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MEMORANDUM TO AFRICAN
UNION
ON THE NEED FOR ONE AFRICAN GOVERNMENT
Date: July 1, 2007
To: Africa Union Meeting at Accra, Ghana
From: Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD (UCLA) President, Africa Institute, Seattle
Subject: One the Need for one Africa Government
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of
Libya, lately, has been calling for one continental government for
Africa. One does not quite
understand the details of how Gaddafi intends to go about accomplishing
this task. However, in general terms, one agrees with him that all of
Africa needs one government. In several writings, one has made the argument for an Africa Federation, along the line of the
United States of America. One believes that
Africa has no hope of making significant
contributions to world politics and economics unless she combines the
current colonial products called African countries into one country,
one country with one government. Since this write up is
in the nature of a memo and, as such, must be limited to a few pages
(few people like to read long memos), I will merely summarize how I
visualize a unified
Africa to be. My presentation should serve as
a point of departure as we do the inevitable work of unifying the
un-enviable states our colonial masters bequeathed us; states that we
bemoan but, so far, have not had the courage to reconstitute to serve
our needs.
Many
of us decried the fact that Europeans arbitrarily agglomerated
disparate African tribes into countries to serve their interests, not
African interests; we raved and ranted against the Berlin Conference of
1882-84. At that conference, Europeans, acting as dictators, false
gods, took it upon themselves to draw the map of
Africa without consulting Africans.
We
have talked long enough about the injustice Europeans did to us. It is
now time to do something to redress the grievance. It is easy
complaining about what others did to us, but at some point we learn
that the mark of adulthood is to quit playing the victim role and stop
blaming other people for our unenviable situation and do what we have
to do to help us adapt to the exigencies of our impersonal and tough
world.
It
is time that we, Africans, quit behaving like children, talking about
what other people did to hurt us; it is time that we did what solves
our problems.
One place to begin this search for solutions to our problems is to reconstitute the countries of
Africa into one African country.
I refuse to acknowledge the validity of African countries invented by Europeans; I will only respect an
Africa whose internal boundaries are configured by Africans, not foreigners.
THE PROBLEM
What is the reality of
Africa? Let us be honest about this question.
Africa is composed of many tribes (if you prefer political correctness you may call them nations or ethnic groups.
How many tribes are there in
Africa? Western anthropologists give us various estimates, some say three thousand.
How many language groups are there in
Africa? Some say thousands.
Those who mouth this nonsense usually are so lazy that they take
dialectical differences within major languages as distinct languages.
Consider
Nigeria. If you counted the various dialects of the major languages you could say that there are over 250 languages in
Nigeria! But if, in fact, you
redacted the dialects to their distinct language groups you would have
less than fifteen different languages in Nigeria (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo,
Ijaw, Edo, Uhrobo, Itshikiri, Tivi, Efik, Fulani, Bornu etc…which
should mean fifteen states in Nigeria).
If you counted distinct languages in
Africa you would not have more than five
hundred languages. I covered this issue in a different paper. I will
make a bold assertion here: there are about five hundred different
languages in Africa, about five hundred different tribes in Africa,
about five hundred different ethnic groups in Africa and about five
hundred different nations in
Africa.
THE SOLUTION
TRIBE BASED STATES:
So what should we do? Divide
Africa into five hundred states, each state containing a unique tribe (language).
Proposition number one: reconfigure
Africa into five hundred states.
Proposition number two. Let each state of what I call Africa Federation have self governance along the
United States lines. That
is, let each state have its legislature (I insist on unicameral
legislature to cut down on the costs of paying too many legislators) of
no more than fifty members. The legislature makes all laws affecting
the state. Each state should have a governor. The
governor is an executive governor and executes the laws and policies
made by the legislature. Each state should have an
independent judiciary (consisting of a supreme court of no more than
thirteen members, including the chief judge, an appellate court and
district courts at its districts). The legislators should
be elected for five year terms of office with a term limit of six terms
(total of thirty-five years… you need experienced legislators and do
not need to have novices as legislators). The governor should be
elected for a term of six years, with two term limit (for a total of
twelve years; a dozen years is enough time for a leader to implement
his goals, and anything that could not be accomplished within that time
frame cannot be accomplished, is mere mirage). A judiciary recruited on
merit: lawyers taking an examination and those who score highest
selected to become entry level judges at the town level and work their
way up to the highest court in the state, on merit, not appointed by
politicians. See the German system). Each state is
further subdivided into districts (local government areas, counties,
call it what you like), not to exceed fifty per state. Each district
should have a district council of no more than thirteen, a district
administrator (executive) and a district court. The councilors are
elected to five year terms, six terms limit; the administrators are
elected to six year terms with two term limit; the judges are part of
the state judicial system, selected on merit (part of the state
ministry of justice). Each district is divided into towns/cities. Each
town/city should have a town/city council of no more than eleven
members, a town mayor and a town magistrate court. The
town councilors should serve five year terms, six term limits; the town
mayor should serve six year term, two terms limit; the town magistrate
should be part of the state judicial system, and selected on merit.
THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
There should be one central, federal, government for all of
Africa. That government should be composed of a unicameral legislature, a president, a prime minister, and an independent judiciary. The
legislature should be composed of five hundred members (each state, no
matter its population, electing one member), legislators serving five
year term and six terms limit. A president elected (initially by state
legislators but eventually directly). The president serves six year
term for no more than two terms. The president selects a prime minister
from the party with the majority in the national legislature. The prime
minister selects a cabinet from inside and outside the legislature of
no more than twenty ministers.(The ministers must be recognized experts
in their area…a foreign minister must have demonstrated expertise in
International Politics, a defense minister must have credits in
military science etc). A judiciary headed by a supreme court of no more
than thirteen members, the chef justice included, regional appellate courts and district courts, one in each state. The
federal government is in charge of foreign affairs and controls the
military. (For specifics please take a look at the Constitution of the
United States of America and the fifth
French
Republic constitution.)
MIXED ECONOMY
I
need to say a word or two on the economy. I must do so for Africans are
always chasing shadows, embracing economic ideologies that other people
invented and that have no record of producing goods and services for
the people. It is not enough to make choices based on our feelings, we
must decide on the basis of empiricism; we must do what has
demonstrated record of delivering what the people want.
Socialism,
Communism, fascism etc are intellectually fascinating ideologies but
have no demonstrable record of delivering goods and services to the
people.
Adam Smith’s laisez faire Capitalism, while productive has the disadvantage of concentrating wealth in a few hands, as in the
USA. Pure capitalism that
makes the few wealthy and impoverishes the many begs for revolution. A
sound economic system must not only be productive but give all the
people the means to live on.
Clearly,
an attenuated form of capitalism, call it mixed economy (ala John
Maynard Keynes), regulated economy (ala FDR’s New Deal in the USA), the
relevant point to bear in mind is that the entirety of the wealth of a
polity belongs to all the people. Whereas there is such a thing as
value of labor added to produce wealth hence the need to reward people
differently, nevertheless, a rational economy cannot permit the absurd
differences of wealth we see in
America, a country where there are billionaires, as there should be, and paupers on the street. There simply are certain things that the government can do to prevent gross social and economic inequalities.
It
is the function of government to provide all children with education,
from kindergarten to university level. Education, at all levels, must
be free. (Of course, private education must also be permitted for those
who want to pay for it by themselves.) Education is a human right. No
human being should be permitted to live in ignorance. Thus, the state
government must pay for six years of elementary education for all
children, six years of secondary education for all adolescents, four
years of undergraduate education for, at least, the top thirty three
percent of secondary school graduates, two years of master’s level
education and two years of post master’s level education (before taking
the PhD comprehensive examination, typically after four years of
graduate school) and thereafter free studentship is terminated. Folks
should not be subsidized after age twenty six; they must work and
submit their thesis when they complete them. For those who are not able
to go to universities, which are two thirds of secondary school
graduates, the government must provide them with technical training.
The German vocational training model is ideal: two years of
classroom/workshop training and two years of on the job additional
training, after which students take a national examination to qualify
as technicians in their respective fields…mechanic, electrician,
electronic technician, carpenter, mason etc.
The
relevant point is that the state must provide all young persons under
age twenty six (when the PhD comprehensive examination is usually
taken) with publicly funded education. Education must be free for all
and at all levels.
An
additional responsibility of government is the provision of health
insurance for all citizens. All Africans must be provided with medical
coverage, a national health insurance. Medical insurance
is a human right. It is obscene that in a so-called rich country, such
as the USA, over forty-six million of the people do not have medical
insurance and die from assorted diseases due to lack of proper medical
care.
A
humane society must give all citizens education and medical insurance.
Having done this basic minimum, it must allow its citizens to fend for
their selves in the market place. Regulated Capitalism, evidence
indicates, is the most productive economic system there is on planet
earth (corporatism, such as exists in Japan and existed in Hitler’s
fascist Germany, at times, seems productive).
DISCUSSION
For many years now, we, Africans, have talked about the need to restructure
Africa and make the continent realistic; we
have appreciated the mistakes made by our former colonial masters and
wished that they had not made them. We have dreamed of what a properly
structured
Africa could look like.
I
have given this subject considerable thought and came to the conclusion
that what I proposed above is the best way to go as we seek ways to
restructure
Africa.
My conclusion, of course, is one man’s view. In the least, it is a beginning, something to get the discourse going. Africans
have a tendency to talking in global terms but lacking specifics. For
example, Gaddafi is talking about the need for one government for
Africa but may not have given the specifics
of that government the critical attention it requires. At least, I have
told you what my Africa government would look like, a federation of
united states, with each state an ethnic group (with smaller ethnic
groups grouped into states), for a total of no more than five hundred
states of Africa.
Politics
is the art of making compromises. In politics different political
actors come up with their wish lists, their ideas of what ought to be
done (what ought to become law and or policy) in their polity. They
posit their wishes and then real politics begin as folks hash out what
is acceptable to all of them. People bargain, make trade off, engage in
logrolling; each person gives up something to get something he wants.
In
a democracy, generally, what becomes public policy reflects inputs from
many political actors and interest groups, compromises that people are
willing to live with. If we ignore what some people desire and impose
our will on them, we court tension in the polity.
Statesmen find ways to combine the different wishes of the people into public policies that most of the people can live with.
I have, in broad terms, explicated my wishes for
Africa. It is one man’s wish. Let us combine
my wish with the different wishes of Africans and come up with a
compromise that all of us can live with. Ultimately, in one form or
another, that structural outcome must include one government for
Africa.
We simply cannot tolerate the present situation where some African countries are not even as large as counties in the
USA and yet these mini states imagine themselves effectual in the international arena. No, they are not.
California is larger than many
Africa countries; her GDP, were it a country, probably would make it among the top ten economies of the world. Yet
California is part of a larger polity called the
United States. On the other hand, consider some African countries, such as
Togo or
Benin. Neither of these has an economy that is as large as the City of
Los Angeles. Yet these countries fancy
themselves relevant in the international arena. No, they are not
relevant; nobody even recognizes their existence outside Africa (if at
all in
Africa).
We must seek ways to combine all of
Africa into one polity and one economy, so
that we enjoy what economists call advantages off scale. For example, a
manufacturer would have a large market to sell his goods and make
profits and reinvest in his business and thereby create jobs and enrich
the economy.
CONCLUSION
I believe that
Africa has had enough time to make mistakes
and learn from them. Fifty years of post colonial rule is sufficient
time for us to have learned about what works and what does not work.
We have learned that we need a unified
Africa, if we are going to be relevant in the
globalized economy. As some African countries currently are, they are
too small to compete in the world economy. Imagine
Gabon competing with the
USA, or
Russia, EU,
China,
India,
Brazil, the mega countries of the current world. Simply put, our current countries are irrelevant in the world economy.
We do not need to make sacrosanct what Europeans put together for their interests, not our interests. We need to restructure African countries.
Africa has many ethnic groups. None of these
groups relishes it if others dominate her. To allow some groups to
dominate others is tantamount to internal black colonialism. People do
not like to be ruled by foreigners, that simply is the truth.
In
real politics, with credible force, you can impose your will, or your
group’s will on others, but that is not a permanent solution. The
colonial powers used brute force to impose their will on weak Africans
and we chaffed under their burden and eventually threw them out.
At present certain African tribes dominate others and the result is perpetual tension in many African countries. Consider
Nigeria where the Igbo tribe
is essentially an enslaved tribe. Other Nigerian tribes rule the Igbos.
It does not take a rocket scientist to appreciate that the Igbo are
resentful of their second class citizenship in the misguided project
called
Nigeria.
Nigeria would never know peace as long as some tribes lord it over others; this is simply the fact of political life.
If you cage a bird it seeks ways to fly away and would do so the moment you open the cage. Carthaginian peace is no peace.
If
you want people to live together you must share power. One way to share
power is to permit each ethnic group to have internal self governance
and then have all of them share power at the national level. This
solution seems the best one.
An
added beauty of this solution is that it preserves each ethnic group’s
cultural integrity. If this solution is not pursued, there is no doubt
that in time the bigger tribes would swallow the smaller ones and the
languages and cultures of these smaller tribes would disappear from
existence, along with the wisdom and science they contain. We cannot
afford to permit African ethnic groups to disappear, as some of them
are already doing. The United Nations predicts that by the end of this
century thousands of smaller languages would have disappeared from
existence.
We cannot sweep the ethnic problem under the rug. Consider the former
Soviet Union. Stalin and his goons’ squad used
state terrorism to intimidate disparate groups into going along with
their wishes but those never saw themselves as Russians. Boris Yeltsin
believed that he solved that problem by giving independence to the
constituting republics of the
USSR. The
Russian
Republic has many ethnic groups, each yearning for separation from
Russia. One does not
believe that balkanization of Russia is the solution; in fact, one does
not agree with Yeltsin that the USSR should have been broken up;
instead, one would have reconfigured the Soviet enterprise and made
each ethnic group semi autonomous but all within the same polity.
In
Brittan, despite hundreds of years of Anglo-Saxon domination of its
neighbors (Scots, Welsh and Irish) these people are seeking local rule. One
of the historical achievements of Prime Minster Tony Blair was giving
each of these people local rules. It is not necessary to divide
Britain into three or more countries; what is absolutely necessary is devolution of powers. Indeed, one visualizes
Britain becoming a member of the EU that increasingly takes on the trapping of one country, a federation. If Europe is to compete with the giant Economies of the future,
China,
India, USA etc, she must unify and combine her economies into one economy.
The salient lesson to be learned from the
USSR and
Britain is that the issue of
tribe does not go away just because we wish it to go away. I, for
example, do not consider myself a member of any particular African
tribe, I am completely detribalized, yet I recognize the reality of
tribe. In thinking about
Africa’s politics one recognizes that each
tribe must be given some self governance within a larger federal
polity, if there is to be peace in the continent. Peace is prerequisite
for economic development. As long as Africa is always in conflict and
chaos there will not be economic development;
Africa would continue begging for economic
Aid from other countries and continue generating the disrespect of
other countries. (Who respects a people that seem unable to govern
themselves?)
I am committed to a unified
Africa. In this memorandum, I have shared my ideas on what a unified
Africa could look like. Let us work together to come up with a reconfigured
Africa that all of us can live with.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not just talk the talk about the need for a unified
Africa and do nothing to make it a reality. Talk is cheap; action is difficult.
Great
leaders see problems and solve them rather than just talk empty talk.
Let us solve Africa’s constitutional problem and thereafter channel our
energy to where it must go: industrializing Africa, making
Africa as developed as other continents, and
making Africans standard of living comparable to other peoples.
Africans deserve the best that this world offers humanity. We must
enter the age of science and technology, and through it improve our
people’s lot. One is sick and tired of always seeing Africans last in
every thing.
Thank you for taking the time to read and ponder my representations to you. I can be reached at: ozodiosuji@gmail.com (206) 529-4745.
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Posted by Robot| 02.07.2007 00:35