Pan Africanism: From Kwame Nkrumah to Libya’s Gaddafi

However, at the 2007 summit, the old arguments over regional versus immediate continental unification resurfaced with some (notably Libya) advocating a common government with an AU army; and others (especially the Southern African states) preferring to strengthen AU bodies and make them truly effective.

Following heated debate, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government issued the Accra Declaration, recognising the US of Africa with a Union Government as the ultimate objective of the AU and proposing steps towards this including rationalising the RECs and reviewing their relationship to the Union Government of Africa.

All mention of a timetable disappeared. No AU Summits since have taken any firm decisions on the plan, each deferring the issue, for “final” debate to the next meeting.

Meantime, the RECs are pursuing further integration.

They are linking up to fulfil the century-old dream of a trade zone spanning the length of the continent.

In October 2008 SADC, Comesa and EAC, announced an agreement to create the African Free Trade Zone, grouping 26 countries with a combined GDP of $624 billion.

To quote Prof Zeleza, “’Africa’ the map and the place is becoming increasingly ‘Africa’ the idea and the consciousness, buttressed by an intricate web of continental institutions.”

In the second decade of the 21st century, the continent is “perhaps more ‘African’ than it has ever been… more interconnected through licit and illicit flows of commodities, capital, ideas, and people... more conscious of its collective identity.”

As the pressures of globalisation continue to buffet and mould the continent, as they always have, a continental economy and, eventually, government is inevitable — with or without Gaddafi’s harangues.