us, Africa with its islands is just one Africa. We reject the idea of any
kind of partition. From Tangier or Cairo in the North to Capetown in the
South, from Cape Guardafui in the East to Cape Verde Islands in the West,
Africa is one and indivisible.

I know that when we speak of political union, our critics are quick to
observe an attempt to impose leadership and to abrogate sovereignty. But we
have seen from the many examples of union put forward, that equality of the
states is jealously guarded in every single constitution and that
sovereignty is maintained.

There are differences in the powers allotted to the central government and
those retained by the states, as well as in the functions of the executive,
legislature and judiciary. All of them have a common trade and economic
policy. All of them are secular, in order that religion might not be dragged
across the many problems involved in maintaining unity and securing the
greatest possible development.

We in Africa who are pressing now for unity are deeply conscious of the
validity of our purpose. We need the strength of our combined numbers and
resources to protect ourselves from the very positive dangers of returning
colonialism in disguised forms.

We need it to combat the entrenched forces dividing our continent and still
holding back millions of our brothers. We need it to secure total African
liberation. We need it to carry forward or construction of a socio-economic
system that will support the great mass of our steadily rising population at
levels of life which will compare with those in the most advanced countries.

But we cannot mobilise our present and potential resources without concerted
effort. If we developed our potentialities in men and natural resources in
separate isolated groups, our energies would soon be dissipated in the
struggle to outbid one another.

Economic friction among us would certainly lead to bitter political rivalry,
such as for many years hampered the pace of growth and development in
Europe.

At present most of the independent African States are moving in direction
which expose us to the dangers of imperialism and neo-colonialism. We
therefore need a common political basis for the integration of our policies
in economic planning, defence, foreign and diplomatic relations.

That basis for political action need not infringe the essential sovereignty
of the separate African States. These States would continue to exercise
independent authority, except in the fields defined and reserved for common
action in the interests of the security and orderly development of the whole
continent.

In my view, therefore, a united Africa – that is, the political and economic
unification of the African Continent – should seek three objectives:
Firstly, we should have an over-all economic planning on a continental
basis.

This would increase the industrial and economic power of Africa. So long as
we remain balkanised, regionally or territorially, we shall be at the mercy
of colonialism and imperialism. The lesson of the South African Republics
vis-Ä…-vis the strength and solidarity of the United States of America is
there for all to see.

The resources of Africa can be used to the best advantage and the maximum
benefit to all only if they are set within an overall framework of a
continentally planned development. An overall economic plan, covering an
Africa united on a continental basis, would increase our total industrial
and economic power.

We should therefore be thinking seriously now of ways and means of building
up a Common Market of a United Africa and not allow ourselves to be lured by
the dubious advantages of association with the so-called European Common
Market.

We in Africa have looked outward too long for the development of our economy
and transportation. Let us begin to look inwards in to the African Continent
for all aspects of its development. Our communications were devised under
colonial rule to stretch outwards towards Europe and elsewhere, instead of
developing internally between our cities and states. Political unity should
give us the power and will to change all this.

We in Africa have untold agricultural, mineral and water-power resources.
These almost fabulous resources can be fully exploited and utilised in the
interest of Africa and the African people, only if we develop them within a
Union Government of African States.

Such a Government will need to maintain a common currency, a monetary zone
and a central bank of issue. The advantages of these financial and monetary
arrangements would be inestimable, since monetary transactions between our
several States would be facilitated and the pace of financial activity
generally quickened.

A central bank of issue is an inescapable necessity, in view of the need to
re-orientate the economy of Africa and place it beyond the reach of foreign
control.

Secondly, we should aim at the establishment of a unified military and
defence strategy. I do not see much virtue or wisdom in our separate efforts
to build up or maintain vast military forces for self-defence which, in any
case, would be ineffective in any major attack upon our separate States.

If we examine this problem realistically, we should be able to ask ourselves
this pertinent question: which single States in Africa today can protect its
sovereignty against an imperialist aggressor? In this connection, it should
be mentioned that anti-apartheid leaders have alleged that South Africa is
building a great military force with all the latest weapons of destruction,
in order to crush nationalism in Africa. Nor is this all.

There are grave indications that certain settler governments in Africa have
already been caught in the dangerous arms race and are now arming themselves
to the teeth. Their military activities constitute a serous threat not only
to the security of Africa, but also to the peace of the World.

If these reports are true, only the unity of Africa can prevent South Africa
and these other governments from achieving their diabolical aims.

If we do not unite and combine our military resources for common defence,
the individual States, out of a sense of insecurity, may be drawn into
making defence pacts with the foreign powers which may endanger the security
of us all.

There is also the expenditure aspect of this problem. The maintenance of
large military forces imposes a heavy financial burden on even the most
wealthy States.

For young African States, who are in great need of capital for internal
development, it is ridiculous – indeed suicidal – for each State separately
and individually to assume such a heavy burden of self-defence, when the
weight of this burden could be easily lightened by sharing it among
themselves.

Some attempt has already been made by the Casablanca Powers and
Afro-Malagasy Union in the matter of common defence, but how much better and
stronger it would be if, instead of two such ventures, there was one
over-all (land, sea and air) Defence Command for Africa.

The third objective which we should have in Africa stems from the first two
which I have just described. If we in Africa set up a unified economic
planning organisation and a unified military and defence strategy, it will
be necessary for us to adopt a unified foreign policy and diplomacy to give
political direction to our joint efforts for the protection and economic
development of our continent.

Moreover, there are some sixty odd States in Africa, about thirty-two of
which are at present independent. The burden of separate diplomatic
representation by each State on the Continent of Africa alone would be
crushing, not to mention representation outside Africa.

The desirability of a common foreign policy which will enable us to speak
with one voice in the councils of the world, is so obvious, vital and
imperative that comment is hardly necessary.

I am confident that it should be possible to devise a constitutional
structure applicable to our special conditions in Africa and not necessarily
framed in terms of the existing constitutions of Europe, America or
elsewhere, which will enable us to secure the objectives I have defined and
yet preserve to some extent the sovereignty of each State within a Union of
African States.

We might erect for the time being a constitutional form that could start
with those states willing to create a nucleus, and leave the door open for
the attachment of others as they desire to join or reach the freedom which
would allow them to do so.

The form could be made amenable to adjustment and amendment at any time the
consensus of opinion is for it. It may be that concrete expression can be
given to our present ideas within a continental parliament that would
provide a lower and an upper house, the one to permit the discussion of the
many problems facing Africa by a representation based on population; the
other, ensuring the equality of the associated States, regardless of size
and population, by a similar, limited representation from each of them, to
formulate a common policy in all matters affecting the security, defence and
development of Africa.

It might, through a committee selected for the purpose, examine likely
solutions to the problems of union and draft a more conclusive form of
constitution that will be acceptable to all the independent States.

The survival of free Africa, the extending independence of this continent,
and the development towards that bright future on which our hopes and
endeavours are pinned, depend upon political unity.

Under a major political union of Africa there could emerge a United Africa,
great and powerful, in which the territorial boundaries which are the relics
of colonialism will become obsolete and superfluous, working for the
complete and total mobilisation of the economic planning organisation under
a unified political direction.

The forces that unite us are far greater than the difficulties that divide
us at present, and our goal must be the establishment of Africa's dignity,
progress and prosperity.

Proof is therefore positive that the continental union of Africa is an
inescapable desideratum if we are determined to move forward to a
realisation of our hopes and plans for creating a modern society which will
give our peoples the opportunity to enjoy a full and satisfying life. The
forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed
influences that keep us apart.

These are the forces that we must enlist and cement for the sake of the
trusting millions who look to us, their leaders, to take them out of the
poverty, ignorance and disorder left by colonialism into an ordered unity in
which freedom and amity can flourish amidst plenty.

Here is a challenge which destiny has thrown out to the leaders of Africa.
It is for us to grasp what is a golden opportunity to prove that the genius
of the African people can surmount the separatist tendencies in sovereign
nationhood by coming together speedily, for the sake of Africa"s greater
glory and infinite well-being, into a Union of African States.


       
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