Political federation to become reality in a decade’s time

East Africans will have their say on Political Federation within a decade, according to Kenya’s Minister for East African Community Amason Kingi.

Speaking to the press after opening a media workshop on East African integration, Mr Kingi stressed that the EAC had no intention of leaving the people behind.

“What we are doing now is trying to carry along the people, by creating awareness. It’ll be extremely difficult for us to leave things hanging till 10 years down the line then go to East Africans and ask them: ‘Do you want a political federation?”

Mr Kingi said that the partner states have already engaged “experts,” three from each country, to examine ways of achieving the federation.

Their mandate is to “go round the region to hear East Africans and advise on how to handle the journey to political federation.”

The EAC Secretariat has also engaged a consultant to examine model constitutions for the federation.

In May 2005, the French, whose government, along with Germany’s, was a prime mover for European integration, shocked the EU when they voted “no” to ratification of the proposed EU Constitution in a referendum.

In 2008, the Irish electorate rejected its replacement, the Lisbon Treaty.

Asked whether there was any contingency in case the same thing happened here, Mr Kingi simply said: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

He pointed to the report of the 2004 Wako Committee, which found that East Africans were overwhelmingly in favour of political federation though a little vague on the details.

In August, 2004, at a Special Summit, the Heads of State expressed concern at the slow pace of integration and set up the Wako Committee to examine ways and means of fast-tracking the EAC Political Federation.

The committee traversed the region seeking opinions from both the high and mighty as well as ordinary East Africans.

In November, it presented its report at the 6th Summit Meeting. Six months later, an Extraordinary Summit directed the Council of Ministers to form National Consultative Mechanisms to collect the views of East Africans on the East African Political Federation and the need to fast-track it.

The National Consultative Process on Fast Tracking the East African Political Federation was launched simultaneously in the original three partner states of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda on October 13, 2006.

Similar programmes were carried out in Burundi and Rwanda in February and March 2008 respectively.

The consultations found that though the majority in all countries approved of integration and political federation.

Levels of awareness about the EAC integration process in general and the proposed Political Federation in particular were low.

A study carried out by Prof Regina Karega last year confirmed these findings, noting that the majority of East Africa’s 126 million people are not aware of the benefits of regional integration and most viewed it as an elite project.

“The project has a lot of goodwill from ordinary citizens but lack of active involvement has left it standing solely on the political pillar, without the critical social and economic relevance that would make it a reality in people’s lives,” Prof Karega said later.

The study also found that roughly one-third of the interviewees had only a weak or no sense at all of being East African.

Addressing these concerns, Mr Kingi declared that East Africa had “moved miles from the days of Nyerere, when Kenyans were seen as man-eaters. We have done a lot of civic awareness. We have covered a lot of ground in terms of developing brotherhood and sisterhood within the community.”

However, he acknowledged that stereotypes remained.

When asked whether the ongoing Constitution Review process would have any bearing on the federation project, Mr Kingi declared that the EAC Treaty provides for Community laws and policies taking precedence over national ones.

Thus the constitution of the federation would also be superior to national constitutions.

“At some point we have to cede sovereignty to embrace the bigger picture,” he said.

On the subject of the Common Market Protocol, Mr Kingi expected the ratification process to proceed smoothly.

“The five presidents sat in Arusha and appended their signatures to the protocol. I would not wish to imagine that in Kenya, for example, the Cabinet refuses to ratify a protocol that the head of state appended his signature to.”

His Permanent Secretary, David Nalo, clarified that the protocol would be fully implemented by 2012, citing current estimates.

A protocol on Monetary Union is expected to be ready for signature by 2012.