07 Feb 2009 |
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Why were we not treated like the EU? Ayo Akinfe Ambitious targets were set at the recent 12th African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, where among other things, our continents’ leaders devised plans for political, monetary and military union. Taking a leaf from the European Union’s (EU) book, our esteemed presidents also sought to convert the AU Commission into a more robust body, which they shall rename the AU Authority. Looking at the history of the EU and how much it has managed to achieve within a short space of time, one cannot only admire it. If Africa’s leaders are planning to model our continental union along those lines, I for one think it can only be a good thing, as the EU has shown the world one thing – how to govern diverse people. The EU as we know it today, was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on November 1 1993, upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community. It has almost 500m citizens and at the moment, the EU generates an estimated 30% of the world’s gross domestic product, adding up to about $17.6trn. To be perfectly honest, I believe the AU is a long way from achieving the kind of harmony and prosperity seen in the EU, as there is simply too much rancour among our member states to get them to agree to another super-state structure. What I find unforgivable, however, is that the discord that exists within African states could easily have been avoided had our former colonial masters taken the pain to provide us with the kind of structures they are building for themselves. Independence clamours across Africa began after World War Two when India and Pakistan got their freedom in 1947. It was about this time too that the EU began to emerge in its first format known as the European Coal and Steel Community formed among six countries in 1951. Just looking at Africa’s big five – Ethiopia, DR Congo, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan – they are as complex as the EU in terms of ethnic make-ups, languages, religions, differing cultures and traditional tastes. All of these countries have gone through bitter civil wars of some sort, which I believe could have been avoided had the EU model been adopted. Looking at the brutal civil wars we witnessed in Ethiopia and Nigeria, the ongoing crises in Darfur and DR Congo and the inter-ethnic bloodshed that dominated the tail end of the apartheid era in South Africa, one does not need to be a genius to figure out that building a nation state by drawing lines on a map is nothing but a recipe for disaster. Each of these five countries were amalgams of hitherto nation states with their own languages, culture, cuisines, religions, history, governmental structure and unique peculiarities. When nation states were hastily cobbled together during the European scramble for Africa, these peculiarities were all ignored and to add insult to injury, when these states were granted independence, none of these factors were taken into account. Take the case of Sudan for instance. It is made up of an Aran north and an African south. For Sudan to have existed peacefully with itself, it needed a presidential system of government where the helmsman and his deputy would come from different halves of the country and an agreement that the presidency would be rotated between the two main component parts of Sudan. Had that been done, Sudan would most likely have avoided the kind of carnage we are witnessing in Darfur today. To their eternal shame, the Europeans failed to apply the same standards they set for themselves to Sudan and should accept full responsibility for the bloodshed currently going on there. Nigeria would easily have avoided the trauma of the Biafran War and the lengthy ensuing period of military rule with the accompanying corruption that came along with it had the British left us with the kind of legacy we have today. We could have avoided all the inter-ethnic suspicion, hatred, envy, rivalry and pogroms had the British carved Nigeria into six geo-political zones, left us with a presidential system of government, introduced a constitution that allowed the presidency to rotate between the north and the south, made it mandatory for the top six citizens to come from each zone and ruled that every state should have at least one minister in the cabinet. To ensure no one is felt left out, the EU not only allocates two commissioners to each member state, it carefully locates at least one agency in each country, rotates the chairmanship among the nation states and carefully ensures that the office of the presidency of the commission is rotated too. The EU presidency is carefully rotated between the various component parts of the community, going to Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Mediterranean Europe, etc. Nobody mentions “merit” of the best man for the job when it comes to EU appointments and no one uses it as a ruse to dominate others. Just imagine how quickly the EU would have disintegrated if for example every commissioner were from Germany based on so-called merit. Would the rest of the community agreed to remain part of this meritocracy? What we have learnt from the EU is that when putting together complex regional structures, one needs to take the sensitivities of the citizenry into account and build contraptions in a manner that will not leave anyone feeling alienated. The Europeans have shown that they can do this if they want to but to their eternal shame, they did not think it was worth the effort when dealing with the natives from their African colonies. Had we been accorded the same treatment as our European overlords when we were granted independence, Africa would be a much more tranquil and developed place today. Leaving us sitting on kegs of gunpowder is probably the worst legacy of European colonialism in Africa. As Africa soldiers on in its search for lasting, enduring and sustainable structures that will propel it out of poverty, we must not lose sight of who left us with this mess. Hopefully, the AU and its member states will observe the good Europe did when dealing with itself. Ayo Akinfe aakinfe@aol.com
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